Topic: Surrounded by advertising

Author: Anna Rabiega

Addressee:

8th grade primary school student

Core curriculum:

X. Mass media.

The student:

3) presents the functions of the advertisement and critically analyzes the selected advertising message.

The general aim of education:

The student uses information to create his own statement.

Learning outcomes:

The student:

• distinguishes the functions of advertising.

• presents the legal regulations on advertising in Poland and analyzes to what extent they are observed.

• analyzes what product placement is and how it works.

• is able to spot and explain surreptitious advertising.

Key competences:

• communicating in a foreign language,

• digital competence,

• learning to learn,

• social and civic competences,

• sense of initiative and entrepreneurship,

• cultural awareness and expression.

Teaching methods:

• discussion,

• interactive lecture,

• brainstorming,

• snowball method,

• teaching conversation using movies, interactive widgets,

Forms of work:

• self‑learning,

• work in pairs,

• group work,

• whole‑class activity.

Material & equipment needed:

• computers with loudspeakers/headphones and internet access, headphones,

• multimedia resources from the e‑textbook – chapter: W sieci reklamy, Surrounded by advertising,

• interactive whiteboard/blackboard, felt‑tip pen/a piece of chalk.

Lesson plan overview (Process):

Introduction:

1. The teacher presents the goal of the lesson: You will learn how to distinguish between advertising and surreptitious advertising, and find out what the legal regulations concerning advertising are.

2. The teacher asks the students what functions advertising should perform. Students' suggestions are written on the board. If necessary, the teacher comments, corrects and supplements the students’ ideas.

Implementation:

1. The teacher asks the students if they have noticed any rules or regulations regarding advertising. By appropriate questions, he guides the students to help them determine the applicable legal status in this area. Then, he provokes a short discussion as to whether in the students’ opinion these rules are respected.

2. The teacher informs the students that they will do Exercise 1 from the „Surrounded by advertising” abstract. Their task is to distinguish advertising from surreptitious advertising. Then they discuss the answers with the teacher and justify them.

3. In the next stage, the teacher asks the students whether they think that advertisements can appear in any television program. He initiates a discussion on this subject using an interactive whiteboard. The students have to decide in which television programs product placement may appear and in which it should not. The teacher asks the students each time to justify their choice.

4. The teacher says that the next task will be to find the most effective advertisement and the task will be implemented using the snowball method. First, the students work in pairs. Using the internet, they find examples of effective and ineffective visual and audiovisual advertisements. Then the fours join together, present their ideas and justification, and choose the most effective advertisement in their opinion. In the next stage, they combine with other fours into eight‑person groups and re‑select the most effective advertisement. The teacher sets the time for the implementation of the individual stages of the task. In the end, four advertisements selected during group work are presented by group leaders to the rest of the class. The leader indicates why a given advertisement is effective. Then, the whole class takes a vote, and the best proposition of effective advertising is chosen.

5. The teacher offers the students to watch the movie „The History of Advertising in 60 Seconds” from online resources. He asks the students to pay attention during the broadcast to how the advertisements have changed and how advertisers reached the viewers. Then he initiates a brief discussion about whether the changes in the world of advertising are headed in a desired direction, or whether our world is changing for the worse.

Summary:

1. At the end of the class, the teacher asks the students questions:

• What did you find important and interesting in class?

• What was easy and what was difficult?

• How can you use the knowledge and skills you have gained today?

Willing/selected students summarize the lesson.

2. Homework proposal:

a. Choose an example of advertising (television, radio, press, internet) that in your opinion is effective, and explain what determines this effectiveness.

b. Listen to the abstract recording to review the material and new vocabulary. Then do the vocabulary exercise at the end of the chapter.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Surrounded by advertising

We complain about the omnipresence of advertising in our lives. It is worth remembering that advertising has a long history. It began as early as trade began. Before the second world war, there was a very famous slogan “Sugar invigorates!”. A writer, Melchior Wańkowicz received an honorarium of 5000 zł (which was 500 dollars at that time) for each word. This is how precious words can be!

Texts, illustrations, announcements in the media do not only have an informative function. The authors often want to convince us to something, influence our attitude, provoke emotions and actions, or discourage us from something. According to the Polish press law, advertising should be clearly marked (“advertisement” or “advertorial”). In practice often those words are put in fine print, and on the internet, they are nowhere to be found. A lot of bloggers publish positive reviews of products and are paid for that. The web if full of “buzz marketing”, and the internet message boards are dominated by paid users. These kinds of actions are known as surreptitious advertising.

Product placement is a marketing technique in which references to specific brands or products are incorporated into another work, such as a film or television program, with a specific intent to promote the product. The program or film does not encourage us directly to buy the product or is not trying to convince us they are the best, but the products are always presented positively, which is supposed to influence the subconscious mind of the viewer.