Unit 30 Assignment 1

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) is the company that regulates adverts (not just television adverts) in the UK. They deal with complaints that people give in and not only that they also actively watch advertisements to make sure that everyone is following the rules and that there is nothing wrong with them. They mainly focus on harmful, misleading or offensive advertisements. If they see these types they will take action. (Probably by taking it off the air.) Most adverts on television are pre-cleared through a company called clear cast who have six steps to help you clear your advert. First you hand in a script to them, then you get feedback from them. Then you get pre production approval, then you upload your advert, then they view it and then they either approve or decline it. The ASA work for the advertising codes. There are lots of rules you have to abide by before your advert can go on TV and the ASA look over these things. The advertising codes have rules for things such as Children, Medicine, Health, Religion.

Adverts that have been banned or commented on by the ASA :

KFC advert (X)

This KFC advert wasn't banned by the ASA but there were a lot of complains about it saying that it would cause bad manners in children the ASA looked at it and said that they didn't think that it would cause bad manners in children 

Levis advert (X)

This Levis advert was banned because it showed 3 people shooting fireworks into the sky. It could make children follow the actions that they have seen. The advert was released just after the London riots.

Xbox advert (X)
This XBox advert was banned due to it's encouraging violent behaviour. The people in the train station are shooting each other with their hands imitating gun noises people are "dying" as they are shot.

Nude scanner app (No video online) Article (X)
This advert was deemed offensive by the ASA. People deemed it offensive and demeaning to Women and that the advert could be seen by young children or teenagers.

Thinkbox research

Thinkbox work with UK marketing people. They try and get people to advertise on Television. They do a lot of research into TV and Audiences. They are really important for advertisers. Their supporting channels are Channel 4, ITV, Sky Media, Turner Media Innovations and UKTV. Their aim is to get the best out of advertisers. I know this because this is where we go to to look at audience profiles.

It tells us that Television plays a central role in most peoples lives. It tells us that Audiences view adverts a lot at a time. Viewers engage with adverts in a clearly observable way. Through experimental studies they found out that there were 3 distinct types of TV viewing. Our time, In-Between time and my time. Our time is shared viewing. In-between time is when doing other activities your attention isn't fully on the TV. Then my time which is basically treat viewing. Mainly alone. They said that successful adverts trigger your emotions. They said that if there was one thing you were going to focus on in your adverts it's music. They said that music is key in getting audiences to engage with your advert.

The advantages to getting an advertiser of ThinkBox company to do this research are: You can get to know a lot more about your audience. You can alter your advert as such to fit the audience profiles that Thinkbox will find out for you. You get access to professional research. You're going to get the best information as possible because ThinkBox are a very official company. If ThinkBox are doing the research that means you're not. It gives you less work to do. It keeps your cost down, it keeps your pre-production time down.

How to find out about audiences.

Many advertisers find out about audiences by doing a quantitative survey of a lot of people. They put cameras in peoples homes to watch adverts. They then reviewed these tapes.

Strengths of doing quantitate data:

You find out information
It's quite easy to send out a survey it doesn't take much time.
It's factual data that doesn't rely too much on opinion.


Weaknesses of doing quantitative data:

It's going to cost a lot of money.
It's going to take a lot of time

Strengths of filming:

You're doing the research yourself so you know no results have been changed and you can view it first hand straight from when you have filmed it.

Weaknesses of filming:

This experiment is conducted in a lab setting so it's not true to life.
Taping all these people and reviewing them will take a long time.
People may change their opinions.
22 households is not a lot. You can't generalise this to a lot of people.
It will take then a lot of time with the hours of footage they have to go through.

Strengths of bringing people into a lab:

Gives them the opportunity to get some real depth in the information
It's open to discussion so you can get some qualitative data.
 It's cheaper than putting cameras in.

Weaknesses of bringing people into a lab:

You are pressurising them into responses.
People may change their opinions to sound smarter therefore the results are not going to be factual.

Conclusion:
.......


Advertising rate cards are a way of showing how much it costs to run an advertisement.

Adverts costs differences depending on what programme you want to advertise during. For example during the XFactor finale it cost's £200,000 to have 30 seconds of screen time.

BARB find out the ratings for TV. They show what TV channels are the most popular so it's easy for advertisers to chose where they should put their adverts. 

Barclays Roller coaster advert: 

(X)

Target audience: Young adults who own bank cards or are looking to get a bank card. 

Age: Young Adults

Gender: More targeted at Males.

Race: Any though there is a white male in the advert.

Socio economic scale: People who want to own a bank card or people that do own a bank card. So middle class people. 

Structures:  I would say it's a Narrative. 

Style: I would sat the advert is Surreal and slightly Humorous

Characteristics: Promoting the lifestyle and UPS(?)

The style of this advert is surreal and humorous. We know this because the rollercoaster is going through the setting of a city. You obviously wouldn't see this in real life the rollercoaster starts off in an apartment building instead of an elevator. Also when the character in the advert goes down a big drop the guy raises his arms in the air the camera shot is a wide shot at this part. This is humorous. The form of this advert is narrative. I would say this because the advert basically tells the story of a guy going from his house to work and he encounters lots of different things on the way. It's also a series advert because there are other adverts like this relating to Barclays. The Barclays advert uses the characteristics of 'selling the lifestyle' they do this by using the prop of the rollercoaster and showing the that the character on it is a Barclays card user. They show him in lots of fun situations and it basically gives off the vibe of 'if you use this card you'll become part of the quirky lifestyle' This advert is covert because we don't see the product until half way through the advert and even then it's only a little flash of the prop of a card. 

I do think that this is successful in targeting their target audience because we are drawn in when we see the guy get in the elevator and it changes into a rollercoaster. We are intrigued to see what it's about. 

(X)

Target audience: It's targeting a wide range of people from old women to young girls. And Men. 

Age: Women, Children and Men. (So from ages 0-100 really)

Gender: It's targeted at both genders. 

Race: Any though there is are only white people in the adverts. Obviously everyone can get cancer though so it's definitely targeted at everyone 

Socio economic scale: It's targeted at people who can afford to donate a small amount of money. So it's an advert that targets a huge range of people 

Structures:  I would say it's a Narrative, maybe a little bit of a Documentary as well. 

Style: I would say that the advert is Dramatic. 

Characteristics: I would say that this advert very loosely fits into the 'selling the lifestyle' 

The style of this advert is Dramatic. I know this because of the music in the background and the characters expressions throughout the advert. The colour wash is quite dark and dreary. We know that the advert is a Narrative because it you can see the story of people looking in mirrors to find out that their loved ones aren't really there. They use the prop of the mirror to show their loved ones in a way that makes it seem that they are really there, but when the scene progresses we find out that they have died from cancer. We can kind of see that this is a Documentary. It's not full on Documentary but it does have some elements of being a Documentary. We know this because near the end of the advert the voiceover gives out information that they help people with cancer and that more and more people are surviving with this advert. The characteristics of this advert is 'selling the lifestyle' they're trying to show people how they can help people have a better lifestyle if they donate to cancer research. We can see this because the people at the end are shown when the diagetic sound of the voice over starts talking about how cancer research UK saves lives. 

This is successful in targeting the target audience because they draw people in with their sad music, they get an emotional response out of people during this advert which will make people more likely to donate at the end when they see they can save someones life. (As is shown in the advert) 

(X)

Target audience: It's targeting people who play golf

Age: 30-50

Gender: It's targeted at Males because really golf is seen as Male oriented sport. But there is a female in the advert.

Race: Any race.

Socio economic scale: It's targeted at people who can afford to play golf. So probably like middle class people. 

Structures:  Stand alone advert 

Style: Humorous style. 

Characteristics: USP

The style of this advert is Humorous. We know this because of the lighthearted music and the overall feel of the advert. The characters dialogue is wrote in a funny way. The sarcastic 'sorry!' Every time they use the prop (and product) of the golf club to swing their ball. The characteristics of this advert is definitely it's USP. We can tell this because of the many close up shots of the product and the long shots of the prop ball going really far, really fast. Also at the end we see Tiger Woods a very well known good golfer, being overshadowed by this product. This shows a bit of the characteristics of 'better than others' The structure of this advert is a stand  alone advert. There are no other adverts like this by this company. The race is targeted at any race, we know this because of the many different races that were shown in the advert. The socio-economic scale is targeted at people who can afford to play golf. The product may be quite expensive. The advert only features one female. So I would say that it's aimed more at Men than Women. Also because Golf is seen as a man sport really. This is a very Overt advert. Right from the start we get a close up camera shot of the Golf Club. The setting is a golf course so this is obviously going to be something golf related. It shows the Gold Club throughout the advert. 

This is good at targeting their target audience (male golfers ages 30-50) because all throughout the advert it just shows scenes of golf and if a person is interested in golf they would obviously watch this advert to see what the product is. 

(X)

Target audience: 

Age: 17+

Gender: It's mainly targeted at Females because Females are seen to like baking more than Males. 

Race: Any race but the advert only features white people. 

Socio economic scale: It's targeted at people who can afford a car. So middle class people. With jobs probably.

Structures:  Stand alone

Style: Surreal because you don't usually see a car made out of cake, Humorous because they're all looking quite happy and the advert has a light-hearted vibe throughout. Plus the music is quite funny..?

Characteristics: All about the brand 

The structure of this advert is a stand alone advert because this is the only advert like this that they have released. The style of this advert I would say that it's quite surreal, We can tell that it's surreal because it's something that should be made out of one material being made out of another material, cake. Which is strange. Also it could also be Humorous because the characters are all looking quite happy and the advert has a light-hearted vibe throughout. The mise-en-scene of the non-diagetic sound is light happy, upbeat music. This gives off a funny sort of vibe all of these characters making a giant car which is the product, but made out of cake. This is a very covert advert, you can't really tell what it's about at first. Then at the very end it all comes together. You could make guesses but it's not really obvious. The characteristics of this advert is 'all about the brand' they do constantly reference the product throughout in a subtle way, but they don't specifically reference the brand until the end. The socio-economic scale is that it's targeted at people who can afford a car. 

This advert is successful at targeting their audience because they show scenes of cake all the way through and since it's mostly aimed at Women they will be intrigued because Women are seen to like cake and girly, light-hearted things. This advert stays light-hearted from the start and throughout. 

(X)

Target audience: 

Age: All ages

Gender: It's targeted at Males, the advert features Males playing football. Which is usually seen as a male sport. Also the Women turn back into men at the end of the advert. 

Race: Any race

Socio economic scale: The product isn't expensive so it targets anyone on the socio economic scale.

Structures:  Narrative

Style: It's quite surreal. 

Characteristics: Selling the lifestyle. 

The Structure of this advert is Narrative. We know this because of the way that the story progresses throughout the advert. For example it starts of with a dilemma, the "woman" being hungry and making fun of people. Then it moves on to the problem being solved by the product. The setting of the football locker room and the whole overall feel of the advert, is very manly. This is why I would say that it's more aimed at Men that Woman. It's saying that guys turn in to bitchy Women when they're hungry. So how could Women relate to this at all? They use the characters of Joan Rivers to show how much of a 'diva' the Male becomes when he gets hungry. We can also tell they are trying to portray the person as a diva because the dialogue in the advert is "you turn into a right diva when you're hungry." The style of the advert is very surreal. Mainly because you don't see Woman turning in to Men when they eat a snickers bar. It's quite a covert advert, you don't see the product until the very end. You can also tell it's surreal because of the normal setting of the football locker room then the camera cuts to a Woman. Who you wouldn't usually see there. The Characteristics of this advert are selling the lifestyle. We know this because it's quite clear by their tagline 'Snickers, you're not you when you're hungry' and so it's saying that this product will help you get back to you. Your lifestyle will when you eat it. You'll be calmer. 

This advert is mainly targeting men, throughout the advert it has a very manly theme to it. The slogan for the snickers is 'get some nuts' Men take pride in their manliness so this would urge them to buy the product if it shows that you will increase your manliness.

Comparison

4 out of the 5 adverts I chose were covert. They are similar in that way but I think that it is good to do a cover advert because then people will be drawn in and confused about your advert for a little bit which will make them want to watch it more to find out what exactly the advert is selling. 3 out of the 5 adverts are surreal. I think doing a surreal advert is better because, although a straight to the point advert will get your message out faster, a surreal advert where people aren't really sure what is going on, could go viral. It's original and people are likely to tell their friends about it if it's weird because they want to share it with people. A lot of the adverts contained humour in them (apart from the cancer advert.) I think that this is important because people enjoy being entertained when they watch things. It will keep them watching, rather than a boring, unfunny advert. Humour gives people a good experience when watching your advert. The form of the adverts were all quite different. The most used one was Narrative. I think it helps to tell a story when watching an advert because it gives people a sense of 'I'm watching a short film' and I think that people enjoy that. The other adverts were stand alone adverts. I think this is good because it gives a sense of originality. There is no other adverts out there like it. Makes them stand out.