Category Archives: VOLKSWAGEN

VW – GETTING CLOSER

Our website is starting to come together quite nicely and cohesively. Over the period of time spent working on this assignment we have progressively honed in on themes of interpretation and re-contextualisation. The website is beginning to showcase signs of simplicity and cohesion, both important traits of advertising.

The progression of our website at the moment is as follows:

  • Home page – Introduces topic of Volkswagen advertising as text
  • Page 1 – Background info of DDB presented in an advertisement adapted from the original ‘Think Small’ advertisements, which made DDB and Volkswagen famous
  • Page 2 – Embedded ‘Great Escape’ commercial
  • Page 3 – Responses from people converted into a print advertisement with comments as tag-lines/slogans. Accompanying text discusses reactions and the use of music in the ‘Great Escape’ commercial
  • Page 4 – A cheesy Volkswagen commercial created by Chloe
  • Page 5 – Interpretations of this advertisement presented in a photoshopped advertisement featuring interpretations as accompanying text
  • Page 6 – Homemade abstract VW commercial using found footage
  • Page 7 – TBC
  • Page 8 – TBC

Some of our inspiration for the commercials has come from video’s created by adult swim. The way that they engage their viewers by toying with expectations is something we are trying to incorporate, whilst keeping a sense of cohesion about the website as a whole.

I am really happy with where we stand at the moment. We have a week before everything is due and i’d say we only have a few days of work left to complete.

– Gabriel

VOLKSWAGEN UPDATE WEEK 11

As a group, the biggest difficulty we have faced so far is that we have been working in separate areas, eliminating the aspect of collaboration. We’re in the process of widdling down our ideas to focus on our key concept of interpretation so the collaborative aspect is restored. We have decided that over the next few days we will film some footage for a light hearted Volkswagen commercial.

After completion, we will receive feedback, both filmed and written. From here, we can use these responses in advertisements we have created ourselves.

This is just one idea of a few to come…

– Gabriel

VOLKSWAGEN UPDATE

I feel like we are on the right track with Project Brief 4. We have a website in the works, have divided up areas and have been throwing around a bunch of ideas for the content aspect.

We are all for the idea of showing people advertisements (print and commercials) and recording their interpretations. Dan suggested taking a Gogglebox approach, showing people advertisements and filming their reactions. There is sure to be a diverse range of responses, emphasising the highly interpretable nature of text. My only concern though, is how riveting the responses will be and if this will quantify as exciting viewing. There’s only one way to find out, by actually doing it. So I think this is probably the next step.

Expanding on Dan’s idea, I want to convert the reactions into text and then construct a print advertisement with Shannon using the text as tag lines/slogans. I want to retain the audio from the commercial and have it playing in the background while viewing the constructed print advertisement. Depending on who we ask to view the videos, we could discuss the results in reference to cultural upbringing. A fair portion of reading completed so far has been on the topic of cultural interpretations so I would like to get this point across in our material.

Some advertisements I am considering using are:

Volkswagen Jetta 2015

Source

This has the great YouTube comment of: “Buy a jetty and you too could be a wanker!”

Thanks mugzy384

You cannot trust every old lady. But you can trust every Golf.

Source

What a fearless old lady. I have an article relating to gender studies in interpreting text which would be useful here.

The Force

Source

This commercial is just brilliant. The use of multimedia and pop culture references is a genius way of selling a product.

The thing with Volkswagen is that everything they produce is of a very high creative standard. We can thank DDB advertising agency for this, who have been responsible for a large amount of VW commercials since the 60s. I’ve got a few readings identifying DDB as responsible for their success, so this will no doubt be explored.

– Gabriel

PROJECT BRIEF 4 WEEK 9 UPDATE

For our project brief we are focusing on texts. We’ve decided to take on advertising as a form of text, and more specifically we will be creating a website relating to advertising used by Volkswagen.

Between the three of us this website will be broken down into:

  • Sponsorship (Promotional media (film/TV), Events, product placement)) – Chloe
  • Print Media (Magazine, newspaper) – Shannon
  • Television and Radio Commercials – Gabe

As a group we will discuss the influence of social media and the Internet on advertising, with a focus on facebook. Current and future trends of these methods will be discussed in a summary of sorts.

Each of the above sections will have a focus on:

  • The history
  • Importance and effectiveness (psychology)
  • Interpretation
  • Semiotics (Roland Barthes)
  • Which advertisements work best in different cultures
  • Creativity
  • Demographics of source targets
  • Culture targets

For the website, we would like to keep the aesthetic in line with that of the conventions of advertising. Therefore the layout will be:

  • Simple
  • Informative
  • Attractive
  • Clean
  • Easy to read

We want to emulate the style of Volkswagen advertisements and adapt this to the format of our website.

Before the next session, we plan to have more specific research relating to our delegated areas. As well as this, we will spend the next week or so finding Volkswagen advertisements that will aid in the construction of the website.

– Gabriel