Critical Evaluation and Reflection
Hitting the Objectives
Audience understanding: the project was heavily reliant upon the results obtained from the first set of public surveys and they were proven to be very helpful. More international students than British answered, so the videos’ content could apply for a broader audience outside of the targeted one. Although I had hoped to be able to carry out iterative design, the focus group was largely unresponsive, so even if I did have time to carry out iterative design I would have got a lack of feedback. It was possible to find a new focus group, but it was too late to find one as video production did not begin until weeks before the deadline. There is a risk that the video may not appeal to students at this point. However, I did show my work to a couple of friends for feedback, all of which are/were students, so some iterative design was added. A friend had mentioned that the Learn video was too fast, so the video was slowed down. Otherwise everyone enjoyed the videos.
Korea’s Selling Points: It wasn’t until February that ‘Eat, Play, Learn’ was established as the ‘theme’ of the campaign, it was originally the more cumbersome ‘educational, cultural, affordable’. EPL was short and snappy, and a member of Sky Bet liked it. ‘Eat’ and ‘Play’ covered Korea’s selling points. Most UK students in the surveys attributed Korea to ‘delicious food’, so ‘Eat’ will cover the ‘food porn’ of Korea. The video aimed to create a visual impact by displaying 2D detailed recreations of food (inspired by Ghibli food), but of course it was unfortunately not produced due to the lack of time. ‘Play’ aimed to cover aspects of what UK students wanted (adventure) and what international students deemed to be a selling point of South Korea (culture). ‘Learn’ focused on the all-important educational aspects. UK students expressed concerns about language barriers and affordability, so the aim was to add it to all videos where necessary. The concern of language is dispelled in both of the produced videos, and costs are addressed largely based on the food.
Linking Sharing: Links have unfortunately not been shared to organisations yet as the campaign feels quite incomplete. It is perhaps best that links are distributed once all 4 videos are produced. For now it should be based on online ‘virality’. Although, a member of the Study Abroad Office did advise me to contact ThirdYearAbroad.com about my project, I will do so once all 4 videos are produced.
Promotion: Print advertisements were produced in the right settings on Adobe Illustrator as A3 files. Rather than interrogative headlines posters were sought more for a visual impact. One poster catered towards Foodies by laying out the food in a presentable manner, and the other had more of an infographic appearance. The latter can also be produced as a small leaflet due to the design. One criticism is perhaps the colour choices made for the food poster, though arguably required since it is ideal to stay true to the actual food colour in order to appeal. As for the infographic poster, it does look a bit cluttered, hence why it’s best to present it in larger size. The Twitter account was scrapped since there was little use for it when there is already a YouTube and Facebook to help promote.
Key Selling Points
Student Tailored: I followed the suggestions of the international student survey in order to get an idea of what student-relevant content to present. Only downside is that I did not get a chance to test if the content were in fact relevant on the intended UK audience. Though so far on social media, no one has complained.
Animated Infographics: made sure content made sense by doing a lot of research. I focused more on producing graphics to get content across much faster with limited text. I made sure that the animation was smooth and professional looking with the help of the AE plugin. Generally the pace of the videos could be improved by slowing down, provided that I add more auxiliary animations in the background to give more interest.
Interactive Narrative: clearly limited due to the missing 2 videos. Initially the videos did not have much interactivity available anyway, but there is certainly scope for more interactivity in future when more videos are produced.
Social Space: Facebook group did end up being established, it’s just the case of finding students to fill it and begin asking questions right now.
Videos
Although I had hoped to produce 4 videos, I only managed to produce 2 of the proposed 4. As mentioned in previous blog posts, I was hindered by creativity block, motivation, indecisiveness, and information validation. There was an overload of information in the beginning, and being an indecisive person it was difficult to select information to present in the project. The lack of responses from my focus group did not help either. Once decided on what content to present, there was difficulty in getting the information that I gathered online to be ‘validated’ by a ‘professional’. Numerous emails were sent to numerous organisations, many did not respond, the ones who did always redirected me to the non-respondents. The general lack of responses made me feel demotivated as it felt like I was getting nowhere, and that is probably where the creativity block stemmed from. In the end, I had to push myself to be creative, which did work half the time. What resulted were 2 well produced videos. The movement of the graphics flow with the upbeat music most of the time, so it makes viewing more enjoyable. Graphics are vibrant and bright which reflects
Video: Main promotional
Infographics were limited on this video since I aimed to have the promotional video to serve as a teaser – to get students hooked and interested in wanting to learn more about studying abroad in South Korea through the next 3 topic videos. Can’t give the entire campaign away with the first video of course! If I had more time, I would have altered the overall pace of the video. Near the end, things got a bit too fast and felt quite rushed. It somehow appeared slower on AE… Regardless, that’s the one major downside to the video. In addition, I’m not 100% pleased with the seasonal change graphic, and would’ve definitely improved it if I had more time.
Video: Learn
Perhaps my favourite out of the two since I had more time to produce it. I managed to have time to fix the pace of the video, albeit it is arguably still quite fast. Perhaps students can pause the video if that they feel it’s too fast for now. I will only take it down to re-edit if complaints rise. Otherwise, the video is satisfactory. It’s not too overwhelming in terms of content presentation and design. Things are kept clean and neat.
Website
I have chosen to use Wordpress as opposed to coding my own website is because:
I was advised to by the Study Abroad Office in order to make it not only have a more legitimate professional web address, but to ensure a stable and professional design that can be responsive.
It saves time.
Generally happy with the clean design of the website, however the header font bugs me in that I can’t change it to the campaign’s main font: Arista 2.0! This puts a risk in ruining my campaign’s design cohesiveness. Yet, this change can only be applied if I bought a domain, which is currently not possible for me. It really depends on the success of the project in future. I’m currently more concerned in finding more content for the website since it feels a bit empty right now. Since the ‘Play’ and ‘Eat’ videos are not uploaded yet, the information on the pages related to them will remain sparse for now. Once the videos are released the pages will be updated with more content and links. Reason as to why is because there is yet to be an ‘ad’ (the video itself) for the information page and links. Arguably, people can browse and stumble upon these pages, in that case I have left a message on the page telling visitors to come back later when the new video is released, perhaps this will prompt more subscribers to the YouTube page.
As for student blogs, there is sparse content purely because it’s generally difficult finding these student blogs on Google search. Also, I have lost the links to the blogs that I used to follow for Korea University. Although I had great hopes for this part of the website, it failed. However, I do plan on persevering in finding more blogs for the website, and aim to perhaps launch a video featuring and promoting the blogs in future - once I’ve curated a good lengthy list.
Facebook Group
Easily set up, just the case of getting/waiting for students to join it right now.