T.V Advertisement Evaluation

The Brief

The brief that we were given was from Unilever, a multi-national consumer goods company. Their request was that we re-branded one of their already existing products, and produced an advertisement for our chosen product. The desired outcome of this task was to improve and increase their sales for that product. Initially, the task was set to us as individuals and we were given a short amount of time to decide on the product we thought would benefit Unilever the most from being re-branded. We were expected to not only consider the profits at the end, but the demographic and psychographic audiences and other such legal requirements like the BCAP Codes. My initial brand that I chose was TRESemme. This was because I thought it had potential as a multi-gender product and that there was room in the market for a new male hair product. After this initial thought process, we were put into small groups and from that had to decide on just one product to rebrand, out of the three. The group that I was was put into decided on another members idea, of re-branding LYNX to a male audience. We decided this product as we felt there were more ideas and more success behind re-branding once a female only product, to a male demographic.

For the already existing product, I believe that the current target audience is females, between the ages of 17 and 25. One reason for this belief is that the product uses taboo and slang language such as   "for extra pulling power" which would be more relatable and pragmatic for that age range. As a result of this current target audience, we had the idea to present and aim the advertisement to males of that same age range. One of the members of our group fitted into that category, and admitted that he would never of thought of buying this product for a female; be it his sister, mum or girlfriend.

Not only did we have to produce an idea, but we were required to complete all pre-production paperwork, like in any production process. This included things such as storyboards, location releases and talent releases. We also had to take photographs of the planned location, to ensure that it was suitable for what we wanted to produce. Once this was all finalised and approved, we got on with the production of the advertisement.

When the advertisement was finished being produced, we were required to come up with a questionnaire to evaluate the success of our final product. Not only did we have to think of suitable questions to ask, but they also had to be targeted at the demographic to which our advertisement is aimed at also. We thought of the questions as a group, and placed the survey onto a website of our own choice (mine being surveymonkey), collected some feedback over a weekly period, and analysed our combined results.

To get the results, I posted the link to my survey on my Facebook and Twitter pages, and so the vast majority of the results were collected from people my own age group.
After conducting the research we came to the conclusion that the majority of people didn't own LYNX Attract, but also the majority of respondents said that if the advert was to be on television, that it would capture their attention.

We asked the respondents to watch the advertisement and then comment on their favourite factor or part, and below are the results from what each respondent commented on.

After analysing the data found on this chart, the group came to a conclusion that there was many aspects that people enjoyed; but the dinner scene being the most popular. We thought this might be because it encapsulates the story and morals behind the advertisement, and shows the outcome of owning the spray.







8 people said that they may be more inclined to purchase LYNX Attract after watching the advertisement that we produced. 1 person said yes and another individual said no, which led the group to believe that individuals' only answered 'maybe' as a result of either not knowing what to say, or to not offend us as a group.

We also asked the individuals about what aspects and elements of the advertisement they felt worked best, and the majority said that the story line in itself is the best element. Nobody believed that the music was the best element however, and if I'm honest, I'd agree.






We also asked the individuals how the advert could be improved and 40% of respondents said that the voice-over could be improved, whereas 20% commented on the editing. Although I agree that the editing was not of a professional standard, or the best that we could've achieved, I do think that we worked well with the equipment and time slot allocated to us.

Despite only having a video camera and tripod, I believe that the technical qualities of the advertisement worked well. Having the location around 8 miles away, may have caused some hindrances as it limited what equipment we were allowed to take from college, and it also lessened our time on the filming of the advertisement, however, as a team, I believe that my team worked well together to make it work. Although we did have to travel to get to our chosen location, I believe that it helped our advertisement to look more authentic and real and the mise-en-scene set the mood of genuine relationships and friendships. As another group also wanted to use the location that we had decided on (my house in Oulton Broad) it worked rather well in our favour, as we were able to use some of them in our advertisement, and us in theirs. The age range of our group was ideal for our advertisement, as we range from 16-18 and so this ensures that the moral behind the advertisement was also kept authentic and more realistic and believable. Some of the shots that we needed were particularly hard to take, as a result of the lack of technical equipment, but eventually we were able to take get a shot that we felt happy with, and with the helping hand of Adobe Premier Pro, we could use the warp-stabiliser tool to straighten out and stabilise the shakiness of some shots. An example of where we had to use this tool is screen shotted below.

I believe that our best scene from the angle of mise-en-scene was when the girl comes out of the house and nags at the boy for being under his car for too long. This is because not only is it a genuine annoyance, but because of the use of a real Land Rover and tools, as well as the costumes used in that scene.

The costume for the boy is old and rough clothes, that boys would generally wear whilst tampering with a car. The girl has a coat and scarf on, and so looks as if she ready to go out for the day, or at least leave the house for a short period of time, whereas the boys costume is the complete opposite.

Overall, I believe that the advert portrays the message that we were hoping for, and although it's not the best advertisement produced, I don't think it's the worst. Through the creation of the short stories, we allowed the audience to empathise with the characters and put themselves in their shoes. This not only sells the advertisement as successful, but the product that we were advertising also- it's originality allows the advertisement to be memorable and individualistic. I believe that the end result allowed us to be successful with the task set to us.


In the professional industry, persuasive techniques are often used in advertising and below are some examples;
Repetition - Compare the Market
Humour - Aldi
Slogan - Hastings Direct
Product Comparison - ASDA

There is another sales method which is the acronym of AIDA. This stands for Attraction, Interest, Desire and Action. In our advertisement, I believe that we used attraction in the final shot of the dining room; Interest is when the guy comes through with a cup of tea for the girl; desire through the use of the girls spraying themselves with the product; and action for the consumers buying the product after watching the advertisement.

The intention of our message wasn't that all guys are self-centered and chauvinistic, although I can see how the ad could be interpreted and read in that way. The intention was to sell the product to a new demographic as a gift for someone they know, or even for themselves. We had the idea of the story-line with different couples to highlight how it can 'change your man' in different ways. It also portrays the girls' with a lot more self confidence after she has the spray actually on her person.
As a whole, I think the final outcome was fit for purpose and done what we wanted it to do.
It could easily be improved with more time and better equipment, but I think with what we had, our group done exceptionally well. It's also important that no BCAP codes were broken, set by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), in the duration of the production.

The original idea turned out to be a lot different from the final outcome, but I think this was at a result of the time limitations and available equipment. The story-line and message behind the advert are what we, as a group, intended them to be, and I think that we are happy with the finished result. Whilst going through the pre-production process we developed and evolved our ideas which kept constantly changing and improving. We were all given feedback after the final production was uploaded onto Youtube by fellow students, which helped us to realise other factors that we could have changed to improve the finished product.

If I was to complete this task again, I think that I would have thought through the idea a lot more thoroughly before the production process, and given the group a lot more time for the actual production. Help was given to us from another group with the same task given to them, and so this enabled us to improve our production even whilst in the production stages. I felt that as a team we didn't work well together, as no-one particularly voiced their opinions, and when they did there was a large amount of tension. However, we managed to produce a final product and get the work done, which I feel that we thought was the most important thing to do- differences aside. I am happy with the final product, nonetheless.