Anthony Sutton

Digital Skethbook

Module: Visual Communication Reloaded

Project: Dinosaur - Co-operative bank

Team: Charlie & Anthony

Twitter: @MrAntSutton

Email: Anthony_sutty@hotmail.com

THE CO - OPERATIVE BANK BRIEF

OBJECTIVE TARGET AUDIENCE

WHAT DO WE WANT THEM TO THINK?

WHAT DO WE WANT THEM TO DO?

PROPOSITION

DELIVERABLES

• To raise awareness and consideration among new and existing customers that the Co-operative has a new, attractive market leading lending propositions.

• Fixed rate loans just 4.9% for our existing customers only.

• 2 year fixed rate card - No nasty surprises as the rate of the interest wont change during the 3 year term.

• 2, 3, 5 and 10 year fixed rate mortgages to customers know where they stand with their mortgage repayments.

• To educate the customer about the benefits of long-term fixed rate product differentiating it from the other options.

• New and existing customers who fall into 2 key Segments.

FAMILY BRITAIN

• 40 -55 years of age with household income of £25-60K. They have a broad range of financial services needs, driven by life stage and affluence. They have a preference for online banking driven by being time poor and technologically savvy.

ASPIRING BRITAIN • Professional, working couples, singleton’s and younger and younger families aspiring for success; 20-40 years of age with a household income of £25-£55k.

EXISTING CUSTOMERS

• The relationship I have with the Co-operative Bank means they understand my credit needs and are able to offer me the products right for me.

NEW CUSTOMER

• That the longer-term rate on lending products means more security and helps me manage my money more effectively.

• I can trust the Co-operative Bank and am happy to take out a new credit with them.

• Find out more information/Enquire about credit card, loans or mortgage Contact us to apply via branch, telephone or web.

• Fixed lending options to help at a time of year when you need it most.

• Develop an overarching concept for The C0-operative’s fixed rate credit card, mortgages and loans, which will feed into a multi channelled campaign.

WHO ARE THE TARGET AUDIENCE? WHAT DO THEY GET UP TO?HOW CAN I TARGET THEM?WHAT DO THEY WANT A LOAN FOR?

TARGET AUDIENCE

FAMILY BRITAIN

• 40 -55 years of age with household income of £25-60K. They have a broad range of financial services needs, driven by life stage and affluence. They have a preference for online banking driven by being time poor and technologically savvy.

• Couple.• Home Owner. • Car or Two.• Motorbike.

• Older Children - Either living at home or at university or moved out. Possible younger child.

• Uses Online Banking.• Time poor.• Technologically Savvy.• Both Working. • Pets.• Hobbies.• Free from children (or not).• Their own Company.• Want to go on holiday.• Want home improvements.• Want a new car.• Furniture, Utilities.• Relaxing trips abroad.• Paying Bills. • Own business? Shop• University - change of career.• Gifts? Christmas/ Birthdays• In dept.

ASPIRING BRITAIN • Professional, working couples, singleton’s and younger and younger families aspiring for success; 20-40 years of age with a household income of £25-£55k.

• Single.• Couple.• Young Family.• Professionals.• Working couples.• Living in a flat.• Want to move out and buy a home.• Want to start a family.• Want to travel.• Want a car.• Tech savvy - online banking, apps etc• Equipment, laptops etc• Home improvements• Furniture, Utilities.• Holidays, Trips, Adventures.• Paying bills, Rent Etc...• Own business? Shop • University - change of career.• Gifts? Christmas/ Birthdays• In dept.

THE CO - OPERATIVE BANK RESEARCH

- Who are The Co - Operative Bank?

- Background research into the business and it’s design.

- The Co-operative Bank is a retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom, with its headquarters in Balloon Street, Manchester.

- The bank markets itself as an ethical bank. Avoiding investment in companies who are involved in Arms Trade, Fossil Fuel Extraction, Genetic Engineering, Animal Testing and Sweated Labour.

- The ethical policy was introduced in 1992 and incorporated into the banks constitution in 2013.

ABOUT

DESIGN

- As Britain’s seventh biggest lender. The majority of the bank’s revenue is made from interest charges on loans.

In this section I’ll be taking a look into how the Co-operative advertises, giving me a better understanding of how they portray themselves and advertise their products and services.

- Some examples of The co-operative print ads. First aspect I notice is the recurring blue colour and box. The colour is used in type and for the banner that appears on these ads and all over co-op ads. This is a consistent aspect that lets the audience know that it’s the co-op bank I am engaging with. For my Campaign this will be noted.

- In these ads and others, they often use photography. Mainly of people and people in different life scenarios thus communicating to the audience in a much more personal way which they can relate to. The copy also sits well with the image and often brings the audience in by asking a rhetorical question.

- All the necessary information about the product they are selling is very clear and it always guides the audience to find out more information by asking them to visit a site or come to your local branch.

- Bottom Left Images.Ageny: TBWA Manchester Art Director: Paul Gregson Wrangler: John Allen

- More of an Ad demonstrating they’re an ethical bank and was now placed in their constitution. But still the ad followed their other design principles. The simplicity of blue box/ book still appears.

- These ads are what we want to stay away from, every bank produces ads like these. We need something more creative and more interesting so the audience is more inclined to be persuaded to use their bank and their products.

- We have recognised that this is an area of design where we should stay away from, but obviously keep aspects like the logo and the colours the same to keep it consistent and recognised.

UNDERSTANDING THE AUDIENCE

Charlie and I wanted to understand our audience more as we thought the ‘big Idea’ would come easy to us if we got to know who we are targeting. We wanted to break down the audiences and attempt to look into who they are? What they do? What would they need these services for.

We then will explore some scenarios in which the audiences would need a credit card, a loan and a mortgage. This will encourage our thought process a little more and will eventually give us some imagery and ideas to work into the campaigns ‘Big Idea’.

- Here Charlie and I broke down the brief into some important areas so that we could keep referring back to it. This was a great way to keep us on track.

- We broke it down into 3 sections. Objectives, Proposition and Deliverables. We thought these areas held the key information for us to solve the brief.

- Here we expanded on trying to understand what the target audiences might want with the these products. This giving us some visual Ideas to expand on later in the project.

BRITISH GAS CAMPAIGN

Good example of a ‘Big Idea’.

British Gas is a really good example of an executed campaign. Their big idea comes from the strapline ‘Looking after you world’. With that in place the posters and TV ads come from that. I thought this was a relevant piece of research for this Co-op brief as the concept is the same. We should create a sentence or strapline then from that the ideas and advertisements follow and merge into the overarching campaign.

The ads feature these little planets that resemble their customers world. To me they resemble the game ‘Mario Galaxy’. The British gas team then visit the customers world and essential ‘Look after it’ as the strapline implies. The whole concept is very appealing to customers making them feel special and stress free, because when something goes wrong they can count on British gas coming to your world and looking after it. Having this piece of research is good for me and Charlie to reflect on and look back to if we need some inspiration.

TARGET AUDIENCE STRATEGY CHART

This chart breaks down the elements of the brief so it’s easier to understand. It separates into 3 sections. The first is what the product is, the second is the target audience for the product and the third is a story or situation that explains why that persons want that product.

Here’s an example. Take the credit card as the product. Then select an audience to sell it to, lets say a professional aged 20 - 40 earning £25 - 55k a year. The next step is to think of a story in which that person would want a credit card.

With this method in place Charlie and I can use this to come with ideas that target the specific audience we want to target. Once we have the overarching idea we will then take on this process to create selective ideas for the campaign material.

THE BIG IDEA

“MAKING THINGS HAPPEN”

Charlie and I have settled on our overarching campaign.We want to show that the Co-operative is “making things happen” for it’s customers. The Co-op are working in the background, to give help when it is needed. So the idea is to use customer scenarios, for when they need the products and to show what effects it has on the customer, Thus making things happen for them.

With this now set we can now start to produce some ideas in which to portray this meaning. I think a brainstorming ideas session in which we can draw ideas and talk about the concept will be the next stage.

2. MAKING THINGS HAPPEN.

3. WHAT SCENARIOS AND HOW THE PRODUCTS EFFECT THE CUSTOMERS LIVES.

4. DIRECT THE CUSTOMERS TO FIND MORE INFORMATION VIA THE WEBSITE OR GOING INTO THEIR LOCAL BRANCH.

1. CO - OP IS WORKING BEHIND THE SCENES.

CONCEPT

IDEASCharlie and I Have continued to discuss the ‘big idea’ further trying to expand it more, thinking deeper and trying to come up with some visual ideas to how we can represent this thought. Then I think we need to think about how to spread the idea across different media like, TV, Print etc.

- TV Ads.

- Print Ads.

- Direct mail.

- Website.

- App.

- Guerilla Ad

Here are some examples of what Charlie and I was thinking about, We wanted to keep it simple and deciding on creating 3 scenarios or life stages that would target the different audiences. So we decided with the following

- New business.- Holiday.- A new car.

At this point Charlie and I was still confused about how we could communicate this Idea into a campaign. We needed an idea that would help us Communicate it in a way that could be understood. As our Idea is about Building these life stages Charlie and I were trying to think of ways something can be built. The second image demonstrates what we thinking about. We discussed the following.

- Theatre Construction- Buildings being constructed- A kid playing with Lego

Charlie and I thought of a theatre concept and how we could have the theatre as the stage and the life scenes get built by members of the Co-op. This would communicate that the co-op is helping to build your life stages through these new products. The concept was good but we kept this Idea as a back up.

I was looking through pinterest when I discovered this illustration that sparked an Idea. Maybe we could turn the products into Air-fix model kits. Each kit will have items that would be in response to what the customer wants e.g a car, home or new business.

Charlie and I discussed the Idea of the Air-fix model concept and believed that it fitted with the strapline ‘making things happen’ which also led to it fitting with the ethos of the concept, which was to show that the co-op is helping it’s target audience to build their new life stage with these new services.

After discussing the Idea further we feel like the Air-fix model concept would definitely work across a lot of the advertising mediums and felt that it was a strong concept to take forward.

How can we show this concept working across those mediums?How can the audience be encourage to find out more?

- Flat print ads- TV ads where the model was constructed in a stop motion style- Direct mail sending out the model box to customers as a memento- Guerilla stunt?- Website specifically for the new products?- Social media?

- Quick sketches thinking about the model kit , what it would look like. How could this concept be spread across the different advertising mediums.

- Writing how an advert could work, Ideas of stop motion, the model piecing itself together.

- Looking at the box, the front of the box could have the co-op logos on and the fixed rate options. This could be a piece of direct mail?

With the concept set in place Charlie I decided to split roles to create the visuals. The first step we created rough scamps of the starter kits. In the scamps we demonstrated the each life stage. A holiday kit that would specifically apply to the Fixed rate card product and target a singletons,couples and even family’s. The second scamp was for a new home that would apply to the fixed rate mortgages and target a family. The last scamp was for a new business which apply for the fixed rate loans targeting the older side of the audience the people who are financially stable and might want to start a new business. Charlie and I both feel that the concept can be adapted to any life stage and could appeal to a wide audience.

Charlie and I split roles and decided to work on different visuals. I was creating the static ads and Charlie was tackling the Story board concept. We would then collate our work together and begin to form the presentation required for submission.

As the concept is based around these started kits I had to complete my visuals so that Charlie had a understanding of how they looked and how we could spread those to the different advertising mediums.

VISUAL DEVELOPMENT

I decided to create these fixed rate starter kits up in illustrator as I thought the sketch versions would be a little harder to understand, on top of that the visuals suited a flat graphic look that I wanted to communicate. As this was for dinosaur I wanted to create something that I was proud of as Dinosaur is an agency I would quite like to be apart of. I felt it was necessary to demonstrate my skills. On the other side I enjoyed creating the designs and they turned out looking really strong and effective. To help with linking the designs with the Co-op I made sure I used the colour blue as it is their iconic memorable colour that distinctively represents the Co-op brand.

I basically made a list of items that would be included in each pack, illustrated them. Once illustrated I had to organise the elements into the frame work and construct the kit together. The Idea set me back in time as it took me a long time to produce the artwork. I do believe there might of been a simpler way of demonstrating the visual for example a sketch along side some images of what it would look like. I later realised this, but was dedicated to finish the visuals to this standard.

I created a the box lid for the co-operative fixed rate starter packs. This was to communicate what life stage it was helping to create. We stuck with 3 concepts to visualise because what we learnt from Ali Auger at BBH is that ‘3 is a campaign 4,5 and 6 will follow’ and in this case other life stages can be made up into these model kits.

I added the finishing touches to the advertisements remembering to get the customer to find out more information by directing them to the website or their local branch, this was a very important factor to consider. The visuals communicated the Idea in the way Charlie and I wanted.

From this point onwards Charlie and I have to show how the idea can be spread across the different advertising mediums. Added information will accompany our visuals on the final presentation sheets.

Charlie drew the story board which was quite simple now he had the visuals I made. The basic Idea was to show this models being constructed and that the end slide would show that it’s down to the co-operative bank and their new services. Then it would lead the audience to find out more about them by visiting the website or branch.

We also cut down on the strength on the visuals and concentrated on showing the Idea and describing how it would work. In the case we put some images from a cravendale advert that was created using stop motion which we felt would be perfect for our model concept as it has that hand made feel to it.

The story board will feature a written description of how it flows and what exactly is happening.

- Adidas Show box shop. A concept we think we could involve in our campaign.

A Pop up co-operative starter kit box that would feature in populated scenarios e.g. a town centre targeting a wide range of audiences to come in and find out specifically what the products are about. This pop up shop would feature where there are limited co-op branches and would serve as a great way of getting the products to the public quick as they are commuting to work or are out shopping.

This stunt would hopefully create a social media buzz. Leading more audiences to visit the shop but also find out more about the co-operative bank.

NEW FIXED RATE PRODUCTS

NEW FIXED RATE PRODUCTS

MAKING THINGS HAPPEN

MAKING THINGS HAPPEN

- Fixed Rate Loans.

- Fixed Rate Card.

- Fixed Rate Mortgages.

- Fixed Rate Loans.

- Fixed Rate Card.

- Fixed Rate Mortgages.

We then invested our time into how the products could work with the co-operatives website. As new products they should be the first thing the audiences sees when visiting the site, so we made use of the banner area and created a possible spot for the new campaign to feature. Once clicked on the information would appear.

From this point on Charlie and I collated our work and formed the presentation sheets to send to Dinosaur. I will feature that in another document. I shall next evulate the project in more depth looking at my partners contributions and the overall project experience

EVALUATION

Overall I think the project went well. I believe Charlie and came up with a strong campaign Idea and executed it to a high standard. I do feel there were areas that could of been different. Ill start of by briefly analysing my partners contribution to the project and then discuss further points about the project.

Charlie was a good partner, he was in the studio with me throughout the whole process, he was engaged in wide discussions with me on how to tackle the brief and the process of coming up with Ideas. Charlie and I bounced thoughts and ideas of each other easily. We could communicate without any problems. If Charlie wasn’t in the studio I could easily contact him by phone or Facebook to share Ideas and thought I had. Charlie was not afraid to share his opinion on the project, which really helped us with our decision making. He lacked enthusiasm at timest as the project didn’t interest him creatively. I wanted him to realise this was a great opportunity. I wish he gave me a little more enthusiasm it wasnt a major issue as I was 100% sure we would work well together and produce a strong concept. When discussing our ideas Charlie didn’t hesitate to share thoughts on Ideas and gave constructive feedback to help us progress through the project. Charlie put in a good amount of effort but I expected more from him. I believe with added enthusiam and interested in the project I believe we could of pushed the project further.

The project was given to us before Christmas and it was expected of us to continue the project over the Christmas period. It was very difficult for me and Charlie to create time to meet up or even discuss the project as we were very busy with our families. The Christmas period did take a lot of time out of the brief but I think we should of set time to discuss the project and our Ideas before returning to university. Working with a real client and a real design agency was a huge opportunity but it came with a lot of pressure. As a designer I wanted to make sure I created work that I was proud of and would demonstrate my skills. This mind set resulted in me creating the visuals to a high standard. I was warned that the visuals are not expected to be perfect and ready to be put out into the world but I wanted to impress dinosaur because my name is on this work and I wanted to make a good impression. Creating the visuals to the standard that I did took me quite a while which resulted in us having less time. If I had created more simpler visuals that still got across the Idea Charlie and I would of had more time to expand the campaign to cover other advertisement mediums. The pressure of creating work for a design agency made me think my work must look professional. I don’t doubt my decision but I have realised that it did hinder our project .On my behalf I am responsible but I do not regret the decisions as the visual look professional and stong which i am personally proud of. Another aspect we could of improved on was managing our time and setting goals and mini deadlines daily. This would of resulted in us being more productive and creating more concepts.

The pressure drove me through this project, The thought of actually doing a brief for a design agency was a great experience and I tried my best to come across as professional as I could. Creating a overarching campaign was an enormous challenge as this was a totally new experience for Charlie and me I have learnt a lot about creating campaigns and coming up with an overall good Idea that can work in many different ways, that was the biggest challenge for me. I found it difficult to allow myself to think more openly and begin to think about how the target audience and how we can target them. The visual side wasn’t to much of a challenge as I am confident in my ability to produce strong visual both digital and by hand. The presentation side was another challenge, I learnt how to present my visuals in a professional manner that would be suitable to send to a design agency. I discovered creating a campaign isn’t easy, it is vital to have someone like a partner or a team to sit with and discuss the brief and to bounce ideas off one another, that aspect seems to be very important in coming up with any Idea and reflects how industry works. I believe If Charlie and I sat down and talked more through the project our campaign could of been stronger.

Overall I have learnt a lot from this project that I will take forward with me. I feel our concept and our visuals were very strong and I am very pleased with the end result. We are being invited into dinosaur to discuss and gain some feedback from the projects which will be an amazing experience and will help us develop as designers.