The Advertising Unit

This school year in humanities, our first unit was about advertising, or how what people hear, see, and think influence us. Since this is PLP (Performance Learning Program) we’re talking about, everyone in my class knew there would be a project that this unit was working towards. This project was to make an ad of our own for a business that would be visited in our field school. Our teacher, Ms. Willemse assigned us all into groups of four (my group was Aedan, Caleb, and Sam), and these would be our groups for the rest of the unit. Several lessons were spent on studying advertising techniques and appeals professionals used to grab a passerby’s attention. We also learned about demographics, how categories affect adverts, forms of advertising, like paper over online, and pathos, logos, and ethos. These three things come into play in ads, pathos being emotions, ethos being ethics, and logos being logic. This really helped when it came time to start my practice run for a Deep Cove business. To be certain that the Oregon business ad would be as close to perfect as possible, each group received a local business to make an advertisement for.

To start making the Deep Cove ad, my group, and everyone else’s each called the business we wanted to schedule an interview that would give us criteria for our each individual ad. Originally, my group called The Raven Pub, however one of the difficulties every student faced was the fact that the business either didn’t pick up or said they didn’t want to advertise. We got through to the Raven in the end, and scheduled an interview. The main app I used to create my ad (pictured down below in its stages), was Canva, an app that is perfect for designing many things. I used the poster template because that is what most print ads are on anyway. I started with a template, and each time I drafted it, I changed the text, or position of the image to make it better.

After working on the Deep Cove business ad, it was time to begin working on the one for the Oregon business, with the same groups. Before the trip even commenced, a first draft of the ad was assigned. I used images off of the internet, seeing how I hadn’t been there to take my own. On the second day of our trip, my class went to Nisa’s Thai Kitchen for the best food of the trip, and for my group to interview the owners, post meal. When I showed my ad, I got some good feedback that helped me improve my ad when I arrived back in Vancouver. There have been many stages of this advertisement, and many drafts. Again, I mainly used Canva for this project, however did app smash into Comic Life and Pages to layer images. During critiques, I moved around some photos to better showcase the food, along with the placement of the logo. I have two final ads because I’m not sure which one I like better. I wasn’t able to incorporate all of the feedback into the template so I did what I could in the original template then did a second one to try to do everything. I’ll have to wait and see what feedback I get from other people.

Seeing as I’m not a professional photographer, taking the photos of the food in the restaurant was new to me, and now when I look at the images I have, I see where I could have done better. Next time I make an advertisement for food (I don’t when that will be) I want to take more time in taking the pictures so when they’re placed on the ad, it looks more like something one would see out in the street.

This unit has taught me so much, and I now look at ads differently, seeing what techniques and appeals the company has used, or what the colour is providing. Making my own was equally as interesting, with the usage of different apps and rounds of changes. In the end, I’m happy with what I accomplished and ready for the next unit.