As a group of four, we were asked to create an organisation and two professional advertisements each (8 in total) that relate to our charity.

Production Log

Part 1

As a group of four, we were asked to create an organisation and two professional advertisements each (8 in total) that relate to our charity. Before hand however, I examined and researched ‘Cancer Research UK’ in depth, particularly focusing on its web site and advertising strategies used to attract people into donating. After closely looking at their adverts, it became clear that their linking theme was the prominent contrast between blue and pink font. They were also inclined to use telephone interviews to communicate with their randomly selected audience, as they did not have a set target audience like most organisations. This primary research method is seen as convenient and easy to carry out, however it is quite expensive depending on time and distance.

In order to produce successful documents we researched other advertising documents and charity organisations. Once advert we researched was produced by The Samaritans. This advert included a powerful image of just an ear, which was in extreme close up. This connotes that they are good listeners and can be an “ear” for them. This showed us how simple pictures can be so effective. Other organisation was “Motor Neurone Disease Association” included a case study which is an emotional method used to persuade readers to donate money.

Different advertising documents have different purposes. For example a poster is used to raise awareness whilst a leaflet is used to inform people, and persuade them to regularly donate money. Different purposes are better met in different places. For example a magazine advert for alcoholics in a magazine for children would be useless. We must advertise in the right places otherwise we will fail to be successful as we will not be able to market our organisation well.

Part 2

After the completion of our research, it was time to set up our own charity organisation. Initially we came up with a charity for alcoholics with a “unique selling of point” of targeting younger drinkers as well as middle aged adults.

Our next step was to create a suitable name for our organisation. We thought of “Foundation of Alcohol Abuse.” We chose this name because it sounded professional and the abbreviation, FAA sounded catchy due to the repetition of the A.

We then had to make a decision on our target audience; this was changed constantly as we initially thought we would target the younger generation 16-25 both male and females that suffered from alcohol abuse considering we were quite young ourselves. Later we discovered from our questionnaire that the vast majority of people suffering from alcohol abuse were predominantly males 16-29, so we changed it. In the socio economic table we were aiming at people classed as A, B, and C1 (upper class, middle class and lower middle class). We strategically aimed at this section of the table because they are classified as the richest. Therefore we complied several questions based around alcohol in our survey and each person handed out 5 questionnaires (20 within the group).

The main purpose of our organisations is to raise awareness about - and take action to alleviate - the problems faced by victims coping with alcohol abuse. We aim to help and support alcoholics allocated within our target audience by setting up various centres where they can come to, to discuss their problems. However, in order to implement this objective, we kindly ask the public to generously donate.

Initially, we decided to use powerful images such as a disturbing picture of cirrhosis of the liver with a slogan below stating, ‘How healthy is yours?’ as we thought this was a skilful method of communicating and building up awareness with the public. Later we decided to use an image of a man trapped within an empty bottle, this negatively suggests that that the person is trapped as an alcoholic and will be used in the billboard advertisement.

We produced 20 questionnaires and sampled 20 randomly picked people. As a group, we strategically combined multiple choice ...

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We produced 20 questionnaires and sampled 20 randomly picked people. As a group, we strategically combined multiple choice and open-ended/open, types of questionnaires because we wanted to find out our target markers opinion. These types of questions are good for gathering qualitative information.

Survey Questions

How regularly do you drink?
How much do you spend a week on alcohol?
In your opinion would you say you drink too much?
Do you think young people in general, drink too much?
Do you know of any alcohol organisations?
Do you donate money to any charity?

From the analysis of our questionnaire, we discovered that:

We would advertise our posters just outside crowded areas such as train stations.

The majority of people suffering from alcohol abuse tend to be 18-26; this meant that we would have to change our target audience to 18-26.

Victims of alcohol abuse usually spend around +£26+ a week just on alcohol.

Most people know of the follow alcohol abuse organisations, ‘British liver trust’ and ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’.

None of the respondents claimed that they donate money to one of the above charities or other alcohol organisations.

We discovered that 6/20 (30%) of people we surveyed drink 3 times a week, and one of them (5%) is aged between 18-21. We also established that last year, 750,000 people died due to liver failure as a result of alcohol abuse.

After my research, I decided to produce a t-shirt and also a web site of the FAA homepage. I chose the website, specifically because I have made previous personal web sites.

As a group, we wanted to shock the audience in order to build up public awareness and sustain interest. Using dramatic images, case studies, facts and statistics will help us to do this. Even re-wording facts to make them sound more shocking is something else we would like to implement. For example one fact is that “drunk drivers kill 3 people each year.” We can enhance and modify this by saying” drunk drivers kill innocent people year after year.” This ways it sounds more serious and shocking.

In order do use to make the entire campaign successful, we had to provide all these resources like a website, email and a phone line to the public, as the media has an important roles in our success. All these factors had to inter-relate in order for it to be perceived as a conceivable and successful campaign. The more levels of communication we had, the more chance people have of contacting us and donating, of which is an indispensable feature of any successful charity. Here is a brief description of the different documents my group intend to produce:

Envelope that includes a letter and brochure (Alam)

This advertisement will be sent to those who have requested more information about donating.

T-Shirt

This T-shirt aims to create awareness and promote our charity

Website

This website will give people a chance to learn more about our charity organisation.

Billboard

In a giant poster like format, this will promote our charity with the use of images and persuasive text.

Magazine Advert

This advertisement will promote our charity in a magazine.

Leaflet

This leaflet will be given out in several places such as on notice boards at the doctors

A Poster

This poster will be advertised in public places including near train stations.

Part 3 Logo

The outline of the logo itself looks quite similar to a stop sign as it is segmented into 3 orange strips with 4 blue images of various types of alcohol overlapping. Both the bright orange and sea blue colours contrast, and this puts emphasis on the alcohol images, which makes the entire logo look more eye catching and prominent. Below the logo, lies the name of our organisation-‘Foundation of Alcohol Abuse’ in a sea blue colour (same colour as alcohol images) which looks effective in relation to the orange strips. We used an Arial typed font for the charity name essentially because it is simple and gets straight to the point.

Slogan

First we had two slogans that related to our organisation, these were ‘Sink That Drink’ and also the abbreviation ‘WKD’ in an acrostic layout with the definition, ‘We Kure Drinkers beside it. WKD is already a well-acknowledged alcoholic drink and therefore we ultimately decided to stick with just ‘Sink That Drink’. This will be used in billboard advertisements with an image of a sink in the center and alcohol bottles pouring out its contents beside it.

Colour

We have used colour as little as possible, because we wanted to put emphasis on our linking colours that reflect our organisation (bright orange and blue). The logo itself will be positioned upon a white background, because the colour white connotes a sense of cleanliness and freedom and prior to this, our charity aims to break the alcohol addiction for people.

Website Advertisement

I created the homepage of the FAA website using ‘Microsoft Front Page 2000’. It is mainly white, and the linking colours (both orange and blue) are evident in the navigational bar whereby the buttons are blue and the entire background is orange. I chose these colours because not only does it relate to the whole structure of the organisation (other advertisements) but also because it is amazingly distinctive and eye catching.

I selected the ‘new’ tool in order to get the frames, which separated the main text from the links on the left hand side. I then changed the background of the links frame by clicking on the ‘format’ tool. I wanted the colour to blend in with the logo so I decided to fill it in an orange contrast which would leave the main, central page completely white which would seemingly connote a fresh, friendly theme.

It is suitable for the target audience essentially as it has all relevant information associated with alcohol problems and is easy accessible as its URL is . We have also composed a related e-mail address ([email protected]), which lies next to the phone number. I have used Times New Roman as the font style/typeface in a blue colour, dominantly because it is a formal and informative website and above all because Times New Roman is constantly used in formal media sources. The use of italic and bold fonts have been implemented to amplify certain aspects of the website itself. The white background connotes a feel of cleanliness and so it symbolises the future for people who break the alcohol addiction.

The FAA logo is positioned central at the top of the page with three explicit and clear links above. Below this, I have inserted some general information about our organisation, its aims, the site map and also the ‘Drink Line’ phone number ‘if you are worried about yourself or someone else’s drinking in the UK’. We strategically composed the phone number 0800 2546465 because the last 7 digits make up the word ALCOHOL on a mobile phone. This would make it memorable to victim of alcohol abuse.

It was impossible to print this advertisement off as it was seen on screen because web sites are strictly for viewing and the frame composition looked completely different when I printed the final product. Therefore in order to successfully view this advertisement in a larger format, I had to use the ‘Print Screen’ key to copy and paste the homepage design into another program and then consequently blow up the final advertisement into a desirable size.

T-Shirt Advertisement

I created this T-shirt advertisement with vinyl iron-on, which is simply a material of which you design on, cut out and consequently iron on to a fabric.

I had several ideas I wanted to use for the T-shirt advertisements. The first concept I had- was to insert the image of the man trapped within the empty bottle on the front with text above, stating ‘Can You Control It’ and below the image, text implying ‘Or Does it Control You’. The second idea was to merely insert a glass filled with alcohol in the middle and a tempted hand above, with the logo on the back.

The final T-shirt is incredibly simple and appeals to our target audience. The FAA logo is in the center and looks prominent due to the contrasting colours of blue and orange printed onto a navy t-shirt. This contrast is very effective and seemingly relates to the other advertisements and as a result this enables the public to observe each advert and notice that they are related.

Comparing with “Real” Charities

I chose to research the organisation, ‘Cancer Research UK’ as it was a well-established charity. I was sent an information pack regarding the charities unique history and how they improve the outlook for patients who develop cancer.

There were several leaflets incorporated, each one corresponding to the type of cancer they have been diagnosed with. The leaflets were remarkably simple with a lack of images, however they were still successful in grabbing the attention of the reader.

The majority of leaflets had a blue background, therefore I presumed that this highlighted the seriousness of the charity and so I made a decision in making this colour as part of our corporate logo. ‘Cancer Research UK’ uses powerful images such as the loving bond between couples in order to gradually build up public awareness. We also used powerful images. These played a significant role in our charity because they were negative, conveying the victim’s problems as a result to alcohol abuse.

Part 4

In conclusion, it can be argued that our campaign works really well together primarily as all 8 advertisements are related due to our linking theme. The prominent colours enable the public to observe each advert and notice that they are related in some way.

I have learnt that I need to improve my skills in the field of IT with regard to Web designing. I felt that the homepage of the FAA was a success in meeting the original brief however, I would have liked to study other designing software so I could import new designs to make the website look more modern and appealing.

If I had the opportunity, I would make several T-shirt advertisements, all with a different image and caption (refer to initial ideas) because I had several ideas that I wanted to implement. I was happy with the advertisements produced as a whole. They all adequate and inter-relate and if this was a real charity then they would have been displayed in the appropriate places e.g. above public places such as near the underground stations where the billboard/posters can be regularly seen.

We encountered several difficulties in working as a group. In order to obtain the best possible grade we had to rely on each other to produce adequate advertisements and to have them finished before the imminent deadline. We managed to overcome these by meeting up several times outside school as this also helped us to make the advertisements inter-relate due to our linking theme.

I would have also changed the way we conducted our primary research because we encountered some non-response and data collection errors through the questionnaires. Some respondents gave answers that he or she thinks the researcher wants to hear; hence some respondents deliberately gave the wrong answer.

In this campaign we managed to create advertisements for raising awareness, for appealing to donators and for targeting alcoholics themselves. Therefore we designed sufficient advertisements to make our campaign successful. Further research on existing adverts, however, might have helped our advertisements to create more influence.

We also missed out indispensable elements of a conventional charity. On both Emmanuel’s advertisements, he forgot to place a registered charity number and all charities have this placed at the bottom or along side their adverts in an inconspicuous print. From our research we have discovered that these come in various forms such as, Registered Charity No. 220782, Reg Charity No. 220782, Charity Reg. 220782 and Reg. No. 220783.

I feel more group discussion would have helped produce more effective advertisements for my entire team as we could have had more time to share ideas on each others work and also give feedback to one another. I do feel as we have achieved our goal and that our charity campaign would have been successful. Although, further research on existing adverts may also help influence our advertisements in the long run.