Carwyn James BTEC Media

The brief was to re-brand a chosen Unilever product, in our group's case, PG Tips. This brief detailed how we were to move the product away from groups targeted by existing media campaigns, and focus our advert to appeal to different groups of people. Myself personally pitched an idea to re-brand the deodorant brand, Lynx, however my chosen concept was judged impractical to implement. Therefore we all agreed to focus on the second most popular concept, Callum's PG Tips re-branding idea. The current target audience for PG Tips are adults, both male and female. It would be unlikely for a child or toddler to be attracted by tea, as it is not usually drunk by children so young.

The opening shot of our advertisement

The Finished Product and Feedback

I collected feedback on our advert using a website called SurveyMonkey. Here I created a survey asking various questions, such as the age and gender of our viewers, as well as how much they liked it. This would give quantitative data, allowing for further analysis. 

Looking back, I feel that we could have planned more effectively in pre-production, and had spent more time identifying the audience we were going to target, as well as adjusting our advertisement to suit this purpose. Although our advert probably got the overall message to our audience fairly effectively, we could have done much better in achieving this, especially considering the broad talents within our group.

In terms of mise-en-scene we wanted to create a homely backdrop to our characters, as if they were all good friends meeting at one of their houses. Unfortunately due to the logistical issues of us all congregating at one of our houses, we were limited in terms of locational options. We chose to shoot in college as this would be easiest, in particular a staff room. Once we gained access to the staff room we tried to make the location look as homely as we could. We removed a first-aid kit and some material about teacher's unions, making sure to place them back once we had finished shooting of course. We managed quite well considering we didn't have resources or time to meet at an actual home, or revamp the staff room. Although it still remains obviously a staff room, we managed fairly well.
I was operating the camera, and we had a variety of tools to create camera movement. One particular piece of equipment was a slider, which allowed for horizontal camera movement, as seen in the first shot. We were also given a tripod which allowed for vertical camera movement, and some shots were shot freehand which allowed for multiple camera movements which could be shot more freely.
In terms of editing, there was a general consensus for the desire for a quick, fast paced tempo to the advert, as is common in entertaining or comedic adverts. We managed to add in further camera movement, such as zooming in or out, in post production to add to the effect,
We managed to source some copyright free music from the soundtrack of Star Wars from all places. We all agreed that this piece of music fitted well with our aims within the advert and so far has proven popular. Towards the end of the advert we desired a voice over to the advert. The sound recorded was low quality, but it served its purpose within the advert considering the resources and talent available to the team.

Adding on to my previous points about how well our message was projected to the audience, I felt that the effectiveness of our content could have been much better than what was produced. Our finished advertisement could have done much better in selling the product specified, considering how in our advert, very little emphasis was placed on the actual product, emphasis was instead placed in how to make tea. The narrative could have been centred more on the product, rather than the characters. After all the purpose of an advertisement is to sell the product, and considering the audience saw very little of the product, we fell short of achieving this. Adding on to this, considering how we learnt about AIDA techniques, we should have thought about this process much more, altering our project to fit the acronym. However, we used the entertainment and comedy aspects of the advert to try and appeal to younger audiences. Our use of younger characters also demonstrates this, considering existing PG Tips adverts have Monkey, voiced by Ben Miller at 50 years old, and Johnny Vegas who is 45. 

Overall I feel if our advert was to represent PG Tips, it would not be fit for purpose. I feel that the lack of direction or emphasis on the product wouldn't sell PG Tips as well as we could have done, and therefore I wouldn't feel that our advertisement would be fit to do so. In terms of complying with the BCAP code, our advert complies with the advertising regulations. For example the advert complies with rule 4.1, meaning that our advert does not cause physical, mental, moral or social harm to persons under 18.

An example of camera movement

Personal Reflection

The final advertisement was true to our original intentions, whilst producing the piece we didn't stray too far from what was planned on the storyboard and shot list etc.
Truthfully, I'm not satisfied with the advert. Pre-production should have been more thoughtful and should have been completed smoothly. Looking back on our planning, we could have directed the advert in a much better way, which would have resulted in much higher quality piece. During production we were hampered by the inaccessibility of our location, as well as bickering and squabbling between group members. In hindsight we should have worked more effectively as a team to produce higher quality shots, and in turn a high quality advertisement. Our editing process was also hindered by technical issues and differences in opinion. Had we done this again, I feel we should have resolved our differences much more quickly and effectively. Evaluating myself personally, I feel that the shots I took were of quality, and that I followed the direction of the storyboards and shot lists. However I should have had a bigger role in both pre-production and editing, rather than sitting back and allowing the advertisement to follow its own course.

The closing shots to our advertisement

Lynx Rebranding from carwyn james

The target audience for this advert would be young males, possibly 13-18 year olds. We can infer this due to the concept that the user of the Lynx product would become more confident and therefore, more successful in attracting other people. This would be especially attractive to young males of this age bracket.

This advert takes on the form of a documentary. The focus is on a male character accidentally eating a piece of wasabi, and remaining cool in front of an attractive female waitress. Documentary style