the 24 hour brief- my review and experience

The 24 hour brief asked each group (of approximately 20 people) within the advertising and branding module to collectively plan, create and produce an advertising campaign that would successfully influence females to get males to visit the GP.

At the beginning of the day, we began by reading the brief together as a group, before dividing up into 3 separate focus groups.

The reason for dividing up was so each group could carry out different research techniques, that would be to their own personal strength. 

Group 1  - constructed a series of questions that would be targeted at different couples within the general public

Group 2 - researched the symptoms of serious illnesses that males could experience

Group 3 - conducted some general research online and took note of relevant statistics 

I decided to be part of group 1 because I really wanted to ask real life couples how they advise/persuade each other to do things within particular situations. 

We constructed a questionnaire with 6 questions and verbally carried out our research.

We approached men and women who were walking together.  It didn't matter if they were not romantically involved, because we also wanted to know how:

• brothers and sisters
• male and females housemates/friends
• male and female colleagues 

advise/persuade each other to do things.

The term 'couple' in this case refers to any male and female relationship.

Before asking the questions we made a point of recording an estimated age of the interviewees.  We then asked the 'couple' to specify what the relationship was between them.

The questions:

1: [directed to the male] How much do you value the advice of your girlfriend/wife/sister/friend?

2: [directed to the female] How would you get your boyfriend/husband/brother/friend to take your advice?

3: [directed to the male]  Tell us about a situation were your girlfriend/wife/sister/friend persuaded you to do something you didn't want to do?

4: How did you feel after you had been persuaded?

5: Why did you do it?

Out of the 5 questions, we directed 1 question at the female in the situation, but the majority of the questions towards the male.  Our objective was to find out how men react to the persuasion of females and why they take their advice in the end.

We managed to ask a variety of couples during the research.  These included:

1. 70 year old married couple
2. 40 year old married couple
3. 50/60 year old brother and sister
4. 21/23 year old boyfriend and girlfriend
5. 22 year old flat mates
6. 30 year old colleagues in the police

I concluded that most men take the advice of their girlfriend/wife/sister/friend to please her/show her that her advice means something to them.

Some men claimed to be so 'in love' with their girlfriend/wife that they would ALWAYS value their advice! (..a bit sickening really?)

Some men also confessed to having no courage to say 'no' to the advice of their girlfriend/wife/sister/friend...

One man confessed, ''as much as I hate to admit it, my wife is normally right...about most things.  I learn to honor her opinion because I know she cares about me...''

We met up with the entire research group at mid day so each focus group could share and discuss their findings.  After sharing our research with each other, some of us had thought up some potentially brilliant ideas.  We decided to 'work up' these ideas a little before narrowing the ideas down to a final 2.  We finally took a vote on what idea we should pursue.  When we came to an agreement, we decided on a tag line for the advertising campaign.

These were the 3 posters we produced:

Each advert shows a different type of 'couple' in a different situation, with the female overlooking and making excuses for symptoms of forgetfulness, man flu and lack of fitness for the male. 

Underneath each scenario, the tag line states - 'Or is he?' The tag line is in response to the females saying ''you're just a little forgetful today'', ''he's fine, he's just suffering from man flu'' and ''you're just unfit''.

The advert is designed to stop females dismissing males by making them ENGAGE with any continuous symptoms that their man might have.

We felt that by making the females out to be the one in 'wrong' within each scenario, this would hopefully grab their attention and force them to be more proactive about sending their man to the GP. 

The adverts intention is to purposefully make the female feel guilty, in an attempt to make her react.

Thoughts on the 24 hour brief:

I really enjoyed participating in the 24 hour brief particularly because I felt our group worked well as a team.  The organisation and motivation within the group meant that we were able to obtain accurate and appropriate research related to the topic.  We were able to focus on the strengths of each individual within the group, and therefore allocate jobs accordingly.