Lesson 1 - The foundations of advertising

Today we official started the "What about us" project. The pupils and I were very excited to get the project under way and where better to start than The foundations of advertising!

After the formal introductions the children learnt about why we advertise and what are we trying to achieve buy making the commercials. It was apparent early on that all the children felt strongly about climate change and genuinely care about the future, its obvious that this is not another media project to them, they honestly want to make a difference.

We then moved on to adverts we love or hate. As expected the adverts they liked were suited to their age group; football ads, gaming ads, pepsi ads etc. The commercials they dislike were not tailored to their age range such as; car insurance ads, household cleaner ads etc. This then brought us on to the issue of Target audiences. Who are we targeting and why? The children all agreed that this project should be relevant to their age group and should be fun, but with a serious message attached.

Once we had viewed some classical (and funny) advertisements we moved on to strap-lines. Every advertisement must have a strap-line whether it be a catchy jingle or a hard hitting slogan, it must sum up everything we want to say about our chosen topic.

There was just enough time for the club to be split into groups. 4 groups consisting of 4 students and a chosen topic. Now with the groups decided and the strap-line for each commercial picked we are ready to take the next step.......brainstorming for ideas!!!!!