16 September 2009

There was a good set of presentations today.  You all did well with a limited set of instructions and I think most of you understood to focus on the audience represented by the advertisements.  The concern with the quality, composition and elements of the advertisements were only important when these factors told us something about the audience for the advertisement.

Here are my comments based on stations covered:

Choi Hung
Excellent presentation, well organized and delivered, and well designed.  Giving the percentage of ads in a particular category is an excellent basis for comparison and the pie chart was definitely a strong method for presenting the information.  Your analysis was good.  I understand why you did the analyses of the individual ads and you did a good job of it but it was really unnecessary for the  assignment and it made your presentation run too long.

Sham Shui Po
You did a different but appropriate approach to the assignment.  You were brave to follow the first presentation because it was very well done.  Your method of presenting the target audiences and then showing the ads which fit the category was a good one.  It places your analysis directly into the presentation of your information.  It was an appropriate level of analysis for first year students, but it could have been a bit more detailed in why you fit particular ads in particular categories.

Causeway Bay
You did a good job in spite of the fact that you are unfamiliar with the products and advertising in Hong Kong and you don't read traditional Chinese.  Your humour helped cover any gaps in details and was well received by the audience.  You saw the amount of repetition and did your best to avoid it which means you were aware and focused on the task.

Kowloon Tong
Extremely well organized analysis.  I particularly like the fact that you provided a detailed description of the neighborhood in which the station is located.  You laid out all of your information well visually and verbally.  Your conclusions were well presented and supported by the content of your presentation.  I was wondering if the Jean Luc Goddard Poster or the Il Divo Poster were seen by you or other students in other MTR stations?


Mong Kok
The images in your presentation were good.  You showed us many different ads and you analyzed them aesthetically but overall you provided too little discussion of the possible audiences for these ads.  The visual is really what we all know best but we all have to try and dig deeper to understand why the aesthetic choices were made and what audience(s) are being targeted with the advertisements.

Central
It is good that you focused on the unique ads within the station.  You definitely portrayed a distinctly different audience than we saw in the presentations from the other stations and I think you identified it correctly.  I do think that you made a bit of a mistake by leaving out the beauty and fitness ads because those would also be direct appeals to upwardly mobile office-girls and office-boys.  I think you also hit on a unique feature with the Qantas and Emirates and the travel agency but you do have to remember that Central is connected to the IFC, the Tung Chung line and the Airport Express.  This means that people in the station may want to travel, have the means or money to travel and that they may already be traveling and are going through Central to get to the Airport.  This was a very good presentation and you had a strong analysis.

Kowloon Bay
As I said in class I was a bit surprised by the upscale ads you found in this station alongside lower income advertisements, but when you consider the changing nature of the neighborhood and the presence of two major shopping centers it makes sense.  I am not really sure that the large scale Chinese restaurants are really that expensive as they make their money on the large number of people they can accommodate, but you rightly identify the people in the station as primarily local through the presence of these ads.  You did seem to find a lot more food ads than found in other stations.  You did good work coming up with your conclusions.

Tsim Sha Tsui
You did a very detailed job of describing the various target audiences by listing the 8 characteristics of each from the description of audience in the AIM lecture.  This is an extremely strong demonstration of understanding the nature of the assignment.  It was about the people passing through the station as indicated by the advertisements that are in the station.  Visually you could have designed your presentation slides better so that we could see the text and the advertisement clearly.  You have the content down which is the most important part but you need to work a bit more on the presentation of your solid findings.

Wong Tai Sin
Excellent presentation in terms of content and visuals.  You pursued the information is a clear and logical manner and you presented it in a concise way.  It was very smart to do comparisons with other stations as this highlights the uniqueness of the advertising in the Wong Tai Sin station.  Your conclusions were clear, concise and well supported.  They also make sense from the neighborhood that surrounds the station.  Overall this was the best presentation of the day.

Shek Kip Mei
Overall I think you understand the Shek Kip Mei and the station very well and you presented that to the class.  You gave a good overview of the people that pass through the station but when you showed us the individual ads you discussed more of the look, aesthetics, than the audience for that particular ad.  I like that you used flash for your presentation but when you use a group of images on your main screen and not a linear progression in the presentation then you need to be sure all of your team members know where the location of each of the images they will need.  You did, however, do a good job addressing my question which may have thrown off the plan for your presentation.

Prince Edward
It is not always good to go last because then it becomes harder to talk about things other people have already presented.  You did, however, draw strong conclusions from the evidence you showed, generally and specifically.  Using the specific ad to break down the analysis of the audience was a good technique to support your more general discussion of who passes through the station according to the advertising.  You do need to be sure that all of your team members are up to speed on the presentation and have previously seen the slides and/or images you will be showing.


We have lost of bit of time but we will catch up over the next few weeks.  Next week we will discuss psychological theories related to communication design with a specific emphasis on the Gestalt theory of perception.  Thank you for your diligence and creativity in the presentations today.  Not everyone did it the same but that shows that there are different ways to effectively approach a given assignment.

Also next week I will bring in some good and bad examples and discuss the Lexicon a bit more so that everyone understands exactly where we are going with it.

Please Remember:
Each one of you needs to start a blog and subscribe to this blog.  In setting up your blog please use a picture of yourself that will help me identify you with your name.  I will start following your blogs this week.

Absences of the Week: (if I am incorrect please let me know)
Windy Wong (first)
Zoyo Zhao (first)
Wong Kwun Ho (second)