Wrapper photoshop skills

I already had some practice at making a chocolate bar wrapper but I had to develop my skills on photoshop. The creation of the chocolate bar wrapper helped me to identify the style and appealing aesthetic qualities I need to put across in my adverts. 

I started the design by drawing the outline for a rectangular wrapper, in pencil, that would be folded down the middle. I then used a scanner to surn the paper drawing into a .jpeg file which was then opened in photoshop CS6.  

On the same layer as the scanned in outline, I used the pen tool to set a pathway around each letter of the 'Honey's' logo and then filled in the stroke path by right-clicking then selecting the brush tool. The brush size was too thick at first so I made it smaller so that the black outline of each letter looked less over-bearing. I also used the pen tool in the same way to put a black outline around the sides of the wrapper to make it look bold and pristine. I used the quick selection tool and highlighted all the unwanted space then deleted it to that it was left blank.

After taking a picture of honey on my phone and then putting it on the computer, I made a new layer on the same document and pasted the honey image  into this layer. This layer would be behind the initial layer so that the honey can be seen behind the black outlines. I used the smudge tool to make the honey look more like it is flowing and fluid. The orange and yellow hues are eye-catching.

To make the whole design feel more honey based I made another new layer and pasted a picture of a hexagon so that I could make the background seem like a honeycomb. Using the free transform tool I rotated the pentagon to a more appealing angle. I had to copy, paste and align each hexagon to get the effect of a hoeycomb. I chose to make it white becuase orange and white seems to be an alluring yet underused combination.

The hexagons appeard behind the black outline layer but in front of the honey layer so I had to select the hexagon layer at the same time as keeping all three layers on so that I could use the rubber tool to get rid of the white hexagons which were inside of the logo. This was done to make the logo stand out since it kept only the oranges and yellows of the honey which also gives it the effect of looking like it is in front of the rest of the wrapper design.

The overall design is original in that therearen't really any commercial brand honey flavoured  chocolate bars in the UK which takes advantage of the gap in the market and so the design of the orange and white will make full use of the appeal of the honey flavour by having the entire design focus of the honey aspect. I can develop this plain wrapper design further by adding logos, information and nutritional information on the other side. I plan to show the wrapper in the shape of a chocolate bar in the adverts so the creation of the wrapper was necessary; even more so with the fact that it is a new product and so consumers will have no idea what to look out for if it is not shown to them.

Ebay stop-motion viral advert

Media Regulation Research

In the UK, all broadcasting adverts have to adhere to the Code Of Broadcast Advertising which was created by the ASA ( the independent regulator of advertising across all media within the UK). 

Advertisers must consider the rules of the code  when making a broadcast advert to be aired in the UK and comply to the code's rules or else the advert broadcast cannot be shown to the general public. The rules cover various issues such as privacy and adverts on child focused channels and stations.  

 

I cannot, for instance, put misleading information into the radio advert or television adverts that I will be making. It is considered highly unfair to consumers and an audience to misrepresent the the subject f the advert as well as inaccurately inform the viewer about the aspects of the subject of the advertisement. I would not, for example, be able to imply that the new chocolate bar that I am advertising will decrease blood pressure levels when eaten when in reality it can actually increase blood pressure.

The advertising codes have been set out to ensure that advertising does not mislead harm or offend anyone. Advertisements must also be socially responsible and must be prepared in line with the principles of fair competition.  These principles are applied throughout every type of advertising not matter what it is.

Furthermore depending on the product being advertised  there are specific rules for certain products and marketing techniques. For example, rules for alcoholic drinks, health and beauty claims, children, medicines, financial products, environmental claims, gambling, direct marketing and prize promotions.

  

The guidelines that the ASA set must be followed to the fullest as each advert must be verified before being allowed to be broad. This is why my television adverts and my radio advert (which has it's own specific guidelines) will stay in line with the rules of the Code Of Broadcast Advertising. Since adhering to regulations of advertisements is also a convention my adverts will follow the rules otherwise they would not be realistic or effective to the viewer.

Snickers radio advert

Textual analysis of ebay stop-motion viral advert

This advert has used over 1000 photos and put them together smoothly through the editing. It appears that quite a few of the photos may have been manipulated on a photo editing software which improves the overall quality of the stop-motion movement. Even though the photos are shown in a smooth sequence the audience can notice  most cuts to the next image; for this video, the stop-start movement adds to the quirky inventiveness of the advert. The appeal of stop-motion is the focus on fantasy rather than reality so, with the picture by picture movement,  a tennis ball can appear to come out of a page. Since the photos are edited to seem animated the creator can have a lot more happen than if they were filming  which gives the video a sense of  being a cartoon in real life. The stop-motion movement is interesting and creative with what is done with it.

The only sound in the advert is the non-diegetic music. It is whimsical and has a steady rhythm which compliments the different items in the advert as well as the movement. The acoustic guitar suggests a mellow mood and the voice of the female singer has a soft tone and a high pitch thus  giveing the advert a playful and fun undertone. The song isn't very complex which is in cooperation with the simplicity of the white colour.

 There is not as much emphasis on the camera angle and framing since each of the pictures make a continuous sequence of different photo shots. However, when a shirt seems to be pulled out of the page there is a fast zoom out so the whole shirt can be seen as well as the table being worked on and the sheet of paper made to look like the ebay website. This angle highlights the almost instant delivery aspect of the website since the shirt just pops out of the page and the quickness of the zoom-out tells the audience that the delivery service is very quick. The continuous aerial shot of the page shows the whole drawn and animated website indicating that the website is accessible and easy to use.

A lot of colour is displayed by the props in contrast to the simplicity of the white paper backgrond. This is let's the audience know that the website is very straightforward and that you can bring colour to your life by buying items online easily and having them delivered quickly but also being able to sell items easily as shown by the small house sinking into the page. The movement of the drawings on the page are fluid and yet messy at times  which makes it appealing to watch and directs the user to expect the website to be innovative like the advert.


The slogan 'shopping worth talking about' hints at the idea of spreading the word p others about the website to get the viewer to promote the website themselves since the website's creative and innovative functions are meant to be 'worth' visiting and speaking about. This has seemed to be successful as the advert went viral on the internet.

This advert is effective because overall because of the creative stop-motion and use of pros going in and out of the page as well as the hand drawn website. This makes the user feel as if it is so responsive and simple to use that they could have designed the website themselves.

Stop Motion ad by guiness

This video is an example of stop motion which I plan to use in one of my adevrts, it is effective because it plays on the idea that the creaton of the advert is related to the slogan of 'good things come to those who wait' since stop motion requires patience and  alot of time deicated to creating the pictures. The fluid movement of the hands is also quit captivating . The use of monochrome also adds a feeling of simplicity and gives the viewer and idea that the product g5ves them what they expect, an alcoholic beverage.

Overview of advert studies

Overview Of  Advert Studies

Creative television adverts 'make us more susceptible to sales messages'

There was a study that challenges the assumption that advertisements with lots of emotional content encourage viewers to look at them more closely.
In fact, we are more likely to scrutinise fact-based adverts so we can ''counter-argue'' what we are being told, the study by the University of Bath claims.
The likeable, entertainment-based ads that bring our guard down make viewers more relaxed and suggestible to the pitch
The team in the study used an eye-tracking device to measure the real-time attention paid to a range of adverts with different levels of emotional content.
The adverts were embedded in an episode of the sitcom Frasier and participants were unaware that advertising was the subject of the research.
Results showed that viewers paid less attention to likeable, creative adverts, and more attention to factual information-giving adverts, even when they did not like them.
Dr. Heath, from the university's School of Management, said: ''There has been a lot of research which shows that creative TV ads are more effective than those which simply deliver information, and it has always been assumed that it is because viewers pay more attention to them.
He went on to say that ''In a relaxed situation like TV watching, attention tends to be used mainly as a defense mechanism. If an ad bombards us with new information, our natural response is to pay attention so we can counter-argue what it is telling us. On the other hand, if we feel we like and enjoy an ad, we tend to be more trustful of it and therefore we don't feel we need to pay too much attention to it. The sting in the tail is that by paying less attention, we are less able to counter-argue what the ad is communicating. In effect we let our guard down and leave ourselves more open to the advertiser's message.”
This study suggests that an advert that is more informational may push the viewer to counter argue the statements it males and thus cause the audience to have a negative view of the product or service whereas creative adverts that an audience pays less attention to will not cause this to happen and so it is more likely for the viewer to identify the product or service positively which increases the chance of their purchase.

 Slogan Effectiveness Study

A slogan is a form of verbal logo. It usually appears just beneath or beside the brand name or logo. A slogan sums up what a product stands for, its specialty, the benefits, its marketing position, and its commitment. It is especially useful to reinforce a product’s identity. A slogan can prove to be more powerful than a logo. People can remember and recite your slogan while they are unlikely to doodle a logo. It is more important for a slogan to clearly state what you are about than to be clever, but if you can accomplish both, all the better. Slogans have two basic purposes: to provide continuity to a series of ads in a campaign and to reduce an advertising message strategy to a brief, repeatable, and memorable positioning. Adverts are known for using imperatives, if a company tells it’s consumers what it wants them to do it is more likely that they do it since there is a sense of command and urgency in the core authoritative tone which signals the viewer to obey and spend their money on the ‘ever so wonderful’ product or service.

The slogan should be used everywhere. Think of it as being attached to the product’s name like a shadow.

An advertising slogan is usually epigrammatic in nature. It helps to make the advert more impressive and memorable.

Slogans work at different levels; at a phonological level there can be a use of rhyme and rhyming with the brand name. At a lexical level the can be a use of coined words, the use of ‘every’ or ‘always’ and there can be the use of ‘no’ and ‘none’. At a syntactic level there can be a use of short and simple sentence, use of tense and use of questions. At a semantic level there can be a use of semantic ambiguity and of puns. There needs to be a combination of these different ideas for an advert to be successful

Number of words in a slogan	Number of adverts using a slogan
1	1
2	7
3	25
4	33
5	12
6	14
7	3
8	5
9	2
13	1

Advert slogans should be neat, simple, original, strategic and memorable. After a study of 103 ad slogans of large to medium sized companies in recent years, here are some summarised pieces information. The reason for choosing large to medium sized companies is that good ad slogans generally come from them and they can represent the trend in ad slogans.

From this chart we can see that three-worded slogans and four-worded slogans are the most favoured in the creation of a slogan and five or six worded slogans are also widely used. Two worded and eight worded slogans still occupy a share but the number of other length slogans decreased dramatically. The longest ad slogan in study has 13 words which is a rare case, because it is too lengthy, which makes it hard to remember. One worded slogans cannot express fully the rich and multi-layered meaning that a slogan wants to convey. Correspondingly, the reason why the eight worded slogans are preferred than the seven worded ones is because the former generally uses a parallel or contrasted structure, so for each small sentence of the structure the length is just four words which is the most preferred length. The average length of an ad slogan is 4.447 words. It is the trend for the slogan to be short, about 2 to 6 words long.

 

 

The Methodology:

There has been a research study comprised of a number of stages. The first stage was qualitative. Groups of viewers were interviewed about different types of TV content and their relationship to that content. They were also questioned at length about several, live TV sponsorships and television sponsorship overall. An online quantitative survey was then used to assess 1,600 respondents’ attitudes to a number of brands and live sponsorships, focussing in particular on their attitudes to brands, their awareness, how the sponsorships related to the advertisers and the programmes. The perceptions of both the programme and the sponsor were examined to see how closely the two were aligned and if any transfer of personalities had occurred. A wide range of sponsoring brands and categories were included in the study including Domino’s and The Simpsons, Toyotal Aygo and T4, Loose Women and Maltesers, Wrigleys and Hollyoaks, Bombadier English Bitter and Al Murray’s Happy Hour, Pedigree and Dog Rescue, and Comparethemarket.com and Channel 4 Drama. Next we conducted a lab-test to examine how the sponsorship bumpers, and particularly the creativity of the bumpers, worked in relation to standard spot advertising.
Finally, a relatively new technique, Implicit Attitude Testing (IAT), was employed to test how sponsorships affected respondents on a sub-conscious level.   The technique is known as ‘Blink’ and helps reveal the strength of automatic association we have between concepts that we are unable to reveal on a conscious, rational level.   In this case, it pitched competing brands against one another to assess how they performed against several key measures.  It was ideal for assessing how sponsorships had shaped implicit associations of brands that would usually be unreachable through more cognitive based research methods.  

The Results:

1) Sponsorship works most effectively on the implicit/emotional mind

Perhaps the most fundamental finding is that sponsorship has a far more profound effect on the emotional, implicit mind than on the rational/conscious mind.  This is unsurprising when you consider the shorter time-lengths of sponsorship messages. The lab test confirmed that sponsorship bumpers do not convey significant levels of brand information or instil particularly high levels of emotion in the viewer even when they are creatively linked to the programme and placed within the right context. Instead their power comes from the association made between the sponsor and the programme (thus making it more difficult to track).  
The qualitative work confirmed this.  Sponsorship is very much an accepted part of the television landscape.  Overall, viewers appreciate sponsorship’s role as ‘break punctuation’ and have a more positive view of sponsorship than of spot advertising.  Spot ads are viewed as a ‘harder sell’ whereas in many cases, sponsorship is seen as divorced from the ad break – many respondents failed to distinguish it from the programme and felt it acted as a marker and set the tone for the coming programme.

2) The viewer’s relationship with the programme is key

The stronger the viewer’s relationship is with a programme, the more effective sponsorship is in driving positive emotions towards the brand.   Fans of programmes were more likely to like the sponsor of their favourite programmes than less involved viewers. Intention to purchase increased by up to 9% for fans (4% on average), brand favourability rose by up to 8.5% (4% on average) and how ‘for-me’ respondents perceived the sponsors to be rose by up to 12% (5% on average).
Unsurprisingly, the way that advertiser entered into the programme-viewer relationship was an integral part of the sponsorships’ success.

Bumpers need to facilitate the relationship between the brand and programme

The best results come about when the sponsorship bumpers successfully introduced the brand into the emotional relationship that the viewer had with their programme. Where there was a more of an obvious link between a sponsorship bumper’s creative content and the programme content, the brand performed better across all the key measures.  Likewise, when there was a more obvious link between the brand itself and the programme, the brand performed better. If this link was not as obvious, then the sponsorship creative needed to work harder to establish the link or the sponsorship needed time and repetition in order to embed in viewers’ minds.

Sponsorship shouldn’t be measured and appreciated in the same way as spot advertising

Given that sponsorship works through its association with the programme and that the effects are felt most strongly on the emotional and implicit mind, then tradition explicit, recall-based methods of evaluation are destined to fall short of the mark. For this reason, the value of sponsorship could be slipping below the measurement radar and perhaps most importantly, advertisers could be failing to optimise the impact of their investment. 

Summary

In summary, Thinkbox’s work with Duckfoot demonstrated what many suspected – that sponsorship has a far greater impact on our implicit mind and emotions that on our rationale and consciousness. Sponsorship can affect how viewers feel about brands, how relevant they perceive them to be, their likelihood to buy and ultimately it grants a degree of stature and legitimacy to brands in a way that only television can.   Sponsorships work harder over the long-term, particularly where the ‘fit’ between the programme and brand is less obvious. But ultimately, new or old, the relationship between the viewer, the brand and the programme is crucial and the sponsorship bumper is the key component in facilitating and maintaining the relationship between the three facets.   When these elements harmonise, the impact on the brand can be significant.