Dissertation ideas. HELP!?

Question:

Dissertation ideas. HELP!?

I am in my 2nd yr of a BA Hons Graphic Design course and was wondering if anyone could give me tips on how to handle the disseratation and what topic taht would be interesting to focus on. It can be based on typography, advertising, branding, art movements etc. Anything that we want as long as it is art related. i was thinking of doing advertising and how advertisers target different products at male and female without any regards to gender stereotyping that was an issue in the 1960??s and beyond i.e. washing up liquids aimed at women but now, the recent one shown in the UK for Fairy (name of washing up liquid) is the famous chef Ainsley Harriet so therefore, women are not the sole target audience. I have one issue though an taht is for an advertising essay we had to do, i have done it on a product with similar ideas but thsi woulod be in more depth. Do you think that i should leave the idea and choose another because having similar ideas in my portfolio won??t do

Additional Details

5 months ago
me any good. What do you think? Can you think of anything else? OR
Option 2) Should i focus on a a particular brand and its branding including all the advertising campaigns etc and compare and contrast how they targeted their audience before and how they do it now? There HAS to be a reference to the present times so what do you think. I need help.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

Well, I don't know anything about graphic design. And I live in Canada. But some British advertising campaigns I have noticed feature:

1. This is the most interesting, is that I have noticed British advertising is far far more creative than North American advertising. I'm thinking of British Airways ads which feature gigantic airplanes; or hundreds of people creating a message. So the dissertation could be the more creative minds that exist in British advertising. (more creative than in North America). But I have no idea how you could compare the creativity of Americans vs British. But it would be very interesting if you could do it, and would be a departure from your earlier idea.

(I agree that different ideas would be beneficial to your portfolio.)

2. The other thing that comes to mind to me, is the effectiveness of the ad - which ads are most effective in selling the product. i.e. those that tell a story vs those that simply tout their product and, of course, WHY???