My Evaluation for the Irn-Bru Advertising part of my course.

1. Evaluation
By Joe Duffy

2. Real Video:
McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes – The First Day
Structures and techniques of TV advertising
The advert is linear, following the main character as she
commutes to work. As the characters do not speak, all the
story-telling is told through exaggerated facial expressions
to convey it’s message. This is best seen with the boss’
eyebrows positioning, to show his emotional state. The
camera follows the lead but occasionally cuts to more
significant parts to emphasise their importance, for
example the woman showing her Jaffa Cakes.
Factors of Persuasion
The Advertiser tries to make you but the product by
demonstrating how there is a positive outcome to a bad
situation, in this case the mean boss becomes nicer by
eating a Jaffa Cake so the rest of the newcomer’s
colleagues become more co-operative as a result.
Styles of advertising
The realist setting is in an office job, which a lot of people
watching the ad can sympathise with, as it is their job as
well. This builds a relatable style of advertising for the
consumer. This could make you want to buy the product as
you understand the situation the characters are in, so
seeing how the product makes their life better, making you
feel it could improve your life too.

3. My Video:
An Irn-Bru Advert (Interesting)
Structures and techniques of TV advertising
The camera focuses on the character who has the
product to keep the consumer’s focus maintained on
the Irn-Bru. The beginning of the ad is suspenseful,
building tension with ever increasing heart-beat speed.
The tension is relieved when the student gets to class
in time. However the teacher is set up with mean
spirited demeanor, leading to juxtaposition once he
drinks the beverage. The technique shows the surreal
qualities of the product, making the consumer
interested in the drink’s effects.
Factors of Persuasion
The advert changes in tone once the teacher drinks the
Irn-Bru going from a tense situation to a gladder, more
relieving ending. This more fantastical story persuades
consumers that the product can lead to similar
scenarios happening to them.
Styles of advertising
A realist style of a school is used in order to relate the
scenario with a large demographic, being students. The
product lends a more surreal aspect to the scene,
making it appear as a more magical part of the real
world. This would make it successful in making sales as
the consumer wants to “role-play” in the way the ad
portrayed it.

4. Real Advergame:
Zool
Structures and techniques of advergames
As the game was created in the 1990’s, the developers
believed a “cool” ninja character would be a much loved
character as Sonic the Hedgehog had been before him.
The setting he progresses through is a sweet theme to
relate to its advertisement of the lolly, Chupa Chups. As
such the obstacles are evil sweets and the collectables
are treats. Along with the sweet aesthetic, the levels
place the Chupa Chups logo at random points to remind
you blatantly of the product.
Factors of Persuasion
The designers have tried to entice the player to buy the
product by making the visuals look vibrant and
fantastical so therefore in a way, “tasty”. This could make
the consumer think more about how the product tastes,
leading to sales.
Styles of advertising
The game is a platformer in the same style as the very
popular Sonic the Hedgehog so could attract large
numbers of those fans into this game. The game is quite
successful in making me want to buy the product since it
plasters the logo all over the games levels to constantly
keep the brand in my head.

5. My Advergame:
Irn-Bru in Shining Armour
Structures and techniques of advergames
The game uses a stereotypical Scotsman as it’s main
protagonist to keep in theme with the products origin
as well has having a Jester as the main antagonist as
they are commonly known as jokesters which could be
annoying in the wrong manner. The obstacles have to
overcome to collect the collectable, being a can of Irn-
Bru. This drinks provides your character with armour
and weapons, allowing to finish the game. The setting
is in Medieval times when Scotland was keen on
protecting it’s borders against the English, linking to
the story being told in the game.
Factors of Persuasion
The game shows the product to give you power,
literally in the game as the drink transforms you into a
knight. This could make the consumer believe the
beverage makes you feel more powerful as portrayed
in this fantastical world. The surreal setting makes the
product seem magical and “other-worldly”, allowing
the player to escape the real world.
Styles of advertising
The platformer style allows for easy to understand
gameplay, allowing a large spectrum of people to play
the game, and therefore advertise the product to a
broader audience. The game’s simpler game design
and setting would make me more likely to play the
game as it looks colourful and therefore more pleasing
so would make me more likely to buy the drink.

6. Video Comparison
Compare each of your products to the similar professional advert
The adverts similarities are held in their narratives. Both stories portray a central character managing to make
the antagonist lose their negative attitude by consuming the product. The situation progresses from a bad
scenario into a positive one due to the product being advertised. The major difference between the adverts is
the style in which it is done. The real advert is made with animation while my advert is created with real
performances. This limits the personal advert as the animated one allows for more exaggerated expressions to
portray a scene but our advert used speech to describe why certain things were happening while the real one
only uses grunts so each advert had a positive and negative aspect to how they presented their story. I think a
certain area where my advert was an improvement compared to the real advert was the cinematography. I
believe this as I edited shots together to create a more dynamic scene, for example the opening of the advert
cutting in between the walking students and the running one to create more tension along with the increasingly
fast heartbeat sound effect. Whereas the real advert uses less shots throughout, focusing only on the part of the
story that matters. However this slows down the pace, making the narrative seem slow and boring. This editing
was simple to accomplish for me as the shots didn’t require a lot of tweaking, only needing to cut the shots and
place them in between each other. However a weakness I found during editing were that certain shots didn’t
have a distinct transitioning shot to the next so I had to improvise, using certain shots and retakes to make a sort
of “fake” transition between a few shots. I also discovered that several shots were slightly inconsistent as, with
changing who controlled the camera, people who were in the last shot were not in the next, as with the bottle of
Irn-Bru being in random places during shots that wouldn’t make sense. To rectify this, more reshoots would have
had to be done. The real advert had the luxury of being an animation so no mistakes of inconsistency could have
been made after the original draft, as problems could be fixed in post production, giving the ad an advantage in
this case. Other than creating more coherent and transition shots, to improve the advert I would have added
dubbing to make sure key lines could definitely be heard over the sound effects and music. This would allow me
to modify the sound more freely, as I wouldn’t need to set the music to be quiet enough to hear them, instead
changing the voice’s loudness to be more succinct with the rest of the audio.

7. Advergame Comparison
Compare each of your products to the similar professional advert
The main similarity between the advergames is their side-scrolling aspect. This allows the player to explore as
they progress in order to collect items to help them to well in the game. However my game is a linear
progression while the real game, “Zool”, adopts the much more open level progression originated with the Sonic
the Hedgehog games. While this does allow the consumer more freedom to venture around the surroundings,
my advergame’s more focused narrative keeps the player on the prime objective, therefore making it easier to
advertise the product being sold. The real advergame uses 16-bit graphics to create a very detailed backdrop
while game is created using more simplistic designs. This does limit the amount of detail hat can be shown but
does make the more exciting parts of the game far more intriguing. Purposefully, these exciting parts involve the
product being advertised, as flashing lights engulf the main character when drinking an Irn-Bru, transforming
them into a knight. The amount of detail in Zool makes the random appearances of the logo that advertise the
product do not seem like the main focus in the game, more of an after thought. To create the game, I used the
time table function on the Photoshop programme so I could make different slides, slightly changing the scene to
make the illusion of movement when played out. To create the pixel art style, I modified the size of the
background to make the pencil tool draw in squares. To use my time efficiently, I created a few set backgrounds
and moved certain parts within them, for example the placement of the cloud, shapes of grass and movement of
the protagonist. This was slightly difficult to accomplish as I discovered for some reason when creating new
assets or changing certain parts of a certain slide for some reason affected all previous slides, so I had to go to
each individual slide before the one I modified and correct parts that shouldn’t be there. This was finicky to deal
with but was dealt with when needed. A core strength of my advergame is it’s constant focus on the product
being advertised, while keeping the player playing to the end. This is an advantage over the real game as it
doesn’t spend too much time showing off the product, Chupa Chups, leaving it as only a background accessory.
Given more time, I would fix a weakness of my game by adding more animation to the character to improve the
visuals of movement. While the simplicity of the game does enhance the product’s more exciting parts, adding a
little more detail to the game overall would make it appear more appealing to consumers.

8. End of Evaluation
Thank You