Learning Outcome 4

http://www.unit30advertising.blogspot.com/

Foster’s Advert Evaluation

To begin with I had to decide what product I wanted to advertise. I knew that I wanted choose a product that appeals to someone in my age range and that have existing adverts that are used effectively. After brainstorming through different products I finally decided to advertise a beer, then eventually came to the decision to advertise Foster’s. All of the current Foster’s adverts have made a beneficial impact on the sales of the product. This improvement is after they started using two humorous Australians in the TV adverts; the humour the two men create is what made me choose to advertise Foster’s. I wanted to create a similar style advert with the same type of humour but not completely copy the existing style. I also looked at other beer adverts such as Stella Artois and Guinness, however I opted not to advertise these products because of the existing style of the adverts. Stella Artois contains very suave and expensive props and features in the adverts, whilst Guinness contains expensive computer graphics. Foster’s adverts are created on a lower budget, and in my opinion are more effective.

Overall I’m happy with the outcome of my advert, I managed to create a simple advert that including the casual humour that existing adverts used. I believe the simplicity of the advert is what gives it a professional appearance. The advert only included a few different types of shots, similar to the Foster’s Good Call adverts. To gain a more professional standard I wanted to use a tripod on all of my shots. However, for some of the shots it wasn’t practical position the tripod where I wanted it and I had to hold the camera by hand. I did several takes this way so that I had a range of shots to pick from during the editing process. The shots that I decided to use in final production worked, but the shakiness of the camera is one of the factors that made my advert seem less professional. Due to budget reasons I had to improvise with techniques of lighting the set. The lights I used to begin with made the room look extremely bright and unnatural; this wasn’t the effect I wanted.

After screening my advert to a selection of people, I was then presented with plenty of feedback about all aspects of my advert. A popular part of the audience’s feedback was use of humour in my advert. Thankfully, most people found my advert funny in the context that I was aiming for. I also got lots of mixed feedback about the amount of camera angles. Some people said that there weren’t enough shot types and that it didn’t give the advert enough depth. However, some people argued that the use of few shots worked perfectly and that it gave the advert an ‘easy watch’ factor.