UKAHT Live Brief - Week 5-9
- os3677
- Dec 10, 2025
- 13 min read
Updated: Dec 13, 2025
We are starting our first live brief! We are being partnered up by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust whose "mission is to promote a greater public engagement with Antarctica, through heritage conservation, storytelling and effective advocacy" (from the "Who We Are" section on their website). We have been asked to promote their Adopt A Penguin campaign!
Live Brief Description
We are tasked with creating content for the UKAHT's social media, using storytelling methods to demonstrate their ethos. They are passionate about conserving the environment, in particular the Antarctic. The main animal they keep track of are the Gentoo penguins which reside at Port Lockroy, a colony that has lasted 30 years and helps scientists get insight into climate change conditions. Adopting a penguin is not just a cute way to say "I have a penguin", but it directly supports UKAHT for them to be able to keep monitoring the environment and conservation across their sites. Donating to this cause makes people feel like they are a part of something big evolving in the Antarctic, a continent only lucky and talented people are able to access (unless you are rich and you can afford a month long cruise to go there). This campaign aims to take advantage of todays digital audience, where almost everyone is able to access the internet nowadays, so this way they can reach a wider audience to attract more donations and keep Antarctic's magic alive for the future generations.
If you adopt a penguin, you are adopting as like a 12-month contract and you receive a physical package. This package is a welcome pack, which includes a soft toy (it is adorable), booklet, certificate of adoption, a postcard, bookmarks and stickers. You also receive email updates about the heritage sites, two magazines and a postcard directly from Antarctica.
We have been asked to pair up into groups of maximum three people, so I asked my friend Evie to partner up, and potentially Cassie who was not in for this lesson. To make planning easier I had set up a Miro Board where everyone else can add to it, this board includes campaign ideas, research and general weekly planning. I find Miro Boards really useful for group projects as you can link anything you want to it, and everything is in one place and easily findable.
Research
Evie started off with the research, using a variety of sources such as the presentation we had with the UKAHT staff & from their website, and online sources.
Some of these sticky notes include fun facts, such as how penguins use pebbles as romantic gestures. These fun facts can be used in our creation of the social media posts, to help with user engagement, as people are most likely to interact with something which has short bursts of text rather than a 500 word paragraph on climate change (sadly).
Demographics
Before we start the work for our client, we need to ask ourselves who are we selling this product for? This is where demographics come in!
Demographics or demographic data refers to selected population characteristics as used in government, marking or opinion research, or the demographic profiles used in such research. As artists it is important for us to know who we are making the product for. It has to appeal to their aesthetics, their age, their gender, and where they are from. In this instance we also have to consider our demographics income and education. If a population is becoming more educated then the kinds of products they might buy would reflect that. Alongside that income also plays a part of this as the level of earnings relates to disposable income.
Therefore, people with higher education and higher income would be more likely to purchase UKAHT's Adopt A Penguin package, but this should not be the only target audience. As this is a campaign which raises awareness about climate change, this should especially concern younger people as this is our planet and our future on the line, so I still want to make a campaign advertisement targetted towards that audience.
Psychographics
Psychographics is a method for classifying the psychological factors that influence people's choices and behaviour. In this context, it means what motivates customers to buy your product, for example customers feel proud if they are buying from an independent small business as they are directly supporting the people who made the product.
If we segment our target market into psychographic profiles, we can establish what we need to produce.
Why customers buy a particular product or service
It might be that this product/service works very well for them
Why they form loyalty towards a brand
In this case, it might be that our customer is proud for supporting a campaign which aims to conserve the environment, therefore furthering their support for UKAHT to keep going
Psychographics need to be considered here, as we need to know how to make our product look in order to catch the audience's eye and attention. Therefore, for the TikToks I am going to target it towards the younger audience who have a shorter attention span and need a quick video, unlike Facebook which mostly contains long-form content and infographics which might be "too long to read" for a younger person.
Target Audience
We decided to target towards two demographics; younger generations ages 7-14 or potentially up to 16, and the older generations, 40-65+. As most of UKAHT's audience is in the 40-65+ range, we wanted to branch out and reach the younger people to raise awareness about their campaign and how climate change is affecting their future. To reach my audience, we are going to make a TikTok video and a Facebook infographic.
I took on the role of coming up with ideas for the promotional TikToks.
These were just really quick ideas that I could come up with that would appeal to the target audience. I wanted to incorporate trends into this content, however I have seen other companies try to "fit in" with the younger audiences and sometimes it comes out as cringey, also known as unbearable to watch, and I do not want to give that impression off. Instead, I need to come up with something original.
Branding Assets
UKAHT have provided us with their own branding assets which we can incorporate into our work and have specified that we are not allowed to use anything outside of this. This is because we all want to avoid copyright issues as we are treating this like professionals. I am attaching the assets which stick out more for me and I am interested in using in my work.
I really like these specific logos as they are visually simple and attract your attention immediately, and they are pretty straight forward with what they are advertising. All of these include Port Lockroy visuals, a literal penguin and the map of Antarctica, so for my target audience this will immediately tell them who "we" are. They also all include the UKAHT's colour scheme which are uniform to each other and this is best to use in the TikToks due to brand recognition.
TikTok Production
We created a script for potential TikToks to make it easier for me to keep track of what needs to be done, which also includes the fun facts I can incorporate into the videos.
I really do like the sound of all the ideas we have done, however due to real life getting in the way and the little amount of time we had I decided to put all of my focus into one TikTok which was realistically going to get done. I put all of my attention into the penguin impression idea, as this could get done in a couple of days and have it ready for presentations.
I started with writing out a consent form for the filming of the TikToks. This is important as it is industry standard and quite important to get written consent from the ones appearing in film, and I want my client to take me seriously. I used a few examples off the internet and adapted it to make my own version. Below I have attached a photo of the blank version.
We have been given a presentation with the UKAHT's social media and their statistics. I followed the TikTok one to make sure I meet their standards. The presentation mentions that they mostly use upright videos in the 1080x1920 resolution, which is typical for any phone, and I was already thinking of using my phone to record as I can record in high resolution, which just guarantees good and clear quality of video. It also mentions their videos are under 60 seconds, so I want to stick to that timeline too.
Filming TikTok
So for the final TikTok idea I have stuck to making a short-form video on penguin impressions. I think this type of video, where it is multiple people giving out quick answers, is going to be likeable to our audience as I can put the clips in together in a way where the video is still around 30 seconds to a minute long, which is more than enough we need for this.
Therefore, because of the format I want to do for this TikTok in, I decided to rent out a wireless microphone from Media Services which will overlap with my video clips.
I went to media services, and they said the type of microphone I want was only going to be available from the next day, so I decided to wait until it was returned to book it. I was under the impression that I was going to reiceve the typical wireless microphones you see influencers using nowadays, but someone else was serving me and gave me a recorder which does not connect up to my phone, therefore I was going to have seperate video AND audio files which I am going to have to match up in editing, but it is not the end of the world as this is how most content creation goes anyway.
The microphone I did get from Media Services ended up being a typical Zoom Recorder, which is it its own device and does not connect to any mobile device, which just means I have to match up the audio to the video files, which is fine. I was just hoping to have less work to do with the microphone and video recording in a single file.
This is the microphone I got from Media Services, and I do not want to call anybody out, but the person serving me was not the same person I talked to the day before, and I also had trouble with my booking saying I had not returned it when I had, but luckily it was resolved with a quick email.
I needed participants for my TikTok, so I messaged a bunch of my friends to see if they would be willing to help and if they were already at university, and to the rescue they came! I met up with them individually and basically told them "Impersonate a penguin", and they all asked me the same question... "What does a penguin sound like?". This was perfect. Knowing that noone knew what a penguin sounded like, I was confident that I would get hilarious responses from them, and hilarious responses I got! Filming this was so much fun as it felt like I was in a sitcom where I was a 15 year old boy trying to make his dream movie, and maybe I was...
Here are the consent forms signed by everybody who was featured in my TikTok. Unfortunately when I was recording the last clip with two of my friends, I had JUST ran out of the physical forms I printed out, but one of my friends said it is no problem if I send him a virtual copy of it and he gaved me a digitally signed form. I did not want to do digital copies in the first place because I felt that would have been too much chasing my friends to sign them (we're all the type to forget things like this), so that is why I had them printed out as it is more convinient to just sign them on the spot after recording.
Unfortunately, I did not have any paparazzi chasing me around taking photos of me while I recorded my friends, but I can include some of the raw film clips to show the authenticity and the pure awkwardness that came with recording these.
I am quite happy with how these clips came out, as they are going to be wasy to use in post-production. I am glad I stuck with using my phone as the camera as it was so convinient, easy and light to use and operate, and nowadays most social media content (especially TikToks) is recorded with phones since technology has advanced this far and this good. However, I do wonder if the video would have had a different feel to it if I had used a proper, high quality camera like a Canon. Would it have felt too professional for the audience I am going for? Would it look like I am trying to hard? I also feel that the microphone was not up to its highest potential, therefore next time I do something like this again I will make sure to pre-book the microphones I wanted in the first place, or potentially invest in my own pair for after graduation to have for my own convenience.
Editing TikTok
Now that I have all my clips recorded, video and audio, I can start editing them to make a final TikTok! I am going to use my all-time favourite editing software, Adobe After Effects (AE)! I have been using it since I was 14 and have never looked back. It is super reliable, I understand it easier than Premiere Pro's timeline, it just gives my brain a break when looking at it.
I do not want to bore you with all these long audio clips, as they all include like "get ready in 1..2.." and miscellaneous conversations that you do not need to hear. I did not include any tester audios in that screenshot, so all you see is all I used for the final TikTok. It is convinient that the recorded formatted it in .wav format as that is very standard, and I can quickly preview it using Mac too. The microphone quality was not horrible, it was good enough for what we needed and sounds similar to all TikTok production I see online. It would have been better if I got the wireless microphone that attaches to a shirt, because this way my 'actors' would not have to worry about making sure they speak INTO the microphone, and also it would have been a crispier quality. I'm not complaining though, it did the job and taught me a good lesson (basically, I want to get my own wireless microphones now).
Again, pretty long and boring clips, but you've already seen two of them. I'm really glad that I was able to get this amount of clips, as this is just enough to make a full TikTok and still be engaging and pretty fast-paced for my audience. Also, the variety of people I got it from I am very happy with, to me it keeps the video even more engaging as you get a wide range of personalities coming through your screen. I'm also really happy with the quality of the video. I recorded all of them using an iPhone 15 Plus at 4K and 60fps, because I wanted to guarantee quality across all platforms and in case I had to compress the videos for any reason (which did not end up happening, thankfully).
Timeline was so long I have to split it into 2 screenshots. Although, in reality it is not even that long, it is just that the user interface of AE would not let me condense it even more than it already is (but personally, while I am editing it is very helpful, because it doesn't strain my eyes).
To ensure that there weren't any awkward blank gaps inbetween clips, I let the clip after run a bit longer in the beginning, I don't know if I have explained that well... So, let's say we have clip 1 and 2, in chronological order, clip 1 is above clip 2, so in order for that gap to not appear, I would run the beginning of clip 2 longer, so clip 2 is overlayed in a sense. I'm sure you get it now. I did that for all the clips, and throughout the entire video I have overlayed one of the assets I was always interested in corperating, which is the AAP postage stamp. I like that we got is as a transparent PNG as it does not cover the video in an unsatisfying way, basically I just like how you can see through it. I also included the introduction clip with the monitor in the background having the Antarctica map logo, as I thought that would be cool, and please tell me if it isn't. At the end of the video I included the rest of the assets, which was the stamp, Antarctica Heritage Offical Adoption logo, and the general UKAHT logo. The video on its own sounded a bit awkward, so to take that feeling away I decided to stick a copyright free song (as we were advised to, anyway) and I turned to my favourite childhood artist: Kevin Macleod. He has shaped the "I want to become a Youtuber when I grow up" generation when it came to music, because all his songs were copyright free, so ANYONE was free to use it. His songs are very recognisable to my generation, but I was not sure if the audience I was going for was going to recognise a popular one, so I decided to just chose a song that matches the feeling of the video. After looking for a while I found his song "Quirky Dog", which has so much happiness to it and it does not feel too noisy, so it fits perfect in with the TikTok. I have been waiting for the day I get an excuse to use one of his songs for a university project.
Here's the final TikTok!
Presentation
Our team name: Leevie
Evie was in charge of creating the presentation itself, and we practiced our speech before pitching to our client, the UKAHT. Above I have attached all of the slides that were presented. We just spoke when it was our part of the research/production, and as always I got stage fright so I did not get to say much/anything I said did not make sense. However, we still got pretty good feedback!
Feedback for TikTok:
Fun concept for TikTok imitate a penguin
I'm assuming this means that the idea of the TikTok was different and, like they said, fun!
Do we know what a penguin sounds like
Exactly why I really liked doing this! Not everyone is informed on the sound that penguins make, as even I haven't been told when I was a child. This is a fun concept, but if I had the rights to an audio clip of a Penguin call then I would have included it at the end as like a "And here is what a penguin ACTUALLY sounds like!". I am aware that certain breeds have different calls, but informing my audience on that would have prolonged the video, which is unnecessary.
Could iterate ideas fun facts TikTok - "Can you tell if its a donkey or penguin"
This was a small conversation I kept going after we presented. I told them that we had the idea of doing a fun facts about penguins TikTok, and they liked the idea a lot. If we had more time, I would have definitely been able to create that, and this way we could inform the audience about more cute facts about penguins to entice them more into purchasing the adoption package.
Conclusion
Looking back on this video, I definitely think I could have done a better job at advertising to the audience to redirect to the UKAHT's official website, I just did not think of that because of the little time we had to produce. I also would have loved to make that second TikTok with the fun facts, as I wanted to experiment using a mix of voice overs and in person talking, keeping the video engaging all throughout. I have been so inspired by what the rest of the class have done, like one group had a penguin puppet and another had made their own stop motion clayfilm!? It is crazy how crazy good these were, and it makes me thrive and want to do more like that! Overall, I still enjoyed this live brief, it was a fun concept and kind of goofy, and I love goofy! This has also taught me a lot about time management, and needing to get things done as soon as possible.
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