Dumb ways to die and Mac Vs PC Focus Group

Dumb ways to die
The 'Dumb ways to die' ad campaign began in November 2012 the campaign was started by a company called, 'Melbourne Metro Trains' and was made to spread awareness about being safe around trains. 

Instead of Melbourne going for a boring and depressing advertisement they decided to chose a more different approach. This ended up in the advert being more happy and colourful, it also included its own song that ended up hitting the charts. The advert spread the message to a lot of people, and because of its unique style children could watch the advert as well and understand what it is trying to get across. I think this was a very smart move by the company because children are more likely to not be careful around trains and injure themselves so having the advert changed from a gloomy style would have helped the children understand a whole lot more. There is barley any text in the whole advert this is so they song that is playing in the background can be focused on. The song had a narrative to it and talked about what not to do around trains.

An app was also made at a later date, this again telling the audience to be careful around trains. After every few games the player would have to promise that they would be sensible around trains. Toys and posters were also made about the character in the advert, the characters featured are the face of the campaign now because they are so memorable.

The campaign ended up doing its job, metro train noticed a 21% decrease in accidents and deaths around trains. This campaign ended up being very successful and is still talked about today.

'Mac Vs PC' Focus Group

A focus group is a group that has a discussion about a certain product or item. In our focus group we discussed and advert that was called, 'Mac VS PC'. We generated 5 questions that were based around the ad, most of the questions were very linear though. I thought that the advert was very plain and didn't really show off why the mac product was better than a PC. It only stated it, I mentioned this in our discussion very briefly. We do focus groups because it allows everyone to voice their opinions on something to others and maybe change other peoples opinions on that certain thing.

The questions we used for our discussion were:

1.  Do you use a mac or a pc?

2.  Do you find that the comedy in the ads makes the product look more appealing?

3. What have you learnt about macs or pc’s after watching the ads?

4. What are you more likely to buy?

5. Do the adverts change your opinion about what you prefer?