Thursday, 14 November 2013

PR Campaign (UWA)

In a public relations unit in University of Western Australia 2012, I got to design a campaign for Julia Gillard after events of her being portrayed in the media versus Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd seems to make her worse out than she may intend to be. This also follows the unpopular government's campaign for Clean Energy/ Carbon Tax.

The campaign was 2-pronged. An iphone app (not designed for android then) was created, along with a 25 sec advertisement as below.

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Story Treatment for Advertisement
Length: Approximate 25 seconds
The advertisement opens with a sepia-coloured rustic rural country-side patch, with the back view of a few construction workers walking to the center of the screen, to start work on the building of a road. The scene is set to the 1930s where development first started in the countryside parts of Australia. The sounds transforms from metal hitting metal and construction-building to the sounds of a busy highway. The scenery has transformed itself really quickly into that of fully-vibrant coloured scenery of that road now fully constructed and bustling with many vehicles. A song that is inspirational and orchestral (to signal a new beginning) now begins to play at the ending of that scene.
The next scene also starts off sepia-coloured, depicting early Australia. The scene shows a reservoir, with a few construction workers hard at work connecting pipes. The camera pans and close up to one of the construction worker, who is at the end of one of the pipe lines, when the pumping of the water finally works and water starts splashing out and his lights up in joy. The camera focuses onto the water splash. Now the scene transforms from sepia-coloured to full-coloured.  The camera zooms out of the water gushing to show the water slowly streaming out of a modern tap in a contemporary family setting. A lady (preferably a well-liked Australian female celebrity or character such as Rose Bryne or Sandra Sully or Lee Lin Chin or Isabel Lucas or Jennifer Hawkins) collects the water from the tap and smiles in comfort as she takes a sip out of the glass of drinking water.
Instead of starting the next scene sepia-coloured, it now shows a vibrant coloured, almost majestic view of the wind turbines in a wind farm. The camera zooms into the rotating blades of the turbine and it is a blend of colours and the form of the blade, and then the camera view zooms out, to show a modern electric fan blowing and is switched off by a little girl. The little girl then runs of the open-air veranda into a beautiful field where there is a mini playground, and her friends are playing happily in a very clean and green environment. The setting is modern like that of a predicted Australia in 2020.  The song that started playing in scene one is now ended in its climatic music.
The voiceover begins (the voice of Julia Gillard): “We are the generation that creates a clean and green environment for the future of Australia”
The scene transform to a white poster with the Carbon Tax logo, and “To know more, visit: www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au” beneath it.


Brief Desription
This advertisement seeks to show how tremendously difficult it is to begin developments for the country to move forward. The previous generations of Australians have paid the price and toiled hard for her people to now live in comfort. Sadly most people tend to take it for granted. Australia may be a nation that complains about taxes and increasing bills, but it is only with such measures taken by the government that will see that the country will be well in future. As Australia relies heavily on its natural resources with its citizens chalking up increasing rates of carbon footprint, it is essential then for the government to place measures of protection for the environment and its future.
Unlike previous carbon tax advertisements, this advertisement shifts the current focus of the monetary tax in “carbon tax” to the focus of Australia working to build its future together, paying the price for the better good.
Also, the usage of the endorsement of the female celebrity would be essential to make this advertisement endearing to the wide population of Australia. The advertisement seeks to spread itself through the word of mouth when the audience is pleasantly surprised to see one of their favourite Australian celebrities in the split seconds of the advertisement. It is encouraged to remake this advertisement with different female celebrities in the same scene to create variation and to generate excitement over the ad.
Lastly, while the face of Julia Gillard is not shown, the audience is treated to a second surprise to know that this familiar voice is actually that of their Prime Minister who is roped in to create this advertisement. While she may not have been popular amongst some Australians for her carbon tax scheme, they may give a double take to this advertisement. The advertisement could possibly cast her in a different light as that of an unexpectedly cool Prime Minister.
With the advertisement hot on the tongues of Australian citizens, it is hoped that it will also be retained in their minds to remind themselves that the carbon tax cost goes into the comforts of future Australian generations.

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I enjoyed the assignment and felt a great sense of achievement to receive the grading. Contact me at miss.janet.yang@gmail.com to find out how I fared ;)



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