Ad+Design+-+ryan+faria

__**ASSIGNMENT 2 - AD DESIGN---**__

__ **INTRODUCTION** __ A great way to develop an advertising campaign is to start with the needs and expectations of the consumer, and move inwards towards the brands identity. This allows a company to see where the business can gain an advantage and add value to their target market. The company I chose to use for this assignment is Anna-Rita Flowers and cakes. The company is a small business that makes cakes and flowers for wedding ceremonies and receptions.

To start with what consumers want; most consumers want a perfect and gorgeous wedding cake and wedding flowers for their wedding. More so, they want wedding cakes and flowers that will fit their style, personality and the current theme(colors etc) of the wedding. Based on the SWOT analysis seen below, I have created three types of advertisements: 1.) a Flash animated pop-under ad (size: 728px X 300px) 2.) a medium rectangle ad (size 300px X 200px) 3.) A Facebook page. The first two ads conform to the standard banner sizes (Stokes 2008).

The pop-under ad is going to be a flash animation. It will start with image 1 (seen below). Then image 2 will slide in covering image one from the right side, followed by image 3 sliding in and lastly image 4. Then image four will resize and the banner will look like image 5. If the user hovers over image 5 over the visible parts of images 1,2 and 3, the full image will be visible.
 * __DESCRIPTION OF FLASH AD__ **

Before creating an ad campaign I did a SWOT analysis to help determine what angle the advertising campaign should take. The company is a small business which means it will have a lot of competition.
 * __SWOT ANALYSIS__ **

STRENGTH- The strength of the company, is it offers is highly customizable cakes and flowers for many occasions. This means that customers are able to purchase a customized cake that perfectly matches their theme for the wedding.

WEAKNESS- The weaknesses of the company is that it is a small company. It will only have about 1-3 cake designers. This could mean that they may have to reject some customers due to the high traffic the ads could bring in. This could have the exact opposite effect of customer retention plans. Because the cakes are completely custom made, and are priced individually based on the complexity of the design, the cakes may be considered high priced by people with a lower wedding budget. This excludes a portion of the market.

OPPORTUNITY- One opportunity is to start off with lower prices relative to the custom made cake competition. Eventually with greater recognition and number of referrals, the price of the cakes and flowers can increase accordingly or can stay the same as a lower cost alternative.

Using the SWOT analysis I decided to create an advertising campaign that focuses on one of the strengths that the company has to offer; customization. Using the consumer’s wants, and the SWOT analysis, the theme of custom wedding cakes is what was used for this project. This is what is going to set the company apart from other competition that make cakes and flowers with less options and customizability.

To emphasize this, the word custom was used in both the pop under and the medium rectangle ad. As well, the slogan // “Made for your style.” Made for your day.” // Was used to emphasize that the cakes will be a perfect fit for their wedding, regardless of the current theme/style they have.

The flash banner ad will add ** __“interaction”__ ** to the advertisement because the user is able to hover over the images to view them after the flash animation ends. When a user “ ** clicks” ** an image, they will be redirected to the website. The desired “ ** action” ** of the user is that they visit the website, and also contact the business and fill in a lead form.
 * __AD CRITIQUE__ **

The second advertisement created is a medium rectangle ad (see image 6). This ad also emphasizes the fact that the cakes are custom.

The banner ads I believe will be most effective when used as “ ** contextual advertising”. ** This means the ads will only show with content that is related to flowers and cakes or weddings. For example, on YouTube if someone is watching a video with the work cake in it, the ad may be displayed next to the video. Although sometimes contextual advertising could be dangerous, such as in the example in image 7, it should not be too harmful since the words cakes and flowers are not really related to negative connotations.

In terms of branding, the logo will be displayed on every advertisement to ensure that views will always know what the company is. Lastly I will create a facebook page. The face book page will be used to advertise the pictures of cakes and flowers that the company offers. However, most importantly the facebook page was created for and will be used as a method of __ “**customer referral”.** __ Customers will be offered a 10% discount on the final price if they “like” the company’s webpage on facebook. When they like the page, it will show up in their activity feed on face book for their friends to see.






 * __IMAGE 7 THE FACEBOOK PAGE__ **