Target audience, Questionnaires & Similar mint adverts

Psychographics appeal

The use of demographics is to study and measure attitudes, values, lifestyles, and opinions for marketing purposes. The Criteria is by segmenting consumers by lifestyle, attitudes, beliefs, values, personality, buying motives, and/or extent of product usage. Psychographic analyses are used like geographic (place of residence or work) and demographic (age, income, occupation) criteria to describe and identify customers and prospective customers and to aid in developing promotion strategies designed to appeal to specific psychographic segments of the market for a product. Psychographic data can be gathered firsthand through personal interviews, focus group interviews or questionnaires, or purchased from research companies in the form of list overlays for direct marketers or market profiles for general marketers. In our case, the use of questionnaires would be the easiest way of performing research to determine who we want our target audience to be.

Customer profiles
A description of a customer group or type of customer based on various demographic, psychographic and/or geographic characteristics; also called shopper profile. For example, magazine advertising salespeople provide advertisers with customer profiles describing the type of person who will be exposed to advertisements in that magazine. The description may include income, occupation, level of education, age, gender, hobbies, or area of residence. Customer profiles provide the knowledge needed to select the best prospect lists and to enable advertisers to select the best media.


Questionnaires
Like I mentioned before, I don't think we are yet clear as to what our target audience expects in a mint or what exactly/specific things are included in a mint advert due to us not analysis enough mint adverts and us not putting enough thought into target audience.

Once we noticed that target audience is becoming a problem and delaying us from coming up with better ideas for our storyboard, we have decided to create a questionaire which will prodive us feedback from our target audience. We aim to find out how much, and what & why our target audience consume mints. From this we will be able to see what features our mint needs to have in order for it to make our target audience attracted to it and want to buy it over other mints available on the market. We have already started on our draft of this questionaire, and plan to give it out and have feedback by the end of the week. Here's a copy of the blank questionnaire:
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Existing mint adverts

In addition to this, we want to analyse more mint adverts because we have not analysed enough of them! So, I have just gone onto youtube and searched for mint adverts, old and new ones. Below are just six of the ones I found, all advertising Tic Tac's. I am going to search for other mint brands such as mentos, polos, soft mints etc. I will try and scan in the analysis that we did of the adverts and/or put a short evaluation of what we learned from the analysis once we are done. :]

First Three adverts link

1.

2.

3.

Things ive noticed of the above three adverts:
-all three adverts use the same woman, meaning that as an audience, people will associate her with the mint product meaning that she is memorable for that product
-there is a mixture of diegetic sound, such as the woman speaking some of her sound effects, as well as non diegetic sound, such as the added sound effects. The diegetic sound helps to add an aspect of realism.
-There is no music playing in the background
-The narrative has been kept simple, meaning that it is easy to understand
-The pace is quite quick, and the shots are mainly close ups and mid shots. The focus is kept on the mints, and how effective they are
-The jingle has been kept the same in all three advers 'its not just a mint its a tic tac' This is short and catchy meaning that people will remember it
-The packet of the mint is also shown so people can recognise what it looks like

Another tic tac advert that I found

4.

-The advert focuses on the mint and the effectiveness of the mint
-The mojority of the shots are mid shots and close ups
-There is a lot of diegetic sound through the woman's speech and some of the sound effects
-Other flavours are visiable towards the end of the advert
-The narrative is again very simple. The domino effect is unique and therefore memorable


I found these two quite funny, I like the way they added humour into it.

5.

6.

-These adverts lack informing the audience of the affect of the mint. It isn't made to look any better than a regular mint
-The entertainment factor acts as the memorable aspect
-Different characters are used in the two adverts
-There are a few long shots in order to set the scene, however all the other shots are mid shots and close ups
-These adverts lack an aspect of realism because there is no diegetic sound. There is however music playing in the background which is different compared to the above. The music fits well with the pace of the advert and matches the 'entertainment' factor
-The jingle is the same in both adverts 'entertain you mouth'

Other adverts which we can use for inspiraton are:

Trebor mints


Tic Tac

Some codes and conventions that I have picked up on are:
-Straigh cuts
-Variety of CU and MS (mainly)
-Moderate pace and/or fast
-Use of catchphrase
-Close up of product
-Simple narrative

Chosen audience
Our target audience is going to be in the age range of 15-25 for both male and female. We came to this desicion through our research of mint adverts, questionnaires etc. The questionnaires helped us decide because we got an idea of what certain ages liked about mints, and how and why they consume them. From this, it gave us ideas of how we can target them in order to suit their needs, which initially expanded and developed our ideas. We also felt that this age boundary brings the most potential to our advert, and we can use typical interests of these young people in order to get them to buy our product.

Second Storyboard

I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to have each advert start where the person has 'bad breath' and mint refreshed their breath? Because if I do this, then surely it would appear as if the mint is only for people who has bad breath? Need opinions please!!

If it is a possibility to do this, then the second storyboard could go something like this:
-Couple sitting on a bench in the park. They are fooling around
-Man leans in to the girl for a kiss but she rejects him after she smells his breath
-Feeling upset, he tries to sort out his breath
-He trys refreshing his mouth by spraying mouth freshner in it, however this does not do the job
-Next, he puts lots of chewing gum in his mouth but his jaw aches and his breath isn't fresh
-Angry, he sits down with no hope, but then spots the mint
-He tries the mint and has a sence of relief by the freshness in his mouth
-A shot of the man walking through town with a new sense of confidence and all the girls looking at him OR him back on the bench kissing his girlfriend/she can't get her hands of him

Its a bit of the same principle as the previous advert, just with a different story.

Heres the storyboard that I drew up for this advert:

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We think that this storyboard will appeal to our target audience moreso than the other storyboars that we have, making this storyboard one of our strongest ones. We also feel that we can add humour through this type of plot which is what we are aiming for. I think that this storyboard could potentially have more shots included therefore I am going to make a re-draft of this storyboard and add in more shots. I also think that this plot is achievable, and I really like the use of the end screen because it again brings up our product meaning that the focus is on the mints. (and also a lot of mint adverts have some sort of end screen with the mint being the main focus!)

First Storyboard

We have created our first storyboard for the mint advert. I will scan it onto here once we get it back from Sir. I created one based on what we discussed, and so did Hannah. We plan to put together the best shots as one final/improved storyboard for the first advert.

The basic outline of the storyboard is as follows:
1.Woman gets up from bed with bad breath
2.She gets up and goes to the bathroom and brushes her teeth franically however this does not leave her breathe fresh enough nor get rid of bad breath
3.Searching the cupboards, she finds mouthwash and uses it but this does not work either
4.Angry, she slouches on the bed and gives up hope. But then she spots the mints on the side table
5.Her eyes light up and she grabs a mint - she gives a small grin as she feels the effects of the mint
6.Happy and refreshed, a shot of her walking out of the apartment confident and happy with mints in her hand.
or
7.Shot of a bathroom mirror with the condensation on it, and the name of the mint drawn in.

The main message is that out of all the things you could try to get fresh breath, the mint gives the best results. :]

Here is a copy of what this storyboard looks like. The first two are what me and Hannah went and drew up as a draft, and the third one is what we came up with when we put the first two storyboards together to make one final one:

Storyboard 1 -Girl with bad breath in morning (draft)
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Storyboard 1- Girl with bad breath (draft)
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Storyboard one-Girl with bad breath (putting ideas from above into one)
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The main problem that we have with the above storyboards is that there isn't enough shots and it doesn't tell the audience why the mints are better than the mouthwash etc. therefore not making it stand out from anything else that is out on the market. We also feel that the begining of the edited version which makes up storyboard 3, could make it look like the advert is aimed at really young children with the way the voiceover says: 'do you have bad breath?' and the girl nods etc. Therefore, we will need to re-think what the idea when we re-draft this storyboard and make sure that we relate it more to our target audience. In addition to this, the plot has aspects which may lack realism and we will have to work on it a lot more in order for it to have a link with the other two adverts.

Research from books

I borrowed three books about advertising from the local library and found them quite interesting. The books are called "Advertising for Dummies", "How to advertise", "www.advertising" The three books mention similar ways to create a good advertisements therefore I now want to make sure that I follow what I have learned in order to make our advert as good as it can be.

The book which I found really useful was "Advertising for Dummies" and I would recommend it to you. The least useful was "www.advertising" because despite it having good ideas, it was mainly aimed at online advertising which we are not doing.


The following key information that i gathered, taken from the book 'Advertising for Dummies 2nd Edition' (this book provided me with really usefull information)

How to write a good advertising copy
-Make yours ads relevant and memorable
-Find, or invent, a creative jingle
-Write the way people think
-Before creating your advert, you need to know why people buy your product
-Creativity is hard work, don't get lazy with it.
-Deliver the same message across all media
-Keep it simple, the consumer needs to udnerstand it and also doesn't have time for complex copy
-Deliver your message with clarity.

Audience: Focusing on your primary market
A lot of business owners (and ME!) fall into the trap of beleiving that their products or services are "for everyone" - anyone would be interested in or needs the products. However it is wrong to think like this because even if you product appeals to a broad market, you need to identify who you ideal consumer is. Eg. childs toy aimed for rich parents.


Audience: Identifying & targeting the audience
3 Questions that I should be thinking about throughout the process of creating the 3 advertisements:
-What are you selling and what makes it so unique?
-To whom do you want to sell it
-Why should people buy the product from you?

"It is critical to know who your target audience is because the advert will not be successful if it doesn't appeal to what your potential customers want or need."

I read this in the book and this has made me realise that I need to be more aware of what our target audience want, and we need to do more research into our target audience. We did already decide that we want our mints to be aimed for an audience of young teens to mid 20s however after reading the section on audience in the book, i feel that we don't know our target audience well enough. Therefore I am going to create a questionnaire in which I can had out to people of our target audience in order to find out what they expect to have in a new mint on the market. I think that once I have got the feedback from the questionnaires, I will make it much easier to create clearer storyboards.

Advertisement Process

Advertisement Process

Advertising is a way of communicating ideas about your product and services to potential consumers which help to convince/persuade them to buy the products and services that you are offering, but there are different stages in order to reach this final expectation/outcome.

The client is the person who pays for goods and services. Therefore in the case of advertising, they will approach and ad agency in order to create an advert for their product, company etc. Everything goes through the client for example, the final idea and and alterations that need to be made.

The advertising agency is the second important component of the advertising spectrum. The advertiser would be the originator of the entire process, but the advertising agency specialists takes more responsibility when it comes to planning and advert. They do this by working as a team to get advisory and creative services to advertisers in planning and preparing an advert. An advertiser would appoint an advertising agency to plan, produce and distribute advertisements to help market and sell its products and services.

Some of the following taken from the website: http://www.contentwriter.in/articles/advertising-marketing/advertising-agencies.htm
"An Advertising Agency or ad agency is a service provider that works for clients to create an effective and goal oriented advertising campaign aimed at representing the Company positively in the eyes of its target customers...Ad agencies help clients to do just this by creating attention grabbing, persuasive and unique ad campaigns that make the brand stand out in the minds of customers."

The process involved for the ad agency is as follows:
1.Understanding the client's goals, products and target audience which initially gives them an idea of what they are working with and aids in the planning.
2. Brainstorming of the advert begins, and has to match the client's needs/brief. The client has the final say, and can ask the ad agency to re-work some of the ideads.
3.The process of brand building etc is then discussed and can be put into action.


Advertising through time
In addition to the abolve, whilst I was doing research, I came a accors a website which provided me with a timeline of how advertising has changed and developed from 1704-1999. If im correct, this should be the link for the website:



I also found another website, which I stupidly forgot to save the link to, that showed me the development of advertising in America. I looked at some of the pictures and I made a few notes on the way in which they advertise. Things such as bold typography, use of images, short easy to understand phrases and use of celebrities/'popular contemporary actresses' are things which have not changed much because adverts nowadays still use these techniques. Obviously, things have developed and we can produce much better adverts now (luckily for companies!) however the basis in which you engage your consumer to your product is pretty much the same.

Adverts

This is just some other advert related research that I came up with a last week:

*A message is created in an advert by the structure of signs. These signs can be interpreted differtly by different customers. 'Polysemic' being the term for multipe meanings.

*Adverts give meaning to buyers and readers of advertisements. Adverts address people in a certain manner. They aim to persuade the consumers to buy the products, usually by making it look positive.

*Definition of Intertextuality:When you borrow signs and meanings from another media text

*The jingle is the short verse/song that repeats sounds and has a catchy rhythms. Consumers usually assosicate it with the product you are advertising

*Definitions:
Association- The technique used when products are associated with the people, values, and lifestyle depicted in the adverts.

Appeal to emotion-When advertisers appeal to those emotional needs experienced by all humans.

Unique Selling Point

I have researched ways in which to go about creating a USP. This is what i came up with:

*The Unique Selling Point is what sets you apart from your competition. In our case, it would be what makes us better/different to the company that owns/creates tic tac and mentos.

*It can be expressed as a summary of what you do and how you do it better or differently than others.

*It is usually made up of a few words that become your advertising jingle/catchphrase. For example we could have a jingle such as 'a breath of fresh air' or 'get minty fresh breath...' Something short and catchy works best as it will be most memorable for consumers.

*The USP should focus on how it benefits the customer. For example the Burger King USP is 'Have it your way' which benefits the customer because it gives them a sense of power and freedom, because they can request what they like and have it the way they want it.


From this, we have created a brainstorm of possible USP's (Will scan this in as soon as I can) However it has proved more difficult than expected as we have not yet decided on the one that we will deffinetly use in the adverts. Grrr.

Unique Selling Point - 2
I just read the chapter in the book I borrowed from the my library called 'Advertising for Dummies' related to the USP of adverts.


Consistency of message
-The message needs to be constant in all the media, therefore we should keep the message the same in all 3 of the adverts. This means that the message is established as yours and gives the consumer a better chance of remembering it/associated it with your product

First Ideas for adverts

Below is a list of the initial ideas that me and Hannah came up with for our advertisements and things that we could include in the advert:
-Nail Polish
Long lasting, variety of colours, affordable, chip resistant,

-Deodrant
No white marks, small and easy to take with you,'exotic' smell, for all kinds of people

-Tissues/Pocket Tissues
Scented, soft, anti bacterial, different coloured tissues

-Mints
Refreshing, small/pocket sized, get rid of bad breath, mixed flavours,

-Mobile Phone
Large pixel camera, internet connectivity, small, silver, slim, free minutes,

-Healthy Eating (5 a day)
fruit & veg, cheap ways to consume,

-Shower/bath Product
Nice fragrance, free sponge, leaves skin feeling silky smooth, suitable for all skin types

-Make up remover
Takes off even waterproof makeup, kiwi extract, wipes

-Laptop
Small screen, easy, quick set up, large memory, internet connected

-Perfume
His & hers, medium sized bottle, romantic theme,


After we had discussed these ideas in more detail, we narrowed out idea down to 3 which were:
-Pocket tissues
-Mints
-Deodrant

(brief ideas which could occour in adverts)

Pocket Tissues Influences: Kleenex, Olbus tissues

-Girl with cold, shoves normal tissues losely in her bag, they blow away, someone hands her pocket tissues.
-Someone upset, uses the pocket tissues given by friend
-Child sneezing, parent hands over pocket tissues

Mints Influences: Tic Tac, Mentos

-People in restaurant eating foods like garlic etc, mint cures the smell
-People with bad breath, try everyting, but only mint gives the best and freshest effect
-Mint being shared around a group of friends.
-Mint not being shared 'too good to be shared'
-Confidence booster, one someone has the mind they are confident
-Couple, woman cant get away from boyfriend after he's had mint
-Hard day at work, mint makes them feel refreshed

Deodrant Influences: Lynx, Sure

-Could have same principle as the mint ideas
-Someone with body odour, can't fight it untill they use the deodrant
-People can't leave without it on
-Someone who has shaved has irritation, use deodrant which calms it
-Confidence boost, people walking through street confident
-On train, cramped and smelly. Use deodrant inbetween stops and problem is solved.

After discussing and planning out what will and will not work, we decided to advertise mints. We felt that there are a variety of possible ways in which we could advertise this product and felt that it was our strongest idea, and most positive one out of the others which we had come up with. From this step, we continues to think of ideas, look and analyse other adverts within the same category and move forward to creating a storyboard. We also need to think of a name for out product and a unique selling point.

Blog Update/brainstroms

I have a fair bit of research which needs posting on here. I have hand written some research so I will type up or scan bits and pieces. Feel free to view and take ideas from the research etc for your adverts :]

I scanned some of our early brainstroms that we did once we had agreed on doing a mint advert: (click to see bigger version)
1.Ideas which we could include in our advertisements:
Once we had simple ideas like this, we could develop them further and eventually into a storyboard.

2.Brainstorming possible 'jingles' for our adverts:
As we were thinking about what our storyboards could include, we came up with jingles to match different things. However, from an early stage, and from the influence of the Tic Tac adverts, we decided to use of sounds as this appears more catchy. The most suitable ones were 'shake, click, fresh and ahh'

3.Possible plots for the mint advert:
These are some of the first ideas we had for a possible plot line for the mint adverts. Our main struggle was that we had quite a lot of thoughts being put into our discussion however we found it hard to find something that will link all the three adverts together.