Brut Evaluation

The brief for the Advertisement Production for this unit was to re-brand a Unilever project, aiming it at a new target audience. We had to produce a TV advertisement to a good standard showing some imagination and also to produce a product that reflects near-professional standards.

My group chose the men’s aftershave Brut aiming it and teenagers, students and young men. We each made presentations using Prezi, displaying and explaining what our ideas consist of, and how we execute them. After being put in our groups and after a long conversation our group decided to re-market Brut because we thought the idea would be more successful than the other proposals that had been put forward by other members in our group. Brut was originally aimed at older men with several sports sports stars featuring in their advertisements such as Muhammad Ali, Henry Cooper and Kevin Keegan . As said previously we decided to try and appeal to younger men and students due to the fact its popularity had decreased the 70s and because we felt this would be a natural and needed transition for the company in real life, as well as being students ourselves, it made it easier to create a product that appealed to our target audience.

To gain feedback we first played our finished product to the rest of the class, who luckily, happened to fit into our target audience. After watching the advert everyone gave us feedback, specifically 3 things they liked about the advert and 2 things they felt could be improved. For the most part, people liked the advert saying it hit the target audience very well and was funny. A recurring suggested improvement was some of the sound in the advert was hard to understand, referring specifically to sections of slow-motion used that made the speech slightly ambiguous and hard to understand as well as the voice over being somewhat irritating. 

We also created a survey using the website survey monkey. This allowed us to design a specifically tailored questionnaire that would be able to provide us with the information we required as well as creating graphs so then the information could be easily read and understood. The questionnaire contained 9 questions (Ideally it should of contained 10 but there was complications with the website):
1.  Name, age and gender?
2. What did you like about the advert? Give reasons for your answer
3. What didn't you like about the advert? Give reasons for your answer
4. Who do you think this advert is aimed at?
5. Is it obvious what the advert is selling?
6. Do you think this advert works?
7. What could be improved?
8.would you buy this product?
9. How effective do you think this advert is?

After sending out my survey, 18 people had filled it out. From The results of the questionnaire it was clear to see that the audience did not like the voice over, they said to have found it irritating and and was said to be alike the voice of “Cartman” a character from the series “South Park". Luckily almost everyone who filled out the survey could tell who the advert was aimed at and what it was selling. 66% of the people who filled out the survey believed that the advert was very effective, 33% said it was a little bit effective and no one believed it wasn't effective. As I said before, it was clear to see that the voice-over wasn't liked, this may be due to the change in speed or just the accent.

With regards to appropriateness to the audience I believe we succeeded in appealing to our target audience. Both the results from the questionnaire and the feedback we gathered from our peers suggested the audience was able to identify that we were targeting students in between the ages of 16 and 21. I feel placing the advert within a college environment helped to associate the product with students allowing them to identify the product is for them. We also included language used by students of this age such as “viscous par” which will also relate to our target audience therefore making the product by association seem more appealing to them. There was also a heavy use of humour implemented in the advert as this also acts as a convergence device as it also makes the product more attractive to the demographic we were targeting.

The mise-en-scene of the advert seemed to work well. The setting of the advert was a college and therefore filming in a real college meant we didn't have to manipulate our surroundings too much if at all to create a setting that was believable. There were three locations/settings in the advert, a classroom, corridor and courtyard. The only setting we had to change slightly was the classroom, including moving some tables around and changing the position of some seats. The main thing that stood out to me as being lacking was the amount of extras. Some of the shots could have been made to look more convincing had there been one or two more people in the background. It was difficult to get people who weren't busy filming their own advertisement or in a lesson; however this didn't hurt the advert too much but would have made it seem more professional. There is one shot we used that slightly breaks the 180 degree rule, this shot however doesn't confuse the viewer and also allowed for a nice shot that shows the boy walking past out of shot, and then focuses of the girl with a close up of her face showing a new found interest because of the product.

We also have another shot we used at the end. This is a close up of the Brut bottle on a bench that is then thumped with thumbs up. This ended the advert nicely as it shows a close up of the product leaving it fresh in the viewer’s minds. The editing I feel for the most part also worked well. We used many short shots and cuts to transition from each one as this grabs the audience’s attention, and also matches the over the top style of the advert that appeals to our target audience. The cuts I feel also flowed well making it easy to watch. One part of editing that I didn't think worked well was the implementation of screen bars half way through the advert once the character uses the product. I personally believe that it looks quite tacky and didn't really fit with the advert.  We did have a slight mishap with the screen bars but that was only noticed after publication; in one all but one of the specific shots contains the screen bars; this is something that could be rectified to polish the advert off.

We also used some special effects in the advert in the shape of an explosion that appears when the character throws the Brut bottle arrogantly over his shoulder. This was very over the top however suited the rest of the advert but could be improved by better placement and tracking due to when the character was walking away the fire looked out of place and creates a contrast which just looks unusual as well as the fact the fire changes positions within to shots.

 One feature that worked well in some areas but not others was the use of slow motion. The feedback we got from our peers was mixed as in some cases the slow motion made the narration unclear, and said some words were hard to recognize. I personally agree with this as it was a bit too over the top. An improvement that could be made is to scale down the severity of the slow motion as to still maintain the humor gained by using it, but also allowing the audio to become clearer and easily understandable. As for sound we used music created by a member of our class. To begin with we use a piano piece that is quite sad and low tempo to convey the characters feeling of rejection. In correspondence with this we used a voice over that narrated and commented on the characters actions and surroundings. The voice used gained mixed reviews from peers. This voice almost directly talks to the target audience, asking rhetorical questions that may help the audience relate more to the advert, as well as being funny. Half way through the advert when the character uses the product we switch from the sad background music to a more upbeat rock style song that conveys the new found confidence gained because of the Brut. This gives across the message that Brut makes you more confident and in turn makes you more successful.

Our feedback told us that we had successfully advertised the product to our target audience. In relation to story line and narrative, our advert is very simple. In the advert we show two encounters between the girl and the boy in which the boy is totally ignored and rejected, because he isn't wearing the Brut. The third and last encounter is where we show the transition Brut supposedly gives you, and the boy successfully gains the attention of the girl. The basic selling point here is sex appeal and the possibility of successful romance, with the connotation of success in everyday life. I think this would work well for our target audience with companies such as Lynx who target a similar audience use the same selling points. The message we were trying to send was that Brut is now aimed for at the younger male. We did this by placing the advert inside a college and the characters were students. This immediately would strike a chord with our target audience identifying that the product is intended for them. We used demotic language that the age group use which also associates out target audience with the product, while the narrative was really an emphasized version of a situation many of our target audience could relate to. All this would hopefully make the product appeal to them.The overall quality of the advert is quite high considering but could be improved. I think the range of shots as well as the fluidity makes it easy to understand and allows for the message to be received clearly. The main thing I would change to increase its professionalism would be the sound specifically the clarity of some points of the narration. The change would be made by speeding up the narrative that has been slowed down. This would result in the words being said becoming easier to understand improving the advert.

In regards to whether the advert would meet ASA and OFCOM regulations, I believe there may be one problem. There is a section of the advert were the narrator pronounces the first part of the word “bitch” but is cut of as the advert cuts to another shot, not completing the word, but still having the connotation and its quite obvious that the word was said. An ASA BCAP code that may affect this part of the advert is 4.1: “Marketing communications must not contain anything that is likely to cause serious or widespread offence. Particular care must be taken to avoid causing offence on the grounds of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age. Compliance will be judged on the context, medium, audience, product and prevailing standards.

Marketing communications may be distasteful without necessarily breaching this rule.  Marketers are urged to consider public sensitivities before using potentially offensive material.

The fact that a product is offensive to some people is not grounds for finding a marketing communication in breach of the Code.”

Because the connotation of the word is there, and the narrator is talking about a female character, this could cause offence even if the intention was humor, meaning it may have to be removed before it could be seen on television. It may also break the OFCOM rule of swearing on TV before 9pm. This could lead to complications to intended times to broadcast this advertisement.

In summary I am quite pleased with the advert overall and we managed to stick to the original idea we had. There were some shot changes and some added effects such as the explosion and slow motion used that were thought of after pre-production, this however is a natural part of creating moving image media and didn't affect or alter the premise of the idea we were selling. In regards to the feedback received i am also very happy. The overall feel was that people enjoyed the advert and felt it reached its target audience very well. Some parts of dialogue need to be made more concise so everyone is able to understand what is being said, but apart from that and making sure we comply with all ASA and OFCOM regulations, the advert was received very well. When it comes to my personal involvement in the production I felt I could have involved myself more, but it was difficult due to having time off college and I was just given tasks that the other members of the group left me, such as the recces, location releases and storyboards.