Assessment 3 student guidance

A3 submission housekeeping

You are to include 4 ad concepts but a maximum of 1 ad concept from any one brief. You have been

given 5 briefs this term, so you should choose your 4 strongest from among these.

Your 100-word explanation is meant to be a written “pitch” (a proactive presentation of why your

crazy, novel, creative idea will solve the advertising problem). This means it should convince your

tutors why your ad will be persuasive and successful. It should not simply attempt to describe the

contents of your ad or to explain how any symbolism should be decoded. The best way to structure

these is to 1) explain the idea behind your ad that provides an unusual or surprising way of

presenting the product/brand to the audience and why this way of presenting it will have impact; 2)

explain what creative tools you are using to increase the impact and persuasiveness of your unusual

idea, how you are applying them, and why you feel they will make the idea more persuasive.

When organizing your submission, as always, please include your name, student ID number, class

and teacher name. Then, include your 100-word explanation before/above your ad. This way, we

have an introduction to your idea before evaluating how persuasive you have been able to make

that idea.

Repeat this format for each of your 4 ads.

Include all 4 ads in the same document – with

the 100-word explanation and image of your ad on each page if possible. This should result in a 5- page document: 1 cover page and 1 page for each of the 4 ad concepts.

Creative guidance

Don’t forget that the whole purpose of creative advertising is to intrigue and involve our audience

enough that their imagination and puzzle-solving abilities are engaged enough, that they develop

their own beliefs about the product or brand that the ad is for (rather than us directly telling them

what to think, believe or do).

However, the creative idea must be based on the message outlined in

the proposition within the creative brief.

I’ll refer quite a bit here to the idea of “intrigue”:

Intrigue definition: “to interest someone a lot, especially by being strange, unusual, or mysterious”.

Intriguing your audience is very useful because it helps to involve them in your ad.

Some final tips to guide you to better achieve this, that are also the basis of the A3 assessment

criteria are:

1. Have a defamiliarized idea: this is an unusual, intriguing way of thinking about the product and or

the way the consumer interacts or thinks about the product. This is useful because novelty and

intrigue break audience habitualisation and capture the attention and the imagination of the target

audience. For example, a usual way of thinking about a car is for transportation – but an unusual

way of thinking about a car is as an object to make others jealous or to feel free (by driving fast or

using it to escape the stressful and crowded city, etc).

2. Don’t use symbolism: while you may feel clever in being able to convert a thought into a visual

analogue – a symbolic interpretation of that thought - this cleverness typically overwhelms or

confuses target audience because it becomes hard work for them to decode what you mean by the

use of that symbolic object. It is better to incorporate a summary of that thought in your headline

than to convert it into a symbol.

3. Try to create a puzzle: making your headline contradict your image creates a puzzle and engages

the imagination of your audience in solving that puzzle. If your headline is essentially saying the

same thing your image is, tweak your headline to create this contradiction.

Once you’ve created this

puzzle, you may need to also add a sub headline as a clue to help your audience solve the puzzle in a

way that leaves them thinking the idea you want them to.

But of course, make sure your puzzle is

not too difficult to solve.

4. Use headlines that imply or suggest – don’t directly tell or say: be careful of headlines that

promise, claim or tell something directly, as our cynical audience will typically just not believe a

direct claim. Indirect headlines engage the audience’s imagination enough to make them believe the

craziest things are at least possible. “This will make you attractive”, “You should stay sober”, “This

will give you confidence” etc. are examples of direct claims that should be avoided.

5. Use headlines to imply or reveal an interesting story: interesting storytelling is an effective way

to intrigue audiences. Think creatively about the characters in your ad: is there a surprising or

unusual thing they are doing/have done, that connects to the product/brand, that might intrigue the

audience. Try to imply this in your headline.

6. Make sure your idea/your ad is “on-brief”: no matter how interesting or involving your ad might

be, if it does not convey the idea required in the brief, it is a wasted effort. It is not solving the client

problem. Go back to read the proposition in the brief and make sure the idea in your ad is saying this

message in a creative way.

Finally, I suggest you show each of your ads to friends/family who do not know what the brief asked

for.

Ask them 2 questions, without introducing or describing the ad at all:

a) “What is this ad saying to you?”

b) “How does this ad make you feel”

The answers to these questions will provide you helpful feedback on whether your ad is on-brief and

has the tone/personality required in the brief.

I hope this has been helpful as you refine your ads!

James

51作业君版权所有