What Happened Next?
In the never-ending quest for new training exercises, I created one this week which proved really productive for: -
· Discovery learning on a technical subject -equality laws and advertising standards
· Sparking debate between competing schools of thought
· Influencing others through well-articulated arguments objectively put
· Creative, inventive thinking
· Plugging participants into “breaking news” around them
You might find other uses for what follows, and I am sure everyone reading this would love to hear from you. As I sit here, I could envisage my exercise being suitable for role play!
My new training exercise as the headline indicates is called “What happened next?”. Properly managed it will take 90 minutes and of course should be located in the most appropriate slot within your full day course timetable. My exercise this week was the second in six consecutive but linked up modules.
- So what happened next?
Participants on my equality laws, diversity issues and cultural awareness training course received an edited summary of five decisions made by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on complaints they had received on a wide range of ads. The ASA will either uphold or reject a complaint. If they uphold a complaint the advertisement must not appear again in its current form
So, profiled below are my edited extracts from the five ASA decisions. Edited in the sense that there is no clue about whether the ASA upheld or rejected the complaint.
People studied the edited ASA narratives in small groups with the instruction to:
- Speculate where each complaint is going and in the light of their findings determine their “jury” response for upheld or rejected
After plenary feedback, the actual complaints and the subsequent ASA decisions were revealed. This was then used as the basis for debate, discussion and discovery learning points around legalities and the ASA Code of Practice. Lively session!
And when I say lively this whole exercise -start to finish - needs an agreed ground rule about the boundaries of the completed scripts. Let me put this delicately. Some of the participants went off on a frolic of their own creating completed scripts which perhaps said more about them than it did the situation before them. Getting into the realms of fantasy sums it up politely. There is a difference between poetic licence and poetic licentiousness
The five edited ASA narratives are below. If you want to have a go at creative completion, do so. Or cheat and have a sneak preview from the full link below!
- TV ad and video on demand (VOD) ad for the soft cheese, Philadelphia:
The TV ad, seen on 14 June 2019, featured a woman passing a baby to a man who then held the baby in his arms. Another man appeared carrying a baby in a car seat. The first man said, “New dad, too?” and the second man nodded. The scene was revealed to be a restaurant with a conveyor belt serving buffet food. The men chatted, saying “Wow, look at this lunch”, “Yeah, hard to choose” and “This looks good”, whilst a sitting baby and a car seat were seen on the moving conveyor belt, as the men were distracted by selecting and eating their lunch. The first man then noticed his baby had gone around the conveyor belt, said “errr” and “argh!”, and moved across the room to pick the baby up. The second man picked the baby in the car seat off of the conveyor belt, and one of the men said, “Let’s not tell mum”.
2. A TV ad for Buxton bottled water,
Seen on 15 June 2019, it featured a female ballet dancer, a male drummer and a male rower. The dancer was shown as a child and then as an adult practicing in a studio. The drummer was seen playing in a school gym and then on stage. The rower was shown training on a stationary bike and rowing machine and then rowing on a river. Scenes of the three characters practicing their different skills and drinking Buxton water were interspersed with images of water flowing through rock. A voice-overstated "Rock bottom. The start of the journey. There will be obstacles but it's all about finding a way through, pushing upwards until finally reaching the top. Buxton. Here's to the up and coming".
On screen text stated "Forced up through a mile of British rock”
3. A TV ad for the Volkswagen eGolf
Seen on 14 June 2019, it opened with a shot of a woman and a man in a tent. The woman was asleep, and the man switched off the light and closed the tent, which was shown to be fixed to a sheer cliff face. The following scene depicted two male astronauts floating in a spaceship. Text stated, "When we learn to adapt". The next scene showed a male para-athlete with a prosthetic leg doing the long jump. Text stated, "we can achieve anything". The final scene showed a woman sitting on a bench next to a pram. A Volkswagen eGolf passed by quietly. The woman was shown looking up from her book. Text stated "The Golf is electric. The 100% electric eGolf".
4. A poster for the cinema release of the film ‘Pet Sematary’ (2019)
Seen on the side of a bus, in April 2019 it featured an image of children with animal masks and carrying various objects, including a spade, a crucifix and a wheelbarrow, walking through the woods with crucifixes in the background. Text beneath said?
5. An ad for Strasse Garage, Porsche World Magazine (2019)
Seen in the Porsche World Magazine on 28 February 2019 featured an image of the lower half of a woman’s body wearing a black fitted mini-dress and brightly coloured high heels positioned underneath a car, surrounded by car tools and a handbag. Text positioned across the image stated, “ATTRACTIVE SERVICING”.
You will find the actual ASA decisions and many more of their real decisions on a huge range of issues if you follow the link below:
https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/rulings.html