TV Advertisement Evaluation

The Brief

Our project brief was to "re-position" a Unilever product, by making it desirable for a different target audience than the one it already has. Unilever is a large multi-national consumer goods company, therefore creating an extensive selection of products. We decided to re-brand Pot Noodle as we felt it had a particularly specific target audience, which is typically 18-25 year old retrosexual males. We thought it would be an interesting challenge to try and appeal Pot Noodle to an upmarket audience. 

Finished Product and Feedback

We collected peer feedback and comments about our advert by creating a survey using GoogleForms. GoogleForms is an excellent service and a great way to collect information and views on your project. By creating your own questions and answers, it provides you with the opportunity to collect the exact data you require.

I feel as though our advert was appropriately advertised in a way that would attract the attention of our target market. We were intending to aim our product towards an upper-class market, and I believe that we achieved this. Serving the Pot Noodle in a bowl immediately creates a more upper-class and sophisticated look, as usually it is made and eaten straight out of the plastic container it is bought in. We thought of different ways that our product is aimed towards it's current psychographic (YKS - young, keen and single) and wanted to use them to our advantage by attempting to do the opposite. We decided that the main factor that causes the Pot Noodle product to appeal to it's target audience is it's convenience. It is the ultimate student food, only one extra ingredient is involved (hot water) and minimal washing up afterwards as the pot can be thrown away and the fork can be washed quickly. Turning these elements on their head, we wanted the main character to use the food to impress his date, thus already associating the product with an upmarket status. Then, by taking away the packaging and serving the Pot Noodle in a bowl, it aesthetically changes the product, making it appear a classy and sophisticated choice of food. The shot of the main character sprinkling garnish on top of the noodles was a nice touch and was intended to enforce the upper-class association with the product.

Although Pot Noodle is essentially still the same product, I believe our advert successfully reaches out to a completely different demo/psychographic than the one that it's currently aimed towards. The fact that young actors were involved ensures that the current audience are still involved and shows that the rebranding isn't only specifically intended for the new audience.

Technical and Aesthetic aspects

Mise-en-scene

I feel as though the props and locations that we used were successful and appropriate for our production. Originally, we had intended to use an actual kitchen in a house, yet there were hindrances involving this as we all lived too far away from each other to travel back and forth to film, and none of us involved can drive, meaning that travelling to and from a location would use up a lot of our precious and already tight filming schedule. As a result, we decided that the college canteen could be a suitable place, but we were unfortunately also unable to film there as the staff are constantly working and there would be no available time frames that suited both parties. Although all these location problems arose, we finally had permission to use the college staff room. We decided upon an establishing shot of an apartment building to make the audience feel as though the advert is set in one of the flats in the building. We also filmed in a darkened room in the final scene to create a romantic and date-like atmosphere.
The props that we used in our production aid in the upmarket feel that we attempted to associate with our product. Specifically, the props that were used in the final shot in which the two characters are eating the Pot Noodle. We brought in our own props for filming, such as the wine glasses, cutlery etc and purchased the Pot Noodles.
I feel as though if we had the chance to film in one of our desired locations (the home kitchen or the college canteen kitchen) our advertisement would have appeared a lot more realistic and relatable to the audience. One of the downsides of filming in the staff room was that it didn't particularly feel like an actual kitchen, therefore detracting the relationship between the target market and the product. I also personally feel that if we'd been able to film our advert in a house, the date scene would have looked more relaxed, and I also believe that there would have been a lot more opportunities for different types of shots and angles. I think that the location and also a different, maybe classier choice of clothing would have been another aspect of the advert that would make the product more appealing to the upper-class market.

Camera and Editing

There are many shots in our advert, but one thing that I noticed once we had pieced all of the shots together was that there were not a variety of shot types. The advert consists almost entirely of static medium shots, apart from the establishing tilt shot of the apartment flats. I realised that the lack of shot variety may cause the audience to feel as though the advert runs too quickly.

I feel like the establishing shot was successful in associating the location of the advert to the apartment building. Without the shot, I don't think the audience would be entirely clear on where the advert is supposed to be set, and also this creates a subtle introduction to the advert, instead of beginning with the shot of the main character, which could be odd and confusing to the audience.

I feel as though we could have used a wider range of shot types, such as a tracking/dolly shot, causing smooth transitions and a better all round variety.

The editing is smooth and was relatively easy as all the transitions were cuts, apart from the shot of the main character sprinkling garnish onto the noodles. This fade in/fade out transition adds suspense and removes the audience from the suspense and causes the focus to shift from the frantic situation and solely onto the Pot Noodle.
Another element of the advert that adds to the suspense is the sound. The sound that we used throughout changes as the intensity of the situation increases or decreases, and helps to keep the audiences focus throughout.

Content Effectiveness

I believe our finished product effectively advertises the product through our storyline. The storyline attempts to rebrand an otherwise lower class/lower market product to an upper class audience. Although I believe the storyline was successful, I think a number of things let the advert as a whole down, such as the age and the costumes of the actors, and the lack of locations available to us. I firmly believe that if all of our intended resources and locations had been accessible and available to us, for example if we could have filmed in someone's kitchen or the college canteen, and if we had been able to acquire mature actors, then our advert would be extremely effective and appealing to the mature audience that we were aiming towards.

I feel as though our advert is fit for the purpose that it was intended for, which was to rebrand an existing Unilever product to a different target market. I feel that was successfully covered what was required of us in the brief. Personally, I don't feel that it looks as professional as it possibly could look, and I'm disappointed that our initial ideas for location were not achievable which I think eventually affects the final product as it doesn't look industry standard (or as close to that as we could have possibly gotten).

Most importantly, our advertisement complies with advertising regulations that include food. All of the requirements for an advert for food products can be found here - https://www.cap.org.uk/Advertising-Codes/Broadcast/CodeItem.aspx?cscid=%7B933ab0c3-ed5b-4cb7-ba39-07e337bbc0f0%7D#.WJ32qGZviM8

We never claimed that the product had any nutritional or health values that were false, as part of the BCAP code for advertisements for food states;

‘Health claim’ means any claim that states, suggests or implies that a relationship exists between a food category, a food or one of its constituents and health."

We didn't advertise a product and claim it was a different one, and we referred to this section of the BCAP code when we had finalised our idea but before filming.

Personal reflection

I believe our final product reflects our original intentions and closely follows the pre-production paperwork. We had a few initial ideas to work with, one that included a chef running out of ingredients/food to serve his customers, which we couldn't carry out as we didn't have access to the correct location. Another was to show an athletes lifestyle, of training and eating, an include a shot of the athlete eating a Pot Noodle to promote the product as part of a healthy lifestyle, but then we quickly realised that it would be false advertisement and would infringe the BCAP code. The date idea was the only idea that would be possible for us to film and would not break the BCAP code or any other TV regulatory rules.

Self Evaluation

Personally, I am not 100% satisfied with our finished product. As we had to work with what we had, the location was not accurate to the one we had intended and the actors were not the ones which we would have liked to use. If I was to repeat the task, ideally we would have used two mature actors, dressed smartly, and set the advert in a house. This way, the advert would have been more realistic, relatable and would have attracted the interest of the target audience a lot more.

I also think we could have used a larger variety of shot types to break up the advert and make it more visually diverse.

As a group, we had a chunk of our filming and production time taken away due to illness, although this couldn't have been helped I feel as though this greatly affected the level of quality of our advertisement.

As a group, we all had to take turns in every aspect of the pre production paperwork, filming and editing process. I believe that my personal involvement was to the best of my ability during the first two elements, such as filming, reshooting and playing a part within the advertisement, but not during the editing process as other members had a lot more knowledge of the software and the ways in which to edit the piece as I did. Saying this, I did learn from watching the editing process being conducted.