Analysising Television Advertisements: Music Products

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Television Advertisements:

Music

I have found six advertisements for music, such as compilations and greatest hits albums; they were all obtained between the times of 6pm and 8pm on Channel Four. The majority of this time was taken up by the broadcasting of a live concert of a 'chart topping' solo artist.

The first advertisement is for the band True Steppers' album True Stepping. Their record company is Virgin, so the advertisement began with a large Virgin symbol surrounded with a white border: this border remained unchanged throughout the advertisement and is the same with all Virgin music advertisements. This means one can identify and associate all advertisements like it with the Virgin record label. The music then began to play: it was the band's number one hit and instantly grabbed the attention of anyone who knew the song. The band itself is not widely known, but they have made a number of songs featuring more famous artists than themselves. A list of these artists was then read out to associate these big names with this smaller product. This was to make people buy the record not only for the main band but also, for the featured artists. The music continues to play and the tracks on the album are listed. The narrator then states 'It's so good you might just want to share it with everyone else'. An attractive young lady is then shown, wearing very revealing clothes, standing outside a building with the album playing, extremely loud. There are also many respectable onlookers, (men in suits, pensioners and mothers with young children) are watching with looks of horror on their faces. This essentially uses sex to sell the product however it also uses the image of being 'cool'. Loud music and the appearance of standing up against the respectable majority bring about this image and encourage the target audience want to buy the product just to be cool and be in the 'in crowd': where a lot of teenagers would like to be. Finally the narrator says the Virgin slogan 'Whatever turns you on' and a picture of the box comes up with a large price beneath it. The price is stated and is made to stand out because it is a reasonably low price and is an important factor along with the high quality of the product, tending to make people more likely to part with their money.
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The second advertisement is for a compilation of various artists, of the dance and trace genres. The advertisement starts on a typical, boring, dull coloured, city bus. The camera the zooms in on the back row, where a girl is reading the Holy Bible. However the camera only just gives the viewer time to take all this information in, before it continues it's zoom into her golden eyes. In the pupil of here eye is a nun standing in front of a stained glass window, the music then begins and the nun's vestments fall to the ground to ...

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