TASK 6 (label this on your blog as 30.1.6)

THE REGULATORS: (Video Cast to be uploaded to your blog). Use the ASA website to help you answer these questions. Answer the following questions in a videocast:

  Explain who regulates TV advertising in the UK?

  Explain the process of how to complain about a TV advert which you thought was offensive in some way.

Watch this controversial advert:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzcRSr6PW_o

   Explain what happens in the video.

   Explain why was this advert banned?

    Do you think the regulators were right to banned this advert. Back up your argument with clear points.

    Summarise your main points.

  The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) is the UK's independent regulator of advertising across all media. They regulate what type of advertisements are allowed to be aired on television and they also have the power to deny or remove advertisements from television if it not deemed appropriate to them or if a certain advertisement has received many complaints from consumers.

If you have a complaint you can contact the ASA and from there they have a list of steps you can follow to complete your complaint.

1. First, check whether your complaint is covered by the ASA.  Find out what we cover here, or if you're still not sure, call/textphone us to discuss your complaint.  Our contact details can be found here.

2. If it is, submit your complaint online, or telephone,textphone, or write to us.

3. We’ll give you the name of the person who will handle the case and be your point of contact.

4. The names of those who make a complaint are kept confidential from the advertiser, unless you are asking us to have your name taken off a mailing list or the complaint is from an individual, competitor or organisation with obvious interest in the outcome of the complaint (such as consumer bodies and pressure groups).

5. We can often resolve complaints quickly. For instance, we can have an ad changed if it’s a minor mistake or chase up an undelivered mail order item on your behalf. If it’s not that simple, we may need to conduct a formal investigation, which can take longer.

6. A formal investigation means the ASA Council will rule on the matter. We contact all parties involved (complainant, advertiser and, if appropriate, the broadcaster) and inform them of the process. We ask the advertiser and broadcaster to provide evidence for any claims they make and, if needed, to provide justification about why they thought the ad was appropriate.

7. We consider all the information we receive and place the facts of the case before the ASA Council which decides whether the Advertising Codes have been breached.

8. We publish our rulings in full every Wednesday and make the findings available to the media.

9. Ads that break the rules are required to be amended or withdrawn, if they aren’t, we will take steps to make sure our ruling is followed.

10. We take every step to make sure the process is fair, which is why there is an Independent Review Procedure that allows complainants and advertisers to request a review of a ruling. In the Pot Noodle advert, the scene begins with a man with a business attire entering a bar and approaches a group of friends, the friends then ask the man whether or not he has the 'pot noodle horn' and with some altercation between his friends he leaves the bar in a violent manner. Soon afterwards the man returns apologizing as he had the 'pot noodle horn'. The reason the advert was banned was because the advert constantly made sexual references throughout the duration of the advert. One example was the horn was meant to look like a male erection, along with sexual innuendos such as horn, blow and snake. In the advert it is made to look like the man is sexually frustrated and he acts in a very irrational manner to show his frustration. With the two points i made earlier the regulators were right to ban this advertisement as it made heavy sexual references and innuendos throughout, the advert also depicts what males are when they are 'horny' and that they became very irrational and violent.

TASK 5 (label this on your blog as 30.1.5)

 

Audience Demographics

One of the most common ways of identifying a target audience is the socio-economic model.  Although this model has been in use for a very long time, it is still a useful tool in identifying a target audience. The basis for this system is level of earnings.  An AB audience, for example, is assumed to have more spending power than a CDE audience. 

A	Lawyers, doctors, scientists, managers of large-scale organisations – well paid professionals
B	Teachers, senior managers, some middle management – fairly well paid professionals (and very poorly paid teachers!)
C1	‘White collar’, junior management, bank clerks, nurses
C2	Skilled ‘blue collar’ workers such as electricians, plumbers, carpenters
D	Semi and unskilled manual workers such as drivers, post sorters
E	Students, the unemployed, pensioners

Audience profiling

There are many other ways that an audience can be segmented or profiled.  Whenever a TV advertiser is producing a commercial, they will always take care to identify the target audience as accurately as possible.  After all, if the audience is identified and targeted well, the product is likely to be successful!  That is why audience is considered a key consideration – because it is fundamental to the planning and shaping of an advertisement.

Audiences can be segmented in other ways as well as the socio-economic model above:

• Age
• Gender
• Demographic (where the audience live)
• Profiling (this is often done by advertisers to identify ‘types’ of consumers)
• Values, attitudes and lifestyles (in other words the types of products which are likely to appeal to those with these values, attitudes and lifestyles.

Watch a series of adverts and identify as accurately as possible the target audience for each, provide a link and give explanations to back up your conclusions about why the advert appeals to the specific demographic.

1 Jaguar Advertisement

Jaguar had released an advertisement in which it uses Hollywood actors, in this case Tom Hiddleston, to explain why the British play villains so well. Throughout the advertisement he makes comparisons to the car along with the traits of being an great villain. 

This advertisement is primarily target towards men who are aged over 40 and are in the A class demographic, and have some sort of power or live a luxurious lifestyle. The reason being is that Jaguar is associated wealth and owning a Jaguar symbolizes that you own a lot of money. 

The advertisement is also appealing as it uses Tom Hiddleston, who is a well known British actor and is a very wealthy person, this then implies that if you buy a Jaguar it means you are living the rich life just like a Hollywood actor. It also shows that you are living a rich lifestyle as you own a Jaguar. 

2 Iceland Advertisement  

   

The advertisement is all about the misunderstanding between Peter Andre and regular people as he is shopping around Iceland and he highlights how cheap and unbelievable the products are .The Iceland advertisement is mainly aimed at the lower half of the demographic table, from C1 and below, mostly women from ages 30 and above, primarily mothers. This appeals to people within that target range as Iceland highlights that you can buy food for a very cheap price. The advertisement uses words such as luxurious to furthermore show the quality in their' products that you can buy.

Task 4

TASK 4 (label this on your blog as 30.1.4)

According to Gillian Dyer (Advertising as Communication, Routledge 1988) advertisers use among other techniques, the following lines of appeal. They use images of, or make reference to things to tap into our desires or fears. View the Powerpoint called Lines of Appeal which is available on Moodle.

Analyse three different TV adverts and state which persuasive skills and lines of appeal have been used:

Advert1

Product Name: Nescafe                                                                  Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K_lpyyhJBU

Persuasive techniques: The Nescafe advert is set in a fictional world inside a coffee bean, and from there we see an adventure begin with somewhat an adventurer/explorer and his journey to find a glowing entity, he then collects it into a jar and then makes his journey back to a cave in which we see a large number of jars with the glowing entities inside them

Product USP: The unique selling point of this product is that it uses many visual appeal such as visual effects such as the fictional world inside the coffee bean. It also gives a theme of adventure as the character in the advert slightly resembles fictional adventurers such as Indiana Jones, along with the theme of going on a journey to find a form of treasure, this being the glowing entity in the advert.   

Advert 2

Product Name: Carlsberg                                                                Link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P_API6N4oA

Persuasive techniques: In the Carlsberg advert it begins with a man searching for a room for rent and as he finds the house he is greeted with the housemates of the house and is then introduced to a very expensive looking place, as he is toured around the house he sees how amazing the house is along with the housemates, the house features self cleaning mechanics and the view of a football stadium from one of the bedrooms. 

Product USP: What Carlsberg's unique selling point is that it is saying that if you drink Carlsberg it then means you are living the rich life, but also it implies that you are living the rich life by drinking Carlsberg. It shows that there is some class when it comes Carlsberg and that it is not just another brand of beer.

Advert 3

Product Name: M&Ms                                                                   Link: 
http://www.tellyads.com/play_advert/?filename=TA14943&advertiser=M%20&%20Ms&type=recent

Persuasive techniques: The advert consists of the M&M characters trying their best at being 'British' however they are unable to do within the time of the advertisement. 

Product USP: The unique selling point of this product is that it uses CGI in the advert, that CGI being the M&M character themselves. Another point is that M&Ms is an American brand and what it is doing here is trying to appeal to the British market by changing the colours of the M&Ms to the colours of the British flag.  

Task 30.1.3

What both these advertisements have in common is that they are both trying to sell their products. Both say that their products are good and the=at you should buy their product.

However what makes these two advertisements different is way they try to advertise their product. 

The classic advert repeats it product several times. 'Gibbs SR' toothpaste is constantly repeated throughout the advert, and from this we can learn that a lot of repetition is used to prove a point to the audience they are trying to sell to. Another point is that the classic advertisement uses a lot of adjectives to describe their product such as 'fresh' and 'tingling' along with other words. 

In the classic advertisement they explain what SR stands for (Sodium Ricinoleate) and they say this is the reason for the 'tingleness'  

Throughout the advertisement they heavily recommend the viewers to buy Gibbs SR and they explain that it keeps your teeth and gums healthy along with other persuasive points.

For the contemporary advertisement, in this case the Colgate advertisement it has much different approach compared to Gibbs SR. Colgate is more direct and in its advert it implies that other toothpaste brands are not as good as their own. The advertisement itself is a creative representation which means it it not 100% true. In the advertisement Colgate highlights the fact that is clinically proven that is able to stop dental infections, some examples being cavities and gum problems. It is similar to Gibbs SR but the Colgate advert is more appealing as it specifically identifies the dental problems it can handle.
The Colgate advert uses more than one actor (two actors and a voice over) compared to Gibbs SR which only has one actor and a voice over.  
                        

Task 2

TASK 2 (label this on your blog as 30.1.2)

Advertisers use a variety of techniques to get us to buy goods or services. Some of them are listed below. Can you fill in the gaps and find an example of an advert which fits the persuasive technique used?

Type of persuasive technique	Link to an advert which uses this technique
The Anecdote: Personal experience or story which is sold to us as proof.	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdxAyAmBaeQ In this advert a personal story is being told to the audience and as the narrative progresses it shows us how it links to the product being sold.
Adjectives: Crisp, fresh, healthy, nutritious, etc	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq2SlCja3zo Old Spice adverts use a wide variety of adjectives emphasising how fresh/cool you’ll become. These adjectives are used several times throughout the adverts.
Repetition: Key points, positives about the product, themes etc	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq2SlCja3zo The Old Spice adverts are heavily repetitive and emphasise how it has so much ‘power’
Statistics: Often presented as factually accurate but sometimes they are a bit dubious.	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ULR68LTmbw In this Colgate advert statistics are given such as how 98% of plaque is removed by just using Colgate.
Fact: A statement that is true and can be proven.	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIyqcST29wQ Highlights facts about how smoking causes mutations, which could eventually lead to cancer. It then asks the audience a question if you would stop and then leads to a quick smoking starter pack.

Television Advertisement

TASK 1 (label this on your blog as 30.1.1)

Advertising is everywhere. It is one of the largest sectors of the media industry,

adverts being presented in a wide range of media such as television, film, radio, magazines, posters, billboards, the press, and the internet. Of all of these, television advertising probably has the highest profile, some television advertisements being so effective and memorable that they become classics and part of the cultural background for a whole generation of viewers.

Television is used to market almost every product one can imagine from everyday consumables, like washing powder, to extravagant sports cars, whilst some advertisements promote a service such as insurance, banking or vehicle breakdown cover. Television advertising has become more and more sophisticated, utilising the very latest digital production techniques. Content and style can be simple or complex, using traditional narrative structures or less obvious surrealist imagery, and messages can be overt or understated. There seems to be no single approach which can be said to be more effective than another.

1.Explain what TV advertising is?

 A television advertisement is a short programme paid by an organization and its purpose is to convey a message towards a product or service.

2. View three different contemporary TV adverts and lists three key characteristics of them:

·       Target audience/Age- ToysRUs adverts are specifically aimed for young children.

·       Narrative/Story- John Lewis Christmas adverts always have a story and have a deeper meaning to them.

·       Product placement- Iceland adverts mainly consist of their products being shown to the audience and being advertised how cheap it is.