TV Advert Final Evaluation

1. The brief

A. The brief was to pick one brand from all of the Unilever products to then create a product for a new target audience, which means we would have to create a new advert that will appeal to this type of audience. After this was completed we then had to start thinking about the re-selling of the advert and create and plan it out.

B. The chosen product from the group was in fact my Marmite idea. The reason for choosing this one is because it was easily suited to our budget, there was not many to the cast that we were going to need and the locations were close meaning that there wasn’t any traveling costs from the members of the team. We had three options to choose from.

The first was Bovril; the idea for this one was to get the Bovril aimed to the younger generation of kids that are still in preschool. The reason we didn’t choose this one is because the budget would not have been big enough to dress up 20 school kids in suits for the advert.

The next was Viennetta, and the idea for this advert was to reshape the desert into a caterpillar and aim the new product out of the reach of the high class and down to the lower class and young children. The reason behind not choosing this one had to gather a cast of young children and none of us really know any that we might have been able to have used.

The third idea was Marmite, for this advert the idea was to get the product to follow a teenager around on their everyday routines, just lingering around until this character has no choice but to give the drink a try, and then finding that they really like it.

C. The current target audience of the Marmite product is to anyone at the age of 30 and above. This is because these ages’ people are new parents, and the advert is trying to get the parents to buy the product to give it to their children to try. The new target audience for the advert is around the age range of late teens to people in their early 30s, being with about a 10 year age gap between these people. I chose this age group and the working class people as the target audience for the advert because I believe it’s not high quality enough for the upper class or the older generation of people. But I do also believe that it will appeal to the young and the quirky, with it standing out and being different, just how the younger generation like to be.  

2. The finished product and feedback

A. I had then started to collect feedback from the public on how they perceived the Marmite advert. I had logged on to Survey monkey and then created my own questionnaire with 10 questions about the advert. I had asked for feedback about the advert I had created. This one is the feedback on what could be improved.

B. In the preproduction I had specified that I wanted the new target audience to be towards people in their late teens to people in their early 30s...

The graph here from my survey questionnaire, is showing that the 9 people have said that they believe the Marmite advert is aimed at the same age group as I had planned it out to be. Some of the other views where that the advert could have been aimed at any age group, this isn’t what I was aiming for but if people believe that then the sales for the product would increase.

C. About the technical and aesthetic quality side of the advert, the results say that the advert has been made well, however there where a few draw backs such as; the voice of the marmite could have been a little louder, the music could have been a little more upbeat, the camera could have been a little more steady in one of the places and the writing for the slogan could have been up for a little long than it was.

The mise-en-scene for the advert was meant to be having more location scenes than what the original advert did have in the end. In total there was going to be 4 different locations. However we had found that the advert would be going on for far too long to be an advert, therefore we have to cut some of the scenes out but keeping the same idea for the advert but altogether only now having 2 scenes.

The camera skills for the advert were doing well up until the character had gone to the fridge in the office scene. That part was meant to be a little shaky but viewers felt that perhaps it was an accident and felt it was out of place, compared to the rest of the advert.

The editing side of the advert could have been used to cut down on the transitions. Some of the views from the class had commented saying that there are a little to many on the fade in and outs. However the sound for the advert could be improved. The Marmite speaking voice and having louder and catchier music would have improved the advert.

D. The effectiveness of the finished advert, I believe sells the product to the specified audience through its narrative. From the results of the survey everyone knows what the advert is selling which means that the advert was clear in that sense to get the product across to the customer. They have also determined that the target gender audience is of both male and female, with the exception of one or two other people who have said that it could have been towards the single male or the single female. This is showing how the Advert was mostly successful in the target audience that it had been originally aimed towards. Also the age that people had thought the advert was aimed to be successful to the plan, other than a few other people that said that the target audience age could have been any type of age.

E. The persuasion technique that was used in the advert was for the Marmite to be following the character around in his everyday routines. The idea was to have the character eventually have no choice but to just give the drink a try from being, tired and thirsty. Then the slogan pops up saying “you just marmite like it!” I feel that if the advert could have been a little longer then the narrative of the advert would have been even stronger.

F.  The message the advert was trying to send to the target audience was that having marmite on toast isn’t just weird, that maybe it does smell different and not to people liking, but people can just turn away products because of the smell or look, they should at least give it a try and they might just like it at the end of the day. That’s where the idea of the slogan had come from. The main technique that was used to show the message was the main character trying the drink and then really like it, to then offer it to another staff member who then really doesn’t like it. But at the end of the advert they had both tried it. I want the audience to think that it’s such a horrible disgusting idea but have the urge to want to try it and see for themselves if it really does taste the same way it looks.

G. I do feel that the advert fits its purpose rather well, but there are a few things that could be a little different to improve the advert as a whole.  Professionally the camera movement could have been a little steadier in dome parts and the sound and music could have been a little clearer and louder for the audience to hear.

It also complies really well with the advertising regulations that had been predicted,

3.12. This is where the advertisement is not misleading by exaggerating the capability or performance of the product. This is how the marmite product has been kept the same, loving it or hating the product.

4.1 That the advertisement does not contain anything that could cause physical, mental, moral or social harm to persons under the age of 18.

4.2 This is where the advertisement must not cause serious or widespread offence against generally accepted moral, social or cultural standards.

I had to make sure that the advert was kept to these codes because of the previous adverts reactions from the public.

3. Personal reflection

A. The final advert compared to the original intentions are quite different, we had cut the scenes down, in order to fit the duration of the advert to one minute. The storyboard and shot list where followed along really well up until we found the time of it all was a lot long than what we planned. Because of this we decided to merge some of the other ideas in the scenes into the other two scenes to cut down on time. If we had not have done this then the advert would have been extremely hard to follow, and would have made an unsuccessful advert.

The feedback our group got from our tutor was positive with the whole idea of the advert and how it was working reasonably well, but with a few negatives saying how the character could have drunk the drink. 

The feedback from the rest of the class had said that the positives are that it’s a brilliant idea and it meets its target audience really well. However the negatives where the quiet sounds of the speaking and the music and also that there could have been less video transitions.

B. My overall satisfaction for the advert isn’t exactly what I wanted it to be, most of the scenes had been cut out, making the story and narrative side of the advert rather difficult to follow, along with it having massive holes in it. We had found two days before the deadline that the advert as too long and had a few continuity errors with the way that the main character was dressed. Because of this we had to re-shoot and then re-edit in that time. I feel that the last two days before the editing deadline was completed it was rather rushed. However I am reasonable happy with the finished advert, but I do believe that it could have been a lot better if we had a little more time.