Evaluation of my Pepsi Max advert. I wanted to choose a product that appeals to me, something that I personally use; however I could not choose between a few products which were: Lynx Spray and Pepsi Max. To help me choose, we had class discussions and idea generation activities about various product advertising strategies. The main strategy that intrigued me at this point was ‘Absurd’ ideas. I used a Morphological Matrix to break down my product’s hoping combinations would suggest possible features and benefits as well as ideas and slogans. My first idea was to re-create the scene with Jesus and his 12 disciples, but replace bread and wine with just Pepsi Max, relating to the idea of Absurdity and humour. I also had this idea of all of these characters to have a huge burping competition from drinking Pepsi Max, simply due to its capacity to make you belch. I concluded that using reference to Jesus was a bit too absurd and may offend some of my mainstream target audience, as well as possibly contravening ASA’s advertisement code of conduct which would result in my ad hardly appearing on TV due to its inappropriate content. However, I really liked the idea of using burps in my advert as a persuasive strategy via Inversion and Humour. I looked for inspiration from previous official Lynx and Pepsi Max adverts and fell in love with the Pepsi Max adverts as they all made me laugh and were really unique. I thought I had potentially found a gap in the marketplace for advertising Pepsi Max as I did not come across any adverts using belching/burping suggesting my idea was unique, which may create new interest in the product. I found the Lynx adverts to be too repetitive and was not inspired so from this point onwards it was clear to me that Pepsi Max was my desired product. I then continued researching the product, using a SWOT analysis to help me think about the possible problems and strengths of the product as a way of prompting advertising ideas. The biggest strength was the reputation of the brand name and the marketplace available for the product, however the biggest threat was its rival brand; Coke Zero. I found existing quantitative research favoured coke, which then triggered me conducting my own primary research on the two drinks. I brought samples of both drinks into my media class in plastic containers hiding the identity of the drink, used a small sample of participants covering both genders and three age ranges, representing the wide fizzy drink audience range in a microcosm, which projected to a bigger scale would illustrate how successful the product will be with these, desired audiences. My method of stratified sampling is a standard industry approach to conducting such research. Overall after collecting the results for both drinks, Pepsi Max got the higher score in my burp test. I now wanted to use Pepsi Max as my product as highlighted by my target audience. (Please check my presentation for detailed information and statistics from my primary research.) Whilst following the ASA/BCAP rules of advertising soft drinks to young children I came up with a few initial ideas and back up ideas just in case feasibility precluded the desired ‘belching’ one. The first idea was creating a calorie character, as Pepsi Max is only one calorie. I thought of giving this character a melancholy attitude, as it is the only calorie and therefore has no friends and is lost in isolation utilising humour, aversion and our desire to conform to identity with others to appeal to a mainstream class E-B target audience. I did not choose this initial idea due to the feasibility issue given to learn the necessary CGI skills which I did not have. It also did not help that I physically did not know what a calorie looked like and was finding it hard to imagine. After
further research I also found out that an idea like this has been previously banned as Pepsi Max did a similar version however this calorie was extremely suicidal, rather just isolated which is not suitable for TV as I felt the client would probably find it unsuitable. Another initial idea was a huge Pepsi chase, where two characters one male, one female, go through a dramatic action movie style chase to get this last can of Pepsi Max, and a catharsis is achieved to represent how good the drink is. However these were only back up plans for if my first main plan did not work out. Ultimately I continued proceeding with advertising Pepsi Max via the burping idea using humour + inversion appealing to E to C2 mainstreamers mostly, though some young soc Bs might find it amusing. The burping can potentially make anyone laugh despite age. The crudeness of the comedy also attracts a larger male target audience as Pepsi Max demographics mainly attract females due to the low calorie nature of the drink. My primary research also illustrated that females preferred the drink, which is why I think this idea will increase the male target audience for Pepsi Max. Although I will attempt to make it appeal to all mainstreamers. The way of achieving this I thought was breaking down the advert in 3 stages, which include different scenes for different audiences. For example, my main idea was to have one scene of a teenager and an elderly person to represent the range of ages, which I am targeting; I will also use another two females using sex appeal to further attract males, but limit the nature of it so it is still suitable for minors. The last scene was going to include two children playing about in a park, reinforcing physical activity and joy in sharing Pepsi Max as well as highlighting how this one calorie drink can help address the national concern regarding childhood obesity. These 3 scenes in combination targets all mainstream audiences, as well as stepping into human and national concerns. Throughout the scenes smiling and socialization is going to be emphasized to represent Pepsi Max as a sociable, happy drink for sharing, which would also make some people purchase the drink fit in socially. This method I thought would be very effective as it covers my entire mainstream target audience in an effective but simplistic way through casting the common bands of the product and humour. Organized, effective and well-structured pre production planning was mandatory in this advertisement as I had a range of scenes to shoot multiple actors to work with. Finding actors to fit the role was challenging however I found them eventually and got them to sign the relevant consent forms for me to be able to use the footage. The main pre production plan that helped ease the day of my filming for me was the shooting scripts, however I thought that just a shooting script was not enough, so I went the extra mile by colour coding and highlighting all the shots which were going to be repeated in a structure, which allowed me to shoot all of the shots in one angle at once without having to reposition the camera. It did make narrative confusing for others as I was skipping between scenes. However, it allowed me to work effectively with the short time I had with my actors. The extreme weather conditions around the time I was filming caused some continuity issues; snowfall was on and off during the shoot. It was vital that I keep all the background scenery in my scenes without any signs of snow, as when linking three scenes together I could not afford to have some scenes with snow and some without. Due to issues like this I created a contingency plan incase there were any changes that were not planned during the preproduction process, any changes I decided to make last minute were written on their shooting scripts.
Production days were extremely stressful as my actors reliability on the days of the shoot were not exactly professional, which delayed the organized time we were meant to use to shoot. However for the short time I had to film I think it went very well, because of my pre production planning. I was really impressed with getting some scenes that were hard to shoot first try under so much pressure, such as panning the camera whilst changing the depth of field from shallow to full and some of the graphic matches. However I spent countless hours preparing and planning exactly how the angles would be executed because I had a feeling I would be put under last minute pressure given my cast were not professionals. Between days of the shoots I kept uploading the footage to my computer at home and pictured how the edit would look, whilst recording this on the edit decision list and footage log. I filmed multiple angles of the same shot supported by my colour coded shooting script. Due to my actors finding it hard to perform well on camera and under pressure, in combination with the weather and the limited filming time did mean I needed to organize a re shoot for some pick ups due to little technical faults. It was essential the dining room scene was perfect as this was the main structure of the whole advert. I ensured the re shoot would go well by checking all variables such as clothes, scenery and props were kept exactly same as previous footage via continuity photos so my shots were fluent and as a result the re shoot was very successful. All extra desired footage filmed on this reshoot meant a total of 4 days of shooting. The post production stages of my first cut were also structured well as I had already planned the initial cut in my edit decision list. During the editing process I came to the conclusion that I did not like the length of the advert and many shots in scenes 2 and 3 of my advert felt as if they were just dragging on and did not interest me as much as when I had imagined it in my head. This ultimately put me off the whole idea of my full advert. However, I continued editing with the view of the focus groups feedback for my cut helping me decide how best to streamline my final ad. I tried to give insight into how the final advert would look during the rough cut feedback by including some of the final sound effects and the non diegetic soundtrack to the advert. I did this so the audience could appreciate the different audiences and situations and how they all link. In my first draft I was impressed by my use of depth of field in some shots as I felt as if it really advertised the product by making it stand out with regards to focus and placement. To gather some feedback of my advert I showed my media class the advert and recorded a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the content. Overall my media class concluded that the advert was so long it was possible to get a series of adverts out of this one idea which of course many companies targeting mainstream mass audiences do in order to target segments within them. They particularly did not like how the dining room scene stood out the most compared to the other scenes of the advert and advised me to cut the advert down to just one scene so its no longer than a minute. I still felt as if I did not have enough confidence to choose what scene I should keep and therefore designed a questionnaire specifically highlighting what scene stood out the most and what scene made them want to buy the product more. Questions asked specifically for age groups and gender giving a choice of closed questions to provide more
open quantitative data answers as well as qualitative on a scaled preference with text boxes for reasons to why. In conclusion from gathering the overall results from the questionnaire, 92% of target audience said that the individual shots within the ad were too long, and 100% of all responders preferred the first dining room scene with 83% of these saying the burping in combination with sound track made them laugh and enjoy the advert most and as such establish positive correlations with the product. Successfully all 100% of responders said the advert did influence them to try or buy the product. From this questionnaire it was clear to me that my target audience preferred the first dining room scene and therefore I concluded my final edit of the advert would just be the dining room scene, whilst the other scenes could suggest it was one of a series targeting segments of a mainstream mass audience. In the final edit I ensured the commercial aesthetics were near professional standard, including colour correcting in the dining scene where the sun is more visible through the curtains and editing to soundtrack to specifically fit the purpose of the screen action. I spent a lot of extra time at home on the rhythm and timing of the advert in conjunction with the soundtrack ensuring every second supports the flow of the commercial. Whilst editing my advert I realized that the content of the advert has still targeted a diverse audience as the central characters represented both and elderly years. I also emphasized the product by making the product itself the center of attention throughout the advert in terms of focus and placement, for example the panned and zoomed close up of the Pepsi Max can at the end of the advert.I trimmed down shot duration and used a split screen to combine two shots into one, trimming down the running time of the advert even more. I’ve also constantly placed the Pepsi Max logo in the screen action. I used Photoshop to access the symbol of Pepsi Max, which I then edited to create a final shot and slogan “Max it up�, to wrap up the final few seconds of the advert. I also used soundtracks and sound effects to liven up the advert, creating tension and humour. Ultimately, I think this meant I was successful with my use of the persuasive strategies of humour and inversion and the soundtrack such as the benny hill theme song was vital to achieve this. Overall I was very pleased with the final advertisement, despite the fact that most of the footage filmed was not used. I felt as if I still managed to aim this product at my audience effectively through the use of the age range of my characters cast. I was very pleased with the aesthetic qualities provided by the Canon 550D and my use of lighting in the advert really brings the screen action to life. The high definition 720P recording I think gives this advert that professional feel along with the high technical qualities and my care at using appropriate strategies for my target audience. The last minute editing on sound, colour, effects and slogans I think really appeals to my target audience, emphasizing humour and the use of inversion within my advert. Running time was appropriate and I think the fact that there are so many subtle changes in the screen action, catches the audience's attention keeping them engaged throughout the advert. Overall I think it was a very successful strategy, developed from my questionnaire which means I created an ad that actually does make people want to buy the product, which was the aim of this whole project.