Wispa Advert- Evaluation

Fits the Purpose

In this unit's brief we're expected to produce a 30 second advert for a Cadbury chocolate, which could be from a; Time Out, Double Decker, Crunchie, Wispa, Terry's chocolate orange or Flake. When making the advert we must take into consideration the younger generation but not forgetting completely about the older generation too who may also like the chocolates. We're also asked to look at some old adverts of our chosen chocolate and somehow create a new message without copying it that would suit our target audience, also we needed to choose appropriate timings to air our advert, considering what channel and time our target audience will be likely to view the advert. As Cadbury is a British chocolate brand we were required to create an advert that appeal to them as they are the ones who will ultimately see the advert, I think we have done this well. 

To begin our advert was exactly 30 seconds long which is what the brief required us to do. We decided to air our advert on Channel 4 during the Simpsons mainly because during our primary research when we asked our target audience what time and channel they most watch it was those and also because we wanted to relate it to the ethos of Cadbury which is that it is a family brand and is strong on family values so the Simpsons was the perfect show for this as families watch it. When researching into old adverts of Wispa and associated products such as Galaxy bubbles and Aero we found that the way they were reaching out to their target audience is through feminist appeals and mainly using females as their main voice. We thought this isn't going to benefit our advert if we did the same because the way society is now is very different and views have changed about things such as females as sexual objects. Therefore we decided that we should reflect the ethos of happiness by having a range of children acting to promote Wispa. Also, we wanted the technique to be humorous because the younger generation are more likely to engage to it. 

The content of our advert was a boy walks into a shop and asks the shopkeeper to recommend a chocolate for him to buy, the shopkeeper then says to him Wispas is the best and after the boy buys it and takes a bite he likes it so much that he 'Chinese whispers' it to all his friends who make a long line to buy the chocolate. By casting a child and his friends, who are all living in Britain we're relating the advert to Cadbury as they're a British company. Also, the fact that the child doesn't know what chocolate to buy and the shopkeeper who is an adult recommends it, makes it relatable to adults too. To add, the rest of the children being from different background shows the society of Britain to be multicultural. The humour element of the child reacting to the sensation he gets from eating the chocolate allows the audience to think about buying the chocolate to get the same feeling as the boy.  The form of our advert is realistic and this is evident throughout through conventions such as the lighting and non-deigetic sounds such as noises from cars passing by and people talking. This helps the audience personally identify and socially interact because they may recognize an off license shop and as it is set in London shows the realistic London life. Overall, I believe that I followed the brief's instructions well and this allowed the advert to appeal to the audience in a personal way due to the similar ages, scenario and locations. 

Clarity and Communication

In terms of our pitch we planned it well in order for us to have a successful delivery and sell the brand well and cover all the important points to those who were giving us the permission to make the advert. The pitch was ordered first that we spoke briefly about each individual idea, the the actual final idea. Then we spoke about the details of the advert such as the location, conventions, cast and crew, brand identity and ethos etc. Once we said that we moved on to explaining the airing times and the channel and why we chose them, the cost of one unit and the whole advert cost. Finally, we spoke about equipment we needed in the production process and post-production. We needed the pitch to have this specific structure so that we didn't miss anything important we needed to mention, who were our class peers and our teacher. They were the only people who could judge us because they have studied the subject and our teacher specialises in it. In order to have an effective pitch we needed them to understand that if we made the advert and aired it, it would be successful. And we did succeed in doing so. Throughout our pitch we each spoke clearly and with confidence about our idea about the Wispa advert and why we made all the relevant decisions we did. For example, we mentioned that the reason why we chose to air it on Channel 4 and during The Simpsons was because our target audience suggested to us that they watch this channel and more importantly the show. We showed them that we knew what we were talking about as there were very little words on the screen and specifically when I was talking about the history of Cadbury and Wispa where I explained that it went down hill and was taken off the shelves with only images being on screen, which also shows that we planned well as it is research.  Using pictures to illustrate our ideas helped our audience visualize what we were telling them. Therefore our teacher and class peers could trust us and have confidence in what we're saying. In the feedback they gave us we answered the questions that were posed quickly and knowledgeably which assured us that they got a good impression from the pitch. Overall, the pitch was delivered well and that is what made it successful. 

Appropriateness to Audience compared with Original Intentions

I think my advert successfully appealed to it's targeted audience of a British, mainstream teenagers and young adults and still connecting to the older audience. The target audience is a 7-25, all races and ethnicities and an economic class of C-E's.  The advert is obviously set in the modern day, but could also relate to the past in some ways. The content and scenario in the advert could relate to a typical circle of friends, for instance as friends often share their experiences with each other, in this case the young boy is sharing his experience after tasting the chocolate bar.   An older audience could relate to this too because they can see that the shopkeeper who is obviously experienced in retail is recommending this particular chocolate, so they will trust his recommendation. At the point 0:19 there is a line of children wanting to buy the chocolate, this is effective  to the audience because they can see that the one boys experience has had an impact on other people's interest in the Wispa chocolate.  The older audience will also find this impressive because it shows them that this is making young children happy and excited, this is useful to them as they would want their own children to have the same thing or feel the same emotions. After completing the advert my group and I showed the advert to people from our target audience to see their response on how well we did and whether it appealed to them. This research showed me that many people enjoyed the technical aspects of the advert, like the music/sounds and editing which impacted and influenced them which means they were engaged. The humour element to the advert worked well with them too as they found it amusing how it added excitement to the scenario. Also, the fact that this was a realistic advert it was the humour in it which made it seem almost unrealistic. As humour is one of the most common ways to grab peoples attention it is a good way to successfully sell your product. Lastly, as one of Cadbury's ethos is joy we felt that we couldn't go with any other form but humour. 

 

Effectiveness of Technique

We used many techniques whilst filming, this was useful to us because it was a good way of keeping the story flowing which meant that we weren't missing anything. We recorded the same line of action twice but each time from a different angle, shot and movement. Although we only had one camera, we made sure that we filmed the shots to show continuity as we knew that it would be key when it came to editing . Also, this is important for the audience because if I had just filmed at one angle or shot type then they would have lost interest quickly. When we edited the advert each shot had to be cut down to 3-5 seconds long because we had around 19 different shots and the advert is limited to only 30 seconds so it meant that things were happening really quick and the cuts occurred quicker. To add, the fast cuts are helping to tell the story. The camera language in the advert varies to keep the target audience engaged also considering the 'MTV' era we wanted to satisfy the audience, this is done well throughout. The music we used was an effective technique because we kept it all fit for what is going on, so for example when the children were whispering to each other we put a fast pace theme song  to go with the quickened pace of the scene. This will make our target audience feel the rush and excitement of the young boy who is hurried to tell his friends all about this chocolate. This is seen at the point 0:13.  Another way we created a sense of urge for the chocolate in the advert was by having a shot-reverse-shot, when the children were queuing up to buy the chocolate. Therefore using a shot-reverse-shot is really important, especially when the scenario is set somewhere like behind and in front of a shot counter. It also keeps the audience interested and focused on what is going on. The graphics we used were red with a white border, this is because the wispa packet shows this and we need to try our best to stick to the font, colour and size of the actual product name and how it is displayed. Red has many connotations and one being , we wanted to keep the theme of happiness by making the colour red which will reflect the joy between the children. The graphics appear at the end of the advert when you see the last shot of the Wispa chocolates.

Effectiveness of Content

My advert is a humorous, realistic advert about a child who walks into a shop and is recommended a Wispa bar by the shopkeeper. He likes the taste so much that he spreads the word (Chinese whispers) to all his friends. As the advert progresses the children all queue in the shop to buy this chocolate and see just how great it is. Our thought process behind the decisions we made whilst filming was mainly because of what we wanted our target audience to think/feel and ask about when they watch the advert. For instance, we decided to choose to film in a location such as a corner shop so that our British audience can relate to it and therefore feel comfortable that they know what the place is. Another thing we ha to think about whilst filming is what each characters representation is this was important because they needed to be properly addressed so that nothing was misleading. This scenario was to show the multicultural element of the British society. This is evident in the advert where for example at the point 0:13 we see a range of children in the background, and all from different ethnicity's. The audience will learn that as a child growing up in a multicultural society you're learning about different cultures and ethnicity's. The audience may also personally identify with the scenario as they will recognize the ever so great off license other wise known as the 'corner shop' which is a typical place anywhere in Britain. 

Effectiveness of Conventions

 

During the shooting of the advert there were two main conventions used, and during the editing  two conventions were  he first one being realism. This is where the advert is genuine and realistic and reflects normal everyday life. My advert contains this convention as it is a simple plot, that works well due to the simplicity of the idea. I think one way we showed  realism was through the lighting, this is kept natural throughout which allows for the audience to feel the sense of realism as the sun is a natural source unlike artificial lights. The second convention used was a narrative, this means our advert had a storyline, this makes the advert easy to follow and delivers the message clearly. The intent of using this convention is to make the realism and narrative clash so that the audience can see that it is a typical scenario. As we planned it beforehand, it had turned out exactly as we were expecting, this enhances the social interaction between young people making them identify with the circle of friends in the advert. This will in turn spread the promotion of the advert. I find that this is sometimes what I do because when I've seen an advert on TV and I am engaged with It I usually tell my friends to watch it too. The last convention was the humour element to the advert, this is evident when the children are queuing up and they all ask for a Wispa bar, the audience will find this funny because of the dialogue used. The intent of using this convention was to make the advert more memorable so that our audience can remember it.

Impact of Work

The message we're trying to get across is that once you eat a Wispa bar, you'll feel a joyful feeling and become so excited that you'll spread it to everyone else. This is shown through the slogan (graphics) and voice over at the end. The slogan was 'Wispa..spread the joy' this is a play on words because the 'Wispa' is referring to the classic Chinese whispers and the 'spread the joy' means spreading the experience of having the chocolate. It is also a positive way of describing what has happened during the advert, because of the reference to joy. One regulation we had to consider was the Protection of Children, because there were children under the age of 16 in the advert. We needed to make sure that nothing in the advert was misleading in anyway to other children who will watch the advert. The characters representations in the advert might have been a little misleading to some viewers because for instance the shopkeeper giving free chocolates may make people ask whether we're trying to say that shopkeepers are not vigilant with their work. 

Technical Qualities
The filming and editing of our advert ran really smoothly and efficiently, we hardly came across any real issues and the advert worked effectively to reach out to our target audience. I think that there were only two issues we encountered, one being a struggle to get the children to do what we wanted but this was because they were more interested in other things that were going on. The other being that when editing we had to cut some parts off that we thought would have added something to our advert. The locations we used did create a few problems for the filming, for example when filming in the community center because of the limited space and the amount of people there it was quite difficult to move around the place and film at the same time. The shop was also a location we filmed at this also was a bit of a problem because the shop customers needed to pay for their items and we were causing some disruption. To try and prevent any more disruption we tried to work as fast as we possibly could because this would allow us to keep everyone including the shopkeeper happy. However, there were some good things which we thought worked well was the graphics, this was a similar font/size and colour to the actual Wispa writing on the packaging.this was effective because it kept it flowing as much as possible. Another technical quality that went well was the sound and music. The sound was kept non-diegetic as we only had the natural background noise of people talking, cars passing and no foley sounds added. The music was a fast pace music to fit the fast pace of the scene with the children whispering to eachother. We did have issues choosing the music because at first we chose the theme tune from the Cbeebies show 'Mister Maker' which was a problem because it is under copyright order. Because the advert was to last only 30 seconds , meant that we had to cut and trim scenes where we thought for instance there was no need for the extra time. However, this did create a slight problem for the concept of the advert, as we had to trim the last scene of the children queuing up to buy the Wispa bar.

Aesthetic Qualities 

Our advert actually turned out pretty much how we had planned to make it. We planned it to appeal to a target audience of  people  aged between 7-25, all races and ethnicities and an economic class of C-E's. The primary target audience were children-teens and the secondary target audience were adults/adolescents.  It made sense to make the cast range between the ages of 6-around 35 (shopkeeper), this is because the target audience can therefore relate and personally identify with the cast better. The location of the advert is set in a typical south London corner shop, and the streets appear to be British because of the buses going past. This keeps to the brief of this unit of appealing to a mainstream British audience. The cast were clearly from Britain or more specifically, London as the accent is evident of that. The pitch and tone of the children's voices sounds quite excited and eager to get this chocolate, this is effective because their voices can tell you a lot about their feelings, emotions and thoughts. The costumes in the advert were all casual clothing, because we're not targeting the advert to wealthy people who are used to suits and ties, but those who wear similar clothes worn by the characters in the advert. The costume can tell us about the area in which these characters live in and for the most of our target audience, they can gain personal identification from this.  The era is obviously set in the 21st century because this advert is in present tense and the narrative is not non-linear or contains flashbacks. This is important for the audience because it shows that we're promoting a chocolate in the  current time period, otherwise people wouldn't bother buying it.