EQ: What makes a successful advertisement? 

SQ: What influence does advertising have on our culture? How does our culture influence advertising? 

Writing on your essential question: What have you learned about your essential question so far? What further questions do you have? and/or Has your essential question changed? If so, how? What do you want to know more about?

My essential question is, “What makes a successful advertisement?” So far, I have found this question rather tricky to put words to because it is very deep. Success can and will be defined differently depending on who you ask. I have slowly realized, however, that the deep nature of this question might not necessarily be a bad thing. Learning about success has required me to dissect every single part of an advertisement -the role of an ad agency, key principles of good advertising- that I might not have dissected before.

I have come to a place in my research journey where I am starting to define my own version of success: To me, successful advertising is advertising that serves a greater purpose. It has some sort of positive impact on the audience. That could be through breaking stigmas/ stereotypes, calling attention to certain issues or simply, making someone laugh. At the end of the day, though, it should do no harm to a community. To me, it feels crucial that advertisements are not only representing all people -gender, race, sexuality, physical ability- but are representing them accurately and respectfully.

Thinking wise, I notice that a large part of exploring this question has been looking into the philosophy of advertising. The need. The what. The why. Essentially, the purpose of advertising, which changes as history evolves. I am asking pretty profound questions, I know. But part of the reasoning towards this is because we’re living in such an interesting time for advertising. Social media has completely changed the game. It has shifted the medium to which advertisements are displayed, shifting the demographic and purpose along with it.

How are you exploring your essential question; is it different from what you expected? If you don’t feel like you’re answering your essential question, what is happening that’s different from what you expected?

I still think that I am answering my essential question. What has shifted, however, is in how I approach answering it. I used to think I was going to purely create an advertisement for this project. I can attribute being in quarantine to pushing me to think deeper, almost forcing me to think deeper because I have so much time to think for myself and essentially, critique my own thoughts. Like I said before, I never expected to become so invested in exploring the philosophy of advertising. Possibly this thinking will benefit me and make future creative projects I do more meaningful. Possibly, it won’t. I’m actually not so sure right now. What I know is that I am confident in this route of critical, deep-rooted thinking.