Me, an Advertising Designer?

Objectives

• Realize the influence that advertising exerts over us;
• Recognize advertising strategies used to sell products.

Description

Students form teams and act as advertising designers. They discover advertising strategies by create their own ads. Finally, they present their work to their classmates, who will assess the ad using an analysis table.

Equipment

• Material needed to create the type of ad the teacher has selected (e.g., poster board, art supplies, video recorder, mobile phone with video camera, audio recorder for a radio spot, etc.);
• Planning Document;
• Work Plan; 
• Ad Analysis Table. 

Introduction

The teacher tells students they will be playing the role of advertising designers tasked with creating an ad. He or she asks students what a good ad should contain and present a few advertising strategies.

Explanations

Among the many strategies that advertisers use, the following eight are particularly popular:

Using a spokesperson: Backed by his or her popularity or credibility, a spokesperson encourages consumers to follow his or her example and buy the product.

Appealing to emotions: Ads present situations that may be distasteful, funny, or sad—sometimes there is no apparent link to the advertised product. Eliciting an emotional reaction increases consumer interest in the ad and gets them to remember the product.

Idealized lifestyles: Ads often show an ideal world where people have perfect bodies, a balanced life, a close-knit family, and so on. Consumers can easily believe that what they are seeing represents the norm. This advertising strategy may give consumers the impression that the product will have a direct impact on their life. By buying it, consumers can be more like the people in the ad, since the product will improve their health, make them happy, give them more time with their family, etc.

Popularity as bait: Advertisements can convince consumers that the product is synonymous with popularity. Buying the advertised product will make the consumer stand out, be envied by his or her entourage, attract new friends, and be accepted into higher profile groups.

Comparisons with competitors: The advertiser compares its product with the most popular competing brand to highlight its benefits. However, watch out for false statements or misrepresentation! Any statement in an ad must be true and verifiable.

Testimonials: Whether actors or not, the people in these ads are always happy to reveal how happy they are with the product they bought. Consumers are led to believe that they, too, have every chance of being just as satisfied.

Facts and statistics: By presenting the product features, how or where it was designed, and interesting statistics, the advertiser can convince consumers that the product is everything they need. Especially if this information is provided by an expert!

Memorization: Puns or plays on words, slogans, and jingles are all good ways to get consumers to think about the product and the brand and to make sure they remember it.

Instructions

Explain the activity based on the material and time the teacher has chosen. The activity must involve teamwork. The objects to be promoted can be fictitious or real, imposed by the teacher or selected by students.

Step 1: Planning

Students will use the Planning Document to answer questions for project planning.

Step 2: Creating the ad

Using the Planning Document from Step 1, students establish their Work Plan and design their ad.

Step 3: Analyzing the ad

One by one, the teams present their ad to classmates, who analyze it using the Ad Analysis Table.

Conclusion

Ask students:

• What are you taking away from the activity?
• How can you get a better handle on the ads you see every day?