Other Codes and Conventions

Shock/Surprise its audience:

There are adverts that cause a surprising or shocking feeling to the viewer that is watching the advert, these adverts tend to contain something that is disturbing and creates confusion to the viewer making them think about what they have just seen. When adverts contain these aspects it means that the advert has been successful in the task that they had which was the make the viewer shocking and surprised. The screenshot which I have placed below is a good example, it is a 'Think' advert which has a family playing guess the word and the word turns out to be 'tracks' when the girl is standing on a train track and we then hear a train approaching and the girl looks towards it in a quick motion and the advert finishes at 0:23. The impact that this would have on the audience would be that they would be very surprised by it and act in shock as it's not a type of advert that is normally shown on television.

Annoyingness/Catchiness:

Annoying and catchy adverts are the ones that are made to stick in the viewers head, they do this to make sure that the viewer always thinks about the advert as it was too catchy to not think about. This is what makes the advert stick out more than other adverts that are on television. The image below is from a 'FunkyPigeon' advert. Many people have claimed this advert is annoying because of the music that is being played as it is very catchy but high pitched.

Celebrity Endorsement:

There are occasionally adverts that are in the celebrity endorsement section, this is where the advert uses a famous celebrity to promote the product and this usually works in selling the product. The institutions think very carefully about the celebrities that they will have to use, for example, Muller Yogurt uses Nicole Scherzinger in their adverts as she is now very famous in England as she appears on the X Factor show every Saturday so the majority of the country will have the access to acknowledge her. By the audience seeing this, it would encourage them to buy this product as a celebrity is using it so they would want to as well. Her use in the advert will also appeal to women as she is regarded as a very beautiful woman in most women's eyes. 

Music:

Music in an advert tends to be quite important because when music is used in an advert it turns out to lighten the mood of the audience watching, it gives the audience enjoyment whilst watching the advert. However when music is not used in an advert it creates the advert to seem quite dull and not enjoyable. Below I have placed an advert which is a singalong advert, I chose this because the singalong was a good thing to add in the advert because then the audience viewers at home can have an input and singalong to the music that is being played.

Strong message:

There are also adverts that are on television that give a strong message that should go through to the audience that are watching at home. These adverts normally try to make the audience feel sympathy and compassion to whatever is being shown. These messages are normally the ones that as a strong message it gives gives the audience advice and information about health issues and world problems. The example I have placed below is a binge drinking advert, it gives a message that says 'You wouldn't start a night like this so why end it that way?', this is a message that encourages people to know their limits with drinking alcohol and shouldn't go overboard.

Aspiration:

Aspiring adverts use aspects that inspire the audience and and make them want to improve their own lifestyle. It also makes them want to be like the person that is used in the advert for example, some adverts use celebrities to promote the product but it also motivates the audience sometimes as it will make the audience feel that they can do whatever the celebrity does if they buy the product. The advert I have used below is a Nike advert about jogging, the person they use for this advert is an overweight teenage boy and it shows him jogging for the whole minute of the video and the narrator in the video gives a message throughout the video that motivates people to go out into the real world and work hard as an overweight boy is doing it everyone can. As we see, the whole advert is placed in  a wide shot, this was to show the whole scenery of the place where the advert is set.

Humour:





Some adverts are mostly based on the humour aspect and this is because they believe that humour is quite persuasive as it would put the audience in a pleasant mood and like whatever is being shown on the advert. I have chosen this advert as I thought it was very humorous, it contained a child in a store with his father and the child really wants a bag of crisps as it is evident from as soon as the advert starts, his father puts the crisps back on the shelf and then the kid puts it back in the trolley again, when the father puts it back for the last time the kid gets angry and starts screaming and causes ebarrassment throughout the whole store.

Animal Factor:

There are some adverts that use animals throughout their adverts,there are normally two reasons for this, either they want to create sympathy from the audience for the animals or they simply use animals in the advert for the sense of humour. For example in the Coco Pops adverts there is a cartoon monkey that always has 'COCO' written on its t-shirt. This monkey is used in these coco pops adverts to appeal to a younger target audience which is kids. The monkey appeals to them because it is small and does childish things like a child would.




Nostalgia:




Nostalgic adverts are the adverts which bring back memories to the audience viewing the ad. Many adverts that are nostalgic will tend to use old material such as old furniture which would bring back memories. The advert I have chosen is a very recent ad as it is promoting the new Playstation 4. It starts off showing the oldest playstation at the 0:08 mark and we can hear gaming sound effects from games like Tekken which are older fashioned. By seeing this the viewer will remember the time that they may have played a Tekken game on the sony playstation 1.


Intertextuality:






Intertextuality is when an advert contains a media text that refers to another media text. The advert that I have chosen is a Cadburys advert which is promoting their chocolate fingers, in the advert we see special effects as the fingers are talking and they have faces, as they are both talking they are making it a reference to another media text which is Dallas tv show

Advert Techniques and Associations

Advert Techniques and Associations 

Celebrity Endorsement

This is an advertisement for Coors Light beer which is an American beer that is also available in the UK. The advert contains Jean Claude Van Damme as he starts off the advert saying  "Hello, yes I'm Van Damme". JCVD is very well known for his fighting movies, this is where is gets interesting because in the advert he is very calm and doesn't come across as a violent person at all so this connotes to us that the advert is trying to make it appeal to a bigger target audience and not only fighting fans. The target audience for this advert would be anyone from the age 18 and over as that is the age you are legal to consume alcohol, it would also appeal to bear drinkers as Van wants the audience to buy it buy saying 'The worlds most refreshing beer' at the 39th second. The advert offers the audience humour and also some aspiration as there are some funny things that he says and he is a macho man and the audience may want to be like him.

 



Overt Message:

Overt message adverts are the commercials that have a clear meaning behind the advert which is easily visible and identifiable to the audience that is watching. They are used to make the message seem obvious to the audience so that they know what is being portrayed. The video I have placed below is a commercial on Starburst sweets, it starts off with a man with the sweets in his hands telling his friend 'Have you tried these new berries and cream Starburst?', then as his friend looks at him another man dressed as something from the Lord of the Rings comes into play and says 'Sorry what did you say, berries and?' and then the first man says 'Cream' and as he says that the man dressed up squeals and starts singing a song which contain the words 'Berries and Cream Berries and Cream' and also does dance moves by jumping up in the air kicking his legs, this advert is very catchy and the simple message behind it was to buy the new Starburst Berries and Cream sweets.




Hidden Messages:

There are some adverts that tend to contain a hidden message which the audience does not know about, it is also make the audience think about the product and think about what wasn't mentioned in the add that would also be important. The advert that I have placed below is an Oikos Greek Yogurt television commercial that wants to sell the product to mostly a target audience of women as there is a woman as the main character that comes in to the aeroplane with a muffin and she notices John Stamos sitting next to her with the yogurt and he is consuming it. As the woman says 'it's too good to be true' John gives us the benefits of this product by saying that the yogurt is 'not fat' and we later learn that it contains 2x protein than other yogurts at 0:20. However what is hidden is the fact that we don't know if this product is mostly for women or men as we see it evolves around making the woman want the yogurt however when another passenger at 0:25 says that he wants an Oikos the advert finishes leaving us confused as to whether it is mostly good for men or women.





Emotional Response: (Compassion/Concern)

Some adverts are made to make the audience have an emotional response to whatever is being shown, this is to put a big effect on them that provokes care. The advert that I have used is the 'Talk to Frank Cocaine' commercial. This advert was very good as it provides the audience information about how dangerous Cocaine really is. Throughout the advert it shows aspects that are concerning about using  the drug such as at 0:46 we see that after sniffing cocaine it has resulted in the man have a bloody nose. This advert doesn't contain sad and dull music and this is surprising as compassion and concern adverts usually do tend to use sad and dull music to make the audience feel sympathy for the people that are being shown, however this advert is more of an informative advert that wants to let the audience acknowledge the dangers of using the drug and not feel sorry for the people who use drugs.

 




Emotional Response:(Solution to Problem)

There are some adverts are made to give the audience watching a solution to the problem that they are currently undergoing with. These adverts are usually made for products and accidents. The advert I have placed below is for 'Injury Lawyers 4u' and this advert shows a man giving information about what this company is all about and he mentions right at the end that the people will receive 100% compensation and this would appeal a lot to the audience watching and the main important part of it is that they want the audience to call in and claim to the company.

Codes and Conventions

Codes and Conventions of advertisements:

Camera Angle and Shot




This is a Kit Kat advert that was shown on television quite recently, the focus on this advert will be the camera angle and shots used. As we see when the advert starts it is based on an advertisement board that is placed on the pavements around a city. As that is the main aspect the camera needed to ensure that it covered a lot of what is going on. We see there are a lot of long shots and a lot of close ups such as at 0:25 we see a close of the advertisement board and see that it reads 'The person have a break on this seat at 13:07 hrs on 14-09-2013 will win the new Nexus 7 tablet.', this sign encouraged a lot of passerby's to stay on the seat for many hours of the day as we see at 0:36 as a long shot travels through night and day.


SFX




Adverts which contain special effects are the adverts which tend to be memorable for the audience. As they include special effects it adds enjoyment to the audiences viewing. The advert which I chose was perfect in my opinion to demonstrate how special effects are used in adverts. The advert is promoting a new Kia car and it starts off with the car driving in the mountains, at 0:09 we see a helicopter appear in the air with a long shot then a close up of the person that is piloting the copter. It then shoots out a rocket instantly and it sticks to the car and the helicopter picks the car up from the road and it is all now happening in mid air. The man then jumps out of the car and into the water then at 0:26 we see a large figure appear from the water and it has a humanly body shap but it made out of water, it then hits the helicopter and holds the car and sends it up into a spaceship at 0:35 and it flies away to mars where there are many aliens showns a few seconds after. This advert must have really appealed to the audience as it was very good as it contained a great amount of special effects that would have made it enjoyable for the audience.


Lighting



Lighting in an advert is extremely important as it is an aspect that sets the mood for the whole advert, for example, if the lighting was dark it would emphasise a scary or sad mood to the audience and if the lighting was bright it would emphasise a happy and bright mood to the audience. I thought carefully about chosing my advert which I would decide to use, I saw many adverts and this Vodacom advert stuck out to me and the reason for this is because I noticed that the lighting in the advert always reflected on the actors moods, it was sunny in the advert until the 23rd second and throughout this time every actor had a smile on their faces. Then after 0:23 it turned to night time, however even though the sky was dark it couldn't stop them for having a good time as they all still had many many lights on and were all dancing. The fireworks at 0:44 really emphasised the mood as it brought a lot of light to the shots.

Characteristics of Advertising

In this piece of work, I will talk about the 5 main characteristics of a television advertising:

Benefits Offered - How will the product improve the audiences life?

Advantages over similar products - Why you should buy this product over its competitors

USP - What this product has that no other product in the product has

Lifestyle Appeal - How this product will either compliment or enhance the audiences lifestyle

Brand Identity - How does the advert position the brand being advertised

Sainsbury's



This advert was for the summer foods that are available in summertime. 'It's summer, don't just eat food, taste it' is one of the lines that Jamie Oliver says towards the end of the advert, this was a very good line that was used as he is trying to say that now that it is summertime everyone should make the most out of the meals that they get from Sainsbury's. The food that is offered in the advert which is beef would appeal more to a British audience as Jamie says 'British beef burger' at the 18th second mark of the video. Hearing this the audience will be pleased as they will know that the food is from the country they are living in and no from somewhere abroad in which they might not trust. The advantages that this product has that not many other competitors may have is that this beef burger contains '100 percent beef', as the audience will watch this, they will feel that this place will be very reliable to get a full beef burger to the best standard possible. At the 10th second of the video, Jamie says 'Sainsbury's think everything should taste amazing' which helps the brand identity as he is trying to connote that the burger is amazing as the store would only sell the best standard of food possible. For lifestyle appeal, As he says 'Let's really get the most out of all that time with the kids, get the most out of being out, and enjoy the lovely long days' this shows that all of this would only be possible by having the Sainsbury's food.


Haribo


This a confectionery food advert for Haribo starmix sweets which are a variety of different shapes and sizes which would appeal to many children. That would be its unique selling point as it is full of different varieties and are appealing to the target audience which is children. 'The evidence is clear, haribos is just too good, is a line that the little girl says after the experiments are done, this shows that the experiment was successful as it turned out that the sweets are just too irresistible to little kids. The advantages over other similar products is that these sweets have the most taste and texture and this is proven when they are ticked on the chalkboard in the 30th second in the background. This may change childrens lifestyles as it would maybe teach them to resist or let them resist sweets.

Research Methods Video