Answer the following questions (be sure to relate to the group project when explain the terms)
One and a half to Two pages for each.
1.____ Explain the difference between informational ads and transformational ads.
2.____ List six benefits and disadvantages an advertiser will experience by incorporating magazine media into the creative mix used for advertising
3.____ Define/ describe/ and give examples for the two dimensions needed for great advertising
4.____ List six benefits an advertiser can receive by incorporating newspaper media into its creative mix.
5.____ Define/Describe/ and give examples for the potential problems with visual media
6.____ Describe five different types of headlines used in advertising and described in
7.____ Describe typography and the four important criteria for selecting typography
8.____ What are the advantages/disadvantages of using online advertising
9.____ Compare/Contrast reach and frequency in advertising
10.____ When is TV advertising a good decision ?
11.____ Name any four rules of the layout that an artist must follow when creating an ad. Team Outdoor: Group Paper
1. Executive Summary
Nature is an untapped resource that provides limitless opportunities to explore, learn, and grow. It plays a grand role in our lives; however, far too often, it is overlooked and underappreciated. In a world that is increasingly becoming more reliant and connected with technology, it is critical to acknowledge the importance of nature. Therefore, our group, Team Outdoors, worked fervently to develop a strong message that emphasizes the importance of connecting with nature, preserving the environment, and exploring new possibilities outside. Collaboration was essential to ensure the successful promotion of our mission, given the short time frame. Therefore, we partnered with Camping Club, an existing student organization, to promote this message across a wide network of peers in an efficient and effective manner. A key component of our team's objective was to address the United Nations goal, Life on Land. This objective emphasized the importance of disconnecting from technology, developing environmental awareness, and establishing a connection with nature. A multitude of marketing strategies were employed to maximize our outreach and overall effectiveness as a unit. These strategies included: identifying our market, segmenting a specific target niche, positioning our message, and delivering our message across various social media forums.
Our target market consisted of health & environmental activists, adventure seekers, and active lifestyle advocates. The demographics of our target audience consisted of young millennials with an even distribution of male and female. With this in mind, we tailored our marketing strategy to be engaging and relatable to this specific crowd. Therefore, we utilized social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. These forums are a prime source for young millennial engagement. Additionally, we utilized viral trends to deliver a message that was informative and relatable.
Overall, the integration of several marketing strategies proved to be successful. Each post generated an increasing amount of social media engagement. As a result, all of our social media pages gained followers, likes, and views. There is a strong, positive correlation between the volume of our posts and the amount of viewership that our pages received. These results testify to the effectiveness and efficiency of our team's message and the overarching marketing strategy.
2. Introduction of Group Selected
Two groups took part in our marketing strategy. Firstly, we selected a group of Non-UCR students that were SRC members. These students represented the demographic of individuals who were outside of our immediate influence since they were not students. Therefore, it gave us a varying perspective as to how we can engage with individuals who are not directly related to our demographic. In addition to their Non-student status, this sample test market also had additional criteria. They had to exhibit an interest for nature, maintain an active personality, and a desire to be environmentally conscious.
In addition to this group, we also selected an existing student organization known as the Camping Club. This group consists of individuals from different varying cultures, ages, lifestyles, and sexes. Therefore, we had a wide spread of perspectives that allowed us to develop a strong sense of how our message was perceived. We chose this student organization because their members display the core values that relate to our target market. Therefore, it facilitated the process of delivering a message that will be well-received. Not only were these members suitable for our target market, but also they were enthusiastic about our message and aided us in promoting the message across campus. As a result of our collaboration with Camping Club, our primary message was efficiently and effectively promoted across the university due to the increase in engagement. Consequently, the increased engagement from our collaboration with camping club improved our ongoing interactions with the first test group, the Non-UCR members.
The utilization of two test groups allowed us to gather important data regarding the attitude towards technology and nature. To be specific, both groups agreed that the increase in the usage of technology directly decreases the interest for holistic activities. Additionally, both groups believe that there needs to be an increased sense of awareness for environmentally sustainable practices. This data played an integral role in tailoring our marketing message. It became clear that there is a demand for a pro-nature lifestyle and our group served as the medium to deliver that message.
3. Selection of Group, Strategy and Process
a. Demographics, characteristics, Targets, subgroups
Team Outdoor decided to start by targeting the students at UCR who are health and environmental activists. These students ranged between 18-25 years old, both female and male students. Since we were focusing on active lifestyle individuals, we honed our attention towards members of the SRC. Additionally, we searched for students who are already interested in camping and being outdoors because they would be more receptive of our message. The candidates for this criteria was our second target audience. These people consisted of both female and male 18-35 years old, as well as those who are not SRC members. We soon came to realize that our intended audience of those who are health and environmental activists were not those who we actually engaged. We actually got more attention from adventure seekers and active lifestyle pursuers than from health and environmental activists. Therefore, our actual target audience consisted of people who regularly go out camping, hiking, and other activities done in nature.
b. Pertinent information to reach audience
i. Emotion appeal, logical appeal, etc.
We used emotional and logical appeal in order to attract more students. We used emotional appeal in the ads, the video, and the message we were trying to give. In the persuasive ad we used emotional appeal to create a story about a student who was in need of a break during finals. This student then decided to join the Camping club hike the C, because supposably if you kiss the C you get straight A's that quarter. We are trying to encourage our target market to build a life that is worth living and they can do this by helping the world by living an eco-friendly lifestyle. We also used emotional appeal in the video by sharing personal stories about their experiences with camping. This allowed us to connect with our audience on a deeper level.
We used logical appeal in the informational ad. By using the logical appeal we are able to get the audience to understand the benefits that the outdoors can bring. It is easy to convince someone to engage in something that has more benefits than harm.
4. Discussion of the selection of Advertising medium or vehicle
a. Proposed Ad placement, account planning. Wording & Graphics
We used Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube as our social media platforms, since we are targeting a younger audience who is already really involved in those outlets. In our Facebook posts we used narrative and straight sell wording, this technique was better for us because we didn't want to seem to uptight. Camping is all about relaxing and having fun so we decided to mirror those feeling into our wording and graphics.
Therefore, placing an advertisement on Facebook means reaching a big number of people. Reaching a big number of people means that many people will get the message and some of them will respond to it positively. YouTube is another social media platform that has been in existence for many years. Some organizations that are doing very well globally have their accounts on YouTube (Cova, 2002). The accounts are used as a link between the organizations and their customers, with some advertisements put on YouTube as well. YouTube will help most of the subscribers to know about the group and its project. The third and one of the most used social media platform in the twenty-first century is Instagram. Instagram promotes the sharing of pictures and comments.
The group has a plan of having some of the photos passed to the targeted audience. The photos were taken during the project, and they are appealing. The photos will go a long way in convincing the audience to buy the idea of the group. Such photos will be posted on Instagram for many people to see. The use of Instagram will also be encouraged (Burciaga, 2016). It is believed that a consumer is likely to purchase when a fact is provided to support the claims of the advertiser. By using videos and pictures that contain the features and the activities that went down during the project, many people will be convinced to buy the idea of the group as well as promote the camping club.
b. Roadblocks to reception explored
Originally, Camping Club was not our first choice for our campus organization that we wanted to team up with. At first, we decided Outdoor Excursions would of been a better fit as they reach a larger audience amongst the UCR community. Although they were willing to team up with us, they did not give us the enthusiasm that we wished to receive which was a major roadblock considering we already shaped our marketing plan around them. We then decided it would be better to team up with a smaller organization on campus that would benefit more off of our intended goals which is how we came across Camping Club. After we had resolved this issue, reaching the community and spreading the word through social media was another roadblock that we stumbled upon, specifically with our Instagram account. We struggled to gain followers on our account which we assumed was because Instagram reached a smaller community and individuals were more reluctant on what they like and follow on Instagram. Although we struggled a little with this account, Facebook thrived since it allowed us to target a wider community and had more opportunities in sharing and getting our word out.
5. Outline of Goals for Ad campaign
a. Who, what, where, and why for target audience connecting with client goals
The campaign was primarily aimed towards the UCR community, however, anyone could join our campaign, as we all want to send the overall message to everyone: Get out and stay out! The main reason why our group participated in these activities was because we wanted to show what people were missing out if they stay indoors all the time on their smart phones or watching television. We want them to be active and maintain a healthier lifestyle. Right now we are only targeting the UCR community, however, if we grow we would like to expand this idea to the whole city of riverside and possibly even all of Southern California. We want this for our clients because living healthier feels better for you and only does good for your body.
6. Discussion of how graphics, wording, tone, layout and delivery of message connect with target audience
Using graphics, trends, wording, and tone, we were able to connect with the audience in an effective way. Most of the pictures that were taken in the project and sent to the social media platforms utilized high quality graphics. Most of the university students are intellectually empowered, and they are sensitive to small issues. Therefore, the group members unanimously agreed that the pictures which should be used are supposed to be appealing to the targeted audience. The graphics that have been used are not only appealing to the students but also to all people who are the targeted audience.
The way the group passed the message was professionally done. According to the group and camping club, most of the people did not take the emails seriously because they thought it was spam. However, the group strategized on the way to change the mentality. The group ensured that the students are well informed about the camping club and the nature of outdoor activities on other sites. It is more likely that when a person hears about something somewhere else, they are likely to believe that it is not a sham or a hoax. Therefore, by the group using other platforms, most of the recipients were convinced that the emails were real and for a worthy course.
The wording, on the other hand, was appealing, and any person would be comfortable to relate to. The words that were used in the entire process demonstrated a high level of respect for the targeted audience. When making an advertisement that talks about preserving nature, the language used should demonstrate the message passed to the audience. The tone that was used was respectful and considerate. The ad would be read or watched by any member of the society. There have been complaints about advertisements having indecent exposure. Most of the pictures that were taken during the activities demonstrate the decency of the group, and that only reveals that the group is not advertising the event and the camping club with ill motives.
7. Results of Ad campaign
a) Include any actual results obtained along with the why/why not results were realized
Our initial goals for the campaign was to have at least fifty facebook likes and seventy five Instagram followers. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach the Instagram goal of achieving seventy five followers. This was because most people are frugal on who they follow on Instagram, as they only want to see pages they are genuinely interested in. However, Facebook worked in favor for us in a more effective way. Facebook is a more campaign friendly layout as it allows the user to reach more of the targeted audience with multiple posts and ads. We reached our goal of fifty followers by having seventy-eight followers by the end of our campaign and it is still growing. According to the Facebook page statistics, the page had an average of a 5% increase per week in terms of users liking the page. With this continued growth we can expect around an increase of ten likes each week. This was because we could post our entire videos and post more content. Many users on Facebook are used to seeing random videos, pages, etc. on their news feed, so adding this page did not really affect them as much. A way we could have increased Instagram followers was to promote our Instagram page on our Facebook page, which may have added more followers on our Instagram. However, we were glad many supporters liked our page and became more motivated.
b) How was awareness/participation increased?
By launching a social media campaign, our group utilized social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook. Facebook was the popular choice for more users to see what our group was really about. By posting frequent status updates and videos of our club, we decided to position the idea into user's' mind to follow our hashtag, #getoutstayout. We used the popular trend the mannequin challenge, to stay up to date with students likes and interests. This way, we were able to grab their attention by doing a humorous act. Our YouTube videos also showed students having fun outside by enjoying nature and the outdoors with upbeat music, so this method proved to be effective and created awareness. By encouraging individuals to explore the outdoors more we hoped this would have a positive correlation with increasing environmental awareness. Showing the beauty of what nature has to offer us will encourage others to keep nature clean. To promote this idea we held a cleanup hike to the "C" where we all enjoyed a nice morning hike but at the same time picked up trash along the way.
8. Conclusion
We had an initial setback two weeks into the project when Outdoor Excursions changed their minds about being willing to work with us, so we then partnered up with The Camping Club on campus. This obstacle may have hindered us in our attempt to realize our goals, but we still put in considerable effort and achieved one of our three goals in the shorter time-frame. We learned that Facebook was the most effective platform for reaching a broader audience, and this directly coincided with our Facebook goal being the only task that we were able to accomplish. We surpassed our target of 50 followers and reached 78 followers, with this number also expected to grow further with time. Our YouTube videos were also effective due to the strength of the emotional appeal that we established, where we told personal stories that were relatable and capable of establishing deeper connections. The emotional connection was the basis for our advertising campaign, where we wanted to form meaningful relationships that go beyond superficial connections like humor, and
actually create a bond that is mutually beneficial for both parties.
We learned that Poster style ads were the most effective, which were then combined with an informal and straight sell approach. Humor was a technique that we strayed away from due to the realization that it was not a realistic tool that could be used to create the connection that we wanted. We intended for our audience to think about our ads long after their initial viewing, so tapping into their emotions would be the best route to pursue. With the strategies mentioned above we had an established path that would guide us for project. However, even with the clear plan and realization of one of our goals, there are definitely a few things that we would do differently. The first aspect that we would change in our plan would have to be a longer time frame, where we are then truly able to establish deeper connections with our audience. This would allow us to then be able to utilize word of mouth techniques, where the people that are already connected with our organization would then inform their friends and further expand our outreach. Another factor that we would change would be to establish call to actions in our ads that make people feel a sense of duty to get out and help the environment. The informational ad approach would also have been a tool we could have utilized to greater effect, but we just did not have the time to fully create a campaign that allowed for outstanding success. Overall, we do feel vindicated in our actions and our outreach, as long as we get one more person to pay more attention to environmental sustainability and the beauty of nature, it will create a waterfall effect that will continue to grow and reach a greater audience.