Advertisement of Nike Shoes

Project Pitch

For your final project, you will create a multimodal text, i.e., a text that uses at least two modal elements (visual, aural, linguistic, spatial, gestural). Your final project will be to create an advertisement for a product or service. Whatever you choose to advertise (you may select an existing product/service or create your own fictitious one), it will have an audience, a message, and its purpose will be to sell the product/service to your audience.

This week’s assignment is for you to pitch your final project idea to me. But you will treat me as if I am the stakeholder in your project. For example, if your final project will be to create an advertisement for a new line of Sharpie markers, then you will pretend that I am a representative of Sharpie. If you are advertising a pair of Nike shoes, then I am the CEO of Nike.

In your pitch, you will have to make two major considerations:

1) The audience, message, and purpose of the pitch itself, and
2) The audience, message, and purpose of the advertisement.

Read this week’s assignment. It explains to you how the pitch genre is structured, what points it should make, and how to put a pitch together. Because this course is an online course, you will not be making an oral presentation. Your pitch will be written.

Your pitch must include the following elements:

1) Identify the product/service
2) Identify the genre (video, poster, online popup ad, radio commercial, etc.)
3) Identify the stakeholder (Nike, Sharpie, Apple, etc.)*
4) Identify the target audience for the advertisement (young children, housewives, golfers, etc.), be specific**
5) Identify the purpose of the message (to sell a product/service or to build/bolster the brand’s name)
6) Identify the advertisement’s message.***
7) Give two to three examples (ideas) you have for the final project ad, using terms and concepts from your readings (modes and design elements) talk about how you plan to design your ad to convey information to the audience and to persuade them.*

*Remember, you are trying to persuade the stakeholder to greenlight your idea. So, you need to make a statement (briefly explain) how your idea will help them sell more products/services, or how your advertisement will boost their name recognition and ethos. Convince the stakeholder your idea is good for them.

**DO NOT DO THE FOLLOWING: If, for example, you are advertising Nike shoes—your audience is NOT “anyone who wears shoes” or “anyone who likes Nike.” Your target audience must be specific and narrow, e.g., “this ad is for people who run long-distance marathons” or this ad is for “people who play basketball” and need/wear the kind of shoes being advertised. Another example to really make this point, if you are advertising Coke Zero, your audience is NOT “anyone who likes soft drinks” or “everyone, because we all get thirsty.” Rather, your audience may be “people who like soft drinks, but are concerned about the weight/health” or “people with diabetes or other blood-sugar related health problems.”

***Your message and purpose are different things. With an advertisement, your purpose is either to sell products/services OR to boost the seller’s name recognition and ethos. The Message is more specific. For example, in the Nike ad to the left, the purpose of this ad is to sell Nike Air shoes. The message is that these shoes will cause their wearers to jump higher and thus play better basketball.

Other Notes on this assignment: You may, if you like, provide a sample or example of what you propose to create. For example, you might insert an image that illustrates ideas that you have for your project. If you are doing an aural project (a radio commercial) or a video project, you may insert links to samples.

Deliverable: This assignment should be in the 2-3 pages range. It should be double spaced, BUT you are not required to follow the MLA for this assignment. Think of the appearance of your pitch. Does it look professional? Does it help to persuade the stakeholder? Is it organized and arranged well? Is the important information easy to find? In a sense, the pitch is a multimodal project that is meant to persuade the stakeholder to greenlight your advertisement idea. In the real world, you would either be hired (or not) for this opportunity. So, persuade your stakeholder that your idea is a good one.

Make certain to check your work against the prompts above and the rubric on the following page.

Rubric (50 points max)

Clearly identifies a product or service that proposed ad will promote 3 pts Vaguely and/or too broadly identifies a product/service that proposed ad will promote
2 pts Does not identify a product or service that proposed ad will promote 0-1 pts
Identifies multimodal genre (podcast, video, poster, billboard, popup ad, etc.)
3pts Does not identify multimodal genre for final project
0 pts
Clearly identifies the stakeholder;
3 pts Vaguely references to the stakeholder
2 pts Does not identify the stakeholder
0-1 pts
Clearly identifies a specific target audience for the ad
11 pts Identifies too broad an audience for the ad
5-10 pts Does not identify a target audience for the ad
0-4 pts
Clearly identifies the purpose of the ad; Purpose and Message are not confused
10 pts References a purpose but is difficult to distinguish from message
6-9 pts Does not state the purpose of the ad
0-5 pts
Clearly identifies a specific message of the ad; Message is not confused with Purpose
10 pts References (or alludes to) the Message, but does not clearly state the message
6-9 pts Does not state the Message of the ad
0-5 pts
Offer 2-3 ideas (modal and/or design) for the ad; explains how these ideas contribute to the Message or Persuasiveness of the ad; AND uses terms from prior readings in meaningful ways (modal and design elements) 8-10 pts Offers 2-3 ideas for the ad; explains how they contribute to message or persuasiveness of the ad; Does not use terms from prior readings or does not use them in meaningful ways (modal and design elements)
4-7 pts Offers no ideas, only 1 idea for the ad; does not explain how the idea(s) contribute to the message or persuasiveness; does not link ideas and explanations to terms from prior readings 0-3 pts