Hello, and welcome to a BIG reflection. Hope you enjoy the long ride ahead!

 

In the project the medium is the message, the driving question was how does what we see, read and hear influence us? To answer this question, we had to complete a multitude of milestones, stepping stones and other exercises. But, let’s start at the beginning.

Milestone #1: where it all begins.

In this milestone, we were tasked to analyze a commercial created by Apple, called Welcome Home. This is an ad about the Apple HomePod. We had to find the message of the ad, who the target audience is, and how Apple reaches the target audience. at the time, the project seemed quite challenging, but if I did it now, with all that I’ve learned, I would’ve had a much easier time. This milestone was the first, and though I’ve learned a lot since then, the final destination couldn’t be reached without it.

Milestone #2: putting yourself back in time.

In this milestone, we found a piece of historical media, and find the message, who the message is targeted at, how it sends that message and the five key questions of media literacy. This milestone combined what we had learned from previous activities. Overall, this milestone really helped me refine my skills of analyzing message.

Stepping stone: an advertising survey.

this stepping stone was all about perspective. Putting into perspective how people older than us have different views than us and learning how to put yourself in their shoes. We had a sheet of questions, and we had to answer them by ourselves, and then get someone older than you to answer them too. Doing so revealed the difference between different generations and demographics.

Stepping stone: the commercial dig.

this activity had us watching 30 minutes of YouTube or television, and record the techniques and appeals of all the commercials we saw. After this, we reflected on what we had learned from completing the sheet.

Stepping stone: persuasion in advertising.

in this stepping stone, we had a chart to fill with two magazine ads, two commercials, and two internet pop ups. We then had to fill out the pathos, ethos, logos, and other strategies the advertisers used to deliver the message. 

Stepping stone: individual ad drafts

our task was to make an advertisement for our company, get feedback, revise, and repeat. This happened three times, before submitting our team draft. This was a fun way of learning design principles and more.

Stepping stone: team ads!

Team up with your north group! Discuss your ads! Merge them together to make three drafts to send to your business. Then, say the appeals you used in your ad, the techniques you used, and what you contributed to the advertisements.

Milestone #3: old ad time!

in this milestone, we took an old advertisement and found the message, why the message was sent, how the message reaches the target audience, the techniques and appeals used in the ad, who the target audience is and who sent the message. This activity helped refine our skills even more than before.

The gospel according to Larry: the end-all of stepping stones.

This stepping stone involved aspects of all the previous stepping stones, plus being a good book to read. We read a set amount of the book (or more), completed a discussion sheet about what we read, and did that until we finished the book. This book was very inspiring to me, and was a really good read too. Overall a very good stepping stone that was essential to the project.

stepping stone: individual advertisement drafts

this stepping stone helped us learn design principles and refine our drafting skills. We made multiple drafts of advertisements, and took feedback to make each one. This was a interesting activity to help us learn.

 

 

 

bye, sincerely, me.