The "Big6™" is copyright © (1987) Michael B. Eisenberg and Robert E. Berkowitz. For more information, visit: www.big6.com
Introduction
So, you wanna make your first million before you’re twenty one?

Well, one sure way to do this is to come up with the latest hot product and be the first kid on your block to market it.

We’ll give a few ideas to choose from.  You have to come up with the advertising package to sell it over the Internet.  It’s that simple.

Our research suggests that your ads should be hypertext documents that are viewable in both Netscape and Internet Explorer.  Internet ads will let you mix text, pictures, sounds and even animation in one “pitch.”  You can link to other pages if you need to. And, it’s well within the reach of even your modest budget.

Your task: Create an advertising campaign for a product from our selection of products. You won’t have to do this alone.  You’ll be part of a team of highly skilled advertising and marketing executives.  Your team is responsible for creating an advertising campaign that will introduce your company and its flagship product to the commercial world.
Your advertising campaign must do three things to be successful:
  1. It must educate the buying public about your product and why it’s desirable;
  2. It must convince the buying public that your company is the “trusted” source, capable of meeting customers’ present and anticipated needs; and,
  3. It must create a “total” image in the customer’s mind: Ideally, when the customer thinks of this product, he or she should think of your company.
Lots depends upon how well your team does and how quickly it does it.

The big question:  Can you and your team design a hypertext-based advertisement that educates and convinces potential customers in a short period of time?

A Plan (Process)

Where do you begin?

Choose a Product
You may choose from one of the following:
  1. An electric automobile.  This product is identical to the standard gasoline powered automobile in terms of its size, top-speed and handling capabilities.  You may assume that a wide selection of two-door, four-door and larger, family-sized vans is available.  But, you must choose one type of automobile, for instance, a sports coupe, a four-door sedan, etc., that you will emphasize in your advertising campaign.
  2. A new line of cosmetics especially formulated for you.  These cosmetics contain natural ingredients and are purported to be healthy for the skin.  Moreover, your cosmetics line is not necessarily limited to women; you also make products for men.
  3. A new line of shoes. You are free to choose sports, fashion, industrial or other types of shoes.  Assume that your shoes help the wearer in some way: For instance, you may design a shoe for people with flat feet, or people with excessively large feet, etc.  Again, your shoe line should emphasize some socially positive method in its manufacture or distribution.

Join a Team

Then, you will become part of a team; you’ll be given time to talk with your team members and figure out who is going to do what. Basically, you can do: Each team’s Account Executive is responsible for preparing a roster of team members and their assigned/chosen roles prior to the commencement of the activity.

As a team player, you’re responsible for keeping a list of resources, for instance, websites, books, magazines, etc., that you used in doing your job. At the end of the process, you’ll be asked to supply this list.

WorkShops

All Team Members Will Attend Workshops

Depending upon your role on the team, you’ll attend a workshop.  Workshops may meet in class or informally at the Media Center (with the instructor’s permission).  Each workshop lasts two days.

The Product Research & Development workshop allows you to use the Internet as well as any other resources to research methods for “marketing” products in the business world.  You may start with the following websites based upon your product:

The Content & Design workshop will use any and all resources to research issues of design—note this may be Web-based or more “traditional,” such as the elements of design for print media. Some useful links here are:

Building Web Pages

The Account Executive’s workshop allows you to study your product in-depth, its technical details, history, current sales figures, etc. After the Workshop

After two class periods, and you will return to your original workgroups where you will have three class periods (the remainder of the week) to discuss what you learned in your workshop.

  • If you’re an Account Executive (AE), you have the “grand vision” and are responsible for focusing all discussion on the team’s chosen product.  Remember, you have identified the market and suggested a strategy.
  • As a member of  the Product Research & Development group, you  have specialized knowledge about the manufacture and properties of your product.  You will work pretty closely with the AE and the Content & Design members to create the actual advertisement.
  • If you attended the Content & Design workshop, you will contribute designs and technical support to make the set of HTML pages that are the advertisement.

    • Your group will use these three days to begin your “Design Document” (distributed in class, instructions are enclosed—do this by a hyperlink). Your team must complete one of these before demonstrating their final products.

    Build & Show

    Take a week and put your campaign together.  As members of your team create the actual HTML documents, others will work on completing the Design Document.

    The next week each team will have a chance to present their campaign to the class, by projecting their web pages on the overhead.

    During your team’s presentation, six students are randomly chosen from the student audience and are provided with evaluation forms.   These forms, together with your team’s Design Statement and the following criteria, will determine your grade.  So, the point distribution is:

    Once teams have been drawn up, each team sends its members to their respective "workshops." Each workshop lasts two days (Note, I need to add the specific URLs that we will use within each working group here.).
    Workshops conclude after two days and team members return to their original workgroups where they spend one or two class periods discussing material covered by their workshops.

    After two days, each group is responsible for completing a “Design Statement” (distributed in class, sample enclosed), which must be submitted before students proceed to implement their final products.

    Walter Johnson’s Learning Research Hub provides access to a catalog of all books and materials located in the Media Center, and to a wide variety of general and subject-based online reference materials.


    The links below provide useful research tools for this project.
     
     


    General Resources

    News and Magazine Resources

     

    Montgomery County Public Library
    MCPS Library
    Univ. of Maryland Libraries



    Actual Implementation & Assessment

    For the next week, each team works on constructing their advertising campaign.   At the termination of this week, each team will be allowed to present their campaign to the class by using the overhead attached to the teacher’s machine at the front of the classroom.  During these presentations, six students are randomly chosen from the student audience and are provided with evaluation forms.  These forms, together with the Design Statement and the following criteria, are used in the final assessment.  Design Statements account for 40% of the final grade and are assessed as follows:
     Criteria
    Percent of Grade 
    Each team member and their role was clearly identified in the Design Statement.
     40%
    The document clearly indicates each student’s contributions to the product 
    20%
    The overall plan makes sense and shows evidence of research 
    30%

     The final assessment accounts for 60% of the total grade and is “team-wise.”
    Category
    Percent of Grade
    HTML Elements: Includes headings, fonts, tags, images, targets (otherwise known as anchors), links, animation (including browser-embedded PowerPoint shows), sound (optional) and at least one email tag.
    50%
    Thoroughness: Product was well-researched and a separate page of references was provided. Material was presented in a logical, orderly manner, and the overall product was persuasive. 
    30%
    Design: The overall appearance is professional and the product gets the audience’s attention.
    10%
    On-Time Delivery: The product, and any accompanying documents, such as references page, was delivered on time.
    10%



    *****PLEASE NOTE: Part One must be COMPLETED before proceeding to Part Two.

    The Proposal

    Prepare to write a Design Document

    Using Microsoft Word, create a document between six hundred and twelve hundred words that responds to the following questions:
  • What is your overall strategy?  In other words, what aspect or aspects of your product will your campaign emphasize?  Are there any aspects of your product that your campaign will de-emphasize or explicitly omit?
  • Who is your target group?  Adolescents? If so, both male and female?  Try to identify a group of likely customers.
  • What particular HTML or Browser features does your group plan to exploit? For instance, are you using sound?
  • How did you determine the price to charge your customers? (Hint: Did you compare your product with similar products on the market to determine a “fair” price?)
  • Which Internet resources, that is which web sites, did you use in planning your strategy?  Which are you using for building your campaign?
    • Proposal Rubric

    When answering these questions, be careful to identify problems your group encountered and solutions that you or your team members proposed.  Your design statement will constitute 45% of your final grade and will be evaluated by the following rubric:

     
    Criteria
    Level 1 (0 – 4) pts
    Level 2 (5 - 9 pts)
    Level 3 (10 - 15 pts)
    Writing Process Many grammatical errors, hard to read, clearly lacks attention to details. Easy to read, no obvious grammatical errors Clear, concise and well-written. Obvious attention given to details.
    Team Members & their Roles Identified Unclear who did what.  The reader cannot see any evidence of team work or collaboration Teams members and their roles identified. Little or no discussion of how various team members interacted. Same as Level 2, but some example of how team members interacted during the planning phase.
    Shows good use of resources. No evidence that resources were used. Some vague references to web resources, but few citations of web sites found. Several relevant Web sites were used and given proper citation in the document.

    Construction

    Write a Design Document

    Rubric for Design Statement
    Criteria
    Level 1 (0 – 4 pts)
    Level 2 (5 - 9 pts)
    Level 3 (10 - 15 pts)
    Writing Process Many grammatical errors, hard to read, clearly lacks attention to details. Easy to read, no obvious grammatical errors Clear, concise and well-written. Obvious attention given to details.
    Team Members & their Roles Identified Unclear who did what.  The reader cannot see any evidence of team work or collaboration Teams members and their roles identified. Little or no discussion of how various team members interacted. Same as Level 2, but some example of how team members interacted during the planning phase.
    Shows good use of resources. No evidence that resources were used. Some vague references to web resources, but few citations of web sites found. Several relevant Web sites were used and given proper citation in the document.

    The Final Product Design

    Writing Your Design Document

    Student Evaluation Forms: Youth in Advertising Instructions:
    Please use the following numbers when responding to the questions below: 1. Poor: The team’s performance was confusing or inadequate. There were too many unanswered questions.
    2. Good: The team’s performance is this area is thorough and adequate. Perhaps some questions remain unanswered, but these weren’t too critical to understand;
    3. Exemplary: The team’s performance in this area is far above average. The reader would want to hear more.  No questions remained unanswered.

    1. How well did the team describe its product? Do you know enough to make an educated decision whether or not to purchase this product?
     
     
      2. How easy was it to follow the team’s advertisement? Did all of the parts hold together? Were you able to understand the team’s advertisement without any additional information from the team?
     
     
      3. How “attractive” was the overall presentation? Did you find the pages easy to view? Were images and sounds (if any) used effectively?


     

    Criteria
    Level 1 (1 – 3 pts)
    Level 2 (4 – 6 pts)
    Level 3 (7 – 9 pts)
    HTML Skills Text is broken into paragraphs; headings are used, but missing tags, links, anchors. Paragraphs; headings; title, and the following, as appropriate: preformatted text, styles, centered text, horizontal rule; Images and links. Same as Level 2 plus more than one list (bullets, numbered, etc.); Images used as Links; colored text, colored backgrounds; background images.
    Layout Text in paragraphs and/or sections. Headings, labels and sections create a hierarchy; some consistency. Hierarchy closely follows meaning; Headings are consistent within pages; Text, images, and links flow together.
    Navigation One or two pages with links to other resources. 3 pages with a clear order; labeling and navigation between pages; all links work. Title Page with other pages branching off. At least four pages total. Navigation is clear and logical; all paths work.
    Images No images. Images are unrelated to page or text. Many images recycled from other Web pages on the Internet. Images incorrect or inappropriate size. Images poorly cropped or exhibit color shifts. Images have a strong relation to the text. Several images were student-produced. Images have proper size, color balance and resolution.
    Content Little evidence of research into product, market or page design Product, markets and design researched but not thoroughly integrated; little evidence of collaboration between team members. Product, markets and design researched and well integrated; the document hold together well; evidence of collaboration apparent.

     

    Written by Tom Reinhardt
    Designed by Barbara Taylor