Task 1: Research Portfolio
Learning outcome 1 (U20): Know how existing advertising campaigns embed advertisements across a range of media products
Learning outcome 1 (U24): Understand the products that are produced within and across media industries
P1(U20) Describe an existing media advertising campaign
Coca-Cola Share a Coke campaign
The Coca-Cola Share a Coke campaign was and still is a simple but yet very effective campaign that has gone a long way since its beginning. The campaign was first made available during the summers of 2013 and 2014. When the campaign was first released in the summer of 2013, there where only around 150 names available on bottles on shelves with some more names available for customisation online. Due to the success of the campaign first time round Coca-Cola decided to bring back the Share a Coke campaign for another summer, only this time round they made around 1,000 different names available for customisation as well as making glass bottles an option when customising bottles online which is a feature that was not available during the 2013 summer campaign. Ever since, Coca-Cola have been coming up with new ideas to replace their famous logo with that people can relate personally to such as song lyrics in 2016 and holiday destinations in 2017.
Aims and objectives
Every campaign, or any activity for that matter of fact must have aims and objectives in order to be successful. Coca-Cola had several aims and objectives, that had to do with benefiting the company as well as aims and objectives that focused mainly on their consumers. Their first and primary objective was to increase sales and awareness of the brand as it was summer period in Australia.
Their second objective was to engage with their customers by talking to them. By this meaning they wanted to connect with their customers and help them connect with others. This brings us to smaller aims such as making their product personal to the customer which is where customers names on bottles comes into play. Coca-Cola not only aimed to make it more personal between them and their customers, but the main purpose of the named bottles was for customers to get them for their family and friends in order for them to re connect with their close ones. This could be seen as an early aim of the company as even the original name of the project was ‘Project connect’
Target audience
Knowing the target audience for this campaign is perhaps one of the most important pieces of research that Coca-Colas marketing department had to do. The department had to do extensive research in order to know what names to include in the original campaign. The original campaign was to be released in Australia. They where able to calculate that making 150 names available for the first release of the campaign would allow them to reach 42% of the Australian population. This sort of research would have also had to be done in Coca-Colas later Share a Coke campaigns such as when including song lyrics or holiday destinations, they had to do research in order to find out which holiday destinations and song lyrics are most likely to appeal to the crowd their releasing the product into.
Another factor that Coca-Cola would have had to take into consideration is geodemographics. Coca-Cola is a global brand meaning that their Share a Coke campaign was to be made available throughout many different countries around the world and not just through out the united states. The catch is that most countries have their own language, and their own cultures, which are two big factors in regards to names meaning that most countries would not have anywhere near the same common names as another country or simply different spelling or pronunciation of the name. This meaning that Coca-Colas research did not end by finding the most common names in one area, they had to find the most common names in every country that the campaign would have been made available in, otherwise shelves would be stocked up with bottles with names on them that do not match anyones name in the area.
Key messages
Every campaign has a key message that the company behind it is trying to send to their consumers. Even though Coca-Cola does not directly say that this is their key message of the campaign, its clear that the message that their trying to get across is that their product can be used to bring people together, whether its family or friends, you can find a bottle of coke right for the occasion. Coca-Cola wanted to show that they care about their consumers, and they wanted to do so by helping others show to their friends and family that they care about them, again they wanted to show that there is a Coke product which is appropriate for every situation.
Approach
Coca-Cola approached this campaign with enthusiasm and with the true hope that this campaign will bring their customers closer to the company on a personal level that has not been accomplished yet by anyone els in their market. Coca-Colas strategies that where used to make the Share a Coke campaign what it is today are strategies that other companies can really learn something from, because Coca-Cola knew exactly what they where doing in order for this campaign to go viral without lifting a finger
First and foremost, Coca-Cola did a multichannel rollout, they promoted and reload the Share a Coke campaign in various forms such as newspapers and commercials on TV and cinemas. However it was the social media platforms that really started to blow, in particular on Facebook.
They turned taking selfies and pictures with their personalised bottles and cans into ‘special moments’ that the customers where then sharing with the company. Coca-Cola encouraged participation creation of the online media campaign, they let their customers drive the campaign to success by letting them feel like the creative directors of the company. They did this by targeting specifically their customers who engage with their friends on social media by sharing photos and posts on social media platforms such as Facebook.
Lastly Coca-Cola used this campaign in order to as a global brand, be able to connect personally with every customer through personalisation. They needed to find a new approach, a new way to engage with their customers and what better way was there to do so other than letting their customers personalise their own bottles to turn the bottle to more than just a piece of plastic or glass, but as a symbol that customers can even keep up on their shelve as a display for forever. They designed the campaign in a way that encouraged personalisation.
Representation
The representation of this campaign was the continuation of the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign which launched in in 2013. The campaign focuses on the people and their things in life such as favourite locations and song lyrics. They did this to make their customers have a personal connection to these products.
Campaign logistics
It is unknown what the official budget was for the Share a Coke campaign, however Coca-Colas advertisement budget back in 2013 when the campaign was first released was estimated to be around $3.3 billion, of course they did not actually spend this amount of money on the campaign.
There is also no official record of how long it took for the planning process of the campaign and how long it took from when they got the idea to the actual release of the campaign, however we are told that they first got the idea back in 2011 in their offices in Sydney and we also know that the campaign released on the summer of 2013 therefor we can assume that it took something like 2 years from start to finish to complete the campaign. The idea of the campaign came from a 151 word brief, as well as being presented with a visual of wall of Coca-Cola cans with peoples names on them, stacked horizontally in the place of the unmistakable Coca-Cola logo.
Choice of media
Coca-Cola promoted their new campaign through several media platforms such as newspapers, billboards, commercials and more, however their must successful choice of media was social media. They promoted the campaign through several social media platforms but none of them took as much heat as the famous Facebook. A huge amount of social media content was created by encouraging many consumers to participate. More than 500,000 photos were shared using the #shareacoke hashtag, Customers created and shared more than 6 million virtual coke bottles via the Coca-Cola app by September 2014. Coca-Cola also managed gain up to 25 million Facebook followers due to the success of the campaign.
Below are images taken from the Share A Coke Billboard, Video ad and facebook ad/page
Call to action
A call to action is always placed somewhere in a campaign. Its that thing that campaign goes and tells you to do right after you finish coming across the campaign. The most obvious call of action that a campaign could have is it telling you to go buy the product, which of course is a call to action that the Share a Coke campaign had however it also had way more to that and that is one of the reasons the campaign did as well as it did.
The campaign encouraged its consumers to go and share their experience with Share a Coke, this was a call to action that helped the campaign go a long way. The campaign Share a Coke was a call to action in itself, it is literally telling you to go ahead and Share a Coke with your loved ones, and not only share the moment with your close friends and family but also share the special moment via social media. Coca-Cola ensured that the slogan was something extremely catchy in order for the call to action to come to mind immediately when the customer purchases the brand. The customer will waste no time to take to snapchat, Facebook or any other social media platform to let each one of their friends know that they managed to get a hand on a Coke bottle with their very own name on it.
Legal and ethical issues
With every campaign, comes ethical and legal issues that the company will need to face and consider before hand in order to prevent any backlash from the public or any legal trouble from their customers.
One ethical issue that Coca-Cola had to consider was the language barrier. Due to the Share a Coke campaign now being available in over 70 countries, languages immediately become a problem especially with the new editions to the Share a Coke campaign. Not every countries native language is English and not everyone in every country is able to read and or understand English. Therefor Coca-Cola needed to think ahed and adapt the bottles to the country that they are being shipped off to, with the correct language being used for the countries the bottles are intended for.
Another Ethical issue that Coca-Cola needed to consider in order to not receive backlash from disappointed customers is the name barrier. Of course, it would be unrealistic to assume that Coca-Cola can make every name from these 70 countries available as an option on bottles and cans in store. They did dodge the problem well by making customisation of bottles available online, as well as being able to simply customise a virtual version of a bottle using the Coca-Cola app on smartphones.
Lastly Coca-Cola could face backlash and in serious occasions maybe even legal trouble if they weren't to include names traditionally used in different smaller racial groups that are less common in the community. They could be seen as racially discriminating these groups which can lead to lose of reputation and sales as well as even prosecution in court.
Regulatory bodies
The Coca Cola name campaign was advertised through several different media platforms therefore their adverts would have been regulated and monitored by several different regulation bodies. When advertising on social media the adverts released would be regulated by the FCC(Federal communications Commission). Coca Colas adverts have also been released on to youtube so people can find them at any time. Youtube have their own set of guidelines and if they are not followed the video will be automatically removed from their site. lastly Billboards and posters would be monitored by the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) who will remove adverts if they are either misleading and harmful in any way to the audience.
Dumb ways to die
Aims and objectives
As i mentioned when speaking about the last campaigns aims and objectives, you will never find a successful campaign, or any campaign for that matter that doesn't have aims and objectives, aims and objectives give the campaign direction, they show what affect the campaign is trying to have on its consumers. Dumb ways to die focuses on a subject thats usually touchy and that people don't like spending too much time on because it involves the topic of death and preventing it. McCann Melbournes main aim was to make this campaign engage with the audience that really doesn't want to hear any type of safety messages, which dumb ways to die ultimately is. Their objective is make safety messages appealing by some what sugar coating them with funny characters and other ridicules ways of death, and ultimately reducing the amount of accidents involving trains happening in Australia, or later on even globally.
Target audience
Dumb ways to die was mainly designed to appeal to a range of targets as wide as possible in order for the campaign to make the biggest impact possible. Even though they had a specific target audience, it would be ideal for as many people as possible to come across the campaign, as safety isn't something any specific person should pay attention to it is something everybody should come across especially if what they come across gets their attention without boring them out of their minds. That being said, they mainly focused on the young adults of the population, who where easy to target through the use of the internet and the use of smartphones, but later on they also made the campaign appeal to ages younger than the main demographic that they had concentrated on. Knowing their target audience is a crucial part of the campaign because they needed to know what platforms to use to reach their intended target audience. Using the research they had done, they discovered that smartphone ownership is actually dominated by young adults, in fact 85% of the market was dominated by 18-29 year olds. They had already known to target young adults, but these results not only specified a target audience for them, but also confirmed that smart phone compatibility of their campaign is essential.
Considering that the campaign involved the use of colourful characters and a smartphone game that involves saving these characters from silly deaths, the main demographic should have been young adults between the ages of 10-20, due to games not being specifically suitable for adults in their 20’s and above. The campaign was of course targeted at all sexes and all races. After the global success of the campaign through targeting the target audience mentioned above, they decided to also target an audience even younger than their youngest before hand, doing so by releasing a children's book which featured all the characters that can be seen in the globally known video and smartphone game.
http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-awards-report/dumb-ways-die-dissected/245195/
Dumb ways to die also had a tumblr page which aloud users to log on at any time and enjoy various images of the cartoon characters dying in hilarious ways, with the options of liking the posts and sharing them. This helped incorporate a more instant type of audience, where they can easily view the images and immediately be directly involved in the campaign. Using Tumblr also helped McCann Melbournes reach their target audience quickly and easily without having to lift a finger, as many young people use Tumblr these days and commonly share material they like which helped spreading the campaign. They also calculated the dominating ages of Tumblr users to be the same as smartphone usage, between the ages go 18-29.
Key messages
The key message of this campaign was simply to not act foolish and ‘dumb’ around the train tracks, this being portrayed by characters of the game and video dying in silly ways which will hopefully make the viewers think of how silly their actions around trains really are. They got this message through by giving several examples of ‘dumb’ ways to die, leaving the contact with trains for last to expand on the point and explain that playing around train tracks are one of the ‘dumbest’; ways someone could pass away. They executed this well because this is a topic that is usually very touchy and can not be put in a nice way however they did manage to find a way to get the key message through without ruining everyones day.
Approach
McCann Melbournes approach to the campaign was planned perfectly by strategically releasing the main bit content, which was the Dumb ways to die music video and then they began realising content based around the video. The video began with a cute song and fun characters, this drifted the audiences mind away from the seriousness of the video until the end of the video where they hit them with the main point - railway safety. By the end of the video, the consumer had fun and learnt something at the same time.
After the hugely successful launch of the main bit of content, the video. They began to generate more content in different forms in order to reach as many audiences as possible by adapting to their preferred form of activity, whether that was watching a video, listening to the song, or playing a game which was later on also made into an option. They developed many assets to make it as easy as possible for people to share the content in as many ways as possible. Of course they also involved some of the traditional forms of media such as posters and billboards. A website later on followed which invited the consumers to take the pledge to not do anything silly around train tracks. The link to the website was made available on the app and at the end of the music video.
Representation
The campaign wanted to represent the commonly used form of public transport not as a danger, but as something to stay aware of. Due to the touchy-ness of the subject and the dangerous consequences, MCcann Melbourne were eager to represent this as a fun solution. The message is clear yet fun at the same time. The success across different platforms and the decrease in incidents that following year is proof that its made an impact.
Campaign logistics
The dumb ways to die campaign had a nice budget of $300,000. They used this as well as possible to create three different types of products that all encourage the same thing at the end of them. McCann Melbourne began with the goal of reducing train accidents by 10% within just twelve months. The campaign was first unleashed in 2012 with the original piece of content (the video) being uploaded to youtube. After the success of the video, followed the success of the iTunes top 10 hit song release in 2013. The first version of the game app was released in 2013 and then later on in 2014 dumb ways to die 2 was released. It as also estimated that the campaign made back $60 million in earned media as well as free coverage of the song via radio stations and Tv networks. Finally, they exceeded their goal of reducing train accidents with there being up to 21% less accidents within 12 months.
Choices of media
Knowing the target audience for this campaign was one of the key reasons as to why the campaign did so well, MCcann Melbourne knew exactly how to reach their audience. The campaign included three main forms of media. First one being the music video that was released onto youtube. Then came the debut of the song which made it to the top 10 iTunes charts. And lastly came the smartphone app which included all the characters from the original music video. MCcann Melbourne planned the release of the music video carefully in order to maximise the impact and so as many people as possible would come across the video. A smartphone game app was the perfect product to release in order to get the publics attention. Through research they find out that 85% of smartphone usage is by young adults which by chance where also their main target audience, therefor it made complete sense to release a product that is accessible on the one platform that every young adult owns. MCcann Melbourne where also lucky enough to have the catchy song get broadcasted free of charge by radio stations due to the huge positive effect it was having on the public. Through research they also discovered that their main target audience also spends a lot of time on Tumblr, this created a fun way where the audience can interact with the campaign at any time, and without noticing it the consumers themselves are helping promote the campaign by sharing and reblogging posts by the campaign. After the huge success of the campaign MCann Melbourne decided to target a bit of a younger age by releasing a children's story book. This showed one of the campaigns biggest strengths being able communicate the same message to so many different audience and then all responding positively to it.
https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_youtube_done_in_house.php
http://sonymusic.me/digital/attachment/itunes-logo/
https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_youtube_done_in_house.php
Call to action
Every part and every platform that was included in the campaign encouraged the same thing, for the viewers to visit the Mertro Trains website in order to ‘take the pledge’ where they pledge to never do anything ‘dumb’ around trains. This call to action can also be found in the smartphone app where they've included a button reading ‘safety pledge’ . Once the bottom is pressed a message pops up saying ‘thanks for pledging to be safe around trains’
You can also see another form of call to action on Tumblr, where consumers where encouraged to share and repost posts from the campaign, in order to spread the word and for all the consumers friends and family to receive the message. These direct calls to action helped take the campaign a long way and may have even saved lives.
Legal and ethical issues
One ethical issue that MCcann Melbourne may have had to consider would have been the language barrier. With dumb ways to die reaching global statues, it wasnt only about protecting the residents of Australia anymore it was a global mission. However some users may have faced a problem if they do not understand english, due to the song, the video and the game all being in that one language. This may have caused some people to not be able to enjoy the campaign.
Another Ethical issue that the company faced after the release of the campaign was backlash on the content of the video and game. Some people may have thought that the content is inappropriate and some even saw it as a product that promotes suicide. Accusations as such could have affected the reputation of the campaign and how many people it would be able to affect in a positive way.
Regulatory bodies
The ASA would play a part in the regulation of the Dumb ways to die adverts. The ASA states that adverts are not aloud to be misleading and harmful to the audience and the adverts would be immediately removed if they are. The ASA may have a minor problem ethical problem with this advert as some people may not understand the advert, especially younger people and it may encourage the wrong message, a message that can be very harmful and that is something that the ASA does not allow.
M1 - Evaluates different cross media advertising campaigns for consistency of message, looking at the message delivery across the different media forms.
The Dumb ways to die campaign was a very well planned out campaign which used several media platforms in order to ensure that they reach their target audience and to get a message across that nobody wanted to pay attention to.
MCcann Melbourne was faced with the difficult task of finding an enjoyable way to teach the public about safety around trains. What really helped MCcann Melbourne get the message across to their audience was to not only create one piece of content and then promote it throughout different platforms, instead they put out three different pieces of content on three popular platforms used by their target audience and used every platform to its maximum potential. The three pieces of content are all based around the same thing, which is characters dying in silly ways, and they all deliver the same message as well as each of them ending with the same call to action to ‘take the pledge’
The first piece of content that was released to the public was the music video which was published onto youtube. The release of the video was careful planned to maximise the impact that a single piece of content could have, therefor the campaign had gone a long way before the two other pieces of content where released to the public. The reason the video did so well is due to the songs catchy beat, along with the enjoyable and rhyming lyrics that are bound to get stuck in your head, however they still managed to do so without letting the audience forget the real message behind all the comedy. Along side the lyrics and catchy beat, came the bright and colourful cartoon characters that would really let audience play with their imagination and engage with the content. The video was a success by it reaching its target audience, as well as sending its message across, because you could say that MCcan Melbourne some what ‘sugar coated’ the real message of the campaign in order to attract the audience first, and then break the real message to them at the end where they would most likely This first form of content proved to be very successful with over the video accumulating an amazing 123+ million views on youtube.
This is an image of the billboard advert
This image is a screenshot i took from the original Dumb ways to die youtube video.
This is an image of the billboard advert
This image is a screenshot i took from the original Dumb ways to die youtube video.
https://dumbwaystodiecasestudy.wordpress.com/author/louissteven/ This is from the iTunes charts
After the success of the music video which accomplished over 20 million views in the first week alone as well as national news coverage which was way beyond what MCcann Melbourne ever expected it to achieve, they decided to release the song individually as a single onto Itunes, their content took on new heights by then, making it into the top billboard charts in many major countries as well as making it into the iTunes top 10 songs of 2012 along side Adele and other talented artists. Radio advertising also helped maximise the effect that the song makes on the public and it ensured that as many people as possible hear it. The song was so successful and was having such a goof impact on the public that radio stations even deiced to start broadcasting the song for free, so the success of the song opened up a whole new platform for MCcann Melbourne that they didn't even need to spend money on in order for it to work.
Lastly came the last piece of content of the campaigns, possibly the least common way of advertising a campaign and it worked better than any other media platform. Through research conducted by MCcann Melbourne on their target audience, they found out that 85% of smartphone users are actually young adults, which also happened to be their target audience. Therefor what better way was there to get in touch with their audience than bringing their campaign directly to the place that these people spend most of their day on. This is where the smartphone game app comes in. It allows the player to help the same characters from the famous music video avoid a near ‘dumb death’ which is a pretty fun way of brining up the topic of something so horrific and serious.
Overall the Dumb ways to die campaign was a huge success. MCcann Melbourne managed to keep the same consistent message through out every media platform used which made sure that nothing would be misleading or hard to understand, every form of media they created had the same call to action and same goal. With viral music videos, a top ten chart song and a engaging smartphone game app for all ages, MCcann Melbourne really exceeded their expectations. Various covers of the song where produced by artists as well as the song being sed in schools as an affective way to teach safety. However the most important part, and the actual aim of the whole campaign was achieved, it was calculated that train incidents where reduced by 21% over that 12 month period since the campaign had released. This meaning that they actually exceeded and saved many people form injuries or even death.
Coca Cola has managed to keep the Share a Coke’s message consistent through out the platforms they used which included newspapers, billboards, commercials and more, however their must successful choice of media was social media. The main and most important message that Share a Coke was trying to get across is that this product is there to share with others,basically meaning spreading the word about the product. Keeping this message consistent throughout all of the media platforms was crucial for the success of the campaign as this was part of the call to action which encouraged the consumers to not only purchase the product but also encourage their friends to go get it. Coca Cola even managed to get their consumers to keep their message consistent for them when sharing pictures of the product on social media, around 500,000 people shared pictures with their bottle onto Facebook with the hashtag #ShareaCoke which is the message that Coca Cola have been trying to consistently get through to the consumers. Due to Coca Cola being a worldwide brand, they also faced the of keeping their message consistent in other regions of the world where English isn't used. This was done by using the same Share a Coke concept however in the Language that is used in that country such as in Israel. The adaption to this ethical restraint helped them keep their message consistent throughout media platforms all over the word.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sharing-a-coke-using-israeli-tech/
Learning Outcome 1 (U24): Understand the products that are produced within and across media industries.
P1 (U24): Describe the media products for an identified industry sector.
Media products used in the media industry
• Billboard
• Magazine Adverts
• Film
• Social Media
• Video Advertisements
• TV Advertisements
• Leaflet
• Posters
• Infographics
• Online Adverts
How products are adapted across media platforms :
Companies have by now learnt to take advantage of every media platform they can get a hold of in
order to promote their products, wether its through videos, pictures or even trends such as
hashtags. Companies have learnt to adapt to the restrictions of the media platforms in order to
promote their products as efficiently as possible. For example an advert that would be screened on
TV or at the beginning of movies would simply try and sell the product that they are promoting,
Where as if the chosen media platform was a poster, the advert would need to use different
codes and conventions in order to allow the advert to stand out and get around, this can include
hashtags that link to social media, play with words that link back to the product or company or the
use of bright colours which stand out to other posters around it.
Campaigns have become extremely good at adapting their products whatever they are promoting
in a way that the message stays consistent through out all platforms. A great example for this in
Dumb Ways to Die who are known for their huge success in several different media platforms
using only the one campaign, they included a youtube video, the song itself from the music video
which was released to iTunes and made the top 10 chart, social media, radio as well as a phone
game app using the characters from the music video. Although what they where promoting was the
same they needed to use different codes and conventions in order to get across to the audience in
every platform. All the platforms used the same content but the main attractions where different, in
the music video it was all about the visuals to get the message across where as in the song the
lyrics are what did the job.
http://dumbway2sdie.wikia.com/wiki/File:Game_station.pngYou can see that they managed to adapt their product into a game, by making it about the colourful characters that are used throughout the rest of the campaign and that where originally incorporated in the game.
http://www.andrewpcarson.com/-blog/2013/6/28/dumb-ways-to-
die-viral-safety-campaign
In this billboard you can see how Dumb ways to die have managed to adapt their product into the billboard. They have once again used the icon colour characters to identify that this is the Dumb ways to die campaign and they have even added a lyric from the original music video that made the campaign so popular.
http://www.andrewpcarson.com/-blog/2013/6/28/dumb-ways-to-die-viral-safety-campaign
This is the original video for the Dumb ways to die campaign and the original product that they released for the campaign. The use of these colourful characters allowed them to adapt this video into any form of product on any platform and sill allow the audience to recognise the product as the Dumb ways to die campaign.
How is a brand created across different products and platforms
There are many simple codes and conventions that brands use in order to make sure their audience is able to
recognise their campaign even when they see it on different platforms. The brand
recognise their campaign even when they see it on different platforms. The brand
needs to come up with elements of the product that are easily recognisable, such as a colour
scheme that stays consistent throughout the product and all its advertisements, the easiest way of
making sure that the audience recognise who this product is by is simply adding the brands logo
somewhere onto that product. Brands can leave their website link as well as social media links
somewhere on the product that doesn't take too much space up but is easily seen. Another form of codes and conventions that would
make a campaign recognisable is its slogan.
For Dumb ways to die, their colourful characters was one of the ways to distinguish that the product was their work. The brand was
created here through the characters themselves. They all featured within the video ad and the video of the song itself, but the
billlboards and magazine adverts focus on individual characters. This helped to create a brand as the characters became easily
recognisable.
The font used is also similar across all of the products. This font that can be seen helps to create a brand as it makes it recognisable to the audience.
The colour scheme is also used across the different products and platforms, which can be seen below. The pastel colours makes it consistent and again recognisable for the audience. The use of pastel colours is also audience friendly and appealing to younger children who are being taught about being safe around trains.
Throughout the many platforms that they put to use such as social media, youtube and billboards they featured one of their colourful
characters in order to link the product back to the original video. Dumb ways to die even reached out to their secondary target
audience, which was children under the age of 10, by using a platform that you wouldn't expect, which was a book.
make a campaign recognisable is its slogan.
For Dumb ways to die, their colourful characters was one of the ways to distinguish that the product was their work. The brand was
created here through the characters themselves. They all featured within the video ad and the video of the song itself, but the
billlboards and magazine adverts focus on individual characters. This helped to create a brand as the characters became easily
recognisable.
The font used is also similar across all of the products. This font that can be seen helps to create a brand as it makes it recognisable to the audience.
The colour scheme is also used across the different products and platforms, which can be seen below. The pastel colours makes it consistent and again recognisable for the audience. The use of pastel colours is also audience friendly and appealing to younger children who are being taught about being safe around trains.
Throughout the many platforms that they put to use such as social media, youtube and billboards they featured one of their colourful
characters in order to link the product back to the original video. Dumb ways to die even reached out to their secondary target
audience, which was children under the age of 10, by using a platform that you wouldn't expect, which was a book.
These are different billboards and posters from the campaign.
http://www.andrewpcarson.com/-blog/2013/6/28/dumb-ways-to-die-viral-safety-campaign
The image below is from their facebook page. Again you can see the characters and colour scheme.
This is from a book that the campaign released.
http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-awards-report/dumb-ways-die-dissected/245195/
How do they engage different target audience
Engaging with different target audiences and several different target audiences has never been so
easy these days due to the amount of different media platforms that are available out there. In
order for a brands campaign to do maximum effect and get the recognition of as much of their
audience as possible the brand must do some research on their desired audience, in order to know
what would be most effective. If they are looking to target teenagers then they could use the
easiest and cheapest platform of all, social media. This allows them to upload videos, pictures and
even start trends and they will reach millions of users using these social media platforms.
Once the brand has established one main target audience they can begin to expand and reach out
to others, in a way this is what Dumb ways to die has done.
Their main target audience was young adults between the ages of 10-20, however the campaign also had a secondary target
audience which was children younger than the age of 10. The use of colourful cartoon characters along with a bit of adult humour
allowed them to reach their multiple target audiences at once. Once they had established their success with the campaign and made
a difference they even made something targeting specifically the younger ages by creating a book which featured all the original
characters from the campaign.
The video advert is a good example of reaching both target audiences. The adult humour is appealing to the older aspect of the
audience, but the loveable, monster characters is something that appeals to the younger age bracket.
Their main target audience was young adults between the ages of 10-20, however the campaign also had a secondary target
audience which was children younger than the age of 10. The use of colourful cartoon characters along with a bit of adult humour
allowed them to reach their multiple target audiences at once. Once they had established their success with the campaign and made
a difference they even made something targeting specifically the younger ages by creating a book which featured all the original
characters from the campaign.
The video advert is a good example of reaching both target audiences. The adult humour is appealing to the older aspect of the
audience, but the loveable, monster characters is something that appeals to the younger age bracket.
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