From some of the adverts i have already seen there are certain things that need to be included in my advert.

1. Theme. This is very obvious but my defined theme is what will make my advert relate to an audience. My main direction at the moment is alcohol. This is quite obvious considering i am a student but i have some ideas which involve focus! For example in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbZidsgMfw the techniques in this are very distorted and grimey. A direction i want to take my ad.

2. Contrasting/What if narrative. Many of these adverts have stories which give the impression of choice and what happens if you make the wrong one. My advert idea is to have one narrative which ends in different ways based on the main characters choice to not have that extra pint for example. Or a more simple this is what happens if you drink type narrative, for example a narrative which could involve a protagonist thinking everything is alright, only to be hit by a car -again a rough example!

3. Tragic ending. None of these adverts hold back, they all have the protagonist either get killed, or seriously injured. The point of these adverts is to highlight the very serious issues being discussed. So inevitably my main character will have to be killed in some kind of horrible way, just to get the point across and to make these adverts seem like the choices you make are life threatening and VERY serious. Human life being involved in the mix makes the weight of these adverts and the consequences very personal to an audience.

4. Moral story/punchline. As talked about in the previous advert i will need to have an underlying moral story for my ad. And the punch line will bring it all together, one which i thought might be effective is ‘you have a choice, make the right one’ This could be used with some one being offered one more pint and them being hit by a car. What if you didn’t have the last pint? should they conform to peer pressure? These are some of my ideas currently. Although it sounds simplistic written down the messages MUST be simple and easily understood by an audience or it hasn’t done its job. Something as simple as being hit by a car can seem avoidable but under the influence this can be terrifying for an audience.

My idea currently is - Choice vs. Peer Pressure -

 I found the above ad to be very disturbing, A good example of simplistic/effective advertisement.