TV Advert Final Evaluation

TV Advert Evaluation

The brief we were given was to choose a Unilever product, from the company’s wide roster of products from food to health and beauty, and to then create an advertisement for the product. We initially performed individual research on which brand we would be interested in studying and adapting for a new audience, as it is vital that we know the current audience so we can re-brand it. However we were required to change either the target demographic or psycographic to aim for a new target audience. We then came together in groups of three depending on the product we had chosen, as myself, James McConnell and Reuben Convery had all chosen to study teas - both James and I researched PG Tips whereas Reuben studied Lyons Tea, a brand exclusive to the Irish market. For our production we chose to re-brand the british tea, PG Tips. We established that the current target audience of the product was for any gender and that, based on their current advertising campaign with the characters "Al" and "Monkey", the target age would be people aged twenty onwards of a working class psychographic. Our new demographic was to aim at adults aged thirty onwards whom were of a high class, dependent on the chart of psychographics. We decided to choose this particular target audience as it is a big change from the current target and we believed that we would be able to write an advertisement appropriate for this particular audience.


Once we had produced the advertisement we were required to receive feedback from a wide range of people to test whether the production had been successful and we had met the aim of changing the target audience. To complete this effectively we each created a survey that we sent around, accompanied by a link to the finished video, to collect responses. Once I had collected and collated the results I had confirmation of whether the advert was successful. At the top of this evaluation are the results of the questionnaire. The majority of people said that based on the advert alone they would purchase the product, many also managed to correctly identify our target audience however not the majority. This leads me to believe that perhaps the advertisement did not successfully show people the new target audience.


I believe that although we attempted to get our message across to our target audience we have failed in that task. Factors which affected this were location and lighting.

A shot demonstrating the lighting
and location we used.

We contacted four different restaurants, each with the look ad feel that we were after to achieve the target of our advertisement. All four of the venues declined leaving us to find a location last minute. We managed to secure a location, however it was not what we had originally envisioned. The second factor which influenced the advertisement was the lighting. The day of the filming was quite dark and overcast, making the outside shot, and the shot facing the windows quite gloomy and not as bright as we would have hoped. We attempted to rectify this by using colour and brightness correction effects in Premiere Pro but were unable to match the lighting in the other shots by doing this. Although these issues were created I believe that the advertisement could still have an impact on our intended target audience as it is still entertaining and has changed the target audience, if not to our new target, to a different demographic all the same.


The camerawork in the advertisement was my role. Although I had not operated the camera in any of the media productions before this I believe that I managed to maintain a good job of filming and ensuring that we did not break the 180 degrees rule. There were a few amateur-looking shots such as one shot in front of a large mirror where myself, and the camera, were visible. However we did manage to rectify this in the post production of the piece by adjusting the scaling of the clip so that I am not as clearly visible. The editing was very successful as we managed to scale clips in which I

An example of the steam that we
edited into the shot in After Effects

was visible, editing the lighting and colours and using After Effects to edit steam on clips showing the teapot and teacup. We adjusted the colours of the clips to ensure that they had a warm feel. The sound, I feel, could have been re-recorded and added in post as a lot of the scenes in which the characters were talking were not particularly audible due to a lot of background noise. The background, ambient restaurant noise was added in post and could have been at a lower volume. The music was also edited in and added to the atmosphere, however could have been quieter. The mise-en-scene was good with all of the props visible to the camera relevant to the production such as menus, teacups and cutlery, which were all provided by the restaurant for our use.


I believe that our production was not particularly effective as I do not believe that it appeals to our target audience of upper class people. As I previously mentioned, this is due to a number of factors. I do think that the storyline of the advertisement is good and flows nicely and is smooth and consistent with no jumps. However ultimately it does not attract the target audience. The persuasion technique we employed in the advertisement was to make the tea seem desirable and that it was a fine drink that upper class people would order in a fancy establishment. I believe that we handled this effectively and we did show that it was a fine drink that people would order in an establishment, however the only point that we did not manage to persuade the audience on is that the customer was upper class, as can be seen from our survey results. Our aim was to communicate to the audience that the upper-classes can drink and that it is fine to be seen drinking PG Tips tea as it is currently not marketed as an upper-class brand of tea. We aimed to achieve this by filming in a very clean, professional and fancy restaurant as well as using actors that were dressed in a formal way, for example our waiter was wearing a suit shirt and tie. We did this in the hope to attract the audience by identifying with their tastes. Overall I believe that this advertisement is fit for purpose should it be published on television. It flows progressively and looks professional, despite it not working for the target audience. The

The BCAP logo

advertisement comples with the BCAP code in various different ways. Section 3 the BCAP code states that adverts should not be "misleading", meaning that it should not make any claims that are untrue. Our advert does not make any bold claims so it will therefore comply with this section. Section 4 states that the advert must not cause "harm and offence" to the audience. There is nothing in our advertisement that is either intended nor that could be construed to be offensive or cause harm. The final section I will discuss is section 10 which lists prohibited categories for advertisement. Our advert does not attempt to, nor feature, any of the items in the list of prohibited categories for advertisement.


Our original intention for the advertisement was for it to have an upper-class restaurant and a smartly dressed man enters and is served tea when he asks for "the finest drink on the menu". The final product encapsulates the spirit of the advertisement however there could be some adjustments made to the project to ensure that is is on par with the original plan. The lighting could have been utilised

A shot of the waiter, James, and the
restaurant can be seen behind him.

better to ensure that everything could be easily seen and, more importantly, that it is consistent across shots. Secondly the audio quality could be greatly improved so that the actors can be easily heard as currently it is difficult to hear exactly what is going on. Other than these minor adjustments the advertisement compared to the original plan well. We did choose not to include a shot that we had added on the storyboard simply because once we had collected all the footage we decided that there was no need for a point of view shot of the customer drinking the product. Overall I am quite satisfied with the final advert. If I were to undertake this exercise again I would probably light the shots better with another light source as opposed to using ambient lighting and I would also change the audio in the editing so that the background noise effect was quieter and I would re-record the audio in a quiet space so that it can be heard easier. This project was my first opportunity at filming and I would like to believe that I did a satisfactory job despite a few amateur mistakes such as filming directly at a mirror, leaving myself visible in the shot. I believe I also did a good job at editing the footage as I changed the colours of the shots, with the help of the group, to make the scenes seem warmer.