FINAL EVALUATION

Going into my Final Major Project, I decided that I wanted to make an advert for a sport supplement company that I had started with my friend. I knew that because I would genuinely be using the ad for our company, it needed to be good because it would be associated with our brand. I didn't quite know what type of ad would be most effective yet but I knew I wanted to make a flashy ad showing off the product and making it look appealing. I decided we would learn about the world of marketing and conduct extensive market research in order to make sure the ad would capture the interest of our target market. Key word being our target market. I knew we had to try and get our future customer demographic to fill out our surveys because our product is so niche that the needed to be made specifically with them in mind. I had already made a product ad for fun in the first lockdown. It was for Monster Ultra and I just made it because I was bored essentially, but this put me in a good position to replicate these skills for our real ad.

​

I actually conducted very extensive research for this project. I normally rush things and see research as something where you have to act like it actually made a difference to the final outcome of the project. Luckily, in this instance, it was different. Doing research felt very authentic and natural because it was genuine. Marketing is something I've never really looked into a great deal, so I had to learn everything from scratch. I made two surveys; one was for the product itself and the other was more focused on the advertising of the product. While I don't think I perfectly targeted the correct consumers with the survey because I didn't have many other options other than to put it on my instagram and snapchat, I do think it was still helpful for more general information, such as the length of the ad etc. The focus groups were mostly my friends and a few people from my gym but this was more of the correct demographic. I was shocked to find out a lot of people are only interested in how the product looks.

​

I documented the process of learning about marketing in my secondary research. I wrote about reading '12 Months to $1 Million,' because this was the book that sparked my idea and also had some basic information on marketing. It was after this that I went down the rabbit hole. I read 'The 1-Page Marketing Plan,' which was where I learnt most of my information about basic marketing. Unfortunately, the author wasn't the biggest fan of social media marketing, which left not much to write about and meant I had to read other books because social media was planned to be our main platform. I then read 'Neuromarketing for Dummies,' which I found incredibly interesting. It was this book that caused me to make a second story based ad as well (which didn't turn out great but we'll get onto that). I wish I had read this book before conducting my primary research because it would have been incredibly useful. The book also touched on Dr. Kahneman's System 1 and System 2 model, which also lead me to read a summary of 'Thinking Fast and Slow.' By this point, I had learnt quite a bit about marketing and advertising but I still needed to brush up on my product videography skills. I did this by watching various different youtube videos; many of them were by a videographer named 'Daniel Schiffer,' I found his videos extremely helpful because he showed me how to make a boring shot of a tub look interesting. I then went and practiced with 2 point lighting in my experimental research and put what I learnt into practice. I think this was my best research segment of any project yet because it helped a lot, I learnt a lot and it actually shaped what my final video looked like.

​

I'm not normally much of planner. I did do quite a bit of planning for this project though. I wrote a screenplay, made a storyboard and even an animatic with the music. I did find this to be genuinely helpful for knowing what I want. I don't believe it made much of a difference to how my final video turned out, however. Most may beg to differ, but I believe the planning actually made me more stubborn and not divert from my original plan, which I think was one of the biggest issues with my FMP. Normally I just wing things and they turn out quite okay. For example, I completely made up ad no. 1 on the spot, which is the one I ended up being proud of and will actually use as an advert for my product. The ad that I had extensively planned, was too ambitious for the amount of time I had and the equipment but because I had planned it that way, I tried to stick to it. This could, of course, be easily solved by not being as stubborn and adapting to the situation at hand. I have learnt a valuable lesson here, so hopefully this shouldn't happen at uni and when I go into the industry.

​

I believe the problem solving was where my FMP started to go downhill. There were so many factors that were difficult to plan for. While I could sit here and blame everything else, I have to take responsibility for things I could have done differently. The first thing I could have done was had a good enough back-up plan. While I did have a back-up plan, I was never prepared to actually resort to it - this being using a commercial gym, I wouldn't be able to control the lighting, however. Ironically, I wasn't able to have great control of the lighting in the college gym anyway and only had half an hour to shoot, so in hindsight, I should have used the back-up plan and been more prepared to actually use it. I only planned for basic things, such as forgetting a memory card or my batteries running out. I didn't plan for more extreme matters, such as: the college having a cyber attack and not being able to book anything for 3 weeks, my label getting wet and not being able to print a new one and no one turning up to let me into the college gym. One thing I did plan for but never stuck to my word on was practicing with the C100 first, ultimately this was to my detriment as you will see in the footage. I believe I could have changed the outcome by being less stubborn and actually using my plan b because not doing this resulted in me having next to no time to shoot, edit and evaluate my FMP and sadly, I think it would have ended up being better if I had done this anyway.

​

Overall, I am pleased with the way ad no. 1 turned out (the one with just the product) but I am quite embarrassed to submit ad no. 2. I will submit it anyway so my work hasn't gone to waste but I will not be using it for my company and will do another one with a similar concept later down the line. I am actually quite proud of how ad no. 1 turned out. The fact I have done similar things before actually shows in my work, so that is proof that you improve every time you do something. There was much more going on in my Monster Ad and some interesting sound design, however this just didn't fit my product, therefore I would argue I have improved because the ad is more to the point and shows what needs to be shown. It's easy to forget that most people don't care and it's your job as a filmmaker to get them to watch at least a few seconds before they scroll straight past. I used more suspense and a build up of tension in this ad; quite a few seconds have passed before the product is fully shown. It will be interesting to see whether this is a good idea in a practical sense or not, on one hand it hooks the viewer but on the other hand, if they only watch a few seconds, they won't see or remember your product. I will be actually using this as the first announcement for the product that we will be launching in about two months from the time of writing this. Ad no. 2, as already discussed, I am not so proud of. I believe it's not a true reflection of what I'm capable of at all. There were a lot of things that went wrong on the run up to being able to shoot and then while shooting but I can't blame external factors. I need to take responsibility for that fact that I wasn't prepared enough. I also don't like the song but the site I got it from won't let me download any more songs without paying and since I am not using it, I see this as a bit pointless. I am so glad I made 2 videos in the end because I actually have one I can use and be proud of. If this was not the case, I would have been left feeling quite disappointed.