dissertation ideas. HELP!?

Question

I am in my 2nd yr of a BA Hons Graphic Design course and was wondering if anyone could give me tips on how to handle the disseratation and what topic taht would be interesting to focus on. It can be based on advertising, branding etc. Anything taht we want. i was thinking of doing advertising and how advertisers target different products at male and female without any regards to gender stereotyping that was an issue in the 1960’s and beyond i.e. washing up liquids aimed at women but now, the recent one shown in the UK for Fairy (name of washing up liquid) is the famous chef Ainsley Harriet so therefore, women are not the sole target audience. I have one issue though an taht is for an advertising essay we had to do, i have done it on a product with similar ideas but thsi woulod be in more depth. Do you think that i should leave the idea and choose another because having similar ideas in my portfolio won’t do me any good. What do you think? Can you think of anything else? OR

Option 2) Should i focus on a a particular brand and its branding including all the advertising campaigns etc and compare and contrast how they targeted their audience before and how they do it now? There HAS to be a reference to the present times so what do you think. I need help.

Answer 1

Now more and more people think about climate change and the consequences. If you can change some people's mind to be more sustainable then your dissecting will be rewarded. May be by making an animated advert or a poster?...

Answer 2

From my experience the male vs female advertising sterotypes scenario in dissertations has been played to death through Graphic Design, Media and Business Studies. In fact, I remember my dissertation tutor exhaling deeply and looking at the ceiling when someone mentioned this as a dissertation subject.
I can't offer you a definitive alternative but I can give you some suggestions that may help you to find one:

Think tangentially - dare to be different,
Dont spend too long on creating a 'title' - that will follow once you get a few thousand words into it,
Get started as soon as you can - even if you find you write 1000 words and delete it down to 200. Keep typing, keep typing and then go back and review what you have written.
Dont worry if you seem not to get anywhere quickly - I must have written my introduction over 20 times. Keep at it.
"Tick the boxes" - there are certain things the person marking your work will be looking for - make sure yours answers to even the smallest criteria eg Properly referenced quotes, page numbers, bibliography etc etc. I know it sounds ridiculous, but you have to remember these people see hundreds of dissertations.
Lastly, try to really hone your idea. Dont attempt to tackle: NIKE - An evaluation of the 'Swoosh' effect Worldwide, because you will run out of time and words.
In my experience it is better to answer a concise question really well than to satisfactorily answer a broad all-inclusive question. Hope this helps. Good luck!

Answer 3

I think when advertisers use men to advertise washing up liquid and similar household products they are still targetting women. Women seeing the Ad will buy and live in hope that the man in their life will do the dishes. Why not do something relevant to todays society, how junk food is advertised? The ads for these products target the family and certain sections of society.

Answer 4

Hi,
Dissertation is very significant tools for any doctoral. It is a great problem sometimes for the candidates. But if you know the right ways to prepare to make the dissertation you will be happy. Here some ideas are presented bellow
This section describes the dissertation format that all NYUSteinhardt doctoral candidates are required to follow. Dissertations must adhere to these requirements in order to be accepted by the Office of Research and Doctoral Studies for the scheduling of the final oral examination.
Documentation of original research completed as required for a graduate degree; a lengthy, formal written treatise or thesis, especially one required by universities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Ph.D. degree. A dissertation is judged as to whether or not it makes an original contribution to scholarship. Lesser projects (a master's thesis, for example) are judged by whether or not they demonstrate mastery of available scholarship in the presentation of an idea.
For better idea you better take help from online services

Answer 5

I'm not doing marketing so apologies.... But maybe something like coke as you option2? Look at how they created ads aimed at women (diet coke break), have become synoymous with Christmas (rebranding Father Christmas plus last Christmas' "where are the coke 'holidays are coming'?" questions that went round on here and other sites).

Also, if you're doing gender stereotypes etc, I dont know if it would be worth doing a bit of social theory to add another dimenson? Barthes was gay (in the non-homosexual meaning) but did a lot on how images represent one thing but have a deeper meaning....It would also maybe be useful to add in a bit of social context- womens lib in the 70s- did i change how it advertising worked? Or did it not change a thing considering sex still sells?

But I wouldnt worry either way! We had to have a question and proposal for our dissertation in year 2 but a meeting with my tutor this year (final year, 3) found him still saying "forget the question, still keep it really broad, you'll narrow it down later".... I think they like to scare you with dissertation talk long before it needs to be finalised. I only found a really fitting question for my research last month and my dissertations due in may- but suddenly everythings fallen into place!

Answer 6

Hi!

The best advice I can give regarding your dissertation isn't so much regarding the subject as the approach. What you need to bear in mind is the point of writing a dissertation - the reason why they make you do it in the first place. And (particularly on a very practical course like Graphic Design,) that's very simple - it's to prove you're capable of doing a sustained piece of academic research.

What a lot of people do is get so hung up on what they're writing about that they forget to deal with issues like referencing properly until the last minute, when in actual fact this is one of the most important parts of the whole exercise. In the academic world referencing is everything, it's the proof of what reading you've done and that you haven't plagiarised, so the best piece of advice I can give is to find out what referencing system the uni want you to use and ensure, even at this early stage, that you're keeping records of what you're reading so you'll be able to ensure your bibliography and references are perfect. I know this isn't exactly what you asked about, but it's so important I wanted to tell you about it.

Going back to the subject in hand, would you say that women aren't Fairy's sole target audience becuase of Ainsley Harriot? I mean, I know he is a man, but I wouldn't have thought he appealed to men all that much - I know my dad hates him! I mean, his profession is to cook all day, and he isn't one of your laddish, shouty chefs... I would have thought he appealed far more to women than to men...?

Anyway - good luck with your dissertation!

Answer 7

How about toothpaste? It is now advertised as a scientific product with 3D images and big long names of serious sounding ingredients!!! It is also interesting that they have brought back the original Aquafresh toothpaste advert from 1980's.Have you seen it? Check out the link below.

Answer 8

how a diverse way of getting to grasp enables dyslexia...a for and against argument. How dyslexic scholars are greater ingenious than academic. They use the ultimate factor of their ideas greater. Prob flow into psychology a lil and how they are waaay forward in creativity. look at regularly occurring those with dyslexia. i think of Tom Cruise is one among them. uncertain. you will could do study.

Answer 9

go for men hoovering. Matcho men with a hoover cleaing the house. Or polishing with mr sheen.

Answer 10

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