ADVERTISING AWARENESS PART FIVE

Part One of a five part language-social studies unit for years 5-8+ exploring the world and language of advertising including purposes, methods, targets and our reactions to advertising.

Teacher Hint: This is a great excuse to decorate your class with advertising posers and brochures to make a really colourful display and stimulate interest in the unit.

Click here for part one of - Advertising Awareness:

USING ADVERTISING FOR OUR ADVANTAGE

Promoting our Town and District

What will we promote?

Talk about the importance of tourism to New Zealand and our local district. What advantages can the students see from increasing the number of tourists visiting our town and district? Who will benefit and how?

(Older students may be interested to know that tourism is now our largest single most money earner for the country if agriculture is split into separate parts, eg wool, meat, dairy products.)

In groups, challenge students to come up with ideas about just what we would advertise and promote to tourists about our town and district. One way to start is to brainstorm and list under categories, eg

• architecture, landmarks, special historic buildings
• natural attractions such as mountains, walks, rivers cultural attractions and amenities
• eating out experiences or a particular food delicacy the town is famous for
• famous people from the town
• events, festivals, and special days
• famous events in the history of the town
• most common birds, animals, reserves, gardens
• accommodation, homestays, motels, hotels etc.

Have groups come up with a huge list and report back to the class.

Who is our market?

Revise ideas about the target audience - just who are we trying to sell our town/district to? Introduce the idea that there are two district target markets - Within the country (New Zealand) and overseas. Tell students that we will just be promoting/advertising within the country first to test the effectiveness of our campaign - we can then move to an overseas promotion using many of the same ideas!

How do we promote our town and district?

What media and/or ways can the students suggest would be effective ways of getting our message across within the country and overseas. What media would they use? Brainstorm and list, eg

• newspaper advertisements
• television advertisements
• national magazine advertisements and articles
• on-the-spot promotions in various towns/cities around the country
• roadside billboards to catch the attention of passing drivers
• a free mail box promotional flyer

Talk about the different requirements for each media chosen, eg

• how would their Newspaper advertisement differ from their television advertisement?
• what would they make to give away at on-the-spot promotions around the country and overseas? (Tee-shirts, brochures, postcards, badges etc.

Getting on with the tasks

Assign each group a different media to design their advertising promotion for or each student could choose one/two media to produce advertising material for.

Spend some time making sure the students are clear about the purposes of their advertising campaign and any special requirements of the media they choose, eg

• a roadside billboard would need to be bold and feature probably just one main idea - a picture and a slogan. Why?
• on-the-spot promotions could contain brochures, pins, Tee-shirts, carry bags or a whole promotional kit to give away to people passing the stand.
• How would people be attracted to the stand?

Evaluating the advertising promotion

Students should be clear about what they are promoting and how they will promote it within the medium chosen. Use this as a measure of evaluating the student's work. Encourage students to give positive criticism of each others work and make suggestions for improvements.

Extra for Experts

The Internet is now a major way of promoting and advertising. Tell students that web designers have to make sure that their web page/s are found by people using Search Engines. To do this they use metatags - up to 20 words that are placed in the html code behind the page (we can't see them) that the Search Engines will find.

What 20 words would the students choose to be their metatags? Remember that people from overseas are not likely to have heard of the name of their town or district. Hint: What would people type in to search for a place for a great holiday visit? eg

• New Zealand Holiday, Fishing, Tramping, Accommodation etc.

Click here for part one of - Advertising Awareness: