TV Advertisement Evaluation

The Brief
For this advertising assignment, we were given the task of rebranding a Unilever
product for a new audience. This involved extensive individual research into the Unilever
brand and its many products, determining the audience that already exists for them. We
were put into groups based on the products we had chosen, with Reuben, Connor and I
having all chosen popular tea brands: PG Tips and Lyons Tea. This made settling on PG Tips
as our product very easy, especially as Lyons is rarely available in England.
We agreed that the current target audience of our product, PG Tips, was a
demographic of people between lower middle class and working classes and a
psychographic of mainstreamers. This is due to the humorous style and typical working class
household the existing adverts are set in which eliminates the upper and middle classes. For
this reason, we chose to attempt to rebrand the product to appeal to these upper classes in
order to widen the audience range; according to BARB viewing figures there are nearly 5
million more people who watch TV in the ABC demographics than the DEF demographic.

Feedback
To gather feedback about the advert, I created a quick and easy survey online using
the Survey Monkey website. To help get the survey noticed, I tweeted the link several times
and emailed it to friends, family and classmates. You can view the results in the embedded
slideshow below this embedded document. Unfortunately, despite many tweets and emails
only 14 people answered the survey, which I realise is by no means an accurate
representation for the audience of our advert.
The overall response to the advert was positive, with 13 people saying they enjoyed
it on the whole. Similarly, a majority of people said they thought the advert was appropriate
for the product and they would buy the product based on the advert. The responses
regarding audience mainly appear to say it is gender neutral, which is what he had hoped in
order to increase the audience size, but there is confusion about the intended age range. As
a general assumption, ABC demographics would include people between 35 and 50. The
survey results display an equal divide for 35-50 and 20-34, with some even concluding it was
more suitable for the 13-19 age group!
The suggested improvements vary slightly, although many commented on the
quality of dialogue and sound, which I would agree is a big issue for the advert. Another
common concern was the location of the advert not being suitable, which again I completely
agree with. A few mentioned the camerawork, others mentioning transitions between shots
and one or two commenting on the acting skills as well.

Reflection on the Product

Compared to my original intentions for the advert, I do not think the finished
product is quite what I had wanted. To begin with, I do not think we homed in enough with
appealing to our new target audience for the rebranded product, as pointed out above. The
intended audience, of upper classes and succeeders were not accurately represented by the
set of the film obviously being a small caf. Although this was out of our control due to four
alternatively preferred restaurants refusing to allow us to film in their premises; we had to
use whatever we could get in the end. It seems that the feedback received from the survey
agrees with this, with many people being confused about the intended audience. This was
agreed with by peer and teacher feedback and because of this I would conclude that the
advert does not appropriately sell the product.
I am personally unhappy with several technical aspects of the advert. The
camerawork, whilst mostly following our storyboard, comes across on screen as being quite
amateur. This included some moments where the camera was very shaky, and in some
shots can even be seen in the mirror. With a lack of available audio equipment, we were
depending on the audio picked up by the camera itself; when we reviewed the footage at
the start of the editing process it became apparent that the audio was fairly poor. Both of
these concerns of mine were picked up on by feedback from the survey.
If we could re-make the advert I would begin with finding a better location, as this
would drastically improve the quality of the advert. I would also then put a call out for
extras to be in the background all smartly dressed and drinking the product - to assist the
impression given by the ambience audio track we used. If we still lacked audio equipment I
would dub over the dialogue in the editing process to improve it immediately.
Despite the changed I would make, I think we did a good job at editing our existing
advert. In my opinion it has a good pace, and some of the worst shots we found time to
rectify by removing shaky movements of the camera and boosting the audio. I am
particularly proud of the work we carried out adding steam effects to the cup and teapot to
make the scene look more realistic. In hindsight, some of this time could have been better
used elsewhere but overall I am happy with how well we stuck to the storyboard and the
script, and stand by the fact it was a good concept for an advertisement even if it wasnt
carried out with a professional look.
Our advert does comply with the ASA and BCAP guidelines because it does not
mislead the viewer or cause offence or harm. Specifically, our advert does not feature any of
the key concerns within advertisements such as political and controversial matters, children,
medicines, religion, homeworking schemes or pornography. The product we are attempting
to sell is not prohibited from advertisements (examples of which include breath testing
devices, products associated with gambling, tobacco, guns and prostitution).

advertisements should not mislead or cause serious or widespread offence or

harm, especially to children or the vulnerable.[1]
The roles and tasks I took on for this project were, in many aspects, the opposite of
what I would have wanted to do but it was nevertheless an interesting and insightful project
thanks to this. My involvement began by coming up with the whole concept of the
rebranded product and the advert. When it came to the day of shooting the film, I was
unusually in front of the camera (certainly something else I would change if we shot the film
again!) and had no involvement at all with filming, checking the storyboard or checking for
continuity. Additionally, when it came to editing I played quite a large role in cutting up the
parts of the film and condensing the whole advert down to an appropriate length despite
having a self-confessed terrible understanding of the editing software, Premiere Pro. I also
sourced the music and ambience online, and ensured they were appropriately credited. To
conclude I think I still had an effective role in the project as a whole, but wish I had
participated more on the day of shooting.

Sources
[1] BCAP Code: www.cap.org.uk/Advertising-Codes/Broadcast.aspx