24 Hour Brief.

As a group we were asked to create an advertising campaign to encourage young adult males to visit their GPs through targeting women.

The majority of men tend to ignore symptoms that could potentially lead to a serious illness. “Taking risks and thinking nothing will happen is seen as being part of the parcel of being a man.” The advert should address this problem and make men go to their doctor before it’s too late.

Before we started sketching and discussing ideas we decided it would be valuable to spend the first hour doing research. Our team leader split us into groups, each group focusing on a different task.

 Background Research was carried out by looking into articles about men’s health, gathering statistics on the subject and finding current or past adverts that related to the issue.

 Brainstorming was used to generate ideas about ‘the risks men take in their daily lives’ and ‘how women look at the subject of men’s health’.

Two groups went out on the street; one with a questionnaire to ask couples about their relationship. Another to find out what stage of an illness a man would go to the doctor.

After the research was gathered we re-grouped to discuss our findings. Ideas were then sketched and pinned up. Once the sketching died down we voted for the most popular ideas.  These ideas were worked on for a little longer until we decided it was time to make a decision and choose the final ad.

The advert chosen targets women whilst drawing attention to the fact that men could have an underlying problem yet ignore the symptoms and don’t go to their GP. By highlighting this we are hoping women can make a difference and not brush this issue aside. From our research we found that men tend to wait until the problem is unavoidable. Shockingly one man stated he would not visit his GP even if he found a lump on his testicle! With the encouragement of women perhaps men will not feel that going to the GP is a sign of weakness. Asking couples, siblings and friends about their relationships we discovered how influential women are to men.

The advert created by the team shows a man suffering in some way while the woman brushes  his pain aside saying for example “You just have man flu!” while the tag line reads “Or is it?”. This is to target women emotionally; hopefully they will feel connected, stop and think. It may be something they say to their friend or husband so they will realise they should perhaps look at the situation in a serious way instead. Underneath the tagline there is a short explanation and the NHS24 website for further information. Bus stops, supermarkets, doctor’s waiting rooms or a newspaper would be ideal locations for where this ad should be placed.