In the Barbie advert they also use a long shot as the Bionicle advert did in the beginning of the advert. The long shot in the Barbie advert shows the 2 swans and the lake. It shows the smooth movement of the swan, which builds upon the behaviour that is often expected of girls/women. There are many close ups of Barbie so the target audience can see a close up of the product. Also there are close ups of Barbie being played with to show what sort of stuff Barbie can do to show the target audience. Long shot is again introduced in the advert to show all the characters. There is tracking, when the camera tracks the unicorn and the carriage and then the prince appears. There are some 2shots of the two Barbie’s and the two girls that reflects the two Barbie’s. I feel that this is a good technique to use as the two girls look like Barbie and the advert makes the target audience feel that if they buy products of Barbie they can look as beautiful as Barbie.
In both adverts they both use all different close ups to show close up of the characters so the target audience can see the product more clearly. Also both adverts use long shot and level shot. Several times in the Bionicle advert tracking is used. This is to show the energetic personalities of the figure, which reflects the behaviour of the boys and the fit, athletic manor in which boys are believed to grow up. On the other hand, although Barbie does use tracking it is to a different effect. It uses it to demonstrate what the product can do e.g. the horse and carriage. Its tracing is much smoother than the Bionicle advert, which is why it appeals more to girls.
Editing is very important in adverts especially in children’s adverts because it changes the flow of the advert, which makes a better effect to reach out to the intentional audience. In the Bionicle advert, the use of editing is very clever it uses all different types of editing such as fades, dissolves, cuts and use of continuing editing. The use of editing in the Bionicle makes the advert seem fast and quick which boys like. Merris Griffiths mentioned in her article that “Adverts for boys contain higher cutting rate. This connotes action and speed.” This what Merris Griffiths quoted and it’s exactly what is used in the Bionicle commercial as I have quoted in the paragraph above. Merris Griffiths has also mentioned in her article that “Adverts for girls have been found to contain more fades and dissolves.” In the Barbie advert fades and dissolves are used. In the beginning of the advert dissolving used to show Barbie logo also more fade and dissolve is used further on in the Barbie commercial. This makes an effect as it makes the advert slow and smooth. Editing is also used in the Barbie advert when it cuts from the lake to the forest to show the different environments that the dolls are comfortable in
The similarities for both adverts in the editing department is that they both use fades, however the are differences as the Barbie advert uses lots of fades and dissolves as the Bionicle uses more cuts and continuous editing. The use of editing makes the Bionicle commercial fast and connotes action and speed as the use of editing in the Barbie advert makes the advert slow and smooth as Merris Griffiths in her article that fades and dissolves make the advert slow and smooth which girls like and use of cuts and continuous editing makes it fast which boys like.
Sound is another important part of selling a product because it reinforces the advertisers message. In the adverts I have studied, very little diegetic sound is used. In the Bionicle advert the only diegetic sound you can hear is the fast movement of the action figures, e.g. flying/running and this is to suit the energetic behaviour of boys and to show you what skill the figures have. However, the Barbie advert uses trickling water sounds, this is for a different affect. Many people believe the sound of trickling water to be tranquil and calming so by putting it at the beginning of the advert it sets the appropriate tone for there audience.
In the two adverts both non-diegetic and diegetic sound is used. In both commercials non-diegetic sound is used, as the voiceover is the same gender as the target audience. The Bionicle voiceover is male and the sound of the voiceover is loud and pace of the voice is quick. Same technique is used in the Barbie advert, the voiceover is female and the sound of the voice is soft and gentle. I think the purpose for this is it has better effect to sell their product to their target audience, as Merris Griffiths wrote in her article under Auditory features. “A male spoken dialogue normally occurs in those advertisements most specifically aimed at boys and a female narrative (both spoken and sang) occurs primarily at those aimed at girls.”
In both adverts, humans are used in them. However in Bionicle only a human hand is shown playing with the Bionicle toys. A human hand is also used in the Barbie advert playing with Barbie and the other characters. The child model in the Barbie advert resembles the Barbie doll, she is blonde with blue eyes and her expression is a mixture of happiness and awe. She is “perfect” so by using her to model the Barbie doll, young girls assume they will become like her and purchase it. However, the Bionicle advert doesn’t use any child models this is because they want the audience to maintain the belief that their figures are independent and powerful and worth buying.
In children adverts, one of the main things to make an immediate effect is the use of language. In both Bionicle and Barbie adverts there is no slang used in the language of the voiceovers. However both adverts have different voiceover accent; the Bionicle voiceover accent is British and the Barbie’s is American. I feel this might be because Barbie advert might try to sell their products worldwide as Bionicle may only focus to sell their products in the UK. I believe that the use of words selected into the Bionicle adverts is not goods as their target audience is boys between the age of 8-11 and I feel the words “habitants, adapt, mysterious.” are too complicated for boys aged 8-11. Also the voiceover says these complicated words too quick as well. On the other hand in the Barbie advert the words are chosen excellently as there are girly words as girls are the target audience and have rhyming couplets, which girls may feel, sound nice. The words that do this in the advert are “night, bright, love, mystic girl.” They also use the word girl in the advert to make it loud and clear that the advert is aimed at girls.
Both adverts use websites to market their product worldwide. The Barbie website uses several moving icons to gain the interests and to excite their audience. They have a wide range of games and a number of links that you can click on. The story of Barbie is told and there is also a link for parents, which ensures safety while browsing the site. The language used within the website is Standard English and fits in whit their target age by using quiet simplistic words. Unlike Barbie, the Bionicle site is less interactive. Its target age is mismatched with the complex language used, icons aren’t frequent throughout this sit and the games aren’t as straightforward to access. The audience for Barbie and Bionicle both set out to persuade you to purchase and both have achieved their goal. The advertisers are intelligent and do every thing intentionally, bombarding their audience with visual and sound affects. It is clear that, particularly for children, advertising is difficult to resist/ignore.
Advert makers assume that different techniques and products used in adverts, appeal to different sexes (and their parents, families etc). As it says in the Merris Griffiths article “use of cosmetic and household products- women, play with dolls and cosmetic implements- girls, generally associated with cars and sport-men, play with vehicle and thrive on competition and war games-boys.” Also Merris Griffiths writes in her article the techniques used for different gender “ men tend to be more aggressive dominant and independent, while women are more passive, subservient and dependant.” This is very strong gender stereotype even though we are in the 20th century. This may suggest, that they may be a lot of gender stereotype around in the British society today as adverts are everywhere we go as I mentioned in the opening paragraph. If there are advertisements all around us there will be lot of gender stereotype all around us as there is lot of gender stereotype in adverts. I believe gender stereotype should still be used in adverts however I believe they should cut down using it in adverts and use another good technique to reach out to the aim audience.
I think that both adverts are very good in the way, their attempt to reach out to their target audience but there could be a lot more room for improvements. I feel that the Barbie advert could become a much better advert if they use more effects, such as if they make the Barbie and the rest of the characters in the advert talk a bit, which would make the characters look amazing. This would make the children watching the advert seem that Barbie is amazing and would force them to wanting to buy the products. Also in the Barbie advert they could use more dissolves and fades as Merris Griffiths said in her article “Adverts for girls have been found to contain more fades and dissolves. This connotes tranquillity.” I believe that Barbie advert should use more fades and dissolves as I feel they never used much of these techniques and if they did they can achieve what Merris Griffiths mentioned in her article. The voiceover of Barbie advert uses rhyming couplets, I think they should use more of these as well as it sounds nice to young girls. The Bionicle advert also has more room for improvement and I feel the main one would be to change some of the words used in the advert by the voiceover as the words are too complicating to understand for youthful boys. They should replace the words with something young boys will understand so they can also understand the story to the advert.
My final conclusion of the overall effect ness of each advert is selling their products is very effective. Both adverts used good techniques to reach out to their target audience the main one being using gender stereotype. I believe that gender stereotypes were used too much in both adverts but nether the less it was used well, which gave them a better chance to sell their products. Making the advert about fighting and war used gender stereotype in the Bioncile advert, as many people believe boys are aggressive and violent. In the Barbie advert, gender stereotype was used as its colours was pink which everyone feels is a female colour. Lots of other gender stereotypes were used in the advert as well but I feel these were the main ones.
Different types of techniques such as cuts, shots, camera movements and different style of editing were used very effectively to get the attention of the target audience. I consider that the Barbie advertisement was more effective than the Bionicle advert because the use of gender stereotype was more effective than the Bionicle’s as the two girls that reflect the Barbie was a good technique to use. Also the use of fades and dissolves was very effective than the Bionicle’s use of action and speed, I believe. I feel that the overall use of gender stereotype, fades, dissolves and visual effects used in the Barbie advert were more effective than they were in the Bionicle. Nevertheless I still believe that the Bionicle was also very effective when it used shots and cuts, which were very effective as it, speeds up the advert, which boys prefer. I feel that the future of advertising is looking high as there are many strategies to use to reach out to their target audience, however I feel that in the future of advertising gender stereotype will be used too much which the should consider cutting down on as some people might get offended by it.
