Comparing two television adverts

Advertising is a unique and major 20th Century cultural phenomenon. It is increasing so quickly that it has become unavoidable. Where-ever you go, you can find advertising. For example, it can be found on Trains, Buses, Buildings, Newspapers, Television and even on the side of Football pitches. Advertising also uses a lot of methods, such as Celebrity endorsement, Exotic places, Humour, Catchy slogans and Sex. Advertising has to be strictly decent, legal and clean. All adverts have to be checked for this by the Advertising Standards Authority and the Independent broadcasting Authority.

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If you watch the Television any night of the week, you will definitely come across a great selection of adverts, most of which would be advertising cars. I will be analysing two Television adverts, a Volvo and a VW. The Volvo adverts opening frame is of a long shot showing a dark sky and land. This immediately makes the thought of America come to mind. The sky is red and black and the notation being danger and fear. The frame freezes to make the audience acknowledge the dark sky and wonder what is going to happen next. It builds up a sense of tension.

When you see this frame, you first think that this advert is going to be advertising something other than a car. It then cuts to the next scene, which is of face of a man blending into the background of the dark sky. This effect shows the man is looking at the sky. From the colour of the sky, you can make out that there is some sort of storm coming. When you look at the mans face, you can see that he isn’t very happy but also has no fear in his eyes. Again, the camera cuts to the next scene and this scene is showing a car driving in the background.

At this point you begin to realise the advert is for a car, but by the way the car is positioned on screen you can not see what make or model it is. Suddenly out of the silence, a man shouts out “TWISTER” in horror. The man has a close-up on his face to reveal that he is scared and doesn’t know what to do. The next scene show people and children running around outside in great distress, meaning that the twister must be coming for them. While this is happening, there is a voice- over taking place, which is giving out information on the twister.

The information given out is quite frightening and would make the audience feel sorry for anybody who confronts it. The camera cuts abruptly to the inside of the car that you saw earlier in the advert. A voice-over starts and gives out detail on the specification of the car. This is all spoken in car jargon so that it sounds good to the audience even though they can’t understand it. The camera smoothly cuts to a scene in which the car is driving in the direction of the twister.

This makes the audience wonder why the car is doing that and make them feel apprehensive. At this point the mood has got a little quieter but there is still a hint of danger. In the next scene, the audience is shown a film where the car is driving through a small hamlet with pieces of tin and corrugated iron roofing is being hurled around in the air by the twister, but the car just ignores this and continues to drive through with no sign of fear. This makes the viewer think “the driver of that car must be mad” and “I wouldn’t dare do that in my car”.

This is exactly what the advert is made to do. The scene also showed the audience that the car is safe and reliable and that its main aspect of a car that people look into when preparing to purchases a new car. This advert doesn’t have any celebrity involvement in it, which may appeal to the person who just wants a good car and not a car that needs a half-naked woman on the bonnet to get the viewers attention. Another different thing about the advert is that there is no specification of the car shown in writing in the advert.

This maybe because the company doesn’t want to show it as it may not be very impressive. It also could be because the producers of the advert want to be different from other adverts and not shown the audience any specification as they may believe that this is the way to sell a car. The next scene shows the man driving the car. He says he is “going to the right spot, the eye of the storm. ” This gives the audience a feeling of fear for the driver because they think “he must be mad to do that in a normal road car.

” This is what the scene is produced for, so that when the man does eventually drive to the eye of the storm, the audience will realise and acknowledge that this car is something different. The scene after that shows a close-up on the mans face. When you look deeply into the mans face you can see that he is very calm for this situation while everyone else is running around in horror and fear. This scene gives out the statement of the man having his full trust in the car.