OUGD601: Context of Practice 3 - Practical Element, Brief Proposal

Original Brief:
Produce a range of advertisements across a range of print and web based mediums for Cadbury, with the aim of restoring faith in the iconic British brand following the Kraft takeover.

My original concept for the practical element was appropriate for my original research subject however as this has developed my practical concept has had to develop to.

The purpose of my extended writing piece is to discuss how effectively the strategies advertisers use can influence emotions in the audience and ultimately persuade them to consume whilst also questioning the morality of this practice. 

As primary research for the brief I have separated the different components of an ad; the image, the type in order anaylse their effectiveness separately. Would the audience even know what the ad was selling? I want to use the results I get from this primary research to directly influence the practical element. 

Revised Brief:

Design and produce a advertising campaign pitch employing a emotional strategy appropriate to chocolate advertising for a start-up chocolate confectioner.

In my tutorial, Simon had suggest using Kickstarter as a platform in order to find a possible client for my brief. Designing for a live client is not something I have had the opportunity to do before, I believe it would give the synthesised project more of a purpose and would lend more credence to my work.

From all the chocolate companies on Kickstarter I chose to contact Ebon Chocolates and Junior Chocolates because the descriptions they gave for their product ethos using words such as "indulgence" "salivating" and "savoured" backed up a lot of the research I had gathered so far on the emotions often conveyed in chocolate advertising therefore giving me the opportunity to use experiment with the emotional strategies I had discovered in my research in my own practical body of work.

Messages sent to Ebon Chocolates and Junior Chocolates

Response from Ebony Dip

From the messages I sent out I got a response from Ebony Dip of Ebon Chocolates who was positive about my idea and would like to work with me. I am extremely pleased with the response as if nothing else it gives me a outlet for some outsider feedback on my designs which will be helpful during the ongoing development of this brief.

OUGD601: Context of Practice 3 - Practical Element, Case Study Research

For the third a final chapter in my critical writing extended essay I will focus on Kinder Bueno as Case Study, in which I take a more in-depth approach to discovering what emotional strategies are appropriate for chocolate advertising, how they are applied and there effectiveness. The information I gather in order to form this case study will directly influence the outcome for my practical piece and will give me a deeper understanding of the subject.

I chose Kinder Bueno in particular as there 'Not Only For Kids' campaign is prime example of Dichter's theory of assigning an image to a product in order to sell which I have looked at in subsequent chapters. In this example the image is sex, lust, pleasure.

I also felt the transition Kinder Bueno had made from being a product primarily aimed at children to an adult target market would make an interesting case study. I was interested in what specific strategies they had incorporating in order to successfully make this transition.

Kinder Bueno

• Kinder Bueno is made by Italain confectionery maker Ferrero 
• The name comes from 'Kinder' the German name for children and 'Bueno' the Spanish for good or tasty
• Previous products such as the Kinder surprise, a hollow egg which contained a small plastic capsule with a toy inside and Happy Hippos, a wafer coated hippo-shape biscuit are primarily marketed towards the children's market - This could be a explanation as to why their subsequent advertising for their Kinder Bueno was so shocking?

Not Only For Kids Campaign

• In 2002 Ferrero decided to change the image of Kinder Bueno and broaden the target group
• The campaign was devised by Polish advertising agency G7 consisting of Przemek Bogdanowicz, Maciek Kowalczuk and Kinga Grzelewska.
• The campaign addressed the adult audience with sexy images of young men and women whose lips bare visible traces of chocolate - quite playful, chocolate draws attention to the mouth, one of the more sexual aspects of a woman
• Slogan: Not Only For Kids - language is quite vague in order to enable the curious aspect of our imaginations wander, strong sexual connotations, explicit content?
• The photographs which were shot by Marek Straszewki had a very distinguishable warm and chocolate-like tone of colours - creates the impression that the two; chocolate and sex and/or pleasure are synonymous with each other
• The campaign started in Poland in 2003 and continued until 2005 - included outdoor (billboards, city light bus shelters and city buses) and ads in lifestyle magazines 
• The campaign attracted a lot of attention and achieved the goal of repositioning Kinder Bueno as a delicate chocolate bar for both kids and adults

• The print advertising challenged the common perception of Kinder Bueno, a TV spot was released to support the new brand image which depicted sexy young adults relishing their Kinder Bueno in an almost erotic manner
• The tagline for the TV ad was 'Feed your sense. Not only for kids'
• The ad won adults attention with it's pure image content
• Presenting Kinder Bueno as an indulgence for adults

Indulgence in Seduction Camapaign

• Showcasing the consumption of Kinder Bueno bar as a invitation to an exciting flirt 
• "indulgence as seduction" - implication of a deeper sexual meaning, more explicit than previous tagline 'not only for kids'. Indulgence acknowledges the idea of "guilty pleasure" encouraging the audience be naughty
• Obvious inspiration from the popular vampire genre of TV series as HBO's True Blood
• The male vampire is depicted standing behind the female subject with his hand placed on her wrist, in an attempt to seduce her. The proximity of his neck adds an element of danger to the situation - adds to the sexual excitement stimulated in the female model

Lick my Ripples Campaign

Lick My Ripples Ad, Skip to 1:52

• Mix up led tot he line 'you can lick my ripples' being broadcast on children's TV channels 
• Quotes from the ad: "Lick my ripples" "bite me bite me" "I'll be anything you want me to be"
• Ads appeared on Cartoon Network and Boomerang drawing complaints from nine viewers over the sexually aggressive nature of the ads 
• The Independent Television Commission was told by Turner broadcasting that a wrong instruction has been sent to the traffic department. This resulted in the Kinder Bueno ad being shown instead of Kinder Surprise

Conclusions from research

Kinder’s ability to be able to transform their brand from primarily aimed towards the children’s market into a brand which can successfully provoke feelings pleasure within an adult audience through one look at their advertising campaigns determinately evidences just how much influence emotional techniques in advertising can have upon a consumer when used effectively. 

OUGD601: Context of Practice 3 - Resolving Your Research Project (Academic Conventions) Lecture

Introduction

• What you want to address
• How you are going to address it

COP3 - Thinking more dynamically

• Academic Conventions are like an institutional framework for your work
• They structure and standardise
• They aspire to academic honestly

At this level you are expected to be able to:

• Demonstrate a critical knowledge of practice
• Apply theory to practice
• Analyse relevant material
• Evaluate theory and evidence within the context of study
• Reflect - critiquing and critically reflecting on your learning and using this to improve practice 

Deep engagement with the subject

New Bloom's (Anderson and Pohl) 1900ish-2000

Hierarchy of knowledge 

• Creating
• Evaluating 
• Analyzing
• Applying
• Understanding
• Remembering

Doing something with the knowledge

Avoid - A Surface Approach 

• Concentration on Learning Outcomes
• Passive acceptance of ideas
• Routine memorisation of facts
• Sees small chunks
• Ignore guiding patterns and principles
• Lack of reflection about, or ignorance of, underlying patterns and theories 
• Little attempt to understand 
• Minimal preparation and research

A Deep Approach

• Independent engagement with material
• Critical and thoughtful about ideas and information
• Relates ideas to own previous experience and knowledge
• Sees the big picture
• Relates evidence to conclusions
• Examines logic of arguments
• Interested in wider reading and thinking
• Ongoing preparation and reflection
• Academic writing is formal and follows some standard conventions

• Each academic discipline has its own specialist vocabulary which you will be expected to learn and use in your own writing
• The substance of academic writing must be based on solid evidence and logical analysis and presented as a concise accurate argument
• Academic writing can allow you to present your argument and analysis accurately and concisely.

Not conversational - Don't use first person

Aim for precision. Don't use unnecessary words or waffle. Get straight to the point. Make every word count.

If there is any uncertainty about a particular pony, use cautious language 

• Avoid abbreviations and contractions
• Avoid slang words and phrases
• Avoid conversational terms
• Avoid vague terms

First person sentences use the pronous 'I' and 'We'. 

The suggestion here is that

It has been observed

Preliminaries - Title / Acknowledgements / Contents / List of Illustrations

Introduction - The Abstract / Statement of the Problem / Methodological Approach

Main body - Review of the literature / Logically developed argument / Chapters / Results of Investigation / Case Study

Conclusion - Discussion and Conclusion / Summary of Conclusions

Extras - Bibliography / Appendices

Mandatories

• 1.5 lined spaced
• Quotes which are more than two lines long are single lined spaced, separated and indented 

Deadline: 15th January by 4.00 pm, Seven Weeks Away

Project Self Assessment

Write down major aims of the project

Give a brief summary of the work so far

Comment on your time management

Do you know what the final project will look like?

What steps will you take to ensure it gets there?

What areas of the project are you worried about?

What 'risk management' plans do you have?

How are you going to use the remaining tutorials?

eStudio - Dissertation Submission Details 

• Hand in two hard copies, thermal bound to student administration 
• Hand in one copy via electronic submission to the COP3 Dissertation Electronic Dropbox - One document

Harvard Referencing - Section on eStudio

• Author (Date) Title Place Publisher
• Make sure you are consistent 
• 'quote quote' (surname, year, page)
• Alphabetised by surname and separated out into books, websites etc.
• Illustrations - Author (Date) Title in Author of book (Date) Title of of book or URL
• List of FIG 1 etc. in order of appearance 

OUGD601: Context of Practice 3 - Practical Element, Primary Research

In order to devise informed opinions on the topic I will undertake for my COP3 module it will be beneficial for me to produce primary research on my chosen subject 'How Effectively can Advertisers Influence Emotional Responses in Order to Sell?' From the primary research I am aim to discover the emotions are relevant to chocolate advertising, the advertising strategies used and how effectively they are implemented.

This will not only inform the points I will argue within one of the chapters of my dissertation but will directly influence the design decisions I will make within my practical piece.

When choosing the most appropriate methodology for collecting primary research I did consider a focus group in some sort in which we would discuss the ads.

However as I wanted to to analyse how the adverts use techniques not to just sell a product but to subliminally influence our emotions I decided to separate the different aspects of a ad; the imagery, the language and in some cases the music therefore I could discover how the different aspects are interpreted separately. Would the audience be able to tell it was for a chocolate ad?

Upon discussing it with Simon he decided that a visual survey rather than a focus group would be more appropriate as I could keep some anonymity.

Imagery from chocolate advertising

Language from chocolate advertising

Music from chocolate advertising 

In order to receive the best results to aide my project I began to devise a list of appropriate questions.

In particular, I wanted to find out what emotions they would associate with the language / image? How would they react / interact with it if they saw it as a print ad? What immediate assumptions do they make about the language / imagery used? And do they know it's for a chocolate advert?

My final questions were:

1. What product would you assume this image is selling?
2.  Apart from an end product, what is the image suggesting it will sell to the consumer?
3. Would you buy the product this image was selling? If so, why?
4. What assumptions would you make about the product this image was selling?
5. What assumptions would you make about the product this tagline is selling?
6. What associations would you make with this type of language?
7. What emotions would you associcate with this type of langauge?

Final surveys published via surveymonkey.com

In order to receive the most genuine and accurate results it was suggested by Simon that when distributing the surveys I avoid sending it to pupil on the Graphic Design or Creative Advertising course as it is possible they could give me the answers they think I want rather than answering honestly.

Results

• 57% of the group assumed that the image was selling a cosmetics product, with the majority assuming lipstick - shows how far removed that the product it is actually selling is difficult to determine 
• Although our immediate assumption would be that the advertisement is unsuccessful in fulfilling it's purpose it is effective in influencing the subconscious emotions within us that advertisers want us to associate with chocolate.

• Influencing intrigue or curiosity within the audience is a clever tactic by advertiser to influence them to buy -  in particular suggestive language aroused a feeling of excitement which intrigued them thus encouraging them to purchase the product.  

• Immediate response was that it is aimed towards the female target audience - Shows how effectively advertisers can use imagery alone to morph chocolate from a product that was primarily marketed to all to something which has strong connotations to female sexuality
• Assumption that the product it was selling was sexual - Reiterates our tendency to link chocolate with sexual desire an association that was purely fabricated by the advertising industry.

When shown the tagline out of context the immediate assumption was the the product it was selling was sexual - Language tends to be more effective in terms of influencing emotional responses - perhaps as it is open to more interpretation, let's our curious wander.

The tagline is steeped in sexual innuendo - This would be more explicit than any possible image a advertiser could use

• The provocative nature of the language used aroused a sense of excitement in all of those who undertook the survey - echoing the apparent heightened sexual desire of the women in the advertisements

Conclusions From Results

It is evident from the emotional responses that were gathered and analysed from the results of the survey that advertisers are able to provoke strong emotions such as excitement and sexual desire in response to a given product through the effective use of language and imagery, all of which strengthens our relationship to it. The very notion that they are capable of transforming an inanimate object into a source of pleasure purely through the use well thought-through advertisements shows the how great the overpowering impact that advertising can have on our emotions truly is.