This is another storyboard i've come up with. It is based on the new Batman films, so it is more of a parody. However it is set in a city which is plagued with sweatshops which is based on the real world problem of sweatshops, a hero called DECE-Man is trying to rid the "city" of this plague infesting the city streets. I decided for this viral i could have a very bare bones script behind it that will make it a little more engaging for the audience. The hostile character in this viral is Evil Surgeon Underpay, who has an underground workshop where children are making hats for him for free, a parody of sorts on actual sweatshops. I first wanted to make the baddies Nazis or communist, but i thought someone might end up getting too offended so i made a decision to change from a Nazi General to just an evil character who happens to have a german accent and big red banners on the wall, giving the subliminal message he's evil.
One thing i've put in the script and not in the storyboard is the very last scene. I want to put across the idea that DECE-Man can be anyone by having a speech at the end of revealing DECE-Mans true identity, and that he's just a DECE hat who lives in a draw. Also one thing I want to do differently to the last viral i've done, is that i want to make it look more like an epic comic with detailed sounds in the background, basically more stylised.
When we saw Our lead tutor we proposed the idea of a entirely user generated content idea for part of the DECE website, this would be a place where anyone who has purchased a DECE product could upload photos and videos of themselves and their friends performing stunts/snowboarding, skiing, skating ect whilst wearing the DECE brand. If this idea went ahead it would create something different to set the brand apart from others. It would contain videos such as this one I found of some very amateur snowboarders who appear to have created a makeshift snowboarding ramp in their front garden.
They even managed to spell amateur wrong in the title which i think is quite amusing.
Not only would people be uploading amateur footage there would also be room for people failing miserably which would in turn create a whole new reason for people to visit the site who possibly don't own a DECE product.
I not only want to make a viral, i want to also see how many people view it and if it spreads at all so i made an extremely short viral animation just to see if anyone would view or share it, i posted it on Facebook and also onto my Youtube account yesterday which was Jan the 25th and it already has 33 Views which shows it does work, and i haven't even given it a proper name or a title, or posted it anywhere else. We have also posted the video on each group members Facebook to try and spread the viral round.
This is the Viral which is loosely based on my first storyboard.
Just some early concept story boards, and a early spider diagram of what we need to do with the DECE brand.
I never finished this storyboard because i never knew where to take it, the general gist is a hat is imprisoned but it's his last day so the guard is coming to let him go free and that's as far as i've got with this storyboard. As i mentioned previously i want to make a viral that is just randomly funny, not something that is overly about the charity, the people who watch the viral will hopefully go to the website after watching and read on.
Coming up with overly exaggerated characters and facial expressions that may make people laugh.
Again more concept art to try and make the rival sweatshop companies look as evil as possible, i just need to find the right balance. I thought fascist slave drivers might be quite funny but i may need to town it down a little, as i want to shock people in a funny way but not totally offend people.
This is one of the things i want to address in the viral i am making, the terrible conditions that sweatshop workers have to work in while being on the lowest possible pay. I think it is terrible, people like myself just seem to overlook. So if images like this don't move people i want to exaggerate the situation in my cartoon and make the "cartoon sweatshop" seem as evil as possible so while making people laugh it will also make them think about what is going on in the world and how DECE don't produce their products in such a way.
¤Many companies today have some sort of connection
with
their consumer, weather this being after or before a purchase.
One of
the ways this is achieved is through a YouTube channel. For example, Toms has a place on YouTube where
they upload videos every so often, and a surprising amount of people view these
videos. One video for instance was uploaded Oct 6, 2010 and has been viewed
30,826 times by people who either own Toms or by people who don’t, this creates a whole new way to advertise. This kind of
thing spreads extremely fast if implemented well enough.
¤YouTube alone gets more than 2billion visits to the site every
day which means if we create a well produced funny viral, then a potential
2billion viewers will share the video with their friends or work colleagues
thus spreading the DECE name without the company having to lift a finger.
However you will not only have to compete with other companies virals, you
will also have to compete with the other extremely talented users of YouTube which
create videos in their spare time just for fun.
17,602,241 Views
¤The only problem with this method of doing things is
that you really have to stand out from the huge crowd of videos created for YouTube. This
is when I started to look at the best type of advert campaign, these
are random adverts that are fun, silly and thus
are well remembered. I started to look at adverts
and
highly regarded YouTubeviralsas inspiration. The most popular viral
I came
across was “Simons cat” this viral has a
whole host of videos each lasting roughly 1 minute. The latest video added was a
month ago and it already has a staggering 2,004,832 views, and the first
uploaded video has 30,600,527. If we created monthly cartoons that vaguely relate to the DECE brand
it would defiantly
spread fast. However all this aside, I believe clicking a link to a video is much more
personal than having to sit through adverts on a television, through the
simple reason of it making you feel part of something bigger than yourself.
Looking into how competing brands communicate to the same target audience, we began by looking at the Australian clothing company Billabong who are the number one selling extreme sports clothing brand with a net income of $126.2 million in 2011 alone.
Through out the vast research into their advertising, there was a noticeable reoccurring trend of either strong visual images of extreme sports or young attractive individuals modelling their products, creating a sexual appeal to their clothing brand.
Having researched into DECE's existing advertising material, the few images we managed to find gave two very different approaches.
The image above shows a very bleak image of what is I assume is one of the homes go the DECE women. It is apparently from the visual image that their advertising is focusing purely on the charitable organisation aspect of the company, showing no reference to what product/service they are offering.
This second images represented the company much more effectively, with strong visual imagery reflecting the target market, with young, fashionable individuals modelling the products.
Visual identifies the target audience
Refrains from shouting 'we are a charity'
Puts the product first
Follows similar advertising visuals of leading competitors
The idea here is that a guy goes snowboarding, only he gets cold then lands in a Romanian town and get's given a DECE hat by a nice old lady. He loves the hat so him and the old lady both go snowboarding together. This is a very early concept and isn't really drawn in the style i will end up using because i don't really know what style i would want to use yet.
Another early idea for a Viral cartoon. This is set in a evil sweatshop of unknown location or company to avoid being sewed, it start with some people nervously making hat while being watch over by a guard. The camera pans out and shows a huge stack of hats while a guy is shoveling them into a giant mine kart. One of the hats falls out of the mine kart, becomes animated then views what the factory is like, gets scared then makes a run for it. He then bangs into a window, outside the window in a nice looking field is a much better company with hats frolicking in the field, laughing and singing.
At the moment i have a choice of 3 styles i would like to try, the first is the one shown in the storyboards but more polished. The second is a very simplistic look with colored paper for the background making it look grungy and the 3rd i cannot describe so i will just post a video with roughly the style i am imagining:
The part i am thinking of is a collage type style, i was thinking of drawing on each piece of paper then capturing it in a picture, like stop motion. However this would be very time consuming but it may be worth trying as it may look very effective.
We all met with our business associate today, we had a good long talk about what needs to be done with the DECE look, it needs to change. As my area is motion graphics i first thought of designing a web page for the DECE products, but i was then told that they already have a website in production, so i thought that a website being made would probably be a waste of time and then end up being counter productive. A suggestion was made for a viral video, i thought that would be a great idea as it would involve me doing something i came to uni for ANIMATION. So i thought i would have a look at some famous viral animations:
Here are some popular viral ads from times past, showing that a viral ad campaign really is the way to go if your business is just starting up, especially through you tube being free to upload to.
When i spoke directly with Scott Dennington our business adviser he said what the client really wants is just something random, soothing that doesn't necessarily have to be involved in the brand but something that holds the brands name. I suddenly started to think about really bare bones animation, incredibly simple but also something that could be hand made in some way. For an example i have chosen a incredibly popular internet cartoon series called "Simon's cat". There is hardly any speaking at all just lots of really entertaining acts performed by his cat, with amusing sounds to tie it all together, When thinking about a short viral animation i could do i was again thinking about this sort of animation style, simple yet effective.
I was also thinking of the very simple art style used in the Red Bull adverts, once again simple yet effect, using humor rather than the animation style to get the message across.
Spiral threads is "Fair trade organic clothing" with a difference, with their snazzy outdoorsy cool web design and grungy looking fashion style it really does start to show that you can have a well designed clothing line without the need for cheaply manufactured items. This is the sort of thing our group would like to aspire to with our marketing, taking an idea that isn't unpopular but isn't really part of the norm and really turn it on its head.
This isn't quite the same as DECE because it doesn't tell us where the products are produced or where the money being made is going, but it does tell us that the products are manufactured through fair trade means and also that they use organic materials. However it is a fair trade company which might not be 100% legitimate because money may get lost in the system along the way to the manufacturer, which is always a concern with fair trade just like other charitable organisations. This isn't a problem for DECE as it is shown on their site where the products are made, by who and where the profits are going. However i still chose to look at this site because once again it is well design and has a clear market it is selling to, also for the fact the products have a certain style all the way through their clothing line despite the fact all their clothing have different designs. They also don't limit themselves to just clothing, they also sell other products such as art, music and they even have a forum for example, this may be something worth looking at when we are coming up with initial ideas.
http://www.routeone.co.uk/
I have looked at a lot of sites that are the competitors of DECE, the kind of sites that sell possibly unfair trade for a lot cheaper. The kind of sites that seem to have never ending sales on a never ending number of products. I chose this one in particular because it seems to appeal to roughly the same groups that the first two sites were aimed at. However as i mentioned this site doesn't, or doesn't seem to support fair trade in any way, and doesn't speak of any organically obtained materials. That being said the web design is very well done and looks just as impressive as the previous two. The only difference between this company and the others is rage of good and the prices, a beanie hat from routeone costs roughly £12 and one from DECE costs roughly £20 which does give the impression that some companies do make somewhat of a profit by skimming off the top somewhere.
This is a typical DECE photo shoot, typical models shot in a unusual way. All the pictures seem to be taken in a dilapidated area which emphasises their cause.
Using rotten doorframes creating a frame within the photo itself.
The same again but this time within a picture frame.
All the while wearing the products that they are attempting to sell, this is a very unique photo shoot as photo shoots are often shot in very built up areas with great set pieces.
Hits of hard work with a break is extremely rare in this type of medium.
Demolished walls display thier products.
A great shot, and shows the products name clearly, clean cut people in a now so clean cut environment. The only problem I see with this product is that the products are intended for cold weather and none in shown on their website, however this may on purpose to show that anyone could wear their product, but on the other hand it still doesn't make it completely clear what message it is trying to send to who. This is why our group needs to really give a clear yet fun message across the they customer that the company helps and is stylish while doing so.
