All over the world advertising is big business, but there is one universal truth about advertising and that is that all advertisers are after your money and they will do almost anything to get it. The objective is always to sell you something. The government is one of the biggest spenders on advertising especially around election time when all the different political parties do a broadcast about what they’ve achieved and what they intend to over the next couple of years.
They mainly use propaganda to get your vote and sell you their ideas and they will eventually get your tax money if they get elected. This year according to the ‘Times’ newspaper, the Conservative party spent more on advertising on television and in newspapers and magazines than any other party in the election. For different adverts there are specific target audiences. For example, toys like Lego and Mechano are aimed at children aged from about four to eight years old and every couple of months they bring out a new advert for a new Lego ‘world’ or new model to build from Mechano.
I know personally that these adverts work as well because I remember when I was five years old I nagged my parents into submission to buy me every new Lego set and because they are not very expensive parents do not mind buying them but the money soon adds up and the advertisers and Lego company have won. The next generation up are teenagers who have films, CDs, games consoles, games etc… aimed at them. This is probably one of the biggest spending generations because they will be getting their first feel of large amounts of money so will not be very prudent with it.
Because of this the advertisers have a huge advantage over them and throw a multitude of products at them. The teenage generation is also a ‘got to have’ generation who have to have every new product or the correct label on their clothes otherwise they don’t fit in. This is why there are so many adverts for teenagers. Then there are the ages of about twenty to maybe mid-thirties who have CDs and films aimed at them but also a few new things like alcohol and home insurance aimed at them.
Insurance is aimed at all of the older generations but maybe more so at young adults because they will just be setting up a new home and buying cars so they will need insurance on them. The forties to fifties have more insurance and holidays, alcohol, retirement deals, cars and a lot of different anti aging creams for women. The when people get into their late fifties and onwards they get they get no end of insurance, retirement plans, gardening centres thrown at them. Pensioners especially get soft voiced young men coming on the television and offering them all sorts of deals.
Things like ‘if you go into this house for the rest of your life we’ll take all your money but give you free health care. ‘ This is obviously and exaggeration but it is not too far from the truth. Advertisers use many different methods to get you to buy their products, but most of the methods these days are to entertain you because before all the new techniques came in especially around the nineteen forties onwards a couple of ladies would come on and say in their exceptionally English accents things like ‘Yes this powder gets my whites really white’ but advertisers have finally started entertaining you with their adverts.
Advertisers especially try to appeal to women by putting a perfect housewife on the screen with the product and very heavily hinting that if you buy the product then you will be like this lady and have a perfect home. An example of this is the ‘Shake and Vac’ advert, which had a lady singing a theme song and dancing as she throws this white powder down and then sucks it all up with a vacuum cleaner. A quotation from an advert analyser is ” She was obviously a very dirty and lazy woman who was cleaning up after her sex romps earlier in the day so that her husband would not find out.
” This is a bit over the top but it is true about it being a ‘dirty’ advert in that she is not really cleaning the carpet; she is just putting a stronger odour over the top and so is encouraging other ladies to be lazy about housework. This is only one method of advertising but there are many more. Just some of them are se, humour, sexy humour, jingles, celebrities and catchy tunes. Sex is used in a lot of adverts and it is the strongest method that advertisers have.
There is one advert at the moment by Hagen Dazs ice cream and it involves a young man and woman sitting on a red ‘curvy’ couch and they sit there feeding each other with it and then licking the spoon in a very sexual way. I do not think it is a very effective advert but I think it manages to get the message across that it is the ” food of love”. Sexy humour is always a good advertising technique because you can use twist at the end when the viewer will be expecting a sexy line but instead they get something completely different.
For example in one of the Boddingtons adverts Melanie Sykes (now a celebrity) is lounging by a pool with half naked men strutting around her and posing just at the end when you are expecting her to say a sexy line she takes a sip from her pint and is left with a large white froth moustache and looks across at one of the men in only white boxer shorts and says ” Hey Johnny, your trousers have fallen down”.
This twist at the end helps you to remember the advert and it is humorous because she says it with her strong Yorkshire accent and the fact that she is drinking pints but that is not as funny as it used to be because a lot of women do now drink pints. Humour is one of the big techniques, which advertisers use because it helps people to remember the advert and when you have a humorous advert, people see the product in a shop and maybe buy it because they have remembered the advert.
A while ago Budweiser lager had a series of adverts with two American men talking on the phone and this is how it works: One man with a blank expression on his face picks up the phone and says ”Hey ‘wassup’ brother? The camera cuts to another man with a blank expression on his face and he says ” Nothin’, watchin’ the game havin’ a Bud’. What’s up with… His phone beeps to signal he has another call.
