Your Phone is not your Friend

Describe your idea and concept of your work in relation to the festival outlines:

My advertising campaign ‘Your Phone is not your Friend’ is based around the idea that people are becoming more reliant on technology and their mobile phones for comfort, social interaction and daily tasks. With smart phones becoming more advanced we have seen a huge increase in the number of people on their phones and rejecting dialogue in public spaces. My concept aims to get people off their mobile devices and talking to each other again.

Apple’s ‘Siri’ will be used as a recognisable figure in my idea, something that my target audience and majority of phones users will identify with. Using real life conversation topics with Siri will help to tell the user and portray the idea that ‘your phone is not your friend.’

What kind of communication approach do you use?

The communication behind my idea is based around real human problems that everyone can sympathise and relate to. This makes it easy for the audience to understand the meaning behind the advertisement and effectively get them thinking about their dependance on technology.

What are in your opinion concrete benefits to the society because of your communication?

The main benefits to the community and society from my communication are that the general public, in an obvious way, will my made known that they are on their phones too often and rely on technology for many simple life tasks. This campaign hopes to then get people talking to each other again and shows that mobile devices cannot replace human interaction or simulate a real friend.

What did you personally learn from creating your submitted work?

From creating this design I have learnt that as the world is rapidly advancing with technology we are forgetting the basic skills in life, such as communication with other people and how to interact with strangers, as well as finding information for ourselves rather than taking the easy/lazy option of having your phone do it for you. Its made me quite scared and worried for what is to come in the future and for future generations when their best friend will be their phone/computer, everything will be done online and when catching up with your friends is done via the internet.

Why is your work, GOOD communication WORK?

I feel as though my design effectively communicates its idea, which is the key to good advertising. I have created three main designs, all which cover a different section within my target market. Each design uses bold colours, simple and clear typography, as well as artwork so the message is conveyed as quickly and effectively as possible. At full scale these designs are hard to miss and even harder to ignore. This will make people realise how radical this problem is actually becoming and confidently change the community and eliminate the lack of dialogue within the society.

Where and how do you intent do implement your work?

This campaign will be implemented into public spaces that have a lot of foot traffic and waiting areas so people have the chance to actually read and reflect on the idea behind the design. This will include such spaces like bus stops as well as train stations, street posters and smaller scaled billboards all within the CBD and surrounding inner city suburbs. This will attract the target market of younger, ‘tech-savvy’ generations as well as business people.

Did your intervention had an effect on other Media. If yes, describe the effect? (Has other media reported on it- how? Were you able to change other media with your work- how?)

No