PROMOTE A SHIT JOB - VIA DIRECT MAIL

Each person was given a different job. I was given "Tele-sales". During this period i learnt a lot about the lives of employees, i went to the nearest one in Wycombe and interviewed the manager, even got offered a job in the process, but i couldn't find a specific reason for someone to WANT to do the job, as most people dislike them. I started off on a sarcastic tangent, coming up with this video to try set the scene.

But the more i thought about it, and worked it, it just didnt flow, and i couldn't promote it. So back to the drawing board. I wrote before "most people dislike them", which means a small portion of the world does, i came to the conclusion it is mainly lonely people who haven't got anyone to talk to appreciate them the most. This opened my group up to: old people, people who have been bullied, victims of domestic violence.

I found Domestic Violence the most interesting, so my tele-sales people are undercover DV's from the well know charity Woman's Aid. Their purpose is to ring up the houses, and if many of the symptoms are recognized from the phone call then steps will be taken. That is step one.

Now, i had to bring Direct Mail into this (Direct Mail is more formally known as junk mail, but done well it can be very effective. Most people don't like DM as they get a shit load of leaflets through there door -not as many these days as company's are trying to be "greener"), so i have chosen to send post cards to the people we fear may be victims of Domestic Violence. Postcards are pretty much non-traceable as you don't write a return address, they will have foreign post marks, and addressed to a different person than the abused.

They will have subtle tips and hints, and just a friendly voice to make them know they are not alone. If they come to a point when they want to escape, that is what they are for.

The theory is, as there is no return address, it will just be lying round the house until it is put in the bin. A post card addressed to someone else looks like a mistake so it doesn't matter how many you send, its not an automatic assumption it is for someone in the household. Post cards are step two.

Iv also thought about sending undercover telesales workers as door-to-door-sales-people as well, for example, someone could go to the house (and as an excuse) say "for having requested a survey to have a conservatory in the garden". Which is step three.

TRACKING

This was to do with tracking somone down who you dont know anything about apart from where they work. We had to track down an "ex Bucks student", who used to be on my advertising course a few years ago. It could be a man, or a woman, they could be a secretary or the creative director, they might not even work there any more! So. We were each given an agencey, the weekend and our heads to try track down our person. Lots of people found theirs on the agency websites, i wasn't so lucky. Even after internet stalking, a trip to the Agency, a blagging past 2 receptionists, and an almost-street take over with a couple of posters i still wasn't any wiser...

ROOM PERVING

Since starting advertising, i feel a lot of my projects are to do with perving on people. I think the technical term is "getting an insight", but when your told to go into someones room you don't know, go through their draws looking at their belongings and make assumptions on their lifestyle and background.. Then i think im justified to to call it perving:)

BOREDOM IN HALLS

Halls get a bit boring sometimes, i think its really nice when people put themselves out there to make life more interesting (some might call it annoying) for other people. I decided to make a string maze for my flatmate's to enjoy -weirdly they didn't really appreciate it..

The view from my room.

General view down the corridor

FLOWER POWER

So i spent my Christmas working in a florists, it was brilliant! I started off making grave posiesWorking my way onto bunches of flowers

Then onto dressing the outside of the shop

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

This project was simply noting the change in facial expressions after some form of "action", be it reading a passage or listening to a piece of music. I gave my victims sour sweets, the "Toxic Waste" ones. It was brilliant!:)

LIVE BRIEF: SMART CARS

We recieved this project from the company Weapon7. It was a Live Brief so an actual on-going project that the company itsself was doing. The main focus was to get people INTO the smart cars, make the test drive more enjoyable but not necessarily to buy them. They currently appeal more to "green" people, or older people and the company asked us to target a younger audiance: younger couples, spontaneous, ready for excitement.

The main idea we pitched was a Smart Art gallery. We would get up-and-coming new artists to design and do the art work on a few cars, do exhibitions at various places around the UK at racing stadiums or empty airhangers and allow the public who had come to view the exhibition to test drive the cars on the land around the exhibition, as fast or as slow as the wanted, experimenting with the steering, breaks etc. We did research into destinations, artists and talked to members of the public.

I came up with an alternative idea again appealing to the same "spontaneous" and "youthful" market, just from a different angle. My idea was a more adrenalin-fueled experience for a test drive. In the same way we have "extream sports" i decided to address the cars as people thinking how you could excite them and push them to the limits:
I thought about: skiing, wind surfing, zorbing, snowboarding, free running, surfing, skate boarding, parachuting and cross-country races. From my drawing above you can see i used the first three ideas. We were told not to think how possible it would actually be, and not to think about the money it would take to make, the concept was the important part.

£1 BRIEF

This project is all about the value of a product -be it a monetary value, sentimental value, quality of the product, potential, or relatively in regards to other products. We were ordered to go on a trip to the 99p Store to find an object of little worth to try transform into something for a greater value. In my pair, we chose big thick marker pens. Coming up with the name tag of P.E.N (Permanently Expressing the Nation). We went down the theme of self expression, by displaying one of your greatest secrets you aren't as bothered about minor things such as: not having the latest trainers, your hair being out of place, having forgot to put your make-up on. Unimportant things. Its a way of breaking barriers down between people, insecurities are lowered making you feel more comfortable.
We went for a colour-coded system, the red ink on the top line is the "life update" for how you are feeling at that moment in time, and the bottom line is the secret. The greater the secret, the better you feel about yourself. I made one with the life update saying "CHIPPER" and the secret "I HAVE AIDS" and wore it for a day before we presented this. Even though it wasn't true, i felt quite liberated for the sheer fact i had done it.

We made this into an underground campaign, telling the story of how we had managed to conquer London and making our way up to country, us being representatives of P.E.N and coming to High Wycombe to recruit more P.E.N'ys.

We made an underground-recruitment video where we put up posters all around Wycombe (as far as i know, Cineworld still is still sporting our sign!).

..THE P.E.N REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN!