(Note: Before the seminar, my classmates and I created holiday advertisements for different locations. My group made one for Hyrule from The Legend of Zelda. Other groups created an ad for Australia featuring kangaroos on a beach, and another created an ad picturing a soccer tournament. )
After this preparation we started analyzing and criticizing our holiday ads. Through this project and the class discussion that followed, I learned several important things about making effective advertisements.
Our Hyrule ad was really simple, mostly showing nice pictures of the landscape. The Australia group’s ad was more engaging because it featured kangaroos on a nice beach, which made it more interesting to look at. The soccer tournament group was also eye-catching, but it lacks information in where & what the event occurs or what holiday it is. This taught me that adding distinctive elements– like recognizable animals or characters– can make an advertisement more appealing.
The discussion helped me realize that good travel ads need to show what makes a place unique. For Hyrule, we could have highlighted specific features like the Zora’s Domain to make our ad stand out more. The Australia group did this well by focusing on their kangaroos, which immediately make people think of their country.
I also learned that composition matters. While our pictures of Hyrule were nice, the seminar discussion made me see how arranging images in a certain order or adding text could have told more of a story about why someone should visit.
From seeing other groups’ work, I understand now that successful ads combine attractive visuals with elements that capture attention quickly. This experience showed me how much thought goes into creating advertisements that actually make people interested in a place. Creating holiday ads was about selecting and presenting those pictures in a way that makes viewers want to experience the location for themselves.