Advertising Week 5

26.09.16 (Week 5)

Jessica Ngu Wei King, (0323639)
Project 1: Individual

Lecture: Role and responsibilities of an Advertising Art Director 

On Monday's lecture, Mr. Vinod started the lecture by asking one of the classmate to read the lecture slides about the definition of an Art Director. He then explained the definition of Art Director. He also explained the role of an art director and its position in the organizational hierarchy. In the sides, it also included the job scope of an art director, Mr. Vinod briefly explained them as well. Then we have an in class exercise, which we were required to come up with a twisted headline for an ad. On Tuesday, as usual, we had discussions on our 10 sketches. Before dismiss, Mr. Vinod brief us about our project submission and showed us some examples on how to create a good ppt. 

Outcome from the lectures: 

I understood that:-

• What an art director is
• The organizational hierarchy of advertising agency 
• Art director works under Creative director, following by graphic designers and production
• CEO is usually from a marketing background 
• Job scope of art director
• Art directors ensure that their clients' desired message and image is conveyed to consumers. 

Instructions 

In class exercise

As usual, we were divided into two groups. For this time I grouped with Merry and David. We were to come out with a twisted headline for Digi ads. 

An online news photographer was tasked to capture images of the mass demonstration known as BERSIH, which champions clean and fair elections. The movements signature color is yellow. In one of the images posted online, a massive number of protestor is seen nearby a Digi Telecommunications retail outlet. Seeing that color yellow also happens to be corporate brand identity color of Digi, the opportunistic marketing team at Digi has decided to leverage this scene to their benefit. 

Your task is to come up with a slew of twisted headlines for the image attached. 

Hence, we came up with these ideas:

10 sketches (week 5)

Feedback 

Specific
Slides are clear, however the slides do not have conclusions after every topic area- what is the insight developed from the data/ research. Research is concise but there is not much evidence in depth or amount of details (source or evidence or references). Need to summarize and conclude charts or data collected. The strategy and Big idea needs to be clearly stated at the end. 

Reflections

Experience

This week's lecture was quite fun for me, as we get to do activities instead of listening to lectures. Working in groups is always better for me as we can discuss together and come up with lots of ideas, because I think I wouldn't think of an idea that fast. Discussions on idea sketches took even more time, probably because most of us started to come out with more interesting ideas that could be discussed more. 

Observations 

I realized that I have difficulties in understanding what the lecturer say sometimes, it makes me feel weird, because I kept on questioning myself is it only me? Or there are still people who doesn't understand it too? Besides, I find it interesting to see how others solve their problems while they are stuck with ideas during group activities. I also find it starting to get busier in week 4-5. 

Findings 

The reason why I have can't understand the lecturer sometimes is probably because he talks really fast and uses really deep English (for me), plus I'm from Chinese school, so it takes some time for me to understand what he is talking about? I find out how my classmates solve their problems while they are stuck in a situation. Usually they redraw mind maps and narrow down the topic, then they think an alternative way/ change their direction of thinking/ think what is missing to seek for another solution. I find it interesting and I would love to try, and hopefully it'll help me.  

Book of the week 

This week's book is truth, lies & advertising (the art of account planning), by Jon Steel 

For this week's book I read online as I forgot to borrow it from he library. I will summarize what I have learnt from the book in points:-

• Planning comes first
• Effective advertising incorporates client's business goals, the agency's creativity and the consumer's opinions and prejudices
• Advertisements work best when audiences decide what an ads means instead of being told 
• Planners must understand the importance of creative brief to be more effective
• The objectives of creative brief is to inspire and inform the creative teams
• Briefs that consists of present insights, suggested solutions and interpret informations from different angles makes an effective brief
• Planners should provide answers to these questions when writing a brief:

      1. Why are we advertising? What should it achieve?
      2. Who is the ad directed at? What do we know about
          this target audience?
      3. What's the main idea that should be in the message?
      4. What's the best way to get that idea across?
      5. How do we know we are on the right track? 
           (Jon, 1998)
      6. Good briefs are straight forward and uncomplicated, 
          keep it simple. 

References
Jon, S. (1998). Truth, lies, & Advertising. United States of America: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.