OUGD601: Context of Practice 3 - Practical Element, Design Development

Advertisements

Client: Ebon Chocolates

Target Audience: Women, Early 20s to 30s, young independent females at the height of their sexual experience.

Aims: As a start up campaign the main aims will be to increase awareness of the brand whilst also creating an emotional connection between the target audience and the product.

Influences I Want To Provoke: Pleasure, curiosity, desire, excitement

The main aim I wanted to achieve through the practical element of the Context of Practice Module was to produce a professional advertising campaign pitch for an existing chocolate confectionery company which could realistically be taken to the company.

- Ebon Chocolates existing packaging

- Product photographs


Therefore, when communicating with Ebony Dip, owner of Ebon chocolates via email I asked her to send me photographs of her products which I could possibly include within the designs for my advertisements in order to give a professional quality to the designs for both my advertisements and the campaign pitch.

When reading through the Ebon Chocolates Kickstarter page, there were a few quotes that Ebony Dip had used to describe the ethos of her company which I felt backed up what I had discovered throughout my research and some of the points I have raised in my written element for the Context of Practice module. This was also one of the main reasons I contacted her with an interest to design for her start-up company.

Quotes such as "Delicacies made from the love of chocolate & love of life & made with the belief that life, like chocolate, is meant to be savoured", "every bite will give you an amazing experience " and "flavours that will make you scream for more" were all quite sexually suggestive similarly to the example I have analysed in my extended writing piece. 

Through my primary research I concluded that language tends to be more effective in terms of influencing emotions as it is open to a lot more interpretation.Therefore I decided to used these three tagline as the basis of my design with the aim of influencing a sense of curiosity and excitement in my intended target audience like had Kinder Bueno have successfully achieved in their 'Not Only For Kids' campaign.

I tried a range of typefaces, and type styles including Copperplate which was the font originally used by the brand, however I felt the uppercase styling was quite 'heavy' for the feeling I wanted to portray in my advertisements.

I chose to use typeface, 'Philosopher' for the advertisements it has a classical feel to it in terms of being a serif font and yet it feels more contemporary as the serifs are more experimental in the placement. I personally think it feels more seductive in comparison to the minimalist sans-serif typefaces I also tried.

Phrases such as "savoured" "make you scream for more" and "give you an amazing experience" are steeped in sexual innuendo which is a common strategy advertisers use which I discovered in my research for both elements of the module. Advertisers use suggestive language in order to arouse a sense of curiosity in the audience and to allow their imaginations to wander. To put even more emphasis on the particularly provocative words within the tagline I decided to italicise in order to draw the audiences attention to them. With the aim that this would entice the audience .

One of the main requirements for the campaign that Ebony Dip stipulated in her emails was that should it be possible I should aim to stay as close to her original colour scheme as possible.

I began by experimenting with different hues of the blue as I personally felt a darker, perhaps navy blue would be more seductive than a primary blue.

Originally when experimenting with possible designs for the advertisements I tried a black and white filter on the photographs that I had chosen, however the feed back I received from Simon during my final tutorial was that that they did not seem 'chocolatety'. Through the aesthetic of my advertisements I wanted to strengthen the relationship between the viewer and chocolate in their subconscious mind, therefore I tried an chocolate-esque brown filter on the provocative images of woman which I had chosen in order to tie the two together.

Similar to what photographer Marek Straszewki had attempted to achieve within the Kinder Bueno 'Not Only For Kids' campaign.

In terms of selecting imagery for the campaign, I chose to strictly stick to one subject per ad, which as evidenced in the existing advertisements I analysed within my extended writing piece, reiterates the self-indulgent nature of the consumption of chocolate. The feeling of indulgence is something I wanted to influence in my intended audience.

- Examples of how the mouth is commonly used to induce associations between chocolate and sex

- Examples of female sexuality being exploited in chocolate advertisements

It's is a common trait for the sexuality of woman to be used within chocolate advertisements, as seen within both the Kinder Bueno and Godiva advertisements. I noticed a trend to particularly use the mouth, a common symbol of sexuality in order to induce associations with sex within the audience and therefore I cropped down my photographs to only feature the mouth of the woman.

In order to give the chocolate-esque filter I simply had to create a new layer with my chosen colour, and then alter the overlay options between layers to edit the photograph.

I like the subtlety this filter 'Linear Light' has upon the photograph, it seems to tease at the idea of chocolate yet the brown in not overbearing and would not take away from the image itself or the tagline. The glossy dark brown lips are really quite eye-catching and I believe would successfully entice the audience.

I believe this filter is perhaps too subtle, giving a more creamy colour rather than brown there is no connection between the image and chocolate and therefore it is not as effective in my eyes.

The filter has appeared to my the lips in this image faded out and not as eye-catching.

Again the glossy brown lips in the image are really quite enticing and provocative, effectively showing how the mouth can be used as a means of influencing associations of sex and pleasure.

- Application to another photo from the advertising campaign

I chose to use the 'Linear Light' filter for my photographs as I felt the subtle hint of chocolate which it applied to my photographs was in keeping with the innuendo and suggestive nature of both the language and image I have specially chosen. I learn throughout the research process that the suggestion of something tended to be much more effective in influencing emotions than out and out saying it. Which was why in my survey language was more provoking than imagery, the more there was the suggestion of sex the more our mind wanders to more explicit images.

In terms of placement of the tagline, I experiment with a variety of layouts. For the final designs I deliberately chose to place the tagline over the mouth in order again draw attention to the facial feature which has strong sexual connotations.

Finals

As this is a start-up campaign aiming to raise awareness of the brand and build a emotional relationship with the audience I believed it was appropriate to create an extensive campaign which could be distributed across a variety of formats I applied the three taglines which are the basis of the campaign to each of the five final images I have chosen creating fifteen advertisements. 

Overall I pleased with the design outcomes for the advertising campaign. I believe the sexually suggestive nature of the designs would be effective in strengthening the relationship advertisers have fabricated between chocolate and sex or more specifically pleasure. By strengthening this relationship it will form a emotional connection in the audience, whenever they think or see the brand name Ebon Chocolates they will immediate think of a pleasurable experience which as evidenced in my written element can be effective in influencing purchase decisions.

In terms of distribution, with it being a start-up campaign it was imperative that the advertisements are distributed on a variety of format in order to increase brand awareness.

Mock-ups

PDF Pitch

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