assignment 2 guidelines

advertising campaign strategy and critical reflection – Gallery Assignment 2

due: 11:00pm on Friday 29 September 2017.

submission is via the DropBox on CloudDeakin Only.

word limit: 2000 words (+/- 10%) or equivalent.

NB: you must select one of the case studies listed in the ‘Assignment 2 case study options’ document in the Assessment folder of this Cloud site.

aims and objectives

This assignment extends students’ understanding of advertising as both an industrial and communicative cultural practice through the creative application of key concepts profiled in this unit and/or the field of critical advertising studies. The assignment has two parts:

1) Students will create a marketing campaign strategy (including a series of draft advertisements and/or other forms of marketing communication) that address the “problems/issues/desires” of an advertiser (the list of case studies you can select from is in the assessment folder of this Cloud site). The campaign should aim to create specific meaning(s) for the chosen product or service (have a marketing message), and employ techniques designed to connect to a specific target audience. Your campaign strategy should incorporate key terms derived from the readings and unit materials. This section should be equivalent to approximately 1250 words.

2) Students will write a reflective critical analysis of their own campaign, outlining the ethical issues and practical limitations they faced, relevant historical and social contexts, how their proposed campaign relates to issues of branding, globalisation, fragmenting markets, and consumer culture. Key concepts and theories relating to marketing and advertising must be used and referenced in your critical analysis. This section should be approximately 750 words.

assignment instructions

part 1: the campaign strategy

Present a campaign aimed at a client in an effort to convince them to hire your agency to manage their marketing campaign. Give a name to your agency.

You can present this campaign pitch either as:

An audio-narrated PowerPoint (less than 10 minutes in length)

OR

A PowerPoint with additional text/script in the notes section below your slides or clearly labelled in an accompanying document. This text/script is what would be spoken in the presentation. The word length of this text/script should match the recommended word totals outlined below.

You should divide your marketing campaign strategy into the following key elements:

1) Research proposal and projected analysis based on issue/problem/desire. Be aware that you do not have to conduct all of this research, but you must propose what research you would need to conduct into the existing market and target audience, and project what you think the research will find and how it informs the other elements of the campaign. You also might want to include a detailed situation analysis (including brand positioning and/or PEST analysis results) as part of your research. It is the research focus that will determine many of the other elements of the campaign. (1 slide + approx. 200 words)

From this work – identify the parameters of your campaign in a simple sentence or phrase.

2) The target audience. Identify a target audience for your campaign and use appropriate key words to map out this market effectively. Establish the profile of the market as you understand it. (1 slide + approx. 150 words)

3) Advertising/marketing objective(s). As simply as possible identify the objective(s) of your campaign. Propose key emotions, key responses, or key formations of desires, and outline the consumer response you aim to produce. (Make sure they are SMART objectives, and try and be creative in how you present this) (1 slide + approx. 150 words).

4) Creative Strategy. Present your creative material here. You can present a series of sketches or ‘storyboard’ images – it is not expected that you make an actual advertisement here, but you can use digital collage, image editing, photos, or even simple stick drawings to illustrate the components of your campaign. If you are comfortable in making more sophisticated images, feel free to use this opportunity to play with different technologies and styles (but simpler presentation styles won’t be penalised as long as they clearly communicate the objective/message of the campaign).

Outline the key message, and show how the key message is communicated through:

• a central image/slogan/catchphrase of the campaign
• any potential transformation of the image as the campaign advances over time
• explanation of how these elements fit the advertising/marketing objectives and speak to the target audience

No more than 3 slides + approx. 350 word script/text total

5) Media Strategy

Outline the different media you would target and your timeframe for the rollout. Explain the media strategy in relation to the target market and how these media types that would find that target. All campaigns have to address the use or non-use in their explanations of:

(a) Television, radio, print, online media, social media, outdoor advertising, viral marketing, promotional campaigns, sponsorships/endorsements

(b) The ratio and emphasis of these various media sources and how the creative material is adapted to each of these environments, considered in terms of their relative cost/reach/effectiveness for the target market.

No more than 3 slides + approx. 350 words script/text total

6) Conclusion. Last slide – be creative as you sum up your pitch (1 slide + approx. 50 words)

part 2: campaign critical analysis

This critical analysis will take the form of a short 750-word essay. In it, you should identify where the product/service and your campaign fits into the structure of advertising as a form of communication and as an industry as explored through the unit.

Identify links and insights from the readings and analysis exercises that helped inform your interpretation.

Where appropriate, integrate the relationship of your campaign to branding, to new directions in connecting and attracting the attention of consumers, political campaign advertising, the new generation of consumer and commodity activism, and advertising and globalisation.

This essay should be a critical analysis that demonstrates an understanding of scholarly literature as well as a capacity to identify historical and social contexts that situate your campaign in contemporary advertising and promotional culture. Also reflect on possible problems in execution of the campaign, challenges encountered in identifying target market or situation analysis, and ethical issues relating to the proposed campaign.

A bibliography is expected to be included at the end of this summary analysis (not included in the 750-word count).

frequently asked questions

Q: What tone should the Campaign Strategy (Part 1) have?

A: Imagine that you are working for an advertising agency and the Campaign Proposal is actually going to be presented to the client (representatives from the company/organisation you are studying). Your slides should be visually engaging, include key terms, graphs, images etc. The notes are the ‘script’ you would give in the presentation – they should elaborate on the key points, give more detail and context to the research behind the campaign or the choice of objective(s)/message(s), and explain some of the decisions made.

Q: What tone should the Critical Analysis (Part 2) have? 

A: The critical analysis part should definitely be reflective and scholarly. That means you can use first person if you want, but you need to reflect critically (i.e. including analysis and reference to larger theories and ideas) about your campaign. You should: speak about the decisions you made in the campaign; justify those decisions in terms of the readings and other scholarly literature and research in advertising and marketing communications; and link how you understand the ideas and messages in your own campaign in the context of the different kinds of advertising, different approaches to marketing, and different elements of the industry we have talked about through the trimester.

Q: What research should I do? 

A: For the Campaign Strategy it is recommended you do actual situation analysis research, meaning research on the industry/sector your product or service or brand or organisation sits within, on the general target market you’ve identified. To do this research, you might do a PEST (Political/Economic/Sociocultural/Technological) analysis, SWOT (Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats) analysis, brand positioning exercises, or other research/analysis of the product/service and its market conditions (detailed information about this kind of background research is included in the readings by Donald Parente). Similarly, you might find info from industry or government websites about the overall industry and/or demographics, etc. In terms of the research required to form a baseline for measuring your objectives (e.g. consumer satisfaction, or what people think of the brand, or what consumers want from that category of product etc.) just an outline of what research you would/should conduct is appropriate. In other words, you don’t actually need to construct or conduct surveys or focus groups etc. You should also do research on media sources and what channels/platforms are most appropriate for different kinds of campaigns – this may be a combination of industry and scholarly sources.

For the Critical Analysis, your research should consist of the unit readings and further scholarly and non-scholarly sources that informed your decision making, and justify these as good decisions for the product and objectives identified.

Q: How does the research help?

A: The background research on the brand/product/service serves several purposes:

• It helps to clarify/confirm what the marketing problem is (the problem identified in the very brief case study outline might be more complex, or actually be substantially different, to originally thought – which would be identified through background research)
• It helps understand any political, economic, social, or technological issues effecting the sector/industry, which may have a bearing on how the brand/product/service can/should be ‘sold’,
• It helps identify how the brand/product/service is currently positioned within its market, and thus help identify relevant objectives of how you want to change that positioning (i.e. where you want to take it), and
• On the basis of all that, helps identify a relevant/appropriate target market for your campaign.

Q: Do I need to include sources and citations?

A: While this is a mock creative exercise, it is still an academic assignment, so standard scholarly protocols apply. This includes citing all material (scholarly, industry, online, images, infographics, etc) used in the research and production of your project. Given the variable nature of the exercise and the fact that students may be using vastly different presentational formats, there is flexibility as to citationalstyles and practices used. For example, you may include small font references in the footer of your slides, in the comments section or at the end of the presentation, or you may include everything in a “master” reference list/bibliography at the end of the Critical Analysis. Either is fine, as long as you cite your references somewhere.

Q: What counts in the word count?

A: For the Campaign Strategy, the words on the slides won’t count (unless given as script for storyboards) – only the words in the notes section (or equivalent as spoken). For the Critical Analysis, headings, in-text citations, and reference list (bibliography) are excluded.

Q: Can I use a format other than Powerpoint for my Campaign Analysis?

A: In principle, yes, you can do a film, an animation, or other creative output. However, you need to ensure that it is a format (and file size) that can be uploaded to the Cloud Assignments Folder and is readable to examiners without the need for special software. Check with teaching staff if you are unsure.

Q: What format should the Critical Analysis be?

A: Word document or PDF only please – uploaded to the Assignments Folder along with your Campaign Strategy.

Q: In the Campaign Presentation, how do I submit the “commentary”?

A: The easiest way is to type the commentary into the Speaker Notes window at the base of each slide in Powerpoint (or the correlative function in whatever presentation software you are using). Then when you are ready to submit, save the PPT file as a PDF, being sure to include the speaker notes. If you are unsure how to do this, check out the following YouTube tutorial: