A Study Of Advertisements In Relation To Affectivity And A Comparison Of Two Adverts On The Same Product But Differing Brands
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A Study Of Advertisements In relation To Affectivity And A Comparison Of Two Adverts On The Same Product Of Differing Brands
Television advertisements combine an obvious visual message with either an audio or text supplement to engage a viewer in conveying a product aesthetic, style or usability. These advertisements often try and evoke an emotional response in a viewer, thus more firmly grounding the product message, whether it is anger, humour, general annoyance or any other response that might emphasise an advertisement.
Certain styles or groups of product more often than not will have a similar slant on advertising, for example beauty products such as colouring for women’s hair or shampoo will classically have what is considered �beautiful’ women, with good looking hair showing it off in a sexy or provocative way. This imbues an idea of beauty linked boldly to the product, and so prospective consumers feel a want to exemplify the model in the advert, and so feel inclined to purchase the product. This is probably one of the simplest forms of conditioned advertising, and the idea of using �good looking’ people to help sell a product has been used in advertising since its creation. The other form most recognised as an effective method is using the idea of �sex’ to endorse a product, for example the recent aero chocolate bar TV campaign that has a half naked well built man explaining the process of making the chocolate. This advert is aimed at women as the voice over is two women discussing how the information gleaned from the male actor about aero is lost due to there atrtention focusing on the fact the man is semi naked. Alternatively every lynx deodorant famously shows that the wearing of the product is directly responsible for raising a man’s level of attraction to the opposite sex. Both kinds of this conditioned advertising have evolved slight variations, such as celebrity endorsements etc.
I find this kind of advertising, regardless of effectiveness, somewhat mindless and a conceptional copout. It relies heavily on a tried and tested method of emotive conditioning without pushing endless boundaries of creativity in a field where creativity is so often the basis of success. There is no doubt that using these methods is not productive, as we see everyday that these ideas are still in circulation and are well responded to by consumers, it just lacks the ingenuity that can raise an advert from �run of the mill’ status, to a classic.
In addition, as time has progressed so has technology and the use of digital enhancement techniques and special visual effects have widened the scope for TV advertising almost infinitely. That is not to say however that special effects can or should be a substitute for a good idea, and a testament to these facts is the recent and probably most popular recent TV advertisement, Cadbury’s вЂ?monkey playing the drums’. The advert cost over ÐЈ6 million in total but does not have an obvious gratuitous amount of special effects. Yet it’s not just the adverts simplicity that makes for its success, it’s the fact that the advert is so intentionally not to do with the marketed product, except for displaying the logo and recognised brand colours. When a company grows to as recognised a brand to the level that only part of a logo or the brand colours can immediately signify the company or product, they can afford to play around a little more with advertising strategies. It’s peculiar to think that a creative agency would come up with an advertisement that’s purposefully obscure and have it green lighted and publicised and then end up being massively popular.
I find that the most memorable advertisements of this age are the ones that push boundaries of what is expected, or that combines the idea or essence of a simple well-known product, but fuse it with an extreme idea. An example is the grandiose Smirnoff vodka �triple distilled’ advert where the whole sea is �cleared’ of all the junk and debris to leave a �purified’ ocean supposedly mirroring the purity of the product. It would be a lot a simpler to state the attributes of the product in black and white, but the use of a very Hollywood-esque style leaves a viewer with a lasting impression visually as the idea is unexpected and ostentatious, exactly like the Cadbury advert. Both adverts leave you with a sense of amazement and humour respectively that create an impression that is mentally linked to the brand image.
Its when it comes to advertising campaigns for the same product but for different brands where the difference in the campaigns become interesting, as there is not only the integral ingenuity of the advertisement to consider, but also the competition between organisations where companies are constantly trying to out do each other in order to spark most interest in their particular brand.
Adverts for cars can be so varied that there are times you are not sure what your seeing is an advert for a car until the last moments, whereas others will be an image of a the car in question, and nothing else. Here I will take two advertisements for cars and convey the different implications and methods behind each one and how they are effective. The first is the second advert in a trilogy for the Citroen C4 created by the agency Euro RSCG in London and directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet. In the advert a Citroen C4 is being driven along a snow-covered road, and as it pulls up next to a frozen lake some scientists get out. The Citroen C4 then transforms into a giant humanoid and begins speed skating around the lake, after completing a lap the transformer pulls up next to the scientists, covering them in snow and then transforms back into a Citroen C4 while the tagline is �Citroen C4, Alive with technology’.
The second advert is for the new Skoda Fabia created by the agency Fallon and directed by Chris Palmer. In the advert a team of bakers and confectioners are in a kitchen, as they bake and mix their ingredients they are slowly building a life-size replica of the Skoda Fabia, while the tagline is �The new Fabia, full of lovely stuff’.
Both adverts centre their campaign on having their particular car full of �something’, technology and �lovely stuff’ respectively. I think its safe to say that �lovely stuff’ can be assumed to be technology but it’s the depiction and USP, or �Unique Selling Point’ that both campaigns create that is entirely different.
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