We decided to telephone several newspapers and see which ones took charity adverts on a regular basis. Our findings from this followed our other research and we found that if we advertised in The Daily Mail we were likely to raise the largest amount of money. This is because it is a paper with a wide audience across all the classes of society and that we were most likely to get a good response for whichever charity we were advertising for. This is because there are such a variety of readers that we were likely to hit a soft spot in a large amount of people whichever charity it was.
After doing all this we turned our attention to the television advertisement and when it would be best to advertise on television. Since the BBC does not take adverts our choice of television channels was narrowed down, unless we wanted to advertise on satellite, cable, or digital television. We looked at possible openings on ITV and channel 4 to see when we would have a large audience interested in charity campaigns and watched to see if any other charities advertised at these times. We found that the most promising times were before or after the news because there is a large audience at that time and people are thinking about things that are happening all over the world, and during Countdown because there is also a wide audience and these are often older people who think about what is happening to other people and who have more disposable income that younger people who have families to raise.
It was here that we decided to change charities. I think this was a good decision because from then on we worked at a rapid pace to catch up with the other groups in our class. We thought that the newspaper and television times would work just as well with our new charity so we went on to thinking about our actual design for the advert.
We had more problems with this because we couldn’t focus our ideas so we thought that it would be good to go on to the TV advert and when we had finished this modify one of the images in it to fit the newspaper ad. We had a lot more success with this and even wrote our own song to go over the top. We thought it would be good to make the ad very simple and slow so that it would have more impact on the viewers. We decided to make it black and white so it was easy to digest and keep it as a series of images rather than a film.
We thought that the words we had written should be sung by children to enforce the image of harm to children, as this is often a weak spot in people. We also decided to make the voices echoing and have a church like accompaniment of hollow sounding chimes to send shivers down our viewer’s spines and also to put an image in their subconscious of death as many people relate churches to death and funerals. While this was going on we had images of children in distress with some distressing stories we had downloaded from the NSPCC website. After showing three images to create sympathy in our viewers we then had a completely black screen with a white stop sign in and some information about haw to donate. We did this for two reasons, one was because the NSPCC’s motto is, “help us put a full STOP to child cruelty” so using the word stop at the end of the advert is in keeping with the aims of the charity, and two because it has impact and is a direct command so it does make people stop and take notice. We also had it going completely silent when the last screen appeared because this reiterates the message of stopping and is in keeping with the words of our song.
To aid us in our decisions we watched several other charity appeals and found that the best ones were simple and to the point, but still made you feel sorry for the people or animals, which were suffering in the adverts. We watched one for an animal charity, which included a big shock or twist to make you pay attention to them. We thought this idea was good so we tried to recreate it in our last screen, which would cause slight shock, as it was sudden, and make people pay attention to our message.
We also saw a Red Cross advert which was just a series of images, this had a real impact on us and influenced us in how our advert worked. We used this as the basis of the structure of our advert because we also used a series of disturbing images.
We also watched the new NSPCC advert which focuses on making people feel guilty. We used the idea of making people feel guilty but looked at it from a different angle. The NSPCC made people laugh at all the horrible things happening to children but we did it by distressing people with the horrible stories that appear on the screen. They used the idea of creating a shock at the end of the advert as well. This pushed us even more to try and create a shock at the end of our advert. They used the idea of everything going quiet at the end of the advert to help them with the visual images, this influenced us to do the same and stop the background noise so that people focus solely on what is said on screen.
After agreeing on the structure and images in our television advert we looked at it and thought that it would be a good idea to take the last shot and use it as our newspaper advert. We all thought this was a good idea but said that it needed slightly more information. We then each drew a rough sketch of how we would change it and showed it to each other. We took the good parts from each idea and it turned out that we all contributed equally to the design because we took one part from each design.
The most important decision in the design of our advert was the colour of the background. I wanted the background to be white with black writing and Harry wanted it to have a black background with white writing. We however resolved on a black background because it has more impact and will stand out against the rest of the paper. Another important decision was whether or not we used a stop sign or just used the word stop in large lesson. On the decision my opinion won over Gemma’s because we thought that it would be a better idea to keep it simple.
Our entire group had very good ideas, James put forward the idea of using direct commands but when he sketched his idea he used three commands which we thought was too much. Harry had the idea of the background to stand out but his idea lacked some of the vital information. Kyle wrote most of the words to the song and had the initial thought of writing our own words to a well-known nursery rhyme but was unsure of the visual aspect of the adverts. Gemma suggested that we should use the images and distressing stories to attract attention and gain the sympathy of the viewers but her idea for the advert contained much to much information to digest all in one go. It was my idea to keep everything very simple and dramatic but I didn’t have many ideas on how to carry this out and had an idea of perspective in the advert, which was very unsuccessful.
I think our advert will appeal to our target audience because it is very bold but still simple; it also stands out on a page and makes a big statement. If you are flicking through a newspaper a big black page is going to make you take notice and the fact that there is not too much information on the page helps people to see the real purpose of the ad.
To find out about advertising we looked in our school library and found some books on advertising we also asked the media teacher at our school about some of the basic techniques in advertising. This proved very useful and taught us about how to appeal to different people and how to give people all the information you need without swamping them.
We were told that the advert must be timed correctly so that people could digest the information and come to grips with their emotions. This piece of information was particularly useful because it showed us that we needed to slow our advert down. We also learnt that it was good to use the symbol of a well-established charity such as the NSPCC. This helped us with our adverts because at first we weren’t going to use the logo but after hearing this decided to because it is very well known throughout the UK and people trust that the money they donate will go to a just cause. We found out from the book we read that scaring people really pushes them to donate money we played on this and used the stories we had to scare and distress people so that they would part with their money.
I think both our adverts will work very well because they have a lot of impact and stand out. They will also appeal to a wide range of people, which is what we were aiming for. I think their simplicity and straightforward attitude would help the charity to raise money. I also think they would encourage other people to get involved in work with that charity and raise awareness and concern in many people because of the chilling accounts in the television ad and the blunt approach in the newspaper ad.
I believe that the message of putting a stop to child cruelty is portrayed well in the adverts because of the images and stories and also the instruction to stop. It also helps that the charities aims are well known so we didn’t have to be explicit in the information that we gave.
At first I was disappointed in the task we were set because I was really looking forward to the media section of the course and thought that the task set did not live up my expectations. But when I got into the task I really enjoyed it. I liked working with a group that I wouldn’t normally work with and when we were making decision it was a fair process and the entire group contributed which was a really good thing to be part of. I think we worked well as a group and I gained lots of knowledge about advertising and all the skills that I never knew existed in the task.
I enjoyed seeing the difference between advertising on television and advertising in newspapers and thought it was a very worthwhile task for both the development of my English and comparison skills and in the gain of extra knowledge. It was a new experience and has helped me to realise all the psychology that goes into advertising and all the thought people who work in these areas must put in to entice the viewers into parting with their money.
Martha Ricketts
