BRUT Design Boards

Callum O’Reilly

External Collaboration - BRUT

OUGD603

Brief/Rationale An ad campaign for the male fragrance BRUT with the main insight being that teens use this as their first cologne, transitioning them into manhood. The design has been driven with the idea that BRUT is the key to manhood with the copy on the ad showing that there is ‘two sides to every bottle’.

Callum O’Reilly

External Collaboration - BRUT

OUGD603

Research Brand As a brand BRUT’s content is very focused on being a man with traditional masculine values. The ad campaigns often show this through sexual innuendos, reference to gender stereotypical activities and the male gaze onto females. The research has identified a clear tone of voice associated to the brand which will influence the design outcomes for this project.

Visual The adverts found were all appropriate for the target audience, referencing social media, handwriting as if they had jotted down some notes in class and also using humour. The wire framing shows a study of this style of advertising in terms of sizing, placement and balance of content - all of which will become a reference when finalising the designs.

Callum O’Reilly

External Collaboration - BRUT

OUGD603

Initial Ideas The initial ideas stage of this brief saw digital developments of two of the ideas produced by the creative advertising side of the team, these were selected through feedback critique sessions. The first of the two ideas featured the product itself isolated and placed within a lined paper background, the visuals resembling a notebook, directly linking to familiar visual language of the target audience. Through doing so introducing the new brand to the audience in a way that they can visually relate to. The copy to the right focuses on the notes a boy makes about a new romantic venture, thanks to the help of BRUT, the left hand side features the story of the relationship blossoming. The style of the writing would be handwritten, which would be explored in development stages, to reflect the style of handmade notes themselves. The handwritten type that would be used was explored through variations of each piece of text being repeated in order to be refined and modified to ensure consistency throughout the campaign. The second idea featured a typographic focused outcome, which links modern conception of ‘what makes a man’ and the transition to manhood, which is achieved through using BRUT. The typography is simplistic and direct, visually linking to the branding identity of the existing brand, whilst taking it in a fresh direction of changing what the concept of being a man is to infit with the audience themselves. In order to achieve a coherent visual style with the current branding a typeface was selected closest to that used within the logo and the other collateral design found within the research stages. Presicav provides the design with the closest match and when used gives the copy a sense of authority by the brand’s existing tone of voice.

Through feedback with design and advertising specialists it was decided that the idea best fitting for both the brief and the target audience would be idea 1, thus this is the idea took forward into the development and design stages. This was due to the fact that it was more representative of the product itself, as it is being introduced to a new audience it was felt that imagery of the product, past solely visual links to the brand, were required.

Callum O’Reilly

External Collaboration - BRUT

OUGD603

Development/Design The design development started with the removal of the lined paper as a background and the use of product photography in order to have the sole focus on the product and a clean space for the type to be added and legible.

Feedback showed the design using the typeface as opposed to the handwriting to be stronger and more relevant to the concept, ensuring brand consistency and also optimum reference to masculinity. The hierarchy of the different elements on the advert designs was also reconsidered as the tagline at the top mean that the concept was presented before the content.

The placement at the bottom now allows for the content to be the main focus and the tagline works as a clarification on what the product will do for the customer.

Callum O’Reilly

External Collaboration - BRUT

OUGD603

Production The ad design required product photography of the different bottles, face on with a plain background. With the help of a photographer from Leeds Arts University the final images are of high quality and consistently work as a series.

As part of the production the images were then edited using Adobe Photoshop focusing on removing the translucency of the bottle because currently the information on the back was showing through and causing too much of a distraction. Once this was completed, Adobe Lightroom was used to ensure that the background colour and lighting was consistent across all three of the images.

As the outcomes are advertising it wouldn’t be viable to be able to print due to the industry standard equipment needed to be able to produce such an outcome. As part of the briefs progression, creative advertising created a media plan describing the way in which the outcomes needed to sit if produced in the industry. The media that is needed are a fullpage magazine print, and outdoor ad shell and two tabloid adverts, one a half of the page and another a third. To be able to plan which ad needs to go into which position we decided to create some small scamps, working out the positioning of each ad. This also allowed us to take into consideration which products to put on which size ad, as there were three types of bottle we photographed.

Callum O’Reilly

External Collaboration - BRUT

OUGD603

Evaluation Overall we believe that the outcomes were successful in meeting with the briefs requirements. The advertising campaign we created allows for BRUT as a brand to be relevant to a new audience, whilst retaining the fortunes and positives of the established brand.

This is evident through the reinvigoration of the language used within the campaign itself. The brands persona exemplifies what masculinity was during the peak time of popularity of the brand. The persona we have evolved allows for an example of the audience’s perception of masculinity today. Our audience being of college/sixth form ages allowed us to adopt slang from this demographic to bring the concept to life, through using already known familiar language the copy regarding what BRUT could do for the consumer is instantly made relevant to the aspirations of that particular age group. These aspirations and language were obtained using primary research ensuring the information is current and correct. Visual literacy being influenced from the existing brand it retains the brand identity and pushes the brand towards a new direction whilst not changing the core values of the brand itself. This was achieved through the successful use of brand colours, typography and layout.

On a whole working as a team went smoothly, this was because of the strategic and professional manner that we approached the project. Through the use of vigorous and regular communication, each step of the process was done to the full knowledge of each member of the team. Interactions across the way we received feedback from both courses were used to their full potential with having all members of the team present at aspects of both the visual and creative thinking critiques.

The brief was interesting to work on as it gave a more industry style approach to receiving a brief, rather than having to jeopardize creative process time on the creation of a made up brand/brief, before looking at the creative aspects.