Evaluation for advert For a piece of my year 12 media course I had to make an advert for a product of my choice. It was a very open brief as we could pick any product to advertise. I chose to advertise the health insurance provider BUPA. I opted to produce 3 30-second adverts with a similar narrative and conventions, instead of just one advert. I set about the making of this advert in a professional way. It was a long process that required me to conduct pre production which included developing my idea, conducting research into my product and the planning of the making of the advert through pre production paperwork, the production of or making of the advert, post production which including the editing of the advert and receiving further feedback to refine a trial edit. When I was given the brief in late October I went away and thought about what product I wanted to advertise. I did some idea generation activities such sketching some ideas that might go into my advert and doing brainstorms to see what idea I could come up with. This helped me decide what product to advertise. I didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that the product I was going to advertise was BUPA a health insurance provider. I had a few other ideas such as soft drink products like Fanta but I chose BUPA because it was the only product that gave me lots of creative ideas to base an advert on. Brainstorming ideas and sketching some visual representations of my ideas made me realize that my other ideas weren’t as good as my BUPA ideas. As soon as it decided on BUPA I knew I would use the persuasive strategies security and fear just by the nature of the product, because health insurance is only bought because people are afraid of what happen to them or want to have security. I then soon decided to also use comedy. It was later when I decided to use younger actors that incorporated the persuasive strategy of humor also maternal and paternal love into my advert. I did some further idea generation activities to decide upon the content of the advert. I made a morphological matrix, which is a table in which you break down the aspects of a product and put them in a table going horizontally and vertically and then draw random combinations of associations between them. This made me come up with the idea of a man living an active, carefree lifestyle because he had health insurance. I didn’t think the matrix was useful as I was never really that enthusiastic about that idea. However the morphological matrix did make me think about using comedy to advertise BUPA which has typically been a serious product. I then went away and just sat down and thought of possible ideas. From this I got lots of ideas such as doing a parody in which a fictional character who should have health insurance due to his life threatening activities, like James Bond, gets health insurance for a much lower price than competing health insurance providers would have given him. I also first got the idea of someone living his normal life and then something happening strange happens out of the blue which injures the person who’s just having a normal day. I then did a feasibility study in the form of brainstorm on the website popplet which was really useful as I could rule out a lot of these ideas that were unfeasible and therefore decide on the one that was the most realistic to produce. This helped me rule out the parody as I didn’t want to spend time dealing with copyright laws and I don’t know anyone who could play a convincing James Bond. I therefore decided to use the previous idea of something happening out the blue, which gave me the tagline ‘you never know’ which added to the charm of the advert. This type of humour was very reminiscent of the way Monty Python and Spike Milligan filmed visual gags.
This added a certain charm to the advert, which also made me think about making a series of 3 30-second adverts so I could provoke the audience to feel some empathy towards the victim character. I asked my teacher if this still complied with the brief and he verified it would. Then came up with a lot of ideas for what the incident should be in each advert and the feasibly study helped me to rule out the ideas that were clearly too hard to produce, such as the victim getting hit by a plane. The narratives that I decided to use for my adverts were: for advert 1 the victim walking along a building and then getting hit by the attacker sticking his hand out from around the corner of the building; for advert 2 the victim would walk across a road quite safely and then get run over by someone wearing a cardboard box; and for advert 3 the victim walks past a human statue without paying him and then the human statue attacks him. I also conducted some research into the product so I could decide who I was aiming my advert at. My morphological matrix helped me realize that health insurance was usually bought by an older audience from 40 and upwards, because as you get older you’re more conscious of the fact you won’t be around for ever and that life is unpredictable so you’d want to feel secure and know that if you did get hurt you’d be alright, or your children would be ok if they got injured. I looked at some previous adverts and saw that BUPA had recently been going for a younger demographic. I therefore decided to continue this progression by including younger actors in my advert. I still wanted to capture that older audience so I decided to use a filming style that would make this advert reminiscent of comedies from the 60 to the 80s. For example the use of multiple wide shots and the use of long shot duration. The target audience were also C1 to A succeeders and aspirers as having private health care means you have either have the money to get private healthcare or you want to know what it’s like to be above the rest of the people who would be on the NHS. This wasn’t much of a concern as my advert I believe transcends class and social barriers. Looking at previous BUPA adverts helped me to come to this conclusion. Secondary research also helped me to further rule out ideas when looking at rules and regulations. For example when I looked at the section 4 chapter 11 the rule that states ‘Animals must not be harmed or distressed as a result of the production of an advertisement’ I therefore ruled out the idea of the attacker dropping a cat on the victim from on top of a bridge, or the attacker just suddenly swinging a cat at the victim. Secondary research was very important as it helped me identify and decided what my USP was going to be. By conducting some market research I found out that other big health insurance companies have won more awards and have more hospitals than BUPA but conducting some product research told me that BUPA is a limited by guarantee company, which means all the profit it makes goes back into the company. This I thought would be a good USP as it was around the time of the new NHS reforms so there was public distrust of the NHS so I could exploit the fact BUPA is a limited by guarantee company as it’s a selling point the other big health insurance providers like AVIVA don’t have. I also conducted some primary research in the form of a questionnaire, which was useful because it showed my target audience wasn’t really too concerned about the price of health insurance, they were more concerned about the quality of the health care. This made me exclude mentioning anything about the price of health insurance premiums in my advert and instead say in the voice over that ‘BUPA provided some the best health insurance around’. My research into the CAP codes also informed what I was saying in my voice over. For example I couldn’t say ‘the best health care around’ in the voice over because in section 3 chapter 33 it states ‘Advertisements that include a comparison with an identifiable competitor must not mislead, or be likely to mislead,
consumers about either the advertised product or service or the competing product or service’. I think the product, market and audience research was much more important than the idea development informing the content of my advert in hindsight. As soon as I had decided on the content of my advert I wrote the script for it. I then wrote a shooting script and then a storyboard. I did it in this order because I thought my advert rather than saw it. I was more concerned about how the order of the camera shots and their duration would affect the flow of the advert rather how the actual shots would look. The storyboard however was still vitally important, as the shot composition is essential in my advert especially in the frames where there are two on screen graphics at the same time with the victim also on the floor. I wanted to make sure there was a good space between them. All of these tools were very important when filming my advert as I had them at hand throughout the shoots and frequently referred to them throughout the shoots as guidelines for myself and instruction for styles. However I didn’t find pre production tools such as the shooting script important, as I didn’t referred to it all. A lot of the pre production tools I found unnecessary such as requirements and asset log because I wasn’t making a large scale production with lots of extras and equipment that required a mass of detailed planning. However the overhead diagrams were very useful, as I hadn’t previously thought about where I was going to position the camera. A lot of the pre production material was just done to replicate the pre production that would be required for a real advert in the industry that didn’t influence my actual advert at all such as the budget. I think I stuck to the pre production arrangements quite well but of course I deviated at points. Part of this was my fault, as I should have maybe conducted a more in-depth location recce, as I didn’t realize that the windows on the science corridor didn’t open all the way so the attacker couldn’t stick his arm out of the window and knock over the victim. These however didn’t really impede on the advert as I found a quick solution which was the attacker sticking his arm out from around the corner and knocking the victim out that way. This I think made my advert better as it improved my cinematography and required me to use more shots to cover the extra ground the victim had to walk which meant I had enough running time to include all of my voice over. My gantt chart helped me to organize the process of completing the pre production but it didn’t help out with the actual production as the shoot of advert 2 and 3 went completely off schedule. Furthermore I feel that a lot of the pre production that was for the purpose of monitoring equipment and actors was of less use to me as it’s only really effective when making a large scale production in which a lot of props and extras are involved like ‘Ben Hur’. My adverts only required two cast members, the victim and the attacker, and 1 crew member which was me, as I acted as cameraman and director. We also only used a camera and a tripod, as there was no dialogue we didn’t require a boom mic, and we only used four props. I wanted the actors to just wear natural clothing to make this advert look natural and realistic so I didn’t have a lot to monitor. The production itself was horrendous and not at all an enjoyable, or easy experience. I do however believe that the majority of the complications and obstacles we encountered could have been avoided by careful planning and perhaps my dismissal of pre production played a part here. The shooting of advert 1 went really well as I shot it on schedule in under 1 hour. It was very easy. The only obstacle we
encountered was the fact that the window didn’t open fully but it didn’t really slow down the production at all. Advert 2 however was a much more stressful affair. We had to backdate production three days due to the fact I forgot to book out the equipment, which of course could have been easily avoided with planning. We had to postpone the shoot to the following Tuesday. This time I booked out the equipment but when I came to collect it I was told that it hadn’t been returned. This wasn’t my fault as I had booked out the camera, it someone else’s fault and this I could not plan for. I had everything else ready, the props the actors and the location was free. I decided to run home and get my small video camera that I had at home. It didn’t take me that long to go home but it was still an experience that I wished I hadn’t had to endure when I got the camera back to the classroom I discovered that my camera wasn’t charged as I hadn’t been planning for this circumstance. Luckily I had brought my charger so I left it to charge. Luckily the equipment booked suddenly became available as it had been returned and I could film my second advert. I had left the previous tape that I had been using to film advert 1 at home so I had to get another one. We then only had 40 minutes to film the advert so we had to rush it and there wasn’t much time for retakes. I do not feel this was my fault as I had set aside 3 hours for filming the advert, which had been demolished by external problems beyond my control. We filmed the advert very quickly without any further problems. Advert 2 made me realize the importance of having a storyboard as I didn’t have much time to think or try out different shots and when editing the advert I realized how good my storyboard was as I had got all of the shots I required for the advert to work, even in such a pressured timescale. When we filmed the victim laying on the floor an elderly stranger walked past the victim without acknowledging the situation, which elevated the comedy and added further charm and the surrealism that I had been trying to create. It was the first bit of luck all day as I hadn’t planned for him to walk past and it was probably the most memorable thing in my advert. I was also lucky that there wasn’t a traffic jam or lots of cars going past when filming my long shot of the victim walking because that would of course obstruct filming because we were on opposite sides of the road and the cars would have blocked the shot. Although I think this might have been an example of the location recce being of some use, as I knew that at that time of the day the roads wouldn’t be congested because most people would be at work and students would be in lesson so the pavements wouldn’t be congested either the third advert advert was the most stressful advert to film by far. I had planned to film the advert for the following Friday, I had informed the actors, bought the props which was only some face paint, a hat and a sign, booked the equipment and brought the right tape, but yet again the equipment wasn’t available. This caused me great aggravation, as I had to free up more time for filming. Although I made use of the remaining lesson time as I uploaded the footage from the previous two adverts and started editing. I now had to film in my own time. I checked with the actors to see what time they were free and then I arranged to film in those times. So on the following Tuesday we set about filming. This time I had learned my lesson and had collected the equipment the night before the shoot. This inconvenienced me personally as I had to carry around the equipment for two hours before it was time to film. However this time we filmed the advert with no problems. I applied the face paint to the attacker and had everything ready to film. The problem came later that day when I tried to upload the footage and discovered that there was an error with the tape and the footage wasn’t uploading to Final Cut Pro. This was a technical error that I could not foresee and therefore pre production was rendered pointless in this instance yet again. The following Friday I
decided to edit the footage of the first two adverts because I felt a bit disheartened with filming. I could only film on Tuesdays and Fridays because that was the allotted lesson time for the advertising unit and due to the fact me and the cast studied different lessons outside of media it was the only time we were all available. I spent the following week editing, as I had to meet the first draft deadline before the Christmas school break. I had asked my teacher Tom if I could abandon advert 3 and he said that I could due the fact we were having so much trouble with it. I therefore focused my attention on editing adverts 1 and 2. After the Christmas break I received the feedback on my adverts 1 and 2 via a questionnaire I sent to people and feedback from a class screening. One of the things I was told to improve was the consistency of the shot duration in advert 1. So when I eventually decided to film advert 3 again I also decided to re shoot advert 1 that same day. This final time filming went completely on schedule with no delays. I then discovered when trying to upload the footage that it wouldn’t upload again due to the same technical error. This was an error that I could do nothing about. I had used a different tape but the same error occurred as before. This wasted a lot of lesson time. I had tried uploading the footage on different cameras, to different computers but the same problem still occurred. As I was going to give up I came up with the idea of asking one of the actors if I could upload the footage to his username. This finally worked. I also wanted to use bright colourful cinematography to further set the adverts in that 60s and 70s theme so I was very lucky that it was sunny for all of the days I was shooting. Editing was the process that I enjoyed the most. I didn’t take that long to edit the first draft of the advert because I had shot some good footage and let takes run longer than I needed them to so I had a lot of flexibility in the edit. For example in advert 1 I let the victim walk longer than he needed to I could cut it down in post production. When editing I was also pleased with the fact that I decided to make the actor do the action for longer than I needed to because it meant I never had to cut from the actor being static, which would have ruined the flow of my advert and made the cut obvious. I really saw the advantage of having a footage log because I knew what bits of footage had problems so straight away I disregarded them. It was a good time saving device. I had used a microphone attached to the camera when filming so I had some diegetic sound but I was knew when shooting I was probably not going to use it and in the editing process I heard all of the sound interference which I didn’t notice when shooting. It didn’t matter anyway because I didn’t use any diegetic sound. Also as I referred to earlier, due to the fact I had to add two more camera shots my advert 1 was now the right length to fit my voiceover to, which I realized when putting the footage together. At the first screening of the advert the main criticism was the fact that the medium close up shot of the victim walking past the camera in advert 1 had a noticeably shorter duration than the other shots, which ruined the flow of the advert. That was the reason I reshot the advert. However, when it wouldn’t upload due to the same technical difficulties I was forced to look through the original footage again, as I wasn’t prepared to re film the advert for a 3rd time. Luckily I had done over runs so I could stretch the shot duration from around half a second to about 3 seconds which fitted in with the rest of the advert and although it was a bit shorter than the other shot durations in that advert it wasn’t that noticeable anymore. I disagreed with some of the feedback I received from that screening. They said that I should take off the BUPA logo from the top corner of the
screen for the last shot. But I decided not to because I think it’s vital product placement as the logo is otherwise only briefly seen, I also tried to fit in the word BUPA into the voice over at least twice in the advert. The last shot of the advert I think is the most memorable and of course has the longest duration so I think it’s the right place for the BUPA logo to go because it’s key for the audience to remember what product what was being advertised in an advert as it’s useless without the product getting more exposure I also emailed a questionnaire to about 30 members of my target audience, but it was only filled out by about 7 people. So I asked 3 remaining people in person to fill it out. They completed the questionnaire so I at least had 10 responses. This I think was a good microcosm of my target audience to work with and because it was a nice round number it was easy to analyze. I would have liked more people to complete the questionnaire but I think I managed to gauge public opinion from the responses I received. The questionnaire made me consider adding diegetic sound to the adverts. When watching through the footage I found out that there was a lot of sound interference on the microphone, for example in advert 2 it was from the cars. I wanted all the adverts to have the same conventions so they would all fit into a series so if I was going to use the sound from the microphone on one advert I would have to use the sound of the microphone for all three adverts, although adverts 1 and 3 didn’t really have much sound interference. I found some bird sound effects on YouTube and added them to the adverts and this worked quite well. However, I then decided to use the version without diegetic sound because any other sound would distract from the voice over and having no sound kept the audience on a slight edge so they would notice the incident, where as the sound effects made the audience feel too safe and might make them bored. The questionnaire responses did convince me to create the third advert in my series. Luckily I tried to upload the footage on another user area so I could edit the third advert. I wasn’t really that pleased with the footage from my third advert, because when I edited it all together it wasn’t long enough to fit in all of my voice over, I considered cutting some of the voice over out but I decided not to as it would make the third advert stick out from the rest and in a series of consistency is important. I instead let some of the shots run longer than I was originally going to. The result of this might be that the audience might find it boring as there is 4 seconds of just a human statue sign. I wished I had shot some extra footage and this could be a fault with my storyboard because I stuck to it and it turned out to provide me with an advert that was too short. I should have added in more camera shots. I think this advert was probably the weakest of the three, but I still think it’s of a good professional standard. I think this displays some skill as an editor to stretch out material to make the advert longer without re filming any more footage. When editing advert 2 I also saw that the framing of the last two shots the tracking shot and the wide shot weren’t straight. I decided not to conduct a re shoot of advert 2 because I know I couldn’t recreate the magic of the old man walking past, and I don’t think it greatly affected the advert over all. Another problem with my footage from advert 2 was that the camera moved a bit too much in last tracking shot when the attacker runs into the victim, as the camera then follows the attacker as he runs off. I cut that shot down which I think made the advert better as the last shot clearly shows the victim on the floor in pain and therefore there would be no need to drag out first shot of him lying on the floor as it’s already clearly in the narrative. I am very pleased with my all of my adverts as I think I’ve stuck to my original aims. I think I achieved the theme I was going for and successful used the persuasive
strategies of fear, security and humour. I didn’t want to play to strongly on the fear because in section 3 chapter 15 of the CAP code it states that ‘Advertisements must not mislead about the nature or extent of the risk to consumers’ personal security, or that of their families, if they do not buy the advertised product or service’. I don’t think I broke any CAP codes and my advert would be commissioned on TV in real life without much debate. I think my adverts achieved that 60s and 70s comedy style both technically through my use of wide shots and pan shots and aesthetically through my use of bright cinematography. Although my adverts do have some technical problems, for example adverts 1 and 2 would appear pixilated when displayed on a large screen, which was a problem with exporting from Final Cut, as my advert’s resolution was too low. Advert 1 had a resolution of 526 x 288 and advert 3 had a resolution of 640 x 360. This means that when these adverts are shown on a large screen they will appear pixilated because there are less dots per inch so the frames will appear stretched. I think I created three very good adverts that stuck to their themes and intended filming style very successfully, which my pre production [especially the storyboards] were essential in achieving this. My final adverts were very well received by my target audience both young and old, which I believe is a very hard target audience spread to capture. When I did a screening of my three final adverts to 10 members of my target audience they all seemed to get the get the comedy and like the charm that these adverts had. One response I got was that ‘I would definitely tell my friends to watch the new BUPA adverts’. However they did pick out some technical problems that hadn’t been resolved such as the last two shots of advert two not being straight. One response was that the human statue appeared to be moving. However this was essential to the narrative because that was the reason the victim didn’t put any money in his hat. I am very pleased that my target audience preferred the adverts without diegetic sound to the ones with diegetic sounds as I showed them both versions as part of my focus group work. I’m very pleased with my adverts as I don’t think the finished product changed a whole lot much from how I originally intended and I think the adverts were very effective as they were well received by my target audience which how adverts are ultimate judged.