History of commercials
During the 20th century radio and tv were major agents of social change, opening windows to other people and places and bringing distant events directly into millions of homes.
Commercialising then became more evolved over the years and became more visual when the first television advertisement was broadcasted on screens in the US on July 1st, 1941. The watchmaker Bulova paid $9 for a placement on New York station WNBT before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. The 10-second spot displayed a picture of a clock superimposed on a map of the United States, accompanied by the voice-over ‘America runs on Bulova time.’ The first TV ad broadcast in the UK was on ITV on 21st September 1955, advertising Gibbs SR toothpaste.
Advertising directors
Al Moseley and John Norman, executive creative directors of widen + Kennedy Amsterdam are responsible for some the agency's creative output on a broad range of accounts including Nike, Coca-Cola, Electronic Arts, Procter & Gamble and Carlsberg. Johns work within graphic design, television and print advertising has been widely acclaimed, receiving a host of international accolades and he has been featured in almost every design publication. He fundamentally believes that all communication has roots in design, moreover that the best advertising and design contains a strong concept in a simple form.
Gustavo Reyes obtained his bachelors degree in visual arts at La Plata University and a further degree in art direction at the Escula superior de Creativos Publicitarios. He started working in the advertising industry as a freelance graphic designer in 1989. During the course of this career he has held many creative directorship posts in some of the most prestigious advertising agencies in Argentina. He has extensive experience directioning national, regional and international accounts such as, Seagram, Budweiser, Sprite, Fanta, Nivea, Campari and Wal-Mart.
Types of commericals
Types of commericals
Food and Beverage commercials
‘To be a successful food brand you have to be loved, because no other relationship in life has as much emotional resonance on a daily basis than that of us and our food'
Foods that are enjoyable at the moment of consumption are items that resemble a late night supermarket sweep after happy hour of beer, crispy snacks, sweets, fizzy drinks and burgers. These foods are all present in their adverts for rational reasons why we desire them and tell us in a connective emotional way. Examples include marmite that celebrates how the taste polarises people to the extremes, Stella Artois tells us how expensive (and how valued) a beer is and Guinness says you’ll have to stand there at the bar (but it will be worth it).Health and beauty commercials
‘Health is a solid, sex is a liquid and beauty is a gas’
There is a word between health and beauty which is never used openly: sex. But the secret word is present (although hidden) in nearly all ad campaigns within this area. Health has become elated, explicit and brazen. Beauty has become more suggestive, ambiguous and magnetic. As well as consenting, more provocative and persecuted images by attraction more than ever in today's media. Creative advertisers build brands based on a singular, irrefutable reality, that nearly very one of us would rather be someone else or have something of theirs. Whether it’s their hair, eyes, style or figure. This category is all about imitation, health and beauty adverts show more than they demonstrate. They don’t try to convince us because they know that captivating us is enough they also use models which are a reference, a paradigm and an icon to copy.
Although the seduction techniques of advertising have become more sophisticated over the years, in this category the most primitive and childlike of them still prevail, the image of the top model letting us know that she uses the cream, shampoo or the perfume. Health and beauty adverts simply have this characteristic and convention in the majority of ads without the use of rhetoric and creativity.
Technology and equipment commercials
‘Consumers are now empowered to define and control their own personal reality. It’s as if they’ve crossed some metaphysical divide’
Within this category building a relationship with consumer’s brands must understand the wider social concept. For centuries, the world’s greatest artists defined popular culture. MTV changed all that. Its montage style of editing promoted a collision of sound and image. People are now so much more aware and certainly more visually demanding than ever before, MTV has achieved this effect.
‘Consumers are now empowered to define and control their own personal reality. It’s as if they’ve crossed some metaphysical divide’
Within this category building a relationship with consumer’s brands must understand the wider social concept. For centuries, the world’s greatest artists defined popular culture. MTV changed all that. Its montage style of editing promoted a collision of sound and image. People are now so much more aware and certainly more visually demanding than ever before, MTV has achieved this effect.
Fortunately, using hyper bowl and getting lateral are advertising conventions that are widely accepted as just describing sensory experiences alone is tough. Apple is just one company that understands the importance of humanising their brand. By placing the consumer experience at the heart of their communication they give their brand a true voice and make it immediately accessible.
Home care and hygiene commercials
For example, Velvets soft factory advert promotes the company’s philosophical values by referencing the products sensory attributes in a funny, entertaining, and almost ironic way that makes it attractive to the viewer. It surprise’s and stands out from typical paper commercials.
Another example of a commercial that makes the product popular in everyday life is, Calgons, Jesus. This is a groundbreaking commercial that’s a bit over the top and exaggerated, but its quality of production does not make it any less attractive. Due to the religious controversy it generated, it made an impact on the general public and gained notoriety.
The above information has been gathered from the book 'Tv advertisement and commercials'.
Advertising statistics
According to the radio times last year the five top tv adverts where:
- Aldi's gin-loving pensioner
- Comparethemarket.com's merkats
- Volkswagen's Darth Vader
- John Lewis' Christmas
- Walkers Crisps' Comic relief comedians.
Television networks spend about 16% of their revenues on tune-ins, which are previews or advertisements for their own show.
50% of commercials that were generally aimed at girls discussed physical attractiveness within advertisement, while the majority of the commercials aimed at boys didn't referred to appearance.
On facebook 17% of users interact with brands and 13% post updates about a brand they like.
Twitter's advertising revenue is predicted to hit $540 million by 2014
Audience and theory
Advertising is a form of communication for marketing and used to encourage or persuade an audience to continue or take some new action. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behaviour with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common. Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through "branding," which involves the repetition of an image or product name in an effort to associate certain qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers.
Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks. The vast majority of television advertisements today consist of brief advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to several minutes (as well as program-length infomercials).
Pester power is a concept that links in with commercial marketing. Pester power is the power children have, by repeatably nagging to influence their parents to buy advertised or fashionable items. This theory was generally used within the 1980's and 1990's. Using this theory with children and parents is a effective marketing approach because parents don't want the pressure along with work and other daily chores to deal with a nagging child, therefore they just give into their child and the advertising is successful. Examples of companies that have done this recently is npower and Renault. Brands like these and others use campaigns that include cartoon characters, online games and discounts to target and interest younger audiences. Positives of pester power are things such as, the schemes used in adverts encourage children to take part in positive behaviour including saving energy and reading books. Also Fawcett believes that brands should encourage positive activities, rather than directly promoting themselves. He backs the npower and Renault schemes as fine examples of positive marketing: “Brands need to make sure that where they are associating themselves with promoting something like a healthy activity, they are encouraging the children to pester for the activity, not the brand. That’s where you need to consider whether it is suitable to use children to promote things.”
Product placement is also a concept that links in with advertising and marketing. Product placement is a form of advertisement where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the storyline of television tv shows and or news programmes.In April 2006, Broadcasting & Cable reported, "Two thirds of advertisers employ 'branded entertainment', product placement with the vast majority of that (80%) in commercial TV programming." The story, based on a survey by the Association of National Advertisers, said "Reasons for using in-show plugs varied from 'stronger emotional connection' to better dovetailing with relevant content, to targeting a specific group. Using this technique or pester power could be useful within my own ad or planning at a later stage.
Product placement is also a concept that links in with advertising and marketing. Product placement is a form of advertisement where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the storyline of television tv shows and or news programmes.In April 2006, Broadcasting & Cable reported, "Two thirds of advertisers employ 'branded entertainment', product placement with the vast majority of that (80%) in commercial TV programming." The story, based on a survey by the Association of National Advertisers, said "Reasons for using in-show plugs varied from 'stronger emotional connection' to better dovetailing with relevant content, to targeting a specific group. Using this technique or pester power could be useful within my own ad or planning at a later stage.
There are also 5 audience theories that can explain the needs and affects of tv today, which using them could help me attract my target audience:
-Hypodermic syringe
This theory believes that the audience is a passive mass and the information that you receive directly affects you, just like if you were to syringe something into your body, it would take affect immediately.
-Two-step flow
This theory says that most people form their opinions under the influence of opinion leaders, and that in turn they are influenced by the mass media.
-Uses and gratifications
This approach trys to understand why people actively seek out a specific media institution and what they want out of it. For example one person may watch tv to relax where as someone else may watch tv for information.
-Reception theory
The meaning of a 'text' is not inherent within the text itself,but the audience must elicit meaning based of their individual cultural background and life experiences.
-Obstinate audience theory
This theory assumes that there is a transactional communication between the audience and the media. The audience actively selects what messages to pay attention to. The Zimmerman-Bauer study found that the audience also participates in the communication by influencing the message.
Representation of women in print and TV ads
There are many stereotypical traits and personalities for men and women that are portrayed within the media. Women are generally considered to be elegant, innocent and domestically able where as a male is usually portrayed to be tough, leading and competitive.
Although some theorists would argue that women's roles are changing within society and that becoming a housewife has taken a backseat, is the gender roles reflected the same within the media?
There are many conflicting ideas on weather the media has produced and effected the role and stereotype of women with different theories and theorists in mind. According to Dow 1995 one of the reasons why television is resistant to the messages of feminism, is that they view certain messages as conflicting with women's desires to consume. For example if advertisers where to present a liberated women in a ad, they wouldn't want to buy the product because it wouldn't be relevant to their role, therefore the advertisers ideal homely women image lives on.Naomi wolf is also a theorist that highlighted the influence of the media upon women. She believed that media made women question the perception of their bodies. The fashion industry was deemed the main culprit responsible for the rise in eating disorders and cosmetic surgeries. Wolf called this phenomenon 'the beauty myth', a form of backlash against the achievements of the feminist movement of the 1980's.
Postmodernism and the media.
Postmodernism is based on the position that reality is not mirrored in human understanding. Postmodernism is skeptical of explainations that claim to be vaild for all groups, cultures, tradtions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In a postmodern world, media texts make visible and challenge ideas of truth and reality, removing the illusion that stories, texts or images can ever accurately or neutrally reproduce reality or truth.
A leading theorist of postmodernism is Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard posisits that we are living in a world of 'hyperreality' constructed largely of surface media images that challenges and undermines the modernist notions of reality and truth. In Baudrillard's book 'Simulacra and Simulation', he claims that modern society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs. Also according to Baudrillard, the simulacra that he refers to in his book is the signs of culture and media that create the percieved reality. Therefore he believed that society has become reliant on simulacra.
Analysis of existing adverts from now and then
Ancillary Products
Analysis of web pop ups.
Web pop ups or ads are a form of online advertising on the web. There intention is to capture attention through web traffic and target email addresses. They are generally web broswer windows and can include hyperlinked pages leading to their websites or generated by javascript using a cross-site scripting as well as in come cases a secondary playload using Adobe flash player.
Ancillary Products
Analysis of web pop ups.
Web pop ups or ads are a form of online advertising on the web. There intention is to capture attention through web traffic and target email addresses. They are generally web broswer windows and can include hyperlinked pages leading to their websites or generated by javascript using a cross-site scripting as well as in come cases a secondary playload using Adobe flash player.
Analysis of a sponser sequence.
To sponsor something to support an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services. A sponsor is the individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor.
Sponsorship commercials are different to advertising; sponsorship sequences cannot communicate specific product attributes, nor can it stand alone. Sponsorship requires support elements and, while advertising messages are controlled by the advertiser, sponsors do not control the message that is communicated. Consumers decide what a sponsorship means.
There are theories of sponsorship that have been carried out by Cornwell, Weeks and Roy, they found that sponsorship works to impact consumer audiences. This occurs mostly through the brand and an event becoming linked in memory through sponsorship and as a result, thinks back to the brand triggering event associations. The most established findings within sponsorship is that the best effects are achieved where there is a logical match between the sponsor and the sponsoree, such as in sports branding sponsors or a sports event. However Cornwell pointed out that you don’t necessarily need to have a logical match within a sponsor to be successful he emphasis’ that if it memorable then it is just as well effective.
Examples of current sponsorship sequences are Talk Talk, sponsoring ITV's X Facto and Surf concentrate sponsoring ITV2's Only Way Is Essex.
Initial ideas of my ad are:
-Mobile phones or another kind of technology
-Internet packages and other services-Food and drink
-Household products
Things to consider when creating my own commercial:
- Demographics, which identify age, gender and the socioeconomic strata of the person or persons that my service or product desires to reach.
- Defining the message. My message should have relevance to the demographic and be defined in as few words as possible; this could involve using a slogan. Existing commercials that use slogans are companies such as, Ebay ‘you can get it on ebay’ and Lynx ‘Lynx 24-7 works 24 hours a day.’
- In order for my audience to desire the product or service i need to tell them of the product features or show how the product benefits them.
- Plan and draw a storyboard of each proposed shot within the ad.
- Be creative and unique while pushing the advertising boundaries, however being realistic and having achievable ideas at the same time.
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