Idea 2 - Chosen Idea

How to sell Babycham…

One of my next ideas was to use humour in order to advertise Babycham, humour that is even poking fun at the product itself. The heading I came up with was “How to sell Babycham” My poster would then demonstrate ridiculous, over-the-top advertising techniques, using irony to make a fun poster that doesn’t take itself – or the product – too seriously. I decided to use this technique of re-marketing, as I felt that my target audience would be almost too aware of Babycham being a “naff” product. I therefore couldn’t make it look cool or stylish, because the target audience wouldn’t believe it; Babycham’s current reputation was already too well known. My attempt to make them product seem cool would look desperate. I therefore took this completely opposite approach – humour. 

Humour has been used in many modern advertisements, especially when it comes to re-marketing a product. A typical example of this is “Old Spice” aftershave. The advert advertising this product is fun and ridiculous. And yet this campaign was incredibly successful, with millions of Old Spice aftershave being sold because of it.  

  

Illustrator

I knew that one of my strengths was working in Illustrator, while one of my weaknesses would be to hand-render my final piece. I therefore decided to work with my strengths and create my final poster by using Illustrator. I scanned my initial sketch (seen above) and pulled this into a blank document. I then used the pen tool to trace around my sketches, neatening them and making them look more professional in this computer program. 

Colour swatch

Because my project wasn’t focused on redesigning the Babycham product, I looked at a modern Babycham bottle and made a note of the main colours being used. I created a colour swatch, which I kept referring back to in the creation of my poster. These colours helped to indentify the product. 

 

Logo and Bottle

I wanted my poster to display the product I was advertising, so I therefore created a bottle and logo by using Illustrator, copying my design from the modern Babycham appearance. I didn’t want it to be overly complicated, as I wanted the rest of my poster to stand out more. However, I felt I could have improved this design by adding more detail. Perhaps on the bottle top especially, as the image appeared slightly flat. 

Design
After looking at the ideas I created on my original sketch, I decided to lower the amount of images down to four - otherwise my poster would appear to cluttered. I therefore decided to take the best ones forward - hypnosis, witchcraft and false advertisement - while I chose the text-based image of "cheesy jingles" to break up the image, so it wasn't overbearing. I decided to keep the images in separate squares to achieve a neat, orderly composition and stuck to my Babycham colour swatch. This, I felt, helped to pull my image together, while also creating a fun, bright appearance.

 

Development

I turned these images into a poster by adding a title and background. For the title, I chose to use a font similar to the one seen on the Babycham logo, again referring back to the product I was selling.  I decided to add a gradient for the background, fading from blue to grey to keep to a consistent colour theme. I also added a grey border to the image, so to make them the focal point. Next, I included the images of the Babycham logo and bottle that I had created in Illustrator previously. 

To improve this image, I could have added more shadows and highlights, to make the images appear more realistic. I felt that I could have also added more detail on the Babycham bottle. However, I felt that strengths of this image was the humour, as well as the bright colours and quirky style. 

Cocktail Idea - Babycham

Babycham Cocktails 

One of my ideas for re-marketing Babycham was to combine the drink with others, to create a more sophisticated type of alcohol. The Babycham drink is still being sold through this idea but by introducing other ingredients it causes the drink to appear less tacky - something that someone is less embarrassed to have.

By looking online I found a few already exisiting cocktails that use Babycham as one of the main ingrediants:

Stairway to Heaven Cocktail Ingredients

•  One part Babycham
•  One part apple juice
•  1 shot of vodka
•  1 shot of blackcurrant cordial

Vodka Zing Cocktail Ingredients

• 1 measure of vodka
• 2 measures of Babycham

Baby Blue Cocktail Ingredients

• Shot of Blue Curacao
• Shot of vodka
• Top up with Babycham

WinkyPop Cocktail Ingredients

• 1 measure of tia maria
• 1 Measure of vodka
• Small Bottle of Babycham
• Top up with lemonade

Wicked Lady Cocktail Ingredients

• 2 shots of Brandy
• Top up with Babycham

 

I think that this idea can appeal to a young audience, as it would appeal to me. Though it could also appeal to a more mature female age range interested in cocktails. Some of the names of the Cocktails give the drink a more sophisticated impression, while the experimentation is also fun.

Development 

I experimented with the composition of what this idea would look like. I felt that by adding a lot of examples of different cocktails, my design appeared too chaotic. Perhaps the composition would look more effective if the poster showed only one cocktail, in the middle of the poster, with the text above and the Babycham bottle and logo below it. I would have to make this poster colourful and lively, to attract to my target audience - students. I decided that I would use bright colours, such as blues and oranges to give a quirky, playful effect that would work for promoting Babycham cocktails.

 

Babycham - Posters

 

Thoughts:

- Simple style

- Monochrome - I don't know if the original poster was made to be black and white, but I think that by not using any colours this causes the poster to lose effectiveness. Babycham is associated with bright colours such as blues and yellows. By making this poster black and white it no longer appears bright and happy like it should.

- Composition - I like the composition of this poster, apart from the large deer that seems out of place. However, I realise why it appears so large, as it is the logo for Babycham.

Marketing - From the images we can understand that this poster has been marketed towards women. It shows Babycham as a partydrink, though could perhaps be trying to make it more elegant than it actually is. 

Thoughts:

- This has a more stylistic effect than the other designs I have seen promoting Babycham, which is very unusual. I think this makes it appear more elegant.

- The bright colours used make the product appear bright and lively, which is good for the slogan "Nothing Sparkles like a Babycham".

- The deer, positioned in the left corner, still appears out of place, especially with the content of the rest of the image.

- Again, this has been marketing towards women, seen in the illustration and floral swirls in the background. It tries to promise elegance and sophistication to those who drink Babycham. However, I'm not sure if this technique would work in the modern day, as Babycham is seen as cheap and tacky. In my opinion, by trying to make it something that it is so extremely not, might cause the advertisement to backfire. 

Thoughts:

- I think that this posters tries to advertise the drink as a Christmas drink. Seen in the background is a Christmas tree. This puts ideas of Christmas into my mind, which then transfers onto the Babycham product. 

- Marketed towards women. 

- Seen as a chilled, relaxing drink. 

- The composition appears tacky in my opinion, as it doesn't really blend well together, and the deer still appears out of place.

- Dull - there is no colour theme that can be seen throughout.

 

 Thoughts:

- Again this poster has been marketed towards women, which is a good idea.

- The colours used work effectively. By making the women black-and-white, the product really stands out.

- The deer for once seems less out of place, as it isn't just plonked randomly in a corner. 

- The slogan, however, does appear to be placed randomly and this doesn't really work effectively. Perhaps it could be bigger to make it stand out more? 

 Thoughts:

- I really like this image, as it is aimed very strongly towards a female audience. It shows the drink's popularity through the ages, claiming that, though the woman has changed, the drink hasn't and still remains widely consumed and popular. It might not be, of course, but the image gives a good impression of the drink, claiming that it has stuck through the years with women. I really like this concept. 

"A Chance Encounter" Film Production

"A Chance Encounter" 

For our next small project, we had to develop a silent film that somehow related back to the title “A Chance Encounter”. My group came up with the idea of having a close encounter with death. We first thought about the many superstitious things that could happen to our main character, before his run in with death. However, we found it hard to add superstitions into the video when it came to the production, as we couldn’t get objects like ladders to walk under and broken mirrors. In the end, we only had a calendar that labelled the date to be Friday the 13^th. Our film showed the main character walking from work, being followed by death (who turned out to be dressed in a red robe, as no one had a black one). On leaving work, he was almost run over by death (this being the close encounter) before he recovered and walked further to reach his car, where he was eventually caught by death. 

Pre-Production 

We focused a lot of the pre-production aspect during this project. We created a storyboard (which illustrated the different scenes), a script (which outlined in detail the events that would happen during each scene) and a treatment (which showed a description of the film, outlining the plot and everyone’s roles). The pre-production really helped us when it came to the actual making of the film, especially since we only had a few hours to film the entire thing. Because we had planned our scenes, we knew where we should be going and what should take place. I think if we hadn’t planned this beforehand it would have taken us twice the amount of the time to film.

Good and bad

I thought that the narrative of our film worked well, as it flowed smoothly from one scene to the other and wasn’t hard to understand. However, we could have focused more on different styles of shots to add interest to our filming. I also felt that we worked well as a team. Everyone had an allocated role and we managed to get everything finished quickly and easily due to this.

We received feedback that there was too much walking during our film, which I agreed with when I watched it back with the rest of the class. During our production, the walking scenes didn’t seem as long. If we were able to edit our film, we would have obviously cut these scenes, making them shorter. This was one of the real difficulties with not being able to edit our video afterwards.

Babycham - Rebranding

Background of Babycham 

Babycham, invented by Francis Edwin Showerin (a brewer from Shepton Mallet in Somerset, England), is the trade name of a light and sparkling perry. Its advertisement was launched in 1953, where it became the first alcoholic product to be advertised on TV in the UK.  Babycham changed the drinking habits of the nation, becoming largely successful in the process. The brand was especially popular during the 1960’s and 70’s, but this didn’t last long, as the public opinion towards the drink changed with the rise of wine and ready-mixed spirit drinks. Not helping the situation was how popular culture began to perceive Babycham. The drink became the centre of many jokes seen upon TV, for example, in the 1993 BBC comedy series “The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer” it was suggested that Babycham was a suitable drink for babies.

 

Change in Babycham 

The appearance of Babycham has changed over the years as the designers tried to remarket the product. The 90’s, for example, saw the scraping of the deer logo, attempting to receive more male interest in the product. The current bottle appears similar in style to the 70’s design, both having similar styled logos and similar colours. Apart from its absence in the 90’s, the deer logo has stuck with Babycham throughout the years. Personally, I can’t see the appeal of this design; I feel that it appears tacky and childish. Many other people who I have asked, both male and female, have also agreed, claiming to also dislike the fawn. 

Babycham Advertisements
In my opinion, the greatest mistake that advertisers made with this product was how they attempted to market it towards men. This was seen in the 1986 TV commercial. The scene was located in a pub, where a woman walks in, asking for a Babycham, to which a deep-voiced, masculine male responds that he, too, would like a Babycham. Though I understand that the advertisers were trying to branch out the product to a greater audience, I feel that this advertisement is unsuccessful and that few men would be willing to buy Babycham, especially in this era. I therefore decided that when it came to rebranding the product, I would rebrand for a female audience only.

1986 advert - “I’d love a Babycham”

 
1980's - "The Office Worker"
The 1980’s returned their tactic of marketing Babycham towards women, this time specially the “Office Worker”. The catchphrase still remains: “I’d Love a Babycham”, though little else stays similar when comparing this to the previous Babycham advertisements. The advert shows your stereotypical female brainbox, complete with glasses. This advert is encouraging such a person to let lose, preferably by buying this product. It works with the idea that by buying a Babycham you can be as envied as the woman in the advert. I’m not sure that such an advert would work if it were put on screens in this era. Babycham here is trying to present itself as something it isn’t – cool and sophisticated. I think that an audience at this time would see straight through that, knowing that it isn’t quite what the advert is making it out to be, and therefore wouldn’t go near the drink. Trying to make Babycham cool seems like an impossible task and you can’t just say that it is, hoping it will work, like this advertisement does. However, the advert could have worked at the time, as it encourages women to let lose, and with the rise of female independence at the time, it could work for the targeted audience. 

 

1984 advert – “Nothing Sparkles like a Babycham” 

Adverts that usually use cartoons to convey a message are commonly children’s adverts. Therefore, I wouldn’t have first thought of using a cartoon to advertise an alcoholic drink, but it could be something to do with the time of this adverts’ production. The deer logo has a stronger role here, as it features throughout the advertisement, rather than just at the end. A jingle is also used throughout, which, again, reminds me of something seen in a children’s advert. The advert shows the deer spreading joy with the Babycham drink at a party. It has been intended for a female audience and shows smiling women having a good time throughout. I think that I prefer this tag line – “Nothing Sparkles like a Babycham” – to the other (“I’d Love a Babycham”), though it is still rather cheesy. If a similar advert was seen on the TV now, it wouldn’t do very well, as the style is old and aged. However, if it was done in an ironic way instead this could be very effective.

Alcohol and women

In the past, most advertisements featuring alcoholic drinks were aimed specifically at men, as they were the gender who consumed the most alcohol. However, with new changes in society, recent research has shown that many women and younger girls now drink an almost equal amount as men. Through these alcohol advertisements (aimed at women) many stereotypes have been introduced. The “Party Girl” is commonly seen, who is a stylish and glamorous young woman, who is usually fun-loving and has become the centre of attention through her chosen drink. The “Rebel” is also a common stereotype: a young woman who asserts her independence through a wild yet fun attitude, becoming someone that the audience will idolize.  

Task 3: Planning and Creating a Simple Piece of Digital Media

Target Audience

My target audience will be a number of my peers. Therefore, I thought about what I would like to see in a presentation and concluded that I should create something that appears fun and attractive. An interesting composition will be needed, as well as visual aids that explain what I will be discussing. I will have to create a theme for my presentation and stick to the same theme throughout the three slides. 

Colour Swatches

Thinking about the design of the presentation, I first considered the colours I should be using. I wanted to use colours that referred to Egypt, which linked to the topic of my project. I therefore began to look at the colours typically used in Ancient Egyptian art and created some colour swatches from this. As Ancient Egyptians would have a limited supply of colours they were available to, a lot of similar colours arose. Most were earthly colours: mixtures of browns, reds, golds and yellows. There were also a few dark, dim blues and blacks. However, while I was researching this I realised that there were few bright colours being used. I therefore decided it would be most suitable to stick to earthly colours when creating my presentation.

Backgrounds

Like with the colours, I wanted a background that linked with Ancient Egypt. I first found a background that contained attractive hieroglyphics (seen right). However, I felt that the colour of this background (a dark black) wasn’t suitable, as I had decided to stick to earthly colours. I then began to think of what else linked to Egypt and came up with the idea of using papyrus paper. I found an attractive texture of papyrus, which was coloured a light brown, and decided that this looked simple and effective enough to use for my presentation background.

 

 

Title Text 

I wanted my title text to be bold and stand out, yet I also wanted it to fit with the style of my presentation. I experimented with a number of different fonts (my favourites seen below) and eliminated the ones that didn’t quite work.  Some appeared too fancy and complex to work (font number one and five), while some didn’t fit the style I was looking for (four and six). My favourite typeface, however, is font number two, as it is simplistic and looks attractive, fitting perfectly with the background I had selected. There are so many fonts to choose from that finding the perfect one became a quite difficult part of the development process. 

Composition

I drew a number of sketches to decide the most attractive and suitable composition for my PowerPoint presentation. I decided that it might look effective if I had a “band” across the top and bottom of my slide (seen in black below). I would use a picture, which related to Egypt, as the band, therefore giving balance to my composition. Next, I would write my title text – in the font that I decided upon and a large text – and make it stand out. My information would be placed below this, while a picture would be placed to the right, so to hopefully breaking up the text. 

Composition Step 2

I added a background and Egyptian images across the top and bottom of my slide, which I felt really added balance. I then created a text box, positioning it in the middle of the slide, and added various effects to make it stand out. However, I felt that this appeared too simplistic, so edited it slightly, as seen in step three.

 

Composition Step 3 

The faded the background out slightly, so that the other pieces of the slide stood out more vividly, while I also added a title text. I then stretched the text box. I was pleased with the stage. 

Composition Final Step

Adding the finishing touches, this is the result I received.

Presentations

 

 3D Animation

The Task 

-- During my first lesson in "Communication Skills for Digital Media", we were put into groups and given a subject to research. The subject my group was given was "3D Animation". Together, we had to prepare a presentation then deliver it the following week. Presentation complete, here is my reflection on our group’s delivery.

Working effectively as a group

-- I felt that, despite our troubles, we did work effectively as a group. We held a number of group discussions before the presentation and created our PowerPoint together. By working as a group, we came up with the points to discuss and what to include in our PowerPoint. No problems occurred during the initial group meetings and no group member became missing, therefore I felt we worked effectively together. However, maybe if we had arranged more group meetings and discussed the presentation in more detail we would have been more successful.

Contributing to the task

-- We each talked about a different slide in the presentation, while we created the PowerPoint as a group; therefore no one was left doing nothing, we each contributed. 

  

Problems

-- The problems we encountered developed in the presentation. Very little problems occurred during our group discussions and the making of the PowerPoint. It was only during the presentation where things seemed to go downhill, mainly because of our lack of rehearsal.

Research and content

-- We decided, as a group, to carry out our initial research individually. In our first group discussion, we thought about types of 3D animation and decided to look further into the making and design of the popular Toy Story 3. Hopefully, with this topic, everyone would find what we were saying more interesting. 

   At first, we decided to look specifically at one character (Slinky Dog), showing the design process behind it, starting from the influence of the animation character's design (James Industries' “Slinky” toy), to the final outcome. However, at our next group meeting, a member of our team had found an interesting step-by-step process of creating a single frame for Toy Story 3. After reading this guide, we felt that this would be more effective to discuss. But we didn’t just want to jump straight into Toy Story, so at first we decided to discuss the history of 3D animation.

Improvement

-- To improve the group’s preparation we could have rehearsed our presentation. Because we didn’t rehearse, a number of issues developed during our presentation. For example, our group became confused at who was supposed to be talking about one certain slide, which arose a few problems during our presentation. By rehearsing our presentation beforehand we could have stopped the issues that arose.  

Visual Aids

 -- We did create a PowerPoint that made effective use of visual aids, displaying images as we discussed them. However, to improve we could have added more style to our visual aids, as they appeared quite basic.