Advertising Uncut - Where Do Ideas Come From?

We watched Channel's 4 second installment in the 'Advertising Uncut' five part series, which followed the the processes that an idea for advertisement has to go through in order for it to hit the screen as the final product advertisement.

Brief

The first stage of advertising is the brief being presented to the advertisers. The brief covers the target audience, the USP (Unique Selling Point) and the aim of the marketing.

The advertisers for the O2 phone company had a very detailed brief, they needed to target the teenage audience and be able to show that they offered services that were better and more eligible than other leading networks such as Orange or T Mobile.

Juggling Ideas

After the brief has been presented, it is then time for the advertising team to separate into pairs and begin to start thinking of ideas. Advertisers work in pairs, often with one person generating ideas and another drawing and developing then. They bounce ideas of one another and juggle, swap and change them until they come up with a final idea that they are both happy with.

Pitch

In terms of a print advertisement, when the advertisement has been decided on by the pairs, the rough idea sketches are then re-drawn professionally. The entire idea then has to be pitched alongside other possible final ideas to the 'boss'. The pitch is the final presentation of the advertisement and usually lasts around one hour per team idea. The point is to sell the advertisement idea to the producer of boss etc. When the appropriate advertisement has been chosen, it is then created and distributed for the public to consume.

Tactics

Advertising uses many different techniques to help to sell the product, two examples are using celebrities in advertisements and producing shocking advertisements.

The point behind using celebrities in advertisements is so that the brands name gets sustained for longer. This works because the product will get publicity every time that someone thinks of the celebrity and connects him/her to the advert he/she featured in. Celebrities also help to enhance the want for the product as they represent the lifestyle that the product could contain, such as David Beckham advertising Nike trainers, enhances the coolness of the trainers as they have that connection with David.

http://www.channel4learning.com/support/programmenotes/micro/advertisinguncut/prog2.html