In this essay I am going to be looking at two adverts firstly I will look at the Guinness advert then I will be looking at the Coca-Cola advert then comparing the two. Throughout my essay I will be expressing my opinion on the techniques used in both of the adverts. The Guinness advert was number one in the top hundred adverts programme. Its main target audience is a more mature male.
In the advert there is a male who is the main part, usually in adverts they get a young attractive male to play the main part but in this case it is accessible to the target audience because he is just a regular man, you can tell this by the first part of the advert where there is a close up of him showing the age lines on his face. This is reflecting that Guinness is a more traditional drink and the use of a regular man shows it is different from normal drinks. The advert starts with the man’s head and finishes with the head on the pint of Guinness. I think this is a good way to get through to the target audience because maybe they could feel that they can relate to the person in some ways.
The basic concept of this advert is that there is a man who has always dreamt of surfing a really big wave and at the end he accomplishes his goal. The man waited for the wave since he was a boy and finally he got the good thing that he waited for. Guinness is a dense drink and takes a long time to pour. Both situations are reflected in their catch phrase “good things come to those who wait.” In the advert you don’t realise what the product is until the very end this also reflects their catchphrase “good things come to those who wait.”
The music builds as the advert progresses similarly as the Guinness is poured the anticipation builds. The man achieves his goal, the pint is ready and the music stops, silence signifies satisfaction. The music is like the drumming of the hooves of the horses in the wave and it is also like the man’s heart beating and he waits in anticipation for the wave and for the pint. The ticking at the beginning of the advert emphasises the wait for the pint to be poured.
The voice at the beginning of the advert is a deep voice just like Guinness is a deep drink. It is a mature voice and is also powerful and masculine, this will attract the target audience because if they hear a mature voice they will think that the drink is a mature man’s drink. At the end it is total silence, the pint of beer appears on the screen with writing around it telling the viewer what the product is called but there isn’t a person telling you what it is or there isn’t any music, it just ends in total silence. I think this is very well done because if there were a person talking at the end it would ruin the finale because the music is quite loud and tense but then it all of a sudden goes to silence finalising the advert.
The whole advert is in black and white, which reflects the colour of the drink because the Guinness is black and the head is white. I think this is very effective because the advert wouldn’t have the same meaning if it were in colour. When the man goes towards the wave his friends go as well but he is the only one who succeeds because he is the only one who waited since he was a boy and who was focused.
Just before you see the pint at the very end of the advert, there are three freeze frames. The man has just accomplished his goal and he is celebrating with the other surfers this is where the freeze frames come in. this could reflect that once you have got the pint you have been waiting for time stands still as you treasure the moment. The other advert I will be looking at is coca-cola. This advert is a Christmas advert and the target audience is mainly children but it is also targeted at adults as well. Coca-cola is the drink of Christmas according to this advert because it is Christmas and everyone is drinking coca-cola. The advert is a very traditional advert just like coca-cola is a traditional drink. The people in the advert are doing lots of different festive things lie ice-skating on the frozen over lake and everyone is all happy and smiling.
At the beginning there is a Grandad who is telling his Grandson a story in a traditional cosy living room. The music starts to play and the fireplace comes alive and turns into a coca-cola lorry. When the lorry comes through the fireplace the Grandfather drops the book, this is kind of like a jaw dropping in amazement to seeing the lorries. Everywhere the coca-cola lorries go the whole place lights up. On the back of the lorry at the end of the advert there is Father Christmas with a bottle of coca-cola in his hand, if the children watching this advert see Father Christmas with a Bottle of coca-cola they will also want one. The village is like a Hollywood village with the artificial white snow and all the bright lights.
The colour in the advert is very bright and festive and also there is always the coca-cola colour red on the screen at all times. The music in the advert is very festive and very merry. There is a jingle in the music that sounds like sleighs, the lorries could be the sleighs that you can hear. These two adverts don’t really have a lot of points that are the same but there is one particular point that stands out. Both of the adverts are colour coded to the colour of the drink or the colour of the packaging. I think this is a very clever thing to do, as it is concentrates the mind on the product.
