Critical Evaluation

On the second of November 2015 an assignment was given which required me to

produce a thirty second advert. The theme? Toiletries. Immediately I chose to
represent the Lynx brand. This was partly because I am user of Lynx products and
partly because I very much enjoy the Lynx adverts and felt I could replicate one with
relative ease. I decided to follow the Lynx Effect narrative, and have a young man
receiving a lot of flirtatious attention from attractive women as the direct result of
spraying himself with a Lynx scent. I studied several Lynx commercials, taking into
account style, pacing, humour and execution in order to be able to adequately
produce an advert that would be believable to an audience as representing the Lynx
brand.
I started to put together some ideas based on the adverts I had seen. I had decided
that I wanted to show a young nerdy male going through a morning routine before
spraying himself down with Lynx deodorant. As he heads out and walks down the
street a succession of attractive women flirt with him before a final woman grabs the
male and passionately kisses him. I was thoroughly impressed by this idea and
decided to run with it as I was certain it would be a sure fire hit. The next thing I
needed to do was to present this idea to members of the public through the use of
surveys to see whether this was something the target market would want to see.
Although the data was not unanimous, most people surveyed agreed with the
direction I wished take with the advert. I then correlated the data I had collected into
a pitch that I would need to present to my tutor and a handful of my peers. It is
important for me to note that SO confident was I with my idea that I had already
started to film the advert. Almost immediately after I had decided what I wanted to do
I had made contact with some performing arts students to see if I could generate
interest in them being part of the production. I had an overwhelmingly positive
response and started filming ASAP. Unfortunately I only had the participants for a
brief period of time on the day and so I was unable to get all the footage I needed.
So we pencilled in another date when we could get together and film, and off I went
to edit.

On the Sixteenth of November I had to deliver my pitch. I had used power point to
create something semi-professional in look and I had practiced my speech so that I
could come across as impassioned by my advert and knowledgeable about the
market and target audience I wished to reach. I felt the presentation went well, a little
shaky at times but overall okay, and left the room feeling very pleased with myself.
I learnt some very valuable lessons that Monday morning. 1- Dont ever assume that
your idea is the greatest thing since sliced bread because you havent had outside
influence to tell you any different. 2-Dont become so married to an idea and so
single minded in your vision that youre not open to the fact that you may have to go
in a different direction. So the feedback from the presentation was that I would need
to re-shift the focus of my advert somewhat. So powerful was my belief in my original
idea that I still wasnt convinced it needed changing. It wasnt until I showed my class
the poultry fifteen seconds I had managed to edit together and received the feedback
forms that things started to become clear.
The whole advert with the exception of the soundtrack would have to be changed.
There were far too many issues with the advert and the overall idea that just couldnt
be ignored. A few of the issues were that the opening scene was unnecessary, there
wasnt enough focus on the brand and the advert was too overtly sexual, as the
woman grabbing the male at the end and kissing him could be seen as aggressive
border lining on sexual assault and generally speaking Lynx adverts dont tend to be
that explicit as most of the sexuality is implied.
I had eaten humble pie and had to concede that my advert would indeed need to be
changed. My second idea had been to keep the original idea but just not have the
woman kiss him at the end but instead hand him her phone number (As you can see
I was still married to the first idea). So I attempted to rally the troops and commence
with filming. This is when disaster struck. Due to scheduling conflicts I would be
unable to get the original four performing arts students back together anytime soon.
After several failed attempts to coax friends into standing in for the previous actors, I
had given up hope that I could produce anything close to a thirty second advert. In
the mean time I had completed all the requisite pre production and production
paperwork. My pre production paperwork had a lot to be desired as I was more
focused on the actual production as I considered the pre production paperwork to be
quite mundane and laborious. However, looking back I now see how important pre
production is and that if you have a passion for the production you're working on then
all aspects can be equally enjoyable. I have no shame admitting that for a time I was
quite single minded on this assignment and that could've cost me dearly. Moving
forward with the course I will be sure to be more aware of this.
Eventually a few of my class mates kindly offered their services so that I could reshoot the advert. Once again I only had them for a morning and being mindful of the
feedback from my peers I decided to try something that diverted from the original
idea.
Once shooting had been completed, my advert had evolved into a different beast
entirely. I feel that the new direction I went in was fit for purpose. The advert had a
very tongue in cheek feel to it and captured the spirit of the Lynx Effect more
effectively than the last attempt through better pacing and humour. The shots I went
with were sharp and not so shaky and were varied enough that I could edit in time
with the music. I used a mixture of stationary and steady cam shots and as a result
captured a wider variety of shots this time round. Despite the fact that it was quite a
miserable day I think that the soundtrack and colour correction used did a lot to
make the advert feel bright and upbeat, again a staple of Lynx adverts. The overall

idea was thought to be a huge improvement. I feel that with the original idea I was
possibly trying too hard to come up with a clever concept whereas the concept I
ended up with is simple in its execution and as a result was better received by those
who viewed it.
My revised Idea was based on a similar concept used in a Lynx advert appropriately
titled pied piper, Where in a guy enters an office for some kind of showdown and
instead of pulling out a gun, pulls out a can of Lynx and proceeds to spray himself.
He then walks out of the office and the town followed by a procession of women.

In the end I was happy with the work I turned in but if I had to do the assignment
again I can see where improvements could have been made. I should have spent
more time on the pre-production work and approached it with the professionalism it
deserved. If I had had the time and resources then I would have also filmed on a day
when the weather was more clement. Other than that Im happy with the way things
turned out. My original concept, albeit flawed, served as a jumping off point for the
end product which far superior to the previous attempt.
The critical feedback from peers week after week was an incredibly helpful tool also
as it helped guide me in the right creative direction and end up with a final product
that was more or less well liked. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment and
feel that it has helped me identify the areas I need to consider and improve upon
when approaching an assignment of this scope.