“Advertising” is making a product or service known to the public. One can advertise on television, radio and billboards. Advertising on television and radio reaches mass audiences. A common advertising technique is to have a short simple catchphrase, often put to a tune which is very catchy, so that people remember the product. When advertising on billboards it’s a good idea not to have too complex an advert so that it can be remembered and digested in a second. Advertisers direct their advert at a target audience.
A target audience is the group of consumers an advert is aimed at. Every aspect of an advert is tailored to appeal to the target audience. One way of making sure the advert reaches the right audience is to air them at different times; for instance adverts for toys are aired during the mid-afternoon as this is when children are watching television, having returned from school. The advert “In the Nick of Time” advertises a “new generation” Audi car. It is targeted at a growing, modern, wealthy family.
We know it is targeted at a family because the advert features a family as its main characters, we can tell the family is wealthy because even though the price of the car is not stated, it is evident that this is so since the house is impressive looking, stylish and attractive, and the car looks very expensive. By featuring a rich family the advert is also selling the lifestyle the family has along with the car, this will make the car more desirable as the lifestyle to go with it is very attractive.
It uses aspiration to sell the car, people watching the advert will aspire to the lifestyle and relationships portrayed within the advert. The advert tells a story. It is like a short suspense thriller film. It uses a strong narrative to keep the audience interested. As it is a suspense thriller story it will keep the audience interested. It tells the story of a man who receives a phone call. We don’t find out what the phone call is about until the end of the advert. He immediately runs downstairs, grabs his son and they run out to the car.
We see them driving in a great hurry before reaching a building. The man runs into the building realises he has forgotten his son, goes back to get his son and carries him running down a corridor towards a door. The advert ends with him opening the door just in time to see his child being born; the car gets the man and his son to the hospital just “in the nick of time. ” The screen is then filled with the company’s logo and a number to ring for more information. In total we see four characters in the advert. The two main characters are the father and his son.
You can tell that he is prosperous because he is wearing an expensive business suit, lives in a big house with a private drive and drives a luxurious looking car. We can tell from the body language between the man and child, for example when the man carries the child, that they are father and son. They obviously have a close, loving relationship and this will enchant the viewers as they will aspire to achieve this level of contentment in their own lives. The father and son in the advert are both attractive looking people.
They are pleasant to watch, the father is a handsome middle aged man and the son is very sweet. Both characters will appeal visually to the viewers. The advert is set somewhere in central Europe, probably in Germany as that is where the company is based. They used central Europe because all the terrains that they wanted to show the car in were available in a small area. You can tell it is central Europe from the architecture in the background. Also in the background is a mosque; this shows that the advert is directed at all cultures.
The journey takes the father and son through traditional and modern landscape. There is a contrast between the old roads, old style buildings and the modern tunnel which the car drives through at night. This shows that the car looks good in every type of setting, demonstrating that whilst it is modern, it is after all the “new generation” Audi, it is attractive in all environments, displaying the fact that it will remain a classic. The advert shows almost all driving conditions imaginable.
It starts off at sunset which is meant to be the hardest time to drive, and then sunset turns to night which allows the advert to demonstrate how good the car’s headlights are. When the car is shown leaving the house, it is driven down a stony path, which is replaced by normal roads, through woodland in the rain, and then onto city streets; these conditions are designed to show how the car can handle all terrains. . The advert demonstrates the car’s excellent handling of the road in all conditions as it makes a difficult turning in the rain.
In addition the advert demonstrates the father’s faith in the car, he believes that the car will get him there on time; this is shown when we see the car stop at the red traffic light. The father drums his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently yet does wait for the lights to change before he continues his journey. The advert starts with very dramatic music being played by a xylophone and piano. The music enhances the suspense in the advert. The music gets louder just before the speaking starts, which draws our attention to the voice. As the car journey goes on the instrumental music is replaced by opera.
The music gives us the idea of someone on a quest; it’s the type of music that you might hear in a dramatic war scene during a film. At the end of the advert the music reaches its climax suggests that someone has just achieved a triumph. Then we see the baby and hear it crying. Classical music is used because it’s the type of music that we presume the target audience would like to listen to. The voice in the advert is a woman’s voice. The introduction of a woman completes the family as previously we have only seen the father and son, and it makes the advert appeal to both genders.
As it is a gentle female voice it contrasts with the dramatic music. The audience will therefore seek refuge in the voice. The audience the advert is directed at appears to be middle class and possible privately educated since it uses formal language. The woman starts off by saying, “Life is full of decisions, some of the head some of the heart. ” When she says “some of the head” we see the car indicating that it is going to turn and when she says “some of the heart” we see the little boy. The next thing she says is, “Take your next car.
Will it have a catalytic converter, which removes 95% of pollutants? ” This tells us that the car is environmentally friendly, which once again shows concern for the new generation. , the new baby being born will live in a pollutant free world thanks to the help of the new Audi. The voice then proceeds to list the other features of the car, “Will it be clean, yet lose nothing in performance? Will it have all of this at no extra cost? In short will it be one of the new generations of Audis?
” The rhetorical questions are there to engage the viewer into thinking about the most suitable type of car to purchase. She then states the company’s motto “Vorsprung durch technik” (advancement through technology) and says it’s “as both your head and your heart would say. ” The car is favourable to both the head and the heart because it is stylish and attractive whilst at the same time safe, environmentally friendly and in every respect a good family car. This is a new generation of car which will protect the new generation being born at the end of the advert.
