Reconnecting Nature in North America
The intent of this project was to create a series of three testimonial advertisements for the nonprofit organization: Wildlands Network. The Wildlands Network carries out research and ground work for wildlife and nature conservation across North America and is one of the first groups to implement conservation tactics on a continental scale (May, 2017). After discovering the North American “wildways”, a term coined to the Wildlands Network, which are large scale migratory and feeding routes for animals, the organization has worked incessantly to help provide safe passage for wild animals along these routes (May, 2017). Providing safe passage involves overpass construction which is layered with soil and fauna, underpasses, and improving roadside warnings and speed limit restrictions that intersect high-traffic animal routes (May, 2017). While this does not represent all that the Wildlands Network does, it does communicate two differentiating elements for the organization.
Due to the wide-reaching impact of the Wildlands Network, the target demographic for the advertisements is vast. One key specification of the demographic is geography. Because Wildlands Network is currently restricted to North American conservation, it is logical to assume that most the audience would be within the North American continent. Another demographical restriction can be found in the fact that the organization does necessitate philanthropic action. Therefore, it would be ethical to target those who have money to spare, as well as those who are responsible with their money. Due to this, people from ages of 18 to 60 have been selected for the target age cohort. Aside from this, the advertisements are meant to target the following types of people: environmentalists, biologists, animal-lovers, conservationists, philanthropists, and those who would recommend donating to the Wildlands Network to any of the previously mentioned persons.
Initially a mind map, or associative map, was created to begin the lateral thinking process for the Wildlands Network testimonial advertisements. In Advertising: Concept and Copy, George Felton reveals that lateral thinking is, “…generating a variety of approaches, a number of different starts and little thumbnails and half-ideas” (2013, pp. 188). This mind map was implemented to generate lateral concepts while simultaneously representing the contextual “trail” of the idea.
The next generative process that Felton discusses is the vertical thinking process, which Felton states is when, “… [you] take that half-idea and think it through, and so on” (2013, pp. 188). After the mind map was developed, specific keywords and ideas were selected for the sketching phase, which kicked off the vertical thinking phase of concept generation.
Upon sketching out the selected ideas from the mind map, three testimonial advertisements were chosen for the first iteration of comprehensive designs.
After the first iteration, it was determined that it would be more beneficial for the Wildlands Network to discard two of the comprehensive designs and instead develop a coherent series of testimonial advertisements that implemented the “User Review” concept, which puts Felton’s testimonial tactic, the “Extreme User” to use (2013, pp. 241). This resulted in the following three testimonial advertisements:
References
Felton, G. (2013). Advertising: Concept and Copy, 3rd Edition. United States: W.W. Norton & Company.
History: Inspiring Lanscape-Level Conservation Around the Globe. (May, 2017). Retrieved from: https://wildlandsnetwork.org/history/
Our Vision. (May, 2017). Retrieved from: https://wildlandsnetwork.org/our-vision/
*** Photographs were not recorded by the author of this post, all images were retrieved from http://www.pixabay.com by searching the following keywords: "bear", "goose", "wolf", "dented vehicle", and "John Muir Trail".
The specific photo URLs are listed below:
https://pixabay.com/en/bear-brown-bear-animal-teddy-bear-422682/
https://pixabay.com/en/goose-wild-goose-web-nature-bird-2244741/
https://pixabay.com/en/wolf-predator-hunter-canis-lupus-635063/
https://pixabay.com/en/headlamp-accident-auto-blue-broken-2940/
https://pixabay.com/en/mountains-sierra-landscape-forest-1629978/
