Idea 1

Having though about the use of dramatic irony in our advertisement, as a group we have come up with a basic plot for the glasses advert.

Scene 1: Girl washes up paint pallets in bathroom and leaves a tube of brown paint in what looks very similar to a toothpaste tube.
Scene 2: Girl wakes up in the morning and goes to the bathroom to clean teeth, accidentally picking up the tube of paint to clean her teeth with (This is not made obvious to the audience)
Scene 3: Girl gets dressed and does her normal morning routine.
Scene 4: Girl walks out of the door, waving goodbye to her boyfriend and smiles. At this point it is revealed to the audience that she has brown paint on her teeth.
Scene 5: The girl walks off oblivious of the paint before her boyfriend can tell her about the paint.
Scene 6: The slogan similar to ' Should've gone to Specsavers appears'

The paint on her teeth is not revealed until the second to last scene as the build up to this final point means it is more funny for the audience. We have chosen something as simple as paint on the teeth as adding an element of humour to physical appearances has been used a lot in advertisements and is a simple but classic joke. As this is just a basic plan it is likely that there will be a number of changes such as adding detail about shots and locations as well as slight alterations to the plot e.g using a neighbour as oppose to a boyfriend. We will find out from our target audience the type of things that make them laugh in order to have an idea about what to add into our advertisement. In Todorov's theory of narrative, he proposed the idea that most narratives start with a state of equilibrium (life is normal, happy). Normality is must be fought against and returned to a state of equilibrium. To summarise:
Equilibrium > Disequilibrium > New Equilibrium. Our advert aims to follow this narrative.  

Questionnaire

Questionnaire to finds how our advert will reach our target audience most effectively. 

-We preseneted to those involved in the questionnaire brief desciriptions of the 7 categories (Young and Rubicam) and asked them to choose which one they felt they fell under (as they would with age groups).

1.What category do you fit into out of the following?
      a.The mainstreamer
b.The reformer
c.The aspirer
d.The explorer
e.The succeeder
f.The resigned
g.The struggler

2. What Glasses would you normally buy? (please tick one of the following)

a. Designer Brands

b. Non-Designer brand

3. How much are you willing to pay for a pair of frames? (please tick one of the following)

b. Between £10 and £30

c. Between £31 and £60

d. Between £61 and £90

e. Over £90

     4. What is your most desired choice of eyewear? (taking into account prices, please tick one of the following)
        a. Eye Glasses

        b. Contact Lenses

        c. Laser eye surgery

       

    5. Ideally, what would you consider to be the best deal? (please tick one of the following)

        a. 2 for 1 on glasses
        b. One pair of glasses with free trial contact lenses for a month
        c. One pair of glasses plus free glasses for member of family under 16
        d. Other- please state

   6.  Do you base your choice of eyewear on:(please tick one of the following)
       a. Fashion
       b.Comfort
       c. Necessity

Choosing our Target Audience

Our initial idea was to use an age group for our target market and base the advert around appealing to that particular audience however we have decided against this and instead are going to use one of the categories from Young and Rubicam who devised a system of categorizing people into seven groups; The mainstream, the reformer, the aspirer, the explorer, the succeeder, the resigned and the struggler.. After having researched the seven categories and what they each represent we have decided on 'the Mainstream':

 'These are people who live in the world of the domestic
and the everyday. A daily routine is fundamental to the way they live their
lives. Their life choices are ‘we’ rather than ‘me’.
As their name implies, they are the mainstream of society.
They are the largest group of people within 4Cs across
the world. They respond to big established brands, to ‘family’
brands and to offers of value for money. Their core need in life is for security.'

From this, we can highlight a few elements which we will apply to our target market including
1. Affordable prices (perhaps also with family deals)- as value for money has been noted.
2. Fashion glasses- mainstream keep with popular current trends.
3. Our advert will relate to them- we will create a typical daily routine and lifestyle to work our 'message' around.

Reason for choice of category: they are the largest group of people within 4C's across the world (make up 40% of population) meaning we are reaching to a great number of people and therefore increasing sales because of our advert appealing to a wider audience. We have also found research that corresponds with the 'mainstream' views such as Consumer Reports National Research Centre who surveyed 92,000 eyeglass buyers and found that less than half reported that they were satisfied with the price they had paid for eyewear. Using this secondary research, we have noted the importance of price in selling our product. It is also currently a popular sales technique in the glasses market today to emphasize 'value for money' for example the 2 for 1 offer at Specsavers. As a group, we also have most knowledge on this particular category and therefore it will be most beneficial to us to choose it for our target audience.

Specsavers Research

Specsaver's advert 1:

The Specsavers advertisements are known for the use of comedy in the adverts as they can exaggerate having 'bad sight' to create a piece of comedy. Here, Specsaver's have taken a fairly common situation (an elderly couple having a rest for lunch) and incorporated a problem into the situation. This is done to add an element of humour to the audience and a benefit of using comedy in advertisements is that it is often memorable-this is priority in the advertising market. As well as the importance of focusing on our techniques such as editing and range of shots to portray a particular message, as our brief is advertisement it is important that the product is doing this as best as possible in order for us to meet the needs of our target audience. In terms of representation, showing them on a roller-coaster represents them as exciting, a positive attribute, which ensures that the target audience (elderly) are not offended. A mid shot is used to show their reactions that are ones of confusion and worry. This is then followed by extreme close-ups of the man and woman’s faces to show their fearful expressions as well as their skin looking stretched to add an element of humour and emphasise the speed that they are travelling at (speed is commonly associated with youth and energy). Two young people on the roller-coaster are filmed with a mid shot to show the contrast between young and old to show the age difference which suggests how 'young hearted' they are to overcome this roller-coaster challenge, again reinforcing to their target audience that it is a positive representation. Shots filmed of them upside down are used to create the feeling of spinning that in turn, adds an element of realism. The final shots of them on the roller-coaster being splashed by water are shown in a freeze shot to allow the audience to see their startled expressions! Very little dialogue is used, however the last clip of the man saying 'what type of cheese was that?' is to reinforce how unaware the elderly couple are of the event and is entertaining to observe the ridiculousness of the situation.

Specsavers advert 2:
Here is another Specsavers’advert using comedy however it plays more on the idea of dramatic irony as the audience are aware of what has happened much sooner than the woman herself realises. Dramatic irony can either be used to create suspense or for comedy purposes/witticism and we are planning to do the latter for our media piece. Neither of the advertisements above used a blurred effect to show the individual without the glasses' perspective, which is something we are going to consider. Shot reverse shot is used to show the man and the woman waving at each other to let the audience know that they are a couple (The flowers in the man's hand indicate that they are in a romantic relationship). The mid shot filmed from over the shoulder to show the three individuals' relationship to each other, and this is where dramatic irony is used as the audience are aware that the young woman has kissed the wrong man. A close up is then used of the man alone to show his disappointed reaction. It then returns to the mid shot of them still kissing to emphasise how long this is happening for. The two couples are finally returned to their right partners with an establishing shot to finish. A common association of wearing glasses is that they are for 'nerd's', however this representation of the woman is attractive, young and romantic(gives him a passionate kiss). This is done in order to create a desirable representation for the audience to encourage them that they too can be like 'this' if they buy 'this'. 

Change of Idea

We have chosen to remain with the initial chosen brief however we have chosen to do an advertisemnet for Glasses instead of an energy drink. Having discussed as a group the pros and cons of the energy drink advert, we decided that in practice there were many factors that were difficult to include due to our tecgnology not being as advanced as it would need to be and the inability to have a famous person in our advert which is a common sighting in energy drink adverts.
           With our new idea we can also incorporate Todorov's narrative theory as our advert will be following a similar structure of; beginning, middle, a problem and then a resolution.We will also base our advert on the genre comedy which will allow us to analyse existing comedy productions and conform or contradict to the conventions.