Grade 5 Advertising Agency

The Superbowl is tonight, and part of the draw isn't the football, but the commercials. Advertisers pay dearly for the opportunity; a 30-second spot cost $5 million - an increase of $1 million since three years ago! While most of the ads are entertaining, they're still trying to get viewers to do or believe something.

We've spent the last several weeks talking about advertising, including its history (going back to ancient civilizations), its prevalance (some of the kids are walking ads in branded clothing), the power of logos (proven by the students' knowledge of these product mascots), and three tactics to be aware of: exaggeration, generalization, and scare tactics (I had a stack of scare-tactic flyers from the 2014 elections as real-life examples ... we'll see what ends up in my mailbox this fall).

Finally, the kids took what they had learned and produced an original ad of their own, using one of the tactics listed above. Here they are at work, along with what they came up with: