Sunday 20 September 2015

Presentations on how advertisers target groups or demographics

Young children may not have lots of money themselves, but through pester power they can persuade and pressurise parents into buying products for them ...
There are increasing restrictions on what can be advertised to children, where and when...


DISCUSS...
Have you successfully used pester power?
(note: useful terminology is often highlighted in bold + pink!)
Do ads for junk food (fast food: burgers, pizza etc) and sugary drinks work on 13 year-olds?
You will be creating a TV ad for your 2nd of 3 Media projects!

In this series of lessons we will...
  • build on our initial learning of some persuasive techniques advertisers use
  • focus on specific 'demographics' (categories of people) and ads aimed at them
  • develop our research, presentation and teamworking skills
  • produce a presentation that will be used to brief the rest of the class ...
  • and eventually uploaded to this post!







KEY DEMOGRAPHICS
Companies spend a lot of money to place their ads in certain magazines that they think the type of people likely to be interested in their product/brand read. If you are targeting a youth market, you wouldn't waste money buying space in this magazine ...

WHO is this magazine aimed at (what demographic) and HOW have the designers done this? Pick out details that help your argument.


However, if you were targeting an older (maybe 50+, retired), wealthy market, this sort of publication would fit well. This may primarily appeal to males, but the magazine presents images of couples to help appeal to women too.

Some brands will appeal to a specific age range, gender or income level, but others will have appeal with multiple demographics. However, the brands will often produce specific products to target narrower demographics. Coke Zero targets men with its black packaging, while Diet Coke targets women, and the advertising reflects this - but they're still both Coca Cola products.



Advertisers will consider many characteristics of magazine readers, but three are always examined ... 
WAGs...:
  1. WEALTH - well off (high disposable income) or working class (limited disposable income): luxury car or basic model for example; Calvin Klein or Tesco jeans... 
  2. AGE - young or old? These can be further split into many age groups: t(w)eenage, young adult, middle-aged, retired ... (it is difficult to target young and old at the same time) 
  3. GENDER - male or female? (OR both!)
For this task we will consider 6 basic demographics; advertisers will always consider these in combination, as will you when designing your own ads.
  1. Tweenagers, 8-12 (aspire/aim to be seen as teens, rely on pocket money)
  2. Teenagers, 13-17 (pre-adult, still at school, may have own part-time job)
  3. Young adults, 18-24 (more independent, at work, university; own income)
  4. Male
  5. Female
  6. Wealthy (also referred to as ABC1s, while less well off are classified C2DE)

Would the same ads work with the three people in this clip...?

Note the reaction to the GameBoy from this 1990s sketch show; we often use brands and products to help create our sense of identity.


GROUP RESEARCH + PRESENTATION IN 5 STAGES
You can use pen + paper or iPad to take notes. You will be getting folders shortly.
You should all be writing down the same notes.
You will find some useful websites and links after the list of 5 stages.

STAGE 1: Discuss and all list products/brands aimed at the demographic your group has been given.
Aim for at least 10, with everyone suggesting at least one. You can search online, but probably won't need to.

If you're working on one of the Macs, you need to: (1) use the login your teacher gives you, NOT your usual login (2) save any files into a My Documents folder called 9E (or whichever your class is: 9J, 9K, 9L)
STAGE 2: Find online + save 10+ different ads you think are aimed at your demographic.
You can have more than 1 for the same brand/product so long as they're different ads. Everyone should contribute at least one.  You will need to share these by email or memory stick - agree on one person to send these to. If you're using Google images, you'll get a better quality image if you click on the thumbnail and save it from the next web page (though this doesn't always work). Right-click to select 'save image as...', and follow the instructions above about saving into a specific folder if working on a Mac.

STAGE 3: Each analyse at least 1 ad, briefly describing + listing any persuasive techniques you see.
Write or type your notes. Each group should aim to sample about 10 ads, and everyone must analyse at least one ad.
From the initial lessons we considered a wide range of techniques:
  • uniqueness (USP or distinctive, maybe odd, look)
  • product shot (and how its being used)
  • background, location
  • colour
  • font: style (and possible links to something else); size; positioning; use of UPPER case (capitals) or lower case (or even a mix of the two); effects on the fonts;
  • slogans
  • humour
  • links/references to wider culture
  • social media links (perhaps a viral style)
  • positive, persuasive language - perhaps suggesting what type of benefits you get or person you become by using it
  • statistics - they have to be factual by law, governed by the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority)
  • quotes, reviews
  • model: perhaps a direct representation of the audience targeted; an aspirational figure (a type of person the audience would like to be, or be seen as); a celebrity (also an aspirational figure)

At this stage we will share some initial findings, and discuss how different or similar we think the techniques will be for appealing to each different demographic.

STAGE 4: Identify 5 or more key techniques used to target this particular audience/market.
Each of you take it in turns to take the others through what techniques you spotted, clearly identifying how these were used in the ads. One person should keep a list of all the techniques listed.
Once you've gone through them all, pick out 5 you think are most significant (you can add more if there's time), and that you have at least two specific examples of.

STAGE 5: Put your findings into an attractive format that can be screened on a computer.
If you want to use iPads to do this, make sure you will be able to save the work as a PDF, .doc, .ppt or similar file that can be shared on a desktop computer: these will be added afterwards to this post. Your teacher will write his email on the whiteboard for you.
You should present:
  1. Indicate your demographic, and who worked on the presentation, in a title slide.
  2. List some of the brands you initially thought of - if you used any online searches you could explain these.
  3. A gallery of the different ads you looked at should follow.
  4. Next, list all or most of the techniques you observed (you don't need examples with these, just a simple list).
  5. Now the key part: take 1 key technique at a time and provide images of examples you picked out from this. You could crop the ad to focus on the detail being discussed.
There will be a prize for the group voted to have produced the most helpful presentation - you can use each others' work when planning your own brands later!



STUDENT PRESENTATIONS: 9K MEDIA
These are the presentations created by 9K Media. Where I've missed out any names let me know and I'll add them in.

TWEENAGERS
by Keely, Sam, Ruby, Robert


TEENAGERS
by Megan, Krizzler,
Its a Prezi - click here to play it or use the embedded Prezi below.


18-24
by Ben, Dom, Travis, Zara


MALE
by Lucy, Lucy, Litty, Ellen


FEMALE
by Emma,


ABC1 (WEALTHY)
by Maddie, Amy, Theo

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