It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World
Lesson Preparation
| Author: | Chris Andrews |
|---|---|
| Lesson Title: | It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World |
| Subject: | Film & Video Production |
| Age Group: | High School |
| Unit: | Lessons Using Core Principles of Media Literacy |
| Objective: | Students will be able to: know what advertising is and recognize the different forms of advertisements, understand more fully how advertisements surround them everyday in all different forms, and develop better social and teamwork skills as they work in groups. |
| Concepts: | Forms of advertsing, target marketing |
| Strategies/Modes: | Critical inquiry, textual analysis, group discussion and simulation |
| Lesson Overview: | In this lesson the students will be slightly immersed in the commercial world of advertising. Since this is written for a beginning multimedia class I would not delve too deep into the subject since I would probably delve deeper into a more advanced class. I have decided that the main form of instruction would be through discussion with the class. This promotes critical thinking and allows the entire class to participate equally. There are several questions that I have listed to ask the students to help them in their critical thinking and to help them learn more about advertising. The students start out answering the questions I have listed as consumers or viewers of the advertisements because they are accustomed to that role. After a little while I give the students the opportunity to switch roles and think more like an advertiser. This allows them to step into a new role and see some of the conventions of advertising that they don’t see as a consumer. I then break the students into groups of 3-4 to discuss an advertising strategy for a particular company or product of the class’ choosing. This allows them to work in groups and develop better teamwork skills. Groups of 3-4 are best so that everyone can participate equally. |
| Materials Needed: | • Xbox 360 “Jump In” commercial • Sony Bravia’s “Paint”, “Bouncy Balls”, and “Play-Doh” commercials • “It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World” group worksheet |
Lesson Directions
Warm-up/Anticipatory Set:
Show the commercials “Jump In” for Xbox 360, Sony Bravia’s “Paint”, “Bouncy Balls”, and/or “Play-Doh” commercials.
Ask the students what they thought of the commercials. Which ones did they like or didn’t like? Why? Explain to the students that you will be discussing advertising today and how the students will be largely impacting how products are advertised in the future.
If you see some students with t-shirts that are advertising for a company or product or even students with iPods, an alternate anticipatory set would be to ask the students to look around the room and find any sort of advertisement. If the students don’t point out the t-shirt(s) and/or iPod then help them see how that is a form of advertising. What is the student saying by wearing that t-shirt/iPod? What is the advertiser saying about the person that wears the shirt/iPod? Explain to the students that advertising is all around us and we often pass by it without even recognizing it.
Instruction/Main Activity:
Engage the students in a discussion by asking some of the following questions:
- What is advertising?
- In what ways do companies advertise their products? Write these examples on the whiteboard so the students can see the different ways there are to advertise a product.
- Examples include:
- Print Ads (newspaper, magazine, flyer)
- Audio/Visual ads (TV/Radio commercials
- Product placement (in movies/games/TV shows, in the theater before a movie, packaged with purchased/downloaded software)
- Internet Ads (before watching a streaming audio/video file, flash ads, web banners/popups, websites, email, Google’s Adsense), Other (t-shirts, sporting events, mobile-billboards, billboards, text-messaging, viral marketing).
- *Have some examples ready for some of these forms of advertisement to show to the students.
After students have listed all these different ways to advertise, ask the following questions:
- Which ones are more effective for you?
- Which ones do you notice the most?
- What makes them effective or noticeable?
- Which ones are less effective for you? Or which ones do you notice the least? Why?
These questions might lead into this follow-up discussion:
- How has the Internet affected advertising?
- How have cell phones affected advertising?
- What has the general public done to avoid advertising? (TiVo, DVR, leaving the room during commercial breaks, changing the channel, Popup blockers, Ad blockers for internet)
- Why?
Tell the students that you want to switch gears now. Explain to them that they have been responding as consumers and now you want to switch the roles and have them respond as if they were the advertisers. Have them choose a company or product that is well known to the entire class. To get them thinking, ask the following questions:
- What is the goal of any advertiser/company? (To get their product out, to make money, to bring people in, etc.)
- How does this company advertise? Where do you see the advertisements? (Don’t forget that viral marketing, or word-of-mouth, is one way of advertising too).
- How effective is this company with its advertising? Remind the students to not forget that they are evaluating the overall effectiveness, not just how effective it is on themselves.
Practice/Reinforcement:
Split the students into groups of 3 or 4 and explain to them that they are the new advertising consultants for the company that was chosen earlier. As a group they will be coming up with new ideas on how to push their product/company even more. Give them the “It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World” handout with some questions on it to help guide the students in their ideas.
Check for Understanding – Ask a student to repeat back to you what you have just asked them to do. Give the students about 10-15 minutes to discuss with their group some of their ideas and inform them that they will be presenting their ideas to the class afterwards. As the students are discussing, walk around the classroom going from group to group listening in on their conversations to ask questions, give input, or just make sure they are staying on task.
Once the time is up make sure everyone is paying attention and call up each group one by one and give them 2-3 minutes to present their ideas to the class. The students can ask questions at the end of each group presentation if they have any. This should take you to the end of class.
Assignment:
Explain to the students that they need to pay attention to the advertising that goes on around them. They will write a paragraph each about 3 different kinds of advertising that they noticed. They can’t pick 3 commercials, or 3 newspaper ads, they must be 3 distinct advertisements. They will tell what the product/company was, how it was advertised, and how effective it was for each one.
Author's Notes:
This lesson plan was written by Christopher Andrews, a technology education major at BYU.
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