Commercial producer Angela takes an unexpected turn and produces a unique and iconic entertaining advertisement with only a digital art app, her drawing skills, and her creative brain.
First, I explored the web to find a video that covers all the techniques to create an extraordinary advertisement, and it wasn't that hard when YouTube is right in front of me. Ten seconds into my research, I had already found an amazing video that explains in-depth all the things to pay attention to when making a commercial. I jotted down some important points such as the color scheme, composition, emotional appeal, etc.
I figured that one video isn't enough to make me a commercial expert, and I wasn't ready to move on to my exhale.
So I decided to analyze some of the most famous commercials on my own, and take something important out of the texts. I did some more research and found out that two of the most popular and well-known commercials of all time are Apple "1984", and Wendy's "Where's the beef?". I found it very interesting that both advertisements are made in 1984.
I took some notes and observed the techniques that they used to make such a successful ad. Something that I took out of the Apple "1984" commercial was the color scheme - they made sure to make the main character colorful, vibrant, and energetic, while the more minor things remain dark and dull. I can see the effectiveness for people to focus more on the more important things.
Wendy's "Where's the beef?" was what inspired me to do my commercial. They wanted to show that their burger had more meat meanwhile other popular fast-food restaurants are just hiding their lack of meat with bigger buns. We get a good look at comedic-based advertising, instead of casting perfect-looking actors, they cast regular-looking and sometimes people who are not considered "attractive".
As a result, the advertisement was more fun and engaged rather than a glossy, movie-like production.
"A commercial is something that you watch when you sit down to watch something else - you should at least be entertained." — Joe Sedelmaier (Director)
At that point, I felt like I had all my creative juices filled and ready to get going. So then, with all the information I needed, I started creating my own commercial.
I decided to base my commercial on lollipops...Yes, candy. It's easy enough to make your commercial cheerful and fun when the product you are promoting is already cheerful and fun. I polished the whole idea and the outline of my commercial and started writing the script.
With four hundred frames and a forty-second video, I made sure to make a simplistic cartoon advertisement stand out. Since my target audience is children, I wanted to make something minimalist so that it's easy to understand. Colorful visuals and light-hearted cartoons - I felt like an ad without any fun wouldn't do any good to children.
I used a digital animation application that I found online called flipaclip, it allows me to draw frame by frame, and put together the frames to make my drawings come to life. But this piece of artwork definitely wasn't easy to create.
My main goal is for my audience to relate to the commercials, along with the entertaining lines and simple cartoons, to make them want to buy the product. I would say it's rather successful.
Click here to watch the commercial.