‘A local youth centre has asked you to create a poster to promote their new club for teenagers in the area. On the surface, this is quite a specific brief and the client seems to know what they want. Use divergent and convergent approaches to develop a response to the brief.
For example, is a poster the best way to attract local young people? Use divergent thinking to develop a broader set of proposals that takes into account any underlying problems or potential opportunities you can identify. Then use convergent thinking to focus on the solution that best meets your client’s needs.
Reflect on your results, and the role divergent and convergent thinking played in broadening and focusing your attention’.
I think, my first thoughts are that a poster would be relatively effective in attracting attention. However when you consider that the target audience are teenagers, then this changes things slightly. Teenagers spend a large proportion of their time on mobile smart phones and computers, meaning a digital methods of advertising would most likely be more effective.
Things such as targeted social media adverts would be a very smart idea. This would mean that not only would the advert be digital and likely to been seen by the teenage target market – but also with it being targeted, will be aimed at people in a certain location, thus focusing the advert to exactly the right people. It would be easy to do, and largely inexpensive, word of mouth travels quickly too, especially with the ability to ‘share’ posts to others within your social sphere.
Other ways to advertise/publicise the new club, would be to enlist the help of the local schools. You could approach the school with flyers, with the idea that they would then circulate and distribute them to all of the children within the relevant age brackets. Again, a very simple but effective way to target a specific audience. One potential issue with this however, is the teenage years are a particularly rebellious time, and something that comes through the school, may not be seen to be the ‘place to be’ as such.
A launch event could also be a good way to gain some interest and traction. Advertised in the same ways as above, however getting people to actually attend an event at the club would mean they get to experience it first hand. If given a good impression they are more likely to, not only return, but to tell friends and others about it.
Jon Lawrence Learning Log 