Unit 18- Evaluation

At the beginning of the unit, I, Lily, Matt and Josh formed a group. As an introduction to the advertising industry, we researched popular print ads, TV adverts and well known advertising agencies. It was then that we formed our advertising agency: Hydra Advertising. The name came from the mythical creature (Hydra) which is considered to be a multiple headed, serpent like animal, who is able to grow new heads whenever one is cut off. We therefore came up with the slogan 'Regenerating good ideas'. A logo was created and we became Hydra Advertising.

It was at this point that we had to come together to create a new product, whether that be a new water bottle, chewing gum or cereal bar. We were all keen to work on a water bottle product, and this was the product that we instantly had the most ideas for. Before we were to make further progress, we went off to research existing bottled waters and I chose to focus on the well known Volvic. It was important that I completed research on the general product (water source, colour schemes, history) as well as their marketing campaigns (slogans, tv, bus and print adverts. I found that a lot of Volvics past slogans have linked massively to either the water source or the name, for example, one well known slogan of theirs is: ‘Fills you with volcanicity’. This would give our group ideas when mind mapping for our product slogan. I also looked into the colour scheme of blue, with often appearances of white and green. It is important to have a colour scheme in order to increase the products chances of becoming recognisable, something that Volvic have done very well. The most important research I carried out was of the marketing campaigns of Volvic. Their TV and print adverts gave me and my team a lot of insight into how similar products could be advertised. The other team members carried out their own individual research, and the combination of our work really helped us move onto the next step. Below is a selection of screenshots from my

research:

We then momentarily split again in order to come up with individual ideas for our product, including our ideas for names, slogans and colour schemes. We met and tabled our ideas as shown to the left, discussing them and then deciding on a final product plan. The obvious agreement was to aim the product at sports enthusiasts. This has been a successful choice amongst other similar products and companies, and the sports market has a lot of platforms for advertising. I remain very happy with

the decision to aim the drink at sports enthusiasts as the market is ever growing. The next agreement was to use the name ‘ĵeto’, meaning release in the Esperanto language, along with the slogan ‘Release your inner champion’. We felt as if these tie in extremely well with our target audience, as the word champion can be associated positively with sports and competing in particular. I am also very happy with this logo and the name ‘ĵeto’ as I feel as if they tie in very well with one another. The next part was to select a colour scheme and we quickly agreed on blue and red, as these are bold colours and the blue is a common theme in bottled waters. When this was first decided, I was personally not too happy on the use of red. I felt that red is often used as a negative colour and a colour of danger. However, seeing the product we then went on to make, I am definitely a fan of the red use now. Beside this, we we were all very happy with our product plans and parted again to experiment with logo ideas.

This was my logo idea. Sticking to the colour theme, I chose to use blue text and red bits, and the use of the dragon-like-creature in the text links back to our advertising agency: Hydra. I was never confident in my logo and I am happy it was not picked, since I don’t feel it is bold enough to allow the product to stand up. I could have used bigger and bolder text to do this.

This is Lily’s logo and the one we used for our product. I really like this and we decided upon it for multiple reasons. We all felt the colour theme was impressive and stuck to what we’d agreed. We also felt that the italic style/flowing text would link really well to the water that it advertised. After we’d decided on this, we worked further on the product’s design and details. We researched where our water would be sourced from and we

discovered the perfect location: Monte Titano, a mountain of the Apennines and the highest peak in San Marino, a Esperanto speaking area. We also decided to create 3 versions of our product with 3

different flavours/types: Original, Strawberry and Lemon & Lime. These options can be identified by an alter in colour schemes (a coloured bottle top and in the writing on the bottle label).

To show this, I put together an image of these varieties. I am very happy with what I created and it also gave us the product image to place on future print adverts and marketing campaigns. I am proud of this particular work the most as I feel that it really pulled all the product ideas and plans together into something visual. The team agreed with this and so at this point, we had our product. After this, we needed to begin our advertising. We split into individuals again

and carried out research on adverts that were aimed at sports enthusiasts, similar to what we planned to do. We were set different tasks each. Matt Holley (Hydra’s Art Director) focused on producing a magazine advert, Lily Curtis (Hydra’s Sales Director) worked on a website banner, Josh Brown (Hydra’s Cinematographer) produced a tube station advert and I, as Hydra’s Creative Director came up with a bus advert. This was one stage in particular where I noticed how hard working the group was. We had been set work individually and we were all highly focused during this stage, so I am really happy with how we worked as a team then. Below are some screenshots of my work:

The following is our teams work from this stage:

For my bus advert in particular, I planned to keep it simple and using the advice from Coca Cola, wanted to keep the background white as it allows it to stand out from the red of the bus. I also placed a picture of the product as this allows people to see exactly what is being advertised. I am happy with this advert and its simplicity. I am also really happy with what my other team members produced during this stage. We then began filming for our television advert and the first point was to begin planning. Since we were aiming ĵeto at sports enthusiasts, we wanted our advert to be based around a competitive/sports situation. We came up with the idea of someone having a bad game of basketball, drinking ĵeto and then instantly performing well. It was an aim of ours to add comedy elements as this would make our advert more memorable, so we began planning in attempt to do this. We created a storyboard and then went location scouting. The locations can be seen to the left of this text. I think that we would all agree that our television advert was the most successful point of our entire project. We worked extremely hard on it, and we all feel as if this paid off. During filming, I and Lily worked behind the camera and Josh and Matt acted. This worked really well and

these were the roles we all were after. After we had filmed, I edited the advert together. I am extremely happy with how this went and this is something I am proud of. As a group, we agree that this work presents the product well.

We then decided on how we’d advertise our product further. The plan is to hand out free bottles of ĵeto out at smaller events, and then attempt to reach potential audiences at events such as the Rugby World Cup, the Olympics/Paralympics and the London Marathon. Since we had a product and multiple marketing campaigns and plans, the next stage was to pitch ĵeto to the market.

As a group, I think we’d all agree that this project went very well. We all worked extremely well together and produced some good work. I am happy in particular with how all of our marketing campaigns went, specifically the television advert. I think that it has a clear aim towards sports enthusiasts and also has the comical elements. I am also very happy with how our product looks. The appearance alongside the name and logo looks very professional in my opinion. Although I was not completely keen on the colour scheme at first, I am now very content with it and it is definitely a strength of our product. So overall, I am very happy with what we have produced and the work we have created during this unit.

However there are definitely some weaknesses to our work and some areas that I would improve on if I was to re-do the unit. Even though our slogan strongly links to the sports theme, I feel as if the target audience isn’t always clear in some of our print/magazine/bus adverts. In mine, for example, I

could have used a picture of an athlete or something similar in order to make this clearer, since the only parts that link to sports are on the bottle label, which definitely doesn’t stand out enough. This is the case in a few of the other adverts, and so if I was to re-do the adverts, I’d definitely work on making the target audience a lot more obvious.

I also think that if involved in a similar task in the future, we should schedule out our work and lesson times. This way we’d arrive to lesson with the knowledge of what needs to be done and we’d be able to focus. This would be necessary as I found that at times we were quite unsure of what needed to be done. Planning would also have been beneficial when filming the tv advert in particular, because on certain occasions, we were unable to film due to lack of prop availability. If we’d have planned and spoken to certain people in advance (for example the PE office for equipment) then we would have probably been able to film a lot quicker. Although we did carry out location scouting, we should have checked that those locations were available for filming when they were needed, rather than just turning up to them, as we found that they were often taken and unable to be used.

Also, in the research stage, I’d like to have done more research on existing products but in particular, ones that are aimed at sports enthusiasts like ĵeto. Even though we carried out research on print ads for similar audiences, we didn’t properly research these products to the extent that we researched bottled waters such as Volvic. This may have come in useful when producing ĵeto. Despite the negatives of the product and our advertising methods, they have taught us ways that we could improve as a group in future units and projects. We are all very proud of Hydra Advertising and ĵeto as a product. We feel as if we have worked hard and that it has paid off.