This course so far was the class that I look forward to because I wanted to not only improve my writing skills as a media designer, but how to establish brand and tone. Felton stated “Companies speak most authentically when there is no gap between who they are and how they talk” (Felton, 2013).
I also developed Target Audience Profiles for Earthjustice, which is the nonprofit organization I chose. Earthjustice is a nonprofit public interest environmental law organization, wielding the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people’s health , preserving magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change (Earthjustice, 2020).
At first, it started to become hard for me (I don’t know why), but once my creative juices was flowing, it was a piece of cake. “The more you know about them, the easier it is to write copy in the correct tone that will make them respond to your advertising for your campaign” (Rogalle, 2020).
Target Audience Profiles
According to Felton, “a persona is the created self , the speaker people hear and the personality they sense through a brand’s language and imagery” (Felton, 2013). The Target audience for Earthjustice is composed of two environmentalists who want to to make a difference in their community.
Testimonial Ads
I developed six testimonial ads for Earthjustice. I wanted to rough sketch six different testimonials that would work for the nonprofit organization. “With testimonials, peoples interest or belief in the spokesperson rubs off on the product. No matter what you are selling, someone can testify for it” (Felton, 2013). Not the person, but something associated with the person, president/CEO, celebrities, historical figures/unreal people, wrong person, and extreme user testimonials are all the testimonials that work for the nonprofit, communicating a message to the target audience.
Comps
After developing the testimonial sketches, I moved on to creating compositions. the three that I chose were not the person, but something associated with the person, wrong person, and historical figures. To me personally, I think those three testimonials were easier to execute. I wanted a minimal design that it will be easier for the target audience to read. I had a little trouble executing the headlines, but after looking at the handouts from this course it was a piece of cake. Felton mentioned that you are looking to generate energy among the words (Felton, 2013).
Week 3 Revisions
I made some changes for each ad:
For each ad I decided to highlight words to emphasize the organization itself (environment, voice, and generation) with the same color to make it cohesive.
Per Prof. Rogalle’ s request, I made the subhead and the call to action 3 points bigger and made the call to action 2 points bigger
Changed the first ad image so I can see the emphasized word pop out.
Made sure the logo and the text are aligned correctly for each ad.
The word “visit” in bold in each ad.
Per Prof. Rogalle’s request, to not have orphans and widows. Although the first ad was an em dash (–) I decided to remove it and tried my best to avoid those completely.
Takeaways
The three takeaways I gained what I learned in Effective Copywriting that I will apply going forward in my career as a media designer are:
Personas: When I created the ads and developed the brand’s voice for the nonprofit, I did not realize how helpful it was for me to create personas for the nonprofit. Tt made me feel like it was talking to them as a real person, even though they are not real.
Brand Voice: Throughout this course, creating a voice for the brand is what the class was mainly about. I didn’t know that there was so much to it when it comes to creating a voice for a brand. Felton suggests picking 5 adjectives to describe the brand in order to discover its voice as well.
Settle and Alreck’s 15 Catalog of Needs: I have never heard of the 15 catalog of needs. Now I know, and how vital the needs are. You want to look beyond these basic needs when advertising a product or service.
Jerry Medireck's Mastery Journey 