COM3155 – Design Ad Campaigns

Design Ad Campaigns is a continuation of concepts and skills acquired in Design Brand Identity (prerequisite). In Design Ad Campaigns, students develop advertising skills through projects and activities in conceptualization, campaign development and copy writing. The delivery and presentation of an ad campaign is also a major focus. Students enhance their abilities to integrate various media for the purpose of producing a multimedia message for a target audience.

Assessment breakdown:

#1. Theory = 20%
#2. Practice = 40%
#3. Final Project = 40%

REMINDER: Unless indicated otherwise, all assignments are to be turned in through the assignments tab in Microsoft Teams.

Theory

IN THIS SECTION WE WILL LEARN IMPORTANT CONCEPTS NEEDED TO DO THE PRACTICE. PLEASE ENSURE YOU HAVE REVIEWED THE MATERIALS BELOW BEFORE COMPLETING THE THEORY QUESTIONS ASSIGNED THROUGH TEAMS.

What should you already know about Branding?

In the Design Brand Identity module, we learned the following:

  • The relationship between brand, branding, and brand identity

  • The process to establishing a brand

  • Brand touchpoints and the customer journey

  • Elements to successful branding

It is important that you have a good understanding of each bullet listed above. Consider reviewing the Multimedia 20 - Design Brand Identity presentation files before moving on.

 

What is an advertising campaign?

Chances are you have seen an advertisement today. Digital marketing experts estimate that most North Americans are exposed to 4,000-10,000 ads per day. Brands are always campaigning values, products, and services with aims of winning over our loyalty and money in our pockets. Let us take a deeper dive into what an ad campaign entails inside of Presentation 1.

 

What are the steps to running a successful advertising campaign?

Now that you know what a campaign entails, let’s learn the steps to successfully launching your own so it is not only seen but appreciated by your target audience(s). A strong ad concept is invaluable to running a successful campaign. Please watch the YouTube video, ‘What Is a Concept?’, then view Presentation 2.

 

Practice

IN THIS SECTION YOU WILL APPLY WHAT YOU LEARNED IN THE THEORY SECTION. THE AIM OF PRACTICING IS TO EQUIP YOU WITH THE KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS NEEDED TO DO THE FINAL PROJECT. CLICK ON THE BUTTON BELOW TO DOWNLOAD A PRACTICE PORTFOLIO TEMPLATE (MOVE IT TO YOUR STUDENT FOLDER) AND CAREFULLY REVIEW THE INSTRUCTIONS.

> How to do Practice Portfolio in Multimedia (00:00)
> Student Examples

Include the following challenges, plus pictures of any other in-class activities you completed (earn bonus marks), inside your practice portfolio:

#1 – Backwards Brief

For this challenge, you will reverse engineer one of the advertisement options linked below by analyzing the ad, and doing your best to retroactively write a creative brief using this template (download and copy slide over to your practice portfolio). To help you write the brief, consider things like:

  • How are the main subjects depicted? (Age? Sex? Appearance? Etc.) This will hint at the target audience.

  • What is the mood and/or tone of your ad? This will also hint at the target audience.

  • What is the call to action displayed? This will hint at the business goal or KPI.

  • What is the concept shown? This should highlight the benefits of the thing being promoted.

> Advertisement Option 1 (Apple: Magazine Ad)
> Advertisement Option 2 (VIM: Video Ad)
> Advertisement Option 3 (Frontline: Guerrilla Ad)
> Advertisement Option 4 (Doritos: Video Ad)

 

#2 – Campaign Hunt

For this challenge, choose one of the following campaigns to analyze. In your practice portfolio, add a slide with the name of your chosen ad campaign, indicate the campaign focus (product-oriented or consumer-oriented), and using terminology learned in this credit, give your opinion on the effectiveness of the campaign: did you like the concept? Why or why not? Also include images/links to at least two different advertisements (different media) used during the campaign.

 

#3 – What’s the Big Idea?

For this challenge, you will use the ONE MINUTE BRIEFS database to do the following:

1) Choose a brief, old (on website) or new (active contests pinned to their Twitter), of interest.
2) Identify the bid idea (concept) proposed in the brief.
3) Create an advertisement that demonstrates the concept in action.

 

Final Project

THIS CREDIT HAS DIFFERENT REQUIREMENTS FOR THE FINAL PROJECT. PLEASE BEGIN BY CAREFULLY READING THE FINAL PROJECT DESCRIPTION BELOW AND ANSWER ALL THE PROMPTS IN THE FINAL PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS.

Final Project Description: For this final project, you will develop an advertising campaign to present to an audience. In your presentation, you must include the following:

• Identify a brand product or service that you want to promote
• Explain the benefits provided by your chosen product or service
• Fill in a Creative Brief using the same template from practice challenge 1
• Create at least two different advertisements that satisfy the brief

> How to do Final Projects in Multimedia
> Student Example (Final Project)

 
 

ACTIVITY FILES:

> Brand Archetypes Quiz (Website)

SOFTWARE:

> Inkscape (Free, Vector)
> Vectr (Free, Vector)
> Photopea.com (Free, Online Raster)

ASSETS:

> Slidesgo.com (Free Ppwt. Templates)
> Shopify Logo Generator (Website)
> Dafont.com (Free Fonts)
> Google Fonts (Free Fonts)
> Unsplash.com (Free, Stock Images)
> Pexels.com (Free, Stock Images/Video)
> FreePik.com (Free Graphics)
> Blush.com (Free, Customizable Graphics)