A2 media evaluation question 1
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1) The student created an advertising campaign for a hot dog brand called "The Dogfather" that parodied mafia films like The Godfather and Scarface. 2) Their sponsorship ad recreated a famous scene from The Godfather involving a fish, but replaced the fish with a hot dog to match their product. 3) Their radio ad directly promoted the hot dogs and featured the tagline "Dogfather hotdogs, an offer you cant refuse" to stick in the audience's mind.
A2 media evaluation question 1
- 1. A2 Media Evaluation Question 1 Pavan Singh Mangat
- 2. In My Advanced Portfolio production we created two main advertisements, a radio advert and sponsorship advert. We decided to produce an advert campaign on hot-dogs with a Mafia style parody. We decided to call our hot- dog campaign “The Dogfather”, in doing this our idea was to create an on- going campaign where all adverts are connected with each other. This was achieved by the connection of Mafia films such as Scarface and The Godfather. This also linked in with the title of the brand The Dogfather which is a parody on the film. As it was based on hot-dong, it was quite hard to find advertisements of the same topic so we concentrated on the conventions of microwave food advertisements such as Zugos, Rustlers and PotNoodle. After viewing these adverts the conventions of these type of adverts are that they feature the product in hand, they have a storyline to them and they have a voice over to the advert. In our campaign we followed some of the conventions and challenged others.
- 3. Our sponsorship advert was based on the real media text of the mafia sage; The Godfather. In this scene there is a passage of an item which contains a bullet proof vest which is wrapped around a fish. The famous line is “it’s a sicilian message, Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.” as our theme was to replicate these famous scenes but apply them to our product and brand. The setting, props and style of the advert was an important aspect and had to be as close to the original text as we could get it. Before producing the advert we looked at the Zugos Advert which is a sponsorship advert to the programme “Friend”. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8au7n25Zhk). In this advert, a male is sitting on a worktop acting as a microwave preparing the food “Zugos” for a person. This advert only lasts 11seconds. We also looked at the “Cesar” advert on Film4. This advert on the other hand features the same dog in all adverts. This is because all of the adverts follow on from each other in a consistent story. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_UMs_DIBMM)
- 4. Looking at these adverts we could see that the conventions of this specific type of advert are that they are short in length and get straight to the point. As we had to work in a short time frame the scene we had to pick; had to be short and direct but also remember able. This is the reason for choosing the mafia fish scene. So keeping with the first convention of these sponsorship adverts, we went onto adapting the advert to suit our campaign and had numerous production videos experimenting with the script and content but upon evaluation we decided to keep the style and script of the original text with some changes. These changes were that instead of the fish, we changed it to a hot-dog to keep in theme with the product. These were minor changes to the real text but made a major difference. We kept with the convention of having a short advert but adapting it to our own brand so the target audience would be able to recognize the product while also relating to the parody scene.
- 5. Our first advert was taken from the original opening scene from The Godfather. In this scene Don Vito Corleone is talking to a fellow companion regarding some help. This is the most iconic scene of the film and arguably the whole film industry. We decided to use this scene due to its reputation. Due to the power of the scene and the global appreciation, people would be able to identify the scene immediately and as our product was aimed at the Male target audience, using this scene was successful as the film itself appeals to the male population. We followed the conventions of the Microwave food advertisements such as featuring the product and having a storyline. We featured the product in a briefcase at the end of the advert as people will be interested and intrigued in the advert due to the parody. Featuring the product at the end means that it will have the audiences attention as they do in the Cadburys advert ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1Lwlo) . We challenged the convention of having a voice Over as our campaign isn't attempting to Involve the audience at the same time which is What a voice over is used for. As the average Population of males are familiar with the Mafia Films such as Godfather; the advert will create A visual stimulant as they know the scene well And will continue to view the advert to see what happens.
- 6. Our 2nd TV advert was a remake of the film scarface with the “Say hello to my little friend” scene. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVQ8byG2mY8) We a lot of changes in this advert as we Wanted It to capture the audiences attention with a brand new plot and then as they hear the line “say hello to my little friend” they would then Realise the inspiration behind the advert. We Used the soundtrack from the Strongbow Advert. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TS99xy8X48). Using this added a new level of suspense to the advert and created a mysterious atmosphere. We used a comical effect where the opposing “gang” would have a confused when the hot-dog was presented. This implies that the hotdog isn't just a piece of food, but that its more than “my little friend.”
- 7. Our Radio Advert was created to promote the product directly to the audience with no storyline. We did this by describing the product and how we distinguish ourselves from other brands. Our advert ended with the slogan “Dogfather hotdogs, an offer you cant refuse”. This created a more Radio Advert style as a convention of Radio Adverts is that they are direct and straight to the point but also features a tagline or slogan. These conventions imply that the audience needs the product which I feel we portrayed effectively. This was also used at the end of our TV adverts so this slogan was stuck inside the audiences head and so as soon as you heard the Radio Advert you could identify the product and increase the word of mouth promotion.
- 8. Overall the adverts follow the conventions of having a storyline, feature the product clearly and have a catchy slogan. Looking at adverts such as the Zugo advert and other similar adverts, the idea of our adverts connecting together was achieved well due to the mafia style parody. The Potnoodle Advert reinforced the research of each individual advert having its own story (whilst being linked to another advert) but promoting the product at the end of the actual advert. The Generic features of the mafia films were successful as we kept to the ideal settings and props used in the real media texts. After evaluating our project I can see some areas that could have had improvements made; which are included in our sponsorship advert and advert 1 which regards the lighting and location of certain props. The locations had to be similar to the original text but due to the lack of time and facilities we couldn’t adapt them to be more similar to the original text. However as a parody remake ad actually promoting the product I feel that the whole campaign was a succession.