Looking at advertising

1. Starter: Introduction to recruitment advertising

Required Resources

• Video: Everest Climb Advertisement
• Student Worksheet 1
• Slides 1-6

Delivery

• Play Video: Everest Climb Advertisement (you may have to play video more than once to ensure students have time to make sufficient notes).
• This activity introduces the concept of recruitment advertising by showing a film clip featuring a recent Army television advertisement in which soldiers were filmed during an expedition to Mount Everest. Students can use the table on Worksheet 1 to note their response to the clip.
• Following the clip, students should be encouraged to feed back as a class, focusing on the following areas of discussion:
  • Target audience: who was the advertisement aimed at?
  • Message / call to action: what was the primary message of the advertisement?
  • Persuasive techniques: what persuasive techniques were used?
  • Style: what did they think of the style of the advert?
  • Success: do they think it successfully conveyed the message to the target audience?
  • Why: why do they think it did / did not effectively convey the intended message?
  • What improvements would they make?
• More time can be dedicated to this activity by investigating further elements used in the advertisement and discussing the importance of each factor, such as:
  • a. Editing: are the cuts gentle or rapid and what effect does this achieve?
  • b. Camera angles: are eye-level, high-angle, low-level and slow pans used and to what effect?
  • c. Voice over (VO): is there a voiceover?
  • d. Protagonist: who is the protagonist? e. Dialogue: does the ad include any dialogue?
  • f. Soundtrack: is there an accompanying soundtrack?
  • g. Slogan: is there a slogan and how effective is it?
• Students should be informed that this film clip portrays just one strand of the campaign and that other strands included online access to a website featuring audio files and video clips.
• Further background notes to support this campaign can be found in the preparation and planning section of the Teacher Notes if required.

Differentiation

Lower Ability:

Some students may struggle with some of the technical vocabulary used in stage 4; it may be worth spending some time introducing them to words they are not comfortable with.