Reading Response
I thought this activity was pretty interesting because it hit the main points on making an effective brochure and it was pretty easy to use. It helps show what areas need to be worked on and if you are totally in the wrong ballpark. I think this could actually help my group when we are making our final draft to make sure that we have achieved these points and have an effective brochure.
"Appeal to Emotion" (+)
I felt that our brochure does a pretty good job of getting the reader's attention and appealing to their emotions. We use some pictures that do this and also just the content of the brochure helps in appealing to people's emotions. Anytime you have someone in need you can usually get to a person's emotional side.
"Be Professional" (-)
I gave our brochure a minus on this one because we do have clip art photos and also some of the other photos do not seem very professional. These photos were given to us though so maybe we could just choose to use different ones. I think the other parts of the brochure are pretty professional though.
"Be Personal" (+)
I feel that we do a pretty good job in our brochure of trying to reach out to our readers and make them feel like they can do something to make a difference. We are asking them to personally volunteer which is obviously on a personal level.
"Achieve Readability" (+)
Overall I think our text is pretty easy to read with the font and colors used. There are a few sections that may have too small of print that may need to be changed, but not any significant parts.
"Speak the Language" (+)
We did a good job of speaking the language of the average person that is going to be reading our brochure. We did not use any advanced or technical language that the average person could not understand.
"Lead with Benefits" (+)
We do a pretty good job of trying to show our readers how they can benefit others and themselves. I think this is a very important aspect, especially when you are talking about volunteering.
"Have a Single Message" (-)
In our brochure I feel that we have two different messages. The main one is the Christmas Dinner and the other message is just about CFRC. This is hard to avoid though because we were supposed to address both of these issues.
"Focus on Product or Service" (-)
I feel that this category goes along with the previous one. We mainly focus on the Christmas Dinner but we also talk about the different services that are offered.
"Make an Action Call"(+)
We call our readers to volunteer or donate their money to help out. We also give out contact information. I think that our brochure makes it pretty clear that we want our readers to take action.
Final Score = +3
Our final score is pretty good but there are still areas that we could improve on to make our brochure more effective. It will be good for our group to look at each of our results and see if we have similar opinions on the parts that need work.
Comments
Reply
I found this exercise to be interesting as well, and very helpful. However, I disagree with your ratings on “Professionalism,” “Have a Single Message,” and “Focus on Product or Service.” I see your point that our use of photographs may not seem like the brochure is professional, however I believe that using the photographs provided by the client is something any professional making a brochure is going to have to deal with. In regards to message and product, it is necessary to talk about what CFRC is and what they do in order to sell the product. You can’t expect people to want to volunteer if they know nothing about the organization.
Group Reply
For this project I saw the goals of the brochure being both informative and persuasive. Our goal was to inform the audience about the CFRC and the Christmas Day Dinner with the objective of persuading them to volunteer their time or money for such an event. I think in this case in order to achieve the goals, we had to explain what the CFRC is and what it does for the community. I think that our brochure achieves these goals very well. It stays focused on the CFRC and the Christmas Day Dinner event. Also, I think the issue of professionalism is the organizations call. We are not professional designers, but I think with what we were given and the objectives we were given we did a great job. I think our final project is very professional and eye appealing. Although, I understand you are saying with the clip art and the graphics used in the brochure.
Group Reply
I ended up with the same final score you did. I had a difficult time giving grade for the Single message and Focus section. Just like you mention, we had to address the organization in conjunction with the dinner or people would not have all the information. I also gave those sections a minus, but only because our brochure did not follow the description in the 5 minute test; not because we didn't put in the necessary information. One area of your response that I disagree with is that of professionalism. Even though some of the graphic are look a little cheap they were provided by the CFRC. I thought they were incorporated well into the document and in combination with the pictures; the brochure has a professional and appealing look. This exercise will definitely help in the final revision of our brochure.