Evaluation

My initial concepts for my social campaign differ from my final products. Initially, I wanted to produce something that was based on the presence of female artists in the music industry. The main reason why I decided to choose a different topic was that I wanted to focus on an area I haven’t explored before. I chose to base my social campaign on the misrepresentation of a realistic body image in the fashion industry.  The reason why I chose this topic was because I think it is very relevant in today’s society and is something I personally struggle with.  As I was already passionate about the topic, I already had some knowledge, which made it easier to envision my final products.

Throughout the duration of the project I did a lot of research, both primary and secondary. In terms of primary research, I filmed a vox pop. This was really useful in two ways. First being, I managed to film people of different ages and as I caught them off guard, I got their raw and genuine opinions. Receiving unfiltered answers was the best type of primary research you could get as it helps narrow down your target audiences age, gender and interests. Etc. In terms of my target audience, I was targeting 16-25-year-olds. As this is a relatively young target audience I had to produce media products that would not only engage them but also make them want to follow and support the campaign. Overall, I think that my documentary would appeal most to my target audience, as it is something they can easily watch and engage with and share amongst their peers.

My target audience was fairly vague. My primary target audience was mainly females around 16-25 years old, although it wasn’t specifically for a female audience as males do experience body image issues as well. The reason I said 16-25-year-olds is because I feel that this is a really sensitive age. You are coming towards the end of puberty and the end of traditional schooling systems. Teenagers/ young adults around that age are still trying to discover and understand every angle of their bodies. I felt like there is a big gap for a campaign like this. The combination of my campaign, the dominance of social media and a younger target audience is what I felt would be the perfect combination if I wanted my campaign to succeed.

I wanted my campaign to be influenced by other campaigns that I had researched but I didn’t want it to be a copy or be repetitive. I took elements of successful body confidence campaigns, such as Dove’s Real Beauty campaign and the way they used their models and compared them to unsuccessful campaigns. This approach was quite successful, so that was one example of how I incorporated elements from existing campaigns in my final products. 

The main research sources that I used were either websites, videos or magazines. I think I relied heavily on campaign reviews and their social media presence to shape my campaign. When it came to producing my documentary, I watched a lot of documentaries about the fashion industry generally and then watched videos of actual models experiences with being treated badly due to their appearance. Watching documentaries definitely made my final products better as I could gauge how to roughly layout my documentary and could see where elements like b-roll and statistics are appropriate.

I chose to do a documentary, portrait poster, billboard poster and three different social media accounts. The reason why I chose to do this was that I wanted my main product to be my documentary and then advertise it and spread awareness of my campaign with my other media products. I think this is really effective as it is a very modern way to present a campaign and it would be the most suitable way to engage my target audience and get a good following. The purpose of all of my media products was to raise awareness in the most appropriate way possible so, as mentioned before, I can get my target audience on board.

As a whole, I think every element of my campaign holds together as a cohesive campaign. I have stuck to the same three colours of black, white and red as a colour scheme. Those are three colours known for working well together and it was easy to keep a simplistic yet effective colour scheme throughout. I also ensured the branding for my campaign (logo and tagline) stood out but was simple enough to effectively be carried across all my media products.

I have encountered a few hurdles throughout this whole unit. I struggled to refine my campaign at times, as sometimes you want to throw all your ideas at the product but less is more and once I realised how to refine what I was using and knowing when to stop, I feel I ended up with exactly what I planned out and wanted. There are a few things I would have liked to improve, such as recording some of my own b-roll type footage or shots of fashion shops to explain the topic with my own content.

Overall, I think my campaign would be successful as it is simple yet effective, it's appropriate for my target audience and overall conveys the message I wanted it too. I have learnt a lot throughout this unit. I have heightened my video editing skills and have learnt a lot about documentaries as a whole. Honestly, I am really proud of how my campaign turned out as a whole and I am especially proud of my documentary. It was one of my favourite products I have ever produced and I think it could actually represent a real campaign in modern society.