- 1. Question 1Amarjit Singh
2. The IdeaFor our media product, we came up with apromotional
campaign for a brand of mafiathemed hotdogs, known as Dogfather
Hotdogs.We thought this idea was fresh, original, andhad a lot of
potential. 3. The IdeaWe decided to make the play on words for
theproduct one of the key underlying themes, sowe turned to Francis
Coppolas The Godfatherfor inspiration, and decided that a parody of
thiswould be focal point of the whole campaign. 4. The IdeaWith the
idea of creating a parody in mind, wedecided to reconstruct the
opening scene fromthe film, which is regarded as one of thegreatest
scenes in cinema. 5. The IdeaOur second advert is not a direct
parody of a scenefrom a mafia movie, but we aimed to parody
thecharacter of Tony Montana from Brian De PalmasScarface. We used
the characters likeness in a scenewe created, using a scene from
Martin Scorseses TheDeparted as a stimulus. 6. Weinerschnitzel
Worlds MostWanted Weiner AdvertWhen looking at other television
advertisements for hotdogs, Icame across two that I found
interesting. The first was theWeinerschnitzel Worlds Most Wanted
Weiner Advert(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBsYO0ZAfKE). This
advertfeatures an animated hotdog being chased by a girl; it runs
into amale characters room, with the girl in pursuit. She grabs
ontosomething under the covers thinking that she has grabbed
thehotdog, this causes the male character to wake up, and thehotdog
is seen at the end of the bed. After a few seconds ofscreaming, a
promotional screen appears and the hotdog isshown running off the
screen along with the company logo andthe tagline Worlds Most
Wanted Weiner 7. Weinerschnitzel Worlds MostWanted Weiner
AdvertBoth of our advertisements differ considerably fromthis one,
primarily due to our lack of finances, whichled to us being
resourceful and utilising whatever wehad access to. This advert
maintains a light andhumorous mood throughout, whereas we aimed
tostick to the mafia theme with the tone, and used thedirect parody
in the first advert to incorporate humour.Our second advert has a
much more serious tone whencompared to the first, because of the
dark, gritty feel ofboth The Departed and Scarface, despite our
attemptto lighten the mood with the humour of the parody. 8.
Weinerschnitzel Worlds MostWanted Weiner AdvertThe Weinerschnitzel
advert has a very fast pace, and itmanages to maintain the
attention of the viewers,although I think it would be more
effective if it wasslightly slower. Our first advert contrasts
significantlywith this as the pace is much slower, I
personallyconsider it to be too slow. However it was created inthis
way to make it suit the theme and the idea of theGodfather parody.
Our second advert has a muchquicker pace than the first and it is
more similar to theWeinerschnitzel advert in that sense. 9.
Weinerschnitzel Worlds MostWanted Weiner AdvertOne of the key
things that stood out to me was thepromotional screen at the end of
theadvertisement, and as a group we decided the wayit was done in
the Weinerschnitzel advert waseffective, and so we wanted to use
somethingsimilar in ours. 10. Wendys Beef HotdogAnother advert that
I came across was the Wendysbeef hotdog commercial, released in
Canada in 1985(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkLULAs68hQ).The
advert begins with a voiceover stating the newWendys hotdog, it
then cuts to several differentpopular Canadian characters such as
Count Floyd, SirJohn A. MacDonald and the Blue Jay Mascot with
thehotdogs, while a song created especially for the advertplays in
the background which informs the viewers thatalong with the beef,
they can have cheese and chilli asadditional toppings. 11. Wendys
Beef HotdogThis advertisement features celebrities that would
beknown by their target audience (Canadian people), itwould be
impossible for us to emulate that, howeverour advertisements
feature parodies of two of the mostfamous characters in film, Don
Corleone and TonyMontana. Despite the fact that the Wendys
advertdirectly uses the characters popularity while ourattempts
that through parodies, I think that theattempt to use the
popularity of well-known charactersforms a similarity between the
two. 12. Wendys Beef HotdogThe Wendys advert features a shot of
four of theirhotdogs, but with no indication of the company,
andthen after a few more seconds of showing thecharacters, a screen
showing the company logo andtagline appears. This contrasts with
ours as weincorporate the product into the narrative of theadvert,
and decided to show both the product and thebrand in the one
promotional screen. 13. Wendys Beef HotdogAnother difference is the
use of music and sound;Wendys created an original song for their
product,whereas we decided it would be fitting to the idea if
weused the Godfather theme song. The Wendys advertfeatures the
companys tagline Thats Fresh, ThatsClass, we decided we would come
up with one just forthe product, and so we decided to take a
popular quotefrom the film as the basis, thus creating
DogfatherHotdogs, An Offer You Cant Refuse. 14. Fresh For U Hot
DogsFresh For U Hot Dogs are an American hotdogcompany, who focus
promoting the brand onlinethrough Facebook and Twitter. They
created an advertby going through an advertising agency Non Juan.
Theycreate 30 second advertisements for their clientsfeaturing a
puppet Non Juan, who is rapidly rising inpopularity who acts as the
unofficial spokesman for thecompany.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVbjG07MsL4) 15. Fresh For U Hot
DogsThe concept of this advert is completely different toours, as
rather than having a spokesperson/sales pitchtype of advert, we did
a dramatisation. The advert isvery simple with the company logo in
the middle of thescreen, with an American flag in the background,
andthe national anthem playing behind as Non Jaun talksabout the
product in the corner. They appeal to theiraudience with the heavy
reliance on patriotism, and itstarget audience are notoriously
patriotic. Our advertappeals to a much more niche audience, and
such asimple advertisement wouldnt work as well. 16.
ConventionsThere are several conventions of television adverts
thatwe maintained, and certain ones we did not. One of
theconventions is that there will be a close-up shot of theproduct
or any of the celebrities that featured in theadvert. This is used
in almost all food adverts and so weensured that this was repeated
in our adverts, with theclose-up shots of the hotdogs. The
inclusion of this shotallows viewers to see the product, and
encouragesimpulse purchases. 17. ConventionsThe majority of adverts
feature voiceovers,however as our main idea was the mafia parody,
wedecided the voiceover would be used at the end tostate the
product and the tagline as we thought itwould be more effective for
the ending, and itwont affect the presentation of the parody. 18.
ConventionsAnother convention we kept to was that of soundtrackuse;
many adverts feature popular soundtracks and thishelps not only
grab the attention of viewers, but also tocreate a sense of
familiarity. Thinking about theGodfather and the mafia theme, we
concluded that TheGodfathers Waltz by Nino Rota, used not only for
theintroduction of the film, but used in several pointsthroughout
the film, making many call it the themesong, was the most
appropriate choice due to thepopularity and instant association
with the mafiatheme. 19. ConventionsHaving people from the target
audience featuring in theadvert allows the target audience to
relate to them andwill make the advert appeal more to them,
andalthough we aimed to stick to the parody, this resultedin our
advertisement keeping to this convention as wetarget males,
especially those with an interest in suchfilms, and both our
advertisements only feature maleactors. 20. ConventionsOne of the
conventions we challenged was thatthe majority of adverts have
positive, hi-keylighting. Mafia films, especially The Godfatherare
dark and gritty, so we thought using hi-keylighting wouldnt suit
this, and so we changedthe lighting so that it would suit the idea.
21. ConventionsThe product should be the focus of attention in
theadvert and we tried to make subtle changes to theoriginal scene
and slot the hotdog in. Although wedont necessarily keep it on
screen, the ways we makethe product appear draws attention to it.
Advertsfeature the company name, logo, product name, andtagline and
so we were sure to include all of these.Looking at how effective
they appeared on otheradverts, we decided to have these at the
end.
