Advertising

  Main purposes of advertising

• Promoting a product, 
• Attract an audience, 
• Making people buy things, 
• To generate sales/create profit, 
• Create awareness of a product/service/cause, 
• Rebrand an existing product 
• Selling an idea 

Campaign: communication of a single advertising message across multiple media (3 media minimum) 

 Gender and gender roles in advertising

Female: 

• Mother, 
• Wife, 
• Object of desire, 
• Weak, 
• Socially needy, 
• User 

Male: 

• Father, 
• Husband, 
• Provider, 
• Strong, 
• Independent, 
• creator 

 

‘Sex sells’: 

Using the audience’s gender to drive their response to your campaign 

• Through use of ‘ideal self’, models and celebrities’ that audience members are attracted to causes attraction to products are a result of their attraction to the image. 

• fragrance and fashion industries use this method a lot etc. 

WHAT IS COVERED BY LAW IN ADVERTISEMENTS?

Legal Vs Ethical:

Legal: Anything governed by law.

Ethical: 'issues' not covered by law which may raise strong feelings or moral question in the audience.

Legal bodies

OFCOM:

• OFCOM has wide-ranging powers across:
•  the television, 
• radio, 
• telecoms 
• postal sectors. 
• It has a statutory duty to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public from harmful or offensive material
• Some of the main areas OFCOM presides over are:
• licensing, 
• research, 
• codes and policies, 
• complains, 
• competition, 
• protecting the radio spectrum from abuse.

BBFC (British Board of Film Classification):

• The BBFC are responsible for the classification of film in Britain. 
• All films to be released to the public are subject to BBFC classification
• The BBFC also regulate the content of trailers and promos for films to ensure they are only seen by suitable audiences.

ASA (Advertising standards Authority): 

Advertising & controversy

Many adverts have caused controversy in their broadcast/content

Campaign examples:

 Dove's '#KeepBeautyReal' campaign - 'THE CODE'

This campaign aimed to create awareness towards the 'AI age' and how it affects, distorts and construes society's views on people - women's beauty standards especially, they're attempting to start a movement towards keeping 'beauty real', avoiding the use of AI to define beauty standards. In this campaign, they used a diverse set of models which would help relate to and draw in a larger variety of people, thus widening how many people will see their campaign. Also, trying to connect to people in an attempt to make them join the stand against the rise of AI, as well as to create awareness by using the hashtag '#KeepBeautyReal'.

 CAMPAIGN: Targeting gender

Dove’s “reverse selfie” campaign 

- Aimed at women / young adults 

Tools used to achieve that are:  

• Props (makeup etc), 
• The model chosen, 
• Common societal issues experienced with women 
• Social media 

Connotations that allow the connection with the audience: 

• Mental health issues (body dysmorphia etc.) 

PAMCO Social Grades

How do you make a brand appeal more to an audience who are identified by these 4 criteria:

over 50, middle class, high disposable income, and parents to older (20+) children

• Focuses on lifestyle (e.g. garden centres),
• Luxury,
• Nostalgia,
• Family,
• Use actors / models that are identifiable with them,
• Financial services (Life insurance e.g.),
• Recreational activities

The ABC1 Family:

In the UK, NRS (National Readership Survey) data identifies most working groups through an alphabetised system. The further into the alphabet, the less well paid / socially affluent they are.

The ABC1 families are those regularly targeted by advertisers / brands as they are more likely to be able to purchase higher end / more expensive produce.

ABC1 and age: There is some direct correlation between a person being categorised into the top bands of the NRS data and age. Some of these reasons include: Education, Professional Development, Business Growth and Career Progression. It is therefore likely that more A's will be a lot older, for example 30+.

Assign brands to groups:

• Apple: A's / E's
• Jaguar: A's / B's
• Waitrose: A's / B's
• BMW: B
• HP: B / C1's
• Nokia: C1
• Tesco: C1's / C2's
• Ford: C1's / C2's
• Aldi: C2's / D's / E's

Different campaigns targeted at different social grades

• A: Apple's "Relax, it's iPhone" campaign

This campaign uses        to engage the audience

• B: BMW's "The Small Escape" campaign

This campaign uses        to engage the audience

• C1: Ford "Built Ford Proud, Sydney's Garage"

This campaign uses        to engage the audience

Key terms

Connotation - what something infers / means

denotation - what something shows / is

demographic - a specific group of people

iconography - visual images (costumes etc) within a product that are associated with a certain genre / brand to convey meaning

branding - how you choose to market your company, advertising a distinctive design