Secondary Research

Critical Reading

12 Months to $1 Million

This was the book that started it all. I read it prior to this project for my own pleasure. This book makes the entrepreneurial process seem so easy, that I was hugely inspired to take the leap and release a product of my own; I have since discovered this is not the case but I'm in far too deep now. In the book, Ryan Moran discusses what it takes to be an entrepreneur and his easy 12 month plan to build a $1 million business; of course this is only in some specific cases. The process is the same for whatever scale startup business however. The key thing I will be discussing here, as it is the only part relevant to my final major project, is the marketing. Ryan discusses uses social media as a primary source of advertising, he believes it to be the primary way to get a potential customer's attention, in the modern day. As with all books about marketing, Ryan also discusses the importance of knowing your target market inside and out. This was what lead me to do such extensive primary research.

Key Quote

Most entrepreneurs fail because they try to make a product for everyone. They waste their money on mass advertising, using messaging that never connects with anyone. If you want people to pay attention, you need to market to a specific person, not just sell your thing.

The 1-Page Marketing Plan

The 1-Page Market Plan by Allan Dib was a great introduction into the world of marketing for a beginner, such as myself. Allan has a slightly more traditional approach to marketing. While he still believes social media is very effective, he is primarily a fan of more personal advertising, such as: sending letters and mailing lists. I will be primarily using social media for my advertising but this book was a highly interesting read nonetheless. Much like the previous author discussed, Allan really drills the point of having a narrow target audience into the readers head. From this book, I took that I should include information about the product in my advertisement and maybe even in another ad, include customer reviews in the advert. It is even possible to include myself and my business partner in the ad. Allan says this is a good way to make a company seem more personal and less like a corporate entity.

Key Quote

Dominate a niche, then once you own it, do the same with another and then another. But never do so all at once. Doing so dilutes your message and your marketing power.

Neuromarketing for Dummies

A good balance between novelty and familiarity seems to be a vital part of producing both a product and an ad. Novelty is what gets people's attention. This seems to be an evolutionary thing; we need to pay attention to things they haven't seen before in order to survive. We tend to ignore things that we are familiar with because it hasn't killed us yet. Because novel things have the potential to harm us, we approach with caution. In short: novelty to get the consumers attention and aspects of familiarity, so that consumers feel safe.

I decided to read Neuromarketing for Dummies, specifically with my FMP in mind. Going into this book, my knowledge of what neuromarketing actually is and isn't was limited.

The authors of this book discuss in great detail what neuromarketing actuall helps marketers understand. I found this book to be more valuable than my primary research. Neuromarketing helps us understand non-conscious cues that can persuade consumers to buy.

Prior to reading this book, I was taking my primary research as gospel. I have since realised that consumers often don't know what causes an emotional response. As consumers, we like to think we're logical in our buying habits but this is often not the case. Things such as stories and social proof can have a huge impact.

I have decided to write a story for the extended ad. My primary research would suggest that this would be an effective ad, however this could be due to how the questions were framed. Stories can evoke an emotional response in consumers, as they are on the journey with the character.

When I started reading this book, I thought it wasn't useful and I had wasted my money. It turns out, there was loads of useful information and it actually ended up being the most influential and relevant book I read. It changed my perspective on my primary research a lot also. Part of me wishes I had read this book before conducting my primary research because in hindsight, I possibly would have framed some of the questions slightly differently. I also could have incorporated showing various different adverts to my focus groups and seeing how much of each ad they recall.

This book also sparked my interest in the next book, 'Thinking, Fast and Slow.' Daniel Kahneman changed the way we think about the human brain with his System 1 and System 2 brain model.

Thinking, Fast and Slow (Summary)

System 1

As highlighted in Neuromarketing for Dummies, Daniel Kahneman's system 1 and system 2 model is useful for anyone marketing a product to understand. Thinking, Fast and Slow is an incredibly long and difficult read, therefore I simply would not have time to complete it for my FMP. Because of this, I decided to read a summary of the book instead. I decided after reading the summary that I will read the book in full as soon as I get the time as I actually found it incredibly interesting. I enjoy learning things about the brain and neuroscience, so this is right up my street. I also want to go into the marketing and advertising side of videography, so this would be very useful to understand.

System 2

System 1 is the older and more primitive process. We're often not aware of when system 1 is making the decisions because we are not thinking about it on a conscious level.

System 2 is the voice we hear in our head. It allows us to think things through. We are very aware of this system; we can often be fooled into thinking this is the only thinking we actually do.

This is the system that can be manipulated easier by marketers. Marketers often try to not active a system 2 response because this leads to more rational and well thought out decisions.

Dr. Kahneman's Model in the Context of Marketing

Marketers will use the priming technique in their ads in order to make their brand the first thing a consumer will think of when thinking of a certain product. For example, when someone sees a dog, they may think of a particular dog food brand.

Techniques such as priming and repetition can create cognitive ease. Once we have associated certain cues with one another, we will always think of the other when presented with a given cue.

As marketers, we should make it as easy as possible for the consumer to make the decision to buy. We cannot make someone that never wanted the product buy our product - this is what many people mistakenly think about neuromarketing - we can, however, try to make our product come to the consumers mind first.

Many consumers often find seeing ads for a given company over and over, quite irritating. Being made to think of a brand over and over is building familiarity, so that when a consumer wants to buy something, it's this brand that comes to mind.

Content Inspiration

It turns out that preworkout video advertisements are actually not very common at all. We weren't actually able to find any for most major brands. It appears most of them just use photos of their product as an advert. While searching around online, I found this video about making a preworkout advert. It even shows the behind the scenes, which is incredibly helpful for me. We showed the final video to our focus group and asked what they thought. They seemed very impressed with video and said a video like that could contribute to their purchasing decision.

Here are some other supplement advertisements that I was able to find. It's interesting to see what they all have in common, but equally, each ad I could find is totally different. It seems there is no set way of doing one of these videos.

This video shows athletes working and is a good example of an ad showing a product 'in use'. It makes the viewer look at these athletes and aspire to be like them.

Here is an example of an ad that shows how a product is created. People are more inclined to purchase a product if they are invested in the process of it being created. This was surprisingly a fairly common option on our survey.

This is a more story driven ad that uses humour to be memorable. If you look at the comment section on this video, it was really well received. Our survey results show that an ad of this nature would not be effective, however it was a really small survey and sometimes people don't know what they want until they see it. I will show this ad to as many people as possible and get their feedback.

Daniel Schiffer

One incredibly helpful Youtuber I have been watching is 'Daniel Schiffer.' He specialises in product videography and makes some really impressive looking videos all at home. He also goes into detail about how he created them, which is really useful for someone like me. He creates a variety of different product videos, this is really helpful as I can take aspects from each video to incorporate into my own. He may have slightly better equipment than me but all his videos are shot at home, so all the principals are the same.

In this video, Daniel uses lots of techniques that have got me thinking. The use of a fishing line and compositing to make the can open by itself was something that caught my eye. This made me think about my pre-workout lid bursting off and powder flying out. I also thought the fish tank and the oranges floating were a nice touch. This is perhaps something I could experiment with, however I fear it would not go with the theme of the video. Daniel uses three point lighting in this video, which made it look less moody. I might stick to 2 point lighting, as I liked the way it looked in my experimental research.

I like the moody aesthetic Daniel went for in this video. The transitions were smooth and this is the sort of style I want my ad to be. The story of my ad is a bit comical, however a moody aesthetic would be a good contrast and go well with the gym theme. I like the lowkey lighting used in this video and might go as far as to replicate some of it in my shots at the gym. I think this would balance out the comedic aspects and make it more serious because I feel it could be risky to go for an entirely light hearted video.

Daniel goes over some things from previous videos that people often wouldn't notice. His point was that it would majorly affect the overall quality of the video, had he not done it. This included things such as masking out particles from a fish tank shot and making the display on a toaster brighter. I may have to do some compositing of this nature in my video because it will involve a few visual effects. Furthermore, I use glass for a reflection and the edge of the glass can be seen in the final shot, therefore I may have to mask this out frame by frame because if I don't, the video will look unprofessional.

Despite being mostly an ad for a motion control system that has sponsored him, this video has some interesting information. The thing that stood out to me was moving the light around. I have seen this done before in product videos but for some reason never thought about it. Daniel shows how you can turn a boring shot into something interesting, simply through a bit of movement. He also adds other practical elements that don't really add anything to the story but make the shot more engaging for the viewer. In marketing, this is useful because we want the ad to be memorable.

Full Time Filmmaker Seamless Video Pro Course

I bought this course a while ago because it was in the 5 Day Deal. 5 Day Deal is a thing where filmmakers get together and put their courses and digital assets in a bundle for a huge discount for charity. This course was in my bundle. The course is mostly for making seamless transitions, so there is definitely some useful stuff here. The most helpful thing for this particular project, is the fitness commercial job shadow.

Landon suggests picking the song you're going to use before shooting and editing the video, this helps with planning out all the transitions. He says it is useful to plan out all the transitions before shooting, as this will make the video more seamless and well thought out. He suggests making a checklist on your phone and rank them most important to least important, in order to make sure you always get the most important shots. This means that in the event you run out of time, the video still gets made. In the edit, he speed ramps for the transitions to make them smoother. He also goes over a few other transitions, such as blocking the frame.

Reference list

Dib, A. (2021). 1-PAGE MARKETING PLAN : get new customers, make more money, and stand out from the crowd. S.L.: Page Two Books, Inc.

Ryan Daniel Moran (2020). 12 Months To $1 Million : How To Pick A Winning Product, Build A Real Business, And Become A Seven-Figure Entrepreneur. Dallas, Tx: Benbella Books.

Schiffer, D. (n.d.). Daniel Schiffer - YouTube Channel. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/c/Znqt/videos [Accessed 3 Jun. 2021].

Stephen James Genco, Pohlmann, A.P. and Steidl, P. (2013). Neuromarketing for dummies. Mississauga, On: John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd.

StoryShots. (2021). Analysis and Summary of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman | PDF | Free Audiobook. [online] Available at: https://www.getstoryshots.com/books/thinking-fast-and-slow-summary/#StoryShot_2_System_2_Can_Control_Parts_of_System_1 [Accessed 3 Jun. 2021].

Walbeck, P. (2020). 5 Tips for Shooting Product Videos. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iptXqcCimaw [Accessed 22 Mar. 2020].

Walbeck, P. (n.d.). FullTime Filmmaker Film School. [online] www.fulltimefilmmaker.com. Available at: https://www.fulltimefilmmaker.com/ [Accessed 3 Jun. 2021].

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Avvatar - Reconstruct Yourself. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sBB-R71TGQ [Accessed 3 Jun. 2021].

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). BPN vs. Big Girthy Arms.com | Supplement Safety You Need To Know About. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwMAzsmNhWQ [Accessed 3 Jun. 2021].

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Optimum Nutrition | Quality Supplements. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOoe0RYok_8 [Accessed 3 Jun. 2021].