METRO assignment!!!



To me, this assignment is the most important one so far. I am very determined to do well, as my passion is in advertising. When I heard (in the beginning,) that we might have to advertise for Bread Talk, my heart sank. Bread Talk advertisements were either lacking wit or purely tactical. So, when we received the Metro challenge, I was overjoyed, truly. There is a lot of potential in advertising for a newspaper, and I intend to take full advantage of that.

When it comes to concept, I like to think of a tagline first, followed by the many interesting ways of interpreting that phrase. Some say I work backwards, in a weird way. But it doesn’t matter. It only means that I think differently, and my concept thus, will be different from others in my level. I hope. Either way, my concept revolves around the tagline of, “Be Aware”.

I came up with the concept of a reader, whom is so engrossed in reading Metro that he absolutely forgets his surroundings, his pride and his safety. He thus ends up in situations which are embarrassing for him, but wickedly humorous for the viewers of this advertisement. He ends up in situations like getting pissed on by a dog, and totally does not know it. Or, he’s about to walk into a lamppost, but he has his nose so deeply buried in the newspaper, that he doesn’t know it. Better yet, he stops in the middle of the road to read while completely ignoring the car on his right which is about to run him over. What makes it funnier is that, all these things are art directed to make it obvious for the viewers to see, but the poor guy in the advertisement is simply NOT AWARE.

This concept is simple and funny, perfect for the TA (18 to 44) to appreciate. It also meets all the conditions:
• Promote Metro to readers as the best way to get up to speed with the latest news in the morning.
• Increase warmth towards the Metro brand.
• Get readers to think about Metro as a personality rather than a product/utility.
• Ensure Metro is the first choice and encourage loyalty to the brand.
• Most commuters follow a set pattern in travelling. Successful work will demonstrate how the response can stand out from the noise and grab the attention of the passing person.
Art direction wise, I wanted to make the main character in my advertisement, to stand out amongst a otherwise busy background. So I had everything Gaussian Blurred at around 7 pts, and the main character at around a 3, so that he’s stand out. Also, I placed him in the foreground, usually in the middle. His supporting elements are close beside him, but less significant as I blurred them to a 7 as well. Also, I colored different areas of the black and white background to have a bluish tint to them as Metro’s larger primary colour is blue, so I wanted to draw that out and to add live to the advertisement.

The few worries that I have were the colorings, the text and my execution.
By colouring certain parts of the background blue, I also had to colour the jeans of the main character blue, as I try to make the blue areas as realistic as possible, e.g. I might paint a white shirt blue, but I would not paint a white building blue, that isn’t real, and as the main character’s pants were of obvious denim material, I had to colour it blue. That is for a consistent feel in my advertisements. I was worried that it might come off as a jeans advertisement, and not one for Metro. So I decided to tone down the blue a little bit, and place the metro sign on the newspaper a dark electric blue. All of a sudden, it didn’t look like a jean advert anymore, and I was glad.
The text was another problem, not so much of what to write, but where to place it, together with the logo. Initially, I placed a black box behind my words and after consultation, where my lecturers said that it was too messy, blocky and didn’t help the look, I took his advice and removed the black box, although I was worried that my white words will not be able to be seen against the light grey background. I was pleasantly surprised when that didn’t happen. On the contrary, it turned out pretty well. My advert did not look so cluttered anymore and my text was still obvious. Another matter solved.
My execution… I was never good at executions… not sure why. God knows I try till I cry, but it never seem to work out… Either way, I took deliberate care and concern for this assignment, needless to repeat why. But still, up till now, it’s still a concern; One that I’ll never be able to shake off.




















RESEARCH
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Information

Metro is the UK’s 3rd biggest weekday newspaper with around 3.5million readers. Distributed in 33 cities across the UK it differs from paid-for newspapers by having no political agenda.
The paper is designed for a busy working audience who want bite-sized news, sport and entertainment plus information on things that are relevant to their lifestyles, such as fashion, food and travel.
As a morning newspaper it’s designed to be read during the commute to work. The average time spent reading it is 30 minutes.

The paper was launched in London in 1999, and can now be found in 14 UK urban centres. Localised editions are distributed in Birmingham, Brighton, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Tyne and Wear, Sussex, Sheffield, Nottingham, Bristol and Bath. It is part of the same media group as the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, although in some areas, the paper operates as a franchise with a local newspaper publisher, rather than as a wholly owned concern.

The Metro concept comes from Sweden. Metro International, a different company, launched in the UK in 1999 and in Newcastle upon Tyne was distributed side by side with the Associated Newspapers' version on the Tyne and Wear Metro system. After battling alongside the Associated Newspapers' version with the same name, it changed its name to Morning News. It was short-lived, however, and Morning News was discontinued shortly afterwards. They have had plans to launch a rivalling free evening newspaper in London . Similarly, Rupert Murdoch is said to have regretted missing the opportunity of launching his own London paper. However, News International, a UK subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corporation, launched a London-based newspaper in 2006 called thelondonpaper. This was closed on 18th September 2009.

The newspaper was designed to be read in 20 minutes. The features section contains a mix of articles on travel, homes, style, health and so on, as well as extensive arts coverage and entertainment listings. The popular puzzles page contains the cartoon strip Nemi (by Lise Myhre), 118 118 (by Clive Collins) (informative comic strip) and This Life (by Rick Brookes), astrology readings by Nikki Harper, and Sudoku. Previously, it featured a crossword (in place of the sudoku puzzle), David J. Bodycombe's Think Tank brainteasers and a Judge Dredd strip.
Despite the removal of the crossword, there is still a crossword compiled which is only available on the Metro website. The removal of the paper crossword caused some irritation to a lot of readers.
On 8 July 2009, the online version of Metro was merged with London Lite .

In its first five years, it achieved a readership of over 1 million daily readers, making it the UK's fourth largest daily newspaper, after The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror, although it is closing in on the Daily Mirror in terms of distribution. It now prints approximately 1m copies daily, and officially has some 1.7m readers, as of September 2005. This high readership is due in part to the papers being left on seats on buses, train or the Underground systems in Glasgow, Tyne and Wear, and London, and then being picked up by the next person to use that seat. In October 2008, its total certified distribution for that month was 1,361,306. Due to its urban and mainly youthful audience, advertising receipts have been very healthy at a time when its older stable-mate, the Evening Standard, had not been performing so well. 62% of readers are ABC1 (upper/middle class social grade), 78% are aged 15–44 and 64% are in work






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