The expectations of the audience are quite low as the advert explains everything rather than allowing the audience to figure things out themselves. For example, the camera work draws obvious attention to the product by zooming in on it.
The setting of the soap enhances its aesthetic appeal as they have placed it on a black cushion. This gives the audience the idea that it is some kind of precious jewel and gives the product glamorous characteristics.
As a whole, the advert uses simple marketing techniques. The idea of celebrity endorsement has changed these days because now celebrities tend to play different characters rather than themselves, whereas Googie plays herself possibly as she would be normally. The adverts discourse structure was also very simple, they might as well have said, “How do you get such a beautiful complexion?” and answered it with “I use Lux Soap”. Now, the adverts are more complex than this.
As technology improved so did adverts, and in the 1980’s a good example of an advert was for Hovis. There were three different commercials for Hovis, each showing the same sort of thing.
The first thing that sticks in the mind of the audience is the music. The product identification with Dvorjak’s New Symphony is very strong and the music really gets stuck in your head. The music itself seems quite old as it sounds like it is being played on a gramophone rather than on a CD. It’s quite warm and reminds the audience of family times, which implies homeliness and comfort. It is quite slow paced so it gives the idea of tranquillity. Also, it evokes the idea of brass band or colliery band music adding to the idea of old fashioned and traditional.
The first of the adverts features a young boy cycling up a cobbled street to deliver bread to ‘Old Ma Pegotty’. This is a character from Dickens’ ‘David Copperfield’. This builds the product associations with traditional and classic English quality.
The boy doesn’t actually speak, however there is a deep, male voiceover, which gives the idea that the advert is a memory from ‘the good old days’. The voiceover is a strong rural, possibly Yorkshire, accent. His dialect is emphasised by his use of ellipsis, which can be illustrated when he says, “Baker’s have kettle on” in which he misses out words and shortens endings. This contrasts with the marked R.P., which was heard in the advert from the 1950s.
Another aspect of the advert, which gives the product a sense of tradition, is the colour. The colour isn’t vibrant or bright but ordinary colours, which are linked with the Victorian times or in old photographs. There aren’t a wide variety of colours, mainly just browns and dull colours. The texture is soft focused giving it a blurred effect, which associates the events in the advert with a memory, which links with the voiceover. Memories are often not clear which makes the advert seem like a moving painting. Also, the colours give the idea of either early morning or late evening as the blurred effect makes it seem misty and the light is at a low, oblique angle, which conveys this impression.
The mood, although the music does not imply this seems quite positive, whenever the boy is on the screen he seems to be smiling. Also, innocence is emphasised because the boy is quite small however his bike and the basket is obviously too big for him. This stresses that viewers must buy bread for their children to help them grow and be strong. It gives the idea that even though bread is quite old fashioned it is still needed.
The first scene is the boy, dressed in brown clothes made from traditional materials, trying hard to cycle up the hill. It is a long shot establishing the traditional cobbled street. The light is low so it illuminates the boy. This hints at his angelic purity. The bike shows the low-tech transport of the olden days, which emphasises simplicity and purity, as bikes don’t pollute the atmosphere. It also builds up a picture of a healthy outdoor lifestyle, as you need energy to ride a bike.
The boy delivers the bread and as he hands it over a ray of light shines on it showing the bread as some sort of holy substance. The advert then fades into the boy’s journey home.
After this, superimposed lettering reads “As good for you today as it’s always been”, which again shows the idea of healthiness and tradition.
The second of the adverts begins with a medium shot which cuts to a long shot of the boy rowing across a lake in a little boat. Again, the idea of simple transport is shown to emphasise the purity and tradition of the product. The low lighting is mellow and soothing.
The row of whitewashed houses which are shown look old and seem like they would be found in a countryside. This gives the idea of a traditional and conventional village.
The voiceover this time is a Geordie accent. The different accents make the advert more personal and realistic as no one in general really speaks in R.P. It also gives links to real people rather than just characters.
Again, the light illuminates the loaf of Hovis and the advert ends with a close up of the boy smiling before the bold writing takes over the screen reading “Hovis, as good for you today as it’s always been”.
The third of the adverts begins with a long shot and also a long take. The little boy in the distance is getting closer. His littleness is emphasised by the large bench and milk churns in the foreground. This time the boy is a lot younger and more cute than the in the other two Hovis adverts. He also needs two attempts to jump up to sit on the bench, which makes him seem really sweet and innocent. His clothes are baggy and the hat he is wearing is obviously far too big. He would evoke feelings of tenderness in the target audience.
In all three of the Hovis adverts the main characters are male. This is because in the days in which the adverts are set only the men worked as women were expected to stay at home and look after the children. The advert is saying to the women “buy this for your boys so they will grow strong”. Also, the adverts would not have the same effect if the main character was a girl. This is because traditionally girls are supposed to be petite and ladylike rather than growing strong, because they eat bread, to do hard work and earn money.
The camera then cuts to a close-up of the lunch box. It is slightly mis-representative as the product shown looks homemade and the slices are thick and rough, whereas the loaf actually comes pre-sliced. The idea of a homemade loaf makes the audience thing of the smell and taste of fresh, warm bread.
There is then a close-up of the boy, which fills the screen. He is smiling and there is a light in his eyes. The boy is freckled, which shows an outdoor lifestyle, and he’s happy.
Again, the narration is done by voiceover, again Yorkshire. None of the characters in the Hovis adverts speak directly, which creates a sense of a memory of the idyllic past.
The camera cuts to a postman who asks the boy not to run away. Then the boy jumps down and walks home with the postman. Walking is another simple form of transport linking to tradition.
Then, once again the product identification comes on the screen in writing “As good for you today as it’s always been”.
As time went on, advertising companies became more and more high-tech in their commercials. In the 1990’s, an example of an advert would be the series of commercials by Heat Electric called ‘Creature Comforts’. They are animation adverts in which cartoon animals speak about their lives.
The adverts are in the style of ‘Talking Heads’, a documentary series, where the subjects talk about themselves. Also, they often tend to reveal more than they intend.
In the first of the three a tortoise is speaking in a messy house about his ‘busy’ life. He has a Yorkshire accent. This creates juxtaposition as tortoises are seen as slow animals, however, the tortoise in the advert claims have just been out for a run.
The advert is humorous and realistic. The tortoise creates the idea of a lonely character, who declares that he is busy all the time, but it quite obvious that he is just lying to stop pity. His loneliness and boring life is shown when he talks about the heating in his house which is easy to use.
In the second of the three adverts a pair of panda who are a married couple. They both have Scottish accents. They seem like an old couple that don’t have very exciting lives, as they are really excited about their new dishwasher. They want to invite people round just to see the dishwasher. The pandas seem really cuddly and fat, and they laugh a lot, like normal people.
In the third advert, a cat is sat with a dog on the chair. I think they represent a married couple, like the saying “fighting like cat and dog”. The cat is moaning about how the dog is always on the chair when she comes in the house, but she praises the Heat Electric company because whenever she walks in the house it is always warm because of the heating. The cat has a Scouse accent.
The adverts for Heat Electric are really humorous because of the characters’ personalities and because of the hand gestures they make. Also, when the tortoise swallows it is really funny as his Adam’s apple is exaggerated and he looks really nervous.
The 1980’s adverts stress family life, however, the adverts from the 1990’s show a more realistic view on family life through the single tortoise, the married ‘old’ couple of pandas, and the married ‘young’ couple of cat and dog.
The advert is more subtle because the characters are not completely positive. They are just ordinary whereas the previous adverts were much more focused on the target product.
Each of the characters speak in regional dialects which is more personal. It is more effective this way because people can relate to the normal accents. The way the animals speak is very normal as they hesitate, interrupt, overlap, pause and use fillers like you would do with normal speech e.g. the tortoise uses made up words such as “off and onable” and he uses the words “erm” and “mmm” quite frequently. This makes it sound less scripted.
The positives of the product are explained in more humorous everyday language, for example the tortoise says ‘easily turn on and offable’, which is not Standard English.
Nowadays, adverts tend to be more complex to receive a better response from the target audience. The example I am going to use is the advert for cancer research.
The features people looking into mirrors seeing people they are close to behind them. Then, their loved ones fade away. For example, a bride is looking into the mirror and her father has his hand on her shoulder telling her she looks lovely. She puts her hand on his and turns to look at him. He then slowly disappears and a fact about cancer comes on the screen showing that the father character had died of cancer.
The characters shown are just ordinary everyday people you would expect to meet. When the characters talk they have regional accents which makes the viewers relate more personally. The music is soft and sorrowful. It doesn’t have words and is a classical piece, which allows the audience to stop, relax and relate with the characters on the screen and think like they would think after losing someone they love very much.
The advert is effective because the audience can relate with the people in the advert.
At the end there is a lady putting her make-up on ready for a night out. In the mirror she looks back at her daughter who is sat on the bed. Her daughter says to her “You look lovely mum” and gets up off the bed. The audience expects the little girl to be dead which makes them upset, however the mother hold out her arms and the little girl runs into her mother’s arms. They embrace in a loving couple like normal mother and daughter, and then a message appears across the bottom of the screen saying, “two in three children are cured of leukaemia”.
The advert is quite upsetting as you feel sympathy for the people who have lost loved ones, and the sorrowful music connects with the images well.
The advert ends with a man with a Standard English accent asks the audience to phone and give £3 a month for cancer research. His accent is serious and appeals to everyone instead of a certain accent which only appeals to one region. Also, the idea of a Standard English accent conveys the seriousness of the idea of the advert.
In conclusion, I believe that the genre of the adverts has become more sophisticated and complex over time. Personally, I think that if anyone from a modern day society saw an advert from the 1950s they would be appalled. They are really quite irritating and far too exaggerated to make the audience think seriously about the product. The advert from the 1980s would be quite effective these days although the music is so frustrating as it gets stuck in your head; I found myself humming it for the day. However, the advert from the 1990s would be still effective; they’re humorous, realistic and really quite enjoyable.