2. In My Advanced Portfolio production we created two main advertisements, a
radio advert and sponsorship advert. We decided to produce an advert
campaign on hot-dogs with a Mafia style parody. We decided to call our hot-
dog campaign “The Dogfather”, in doing this our idea was to create an on-
going campaign where all adverts are connected with each other. This was
achieved by the connection of Mafia films such as Scarface and The
Godfather. This also linked in with the title of the brand The Dogfather which
is a parody on the film. As it was based on hot-dong, it was quite hard to find
advertisements of the same topic so we concentrated on the conventions of
microwave food advertisements such as Zugos, Rustlers and PotNoodle.
After viewing these adverts the conventions of these type of adverts are that
they feature the product in hand, they have a storyline to them and they have
a voice over to the advert. In our campaign we followed some of the
conventions and challenged others.
3. Our sponsorship advert was based on the real media text of the mafia sage; The
Godfather. In this scene there is a passage of an item which contains a bullet proof
vest which is wrapped around a fish. The famous line is “it’s a sicilian message,
Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.” as our theme was to replicate these famous
scenes but apply them to our product and brand. The setting, props and style of the
advert was an important aspect and had to be as close to the original text as we
could get it.
Before producing the advert we looked at the Zugos Advert which is a sponsorship
advert to the programme “Friend”. (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8au7n25Zhk).
In this advert, a male is sitting on a worktop acting
as a microwave preparing the food “Zugos” for a
person. This advert only lasts 11seconds.
We also looked at the “Cesar” advert on Film4.
This advert on the other hand features the same
dog in all adverts. This is because all of the
adverts follow on from each other in a consistent
story.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_UMs_DIBMM)
4. Looking at these adverts we could see that the conventions of this specific type
of advert are that they are short in length and get straight to the point. As we
had to work in a short time frame the scene we had to pick; had to be short and
direct but also remember able. This is the reason for choosing the mafia fish
scene. So keeping with the first convention of these sponsorship adverts, we
went onto adapting the advert to suit our campaign and had
numerous production videos
experimenting with the script and
content but upon evaluation we
decided to keep the style and script
of the original text with some changes.
These changes were that instead of the
fish, we changed it to a hot-dog to
keep in theme with the product.
These were minor changes to the
real text but made a major difference. We kept with the convention of having a
short advert but adapting it to our own brand so the target audience would be
able to recognize the product while also relating to the parody scene.
5. Our first advert was taken from the original opening scene from The Godfather.
In this scene Don Vito Corleone is talking to a fellow companion regarding some
help. This is the most iconic scene of the film and arguably the whole film
industry. We decided to use this scene due to its reputation. Due to the power of
the scene and the global appreciation, people would be able to identify the scene
immediately and as our product was aimed at the Male target audience, using
this scene was successful as the film itself appeals to the male population. We
followed the conventions of the Microwave food advertisements such as
featuring the product and having a storyline. We featured the product in a
briefcase at the end of the advert as people will be interested and intrigued in the
advert due to the parody. Featuring the product at the end means that it will have
the audiences attention as they do in the Cadburys advert (
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1Lwlo) . We challenged the convention of
having a voice
Over as our campaign isn't attempting to
Involve the audience at the same time which is
What a voice over is used for. As the average
Population of males are familiar with the Mafia
Films such as Godfather; the advert will create
A visual stimulant as they know the scene well
And will continue to view the advert to see what happens.
6. Our 2nd TV advert was a remake of the film scarface with the “Say hello to
my little friend” scene. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVQ8byG2mY8)
We a lot of changes in this advert as we
Wanted It to capture the audiences attention
with a brand new plot and then as they hear
the line “say hello to my little friend” they
would then Realise the inspiration behind
the advert. We Used the soundtrack from
the Strongbow Advert.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TS99xy8X48).
Using this added a new level of suspense to
the advert and created a mysterious
atmosphere. We used a comical effect where
the opposing “gang” would have a confused
when the hot-dog was presented. This
implies that the hotdog isn't just a piece of
food, but that its more than “my little friend.”
7. Our Radio Advert was created to promote the product directly to the audience
with no storyline. We did this by describing the product and how we distinguish
ourselves from other brands. Our advert ended with the slogan “Dogfather
hotdogs, an offer you cant refuse”. This created a more Radio Advert style as a
convention of Radio Adverts is that they are direct and straight to the point but
also features a tagline or slogan. These conventions imply that the audience
needs the product which I feel we portrayed effectively. This was also used at
the end of our TV adverts so this slogan was stuck inside the audiences head
and so as soon as you heard the Radio Advert you could identify the product
and increase the word of mouth promotion.
8. Overall the adverts follow the conventions of having a storyline,
feature the product clearly and have a catchy slogan. Looking at
adverts such as the Zugo advert and other similar adverts, the idea
of our adverts connecting together was achieved well due to the
mafia style parody. The Potnoodle Advert reinforced the research of
each individual advert having its own story (whilst being linked to
another advert) but promoting the product at the end of the actual
advert. The Generic features of the mafia films were successful as
we kept to the ideal settings and props used in the real media texts.
After evaluating our project I can see some areas that could have
had improvements made; which are included in our sponsorship
advert and advert 1 which regards the lighting and location of
certain props. The locations had to be similar to the original text but
due to the lack of time and facilities we couldn’t adapt them to be
more similar to the original text. However as a parody remake ad
actually promoting the product I feel that the whole campaign was a
succession.
