This document provides a summary and evaluation of media used to create advertising campaigns for a razor product called Razor Sharpe. It discusses the use of storyboards, portable DV cameras, and iMovie software to plan, film, and edit four advertisements. Key points included mirroring conventions of existing razor ads, using similar music and fonts across ads to connect them, and learning from audience feedback that ads should feature upbeat music and a single character to focus on the product. The document also reflects on limitations faced and changes that could improve the ads or process in the future.

1. Media Evaluation
By: Becky Turley

2. My adverts, which are to publicise Razor Sharpe: For Him and For Her, I feel have a
genuine relation to other adverts that promote razors. This is partly done through Mise-En-
Scene where the sound and costumes are similar to that of professional advert, for example
the female character wearing a bath robe. Each of our adverts use a gender bias i.e. to
attract a female audience you produce an advert where women are the main focus and vice
versa for males. In the ‘Venus’ advert it uses a female character going through various
everyday tasks such as a daily run and going to work then appearing to have a lot more
confidence after using the razors to shave. We mirrored this to a certain extent in our female
advert as we used a female who before shaving felt down and unconfident about her
appearance but then after using the razors to shave immediately got her confidence back
and appears delighted to go out. The ways our adverts differ from professional adverts are
that we didn’t stick to the generic features of a male advert. Most adverts such as ‘Gillette’
include a male shaving then going out to be immediately surrounded by women. We
changed our storyline to something slightly different so that it didn’t feel too much like
existing razor adverts. We decided to do this as we didn’t want to copy prior adverts exactly
as we wanted to make something that still looked like a shaving advert but was a little
different. We did however decide to keep the conventions in our female advert as is did
exactly what it was intended to and it captures what is needed. The look of this advert is
very similar to professional adverts in that a woman instantly feels more attractive and has
more confidence after shaving their legs.

3. It is quite clear that all of our four products are connected to each other as they all use the
same piece of music somewhere within the adverts therefore allowing the audience to make
the connection instantly. Also the font on the text within the adverts is the same which
makes it a lot easier to link the products with each other. The look of our adverts would also
allow the audience to know they are connected to each other as the two main adverts are
similar in that the boy and girl both appear in a bathroom and bedroom scenario. The style
of our adverts would also back this up as they have a similar feel about them, as they all
have similar shots within them. As with the adverts for the ‘Compare the Market’ campaign
they all use the exact same music so that the audience would immediately know that the
adverts are for the same thing as previous adverts for the product. However the audience
may not feel that our adverts are connected as they each contain various characters and
one same character is not present in all of the adverts, this could cause the audience to
become confused. The storylines are also different throughout the four adverts so therefore
the audience may not feel they relate to each other in a way that they could instantly tell
they are connected.

4. We have learned that our products are successful as in the audience feedback we received through an
online questionnaire it allowed us to figure out that the audience would like a male and female
advert, which in turn is what we did. We also learned that people enjoy upbeat music in an advert which
is what we used. By including all the points that we found would appeal to the audience we feel our
product would be successful. In the male advert we used current chart music that would appeal to our
target audience of people aged 16 to 25. However with our female advert we used a classic girl anthem
which everybody knows and would draw your attention to the television to view the advert. We also
learned through our audience feedback that the audience would only like one character in the advert
and not too many as the main focus should be on the product, which is exactly what we did as both the
main adverts and the radio advert only one character was used in each and in our sponsorship only two
characters were used to keep them as simple as possible and make them precise to the product we
were intending to sell.
If I were to start the product again, the changes I would make would be to figure out beforehand the
exact type of music the audience would want to feature in all four adverts as it was difficult trying to find
a piece of music that would fit into all of them. The changes I would make to specific adverts would be
that in the sponsorship it went on about unnecessary things and could have been straight to the point.
To advert one I would make sure it was clear to the audience what was going on as it is unclear at one
point if the character has cut his face or not, this is only clear when you see the character texting his
friend informing him he has done so.

5. In this stage we used new media technology in that we watched adverts online both in
school and at home so that we got a clear understanding of what is in an advert and what
makes one successful and would make another one fail. We also used storyboards to follow
when shooting – these were particularly helpful as it helped us plan each scene and what
needed to be included so that it flowed in the correct way. The animated storyboard was a
big help as it helped us identify what the problems were with the original storyboard and
how we could change and adapt so that it was more successful. In shooting we used small
portable DV cameras which were very useful as they could be stored in our bags and
carried from each location easily. The advantages of using these cameras are that they are
easy to film with as you can hold them in your hand and move and rotate them without any
problems. The disadvantages of using these cameras are that in some lights the camera
doesn’t shoot in good quality and the clip has to be deleted and re-filmed at a later time
resulting in a lot of hassle. We used iMovie for editing and we were able to add titles and
music to the adverts. We were able to do this through using different effects notable on
iMovie. The limitations I have come across when having to use iMovie are that sometimes
when we tried to add an effect to a particular clip it would make the whole clip black so
therefore we couldn’t add any effects to some of the clips in our adverts.