Moving Images
In this section I shall be looking at the different methods advertisers use to publicise their products through television. I shall be looking at three different car adverts, two of them Volvo V40's and the third a Fiat Punto.
The first advert was shown around nine o'clock in the evening, which is the time when most adults tend to be watching television seeing as the Volvo is a family car.
The first advert is about the Volvo V40, which is an estate car, which is also seen as a family car for facts that will come in later.
Scene 1
The advert started off in the morning with a Volvo (family) car in the middle of the picture and everything else seems to be formed around it. There is a house behind the car with a window in the top right hand corner. Meanwhile there are cars driving past the house, there is a strange squeaking sound coming from the room with the window and the name of the car comes up on the bottom of the screen. "The Volvo V40"
Scene 2
After the first scene the screen goes black then when it lights up again it is now night time, there are still cars driving past the house and you can see the outline of the car in front of the house. Also the light is now on and the squeaking sound has become louder and quicker. There is again a sentence on the bottom right hand corner of the screen, this time saying Voted the most beautiful car in the world'
Scene 3
Again the screen goes black and now it is morning again. The squeaking now distinguished as a bed is still loud and squeaking at a quick rate. Meanwhile the postman walks by, I am not sure whether he is staring at the car or staring at the window and listening in. There is again a sentence in the bottom right hand corner this time saying ‘Now all you need are some kids'
I think this whole advert is trying to say that the car is important, it is the first thing you should think about and everything else either comes after it or should be formed around it. For example the Volvo V40 is supposed to be a family car so this pair have the car but they do not have a family. That is where the squeaking of the bed comes in, this can be interpreted as a couple in their bedroom trying to have kids in an attempt to have a real family, so that they can really use their family car.
The Second Volvo V40 adverts
Compared to the first advert this one is very different, before the car was the focal point of the picture, now it is foggy. The car (Volvo) is now driving through a foggy wood and all you can see are the headlights through the fog. There is yet again a different sentence in the bottom right hand corner, this time it says ‘Voted the most beautiful car in the world.' The car carries on through the foggy wood waiting roughly seconds before a second slogan appears which says ‘But sometimes looks aren't everything.' This is perfect timing in terms of the advert because the car has just easily and brilliantly gone round the corner of the road with very low visibility.
The sentence can be interpreted to mean that the car not only looks good but it also drives well either in the dark or in bad conditions. This is a very clever approach seeing as the Volvo was voted the safest car on the road.
Fiat Punto
This advert starts with happy music playing from the start and straightaway gives the impression that this car would make your life happier. A blue Fiat Punto is driving through a Mediterranean city. There is a middle-aged woman on the driver’s side and a middle-aged man on the passenger’s side. It also made the impact me that everyone in the advert on the street was either extremely handsome or beautiful, so it makes you feel special to have the car. In my point of view, the most important factor of this advert is the music, the music makes the advert. The lyrics go something like "The boys watch the girls while the girls watch the boys watch the girls go by, as this goes on the man in the car actually is watching all the girls walking by the car as they drive along. The music still plays a vital part in this advert, when the woman has had enough of her boyfriend looking out the window she decides to get revenge using a member of the opposite sex. She pulls over and calls over the first man she sees and kisses him. As she kisses him the music reaches its climax and then it clams down as the couple make an agreement. Then the camera view changes to see the back of the car then some writing comes up saying 'SPRITO DI PUNTO'; this writing was catchy, stylish and easy to read. It also helps to portray the adverts Mediterranean feeling. I also thought that this advert would appeal to women more because it portrayed that the woman was in control.
This was not the end of the Fiat Punto there was another advert afterwards to show the insurance policies for the car. There were a few clips from the main one but instead of the normal slogans and actions.
In conclusion I think that the Fiat Punto advert were better than the Volvo V40's ones. This is because the Fiat advert has a catchy tune and a catchy phrase. These two will leave you thinking about the car. There is also a spot of humour in it too.
Still Images
The main disability of magazine adverts is that they are a static image, so unlike television commercials information has to be printed on one page all at once, which can sometimes be confusing.
The benefits of a static advertisement is that the reader can take their time over reading the advert, which television commercials cannot do, as many are under a minute long. Magazine adverts also benefit from being static as the reader can remember telephone numbers and addresses more easily, and so they are frequently printed on newspaper adverts.
One disadvantage of still adverts is that many people flick past adverts of any kind when reading a magazine, which is different from a TV advert, as viewers cannot flick past adverts, and the only way to avoid them is to turn the television off, which many people do not do. Also, magazine adverts do not usually have millions of people reading them at the same time, which television commercials do.
Still adverts frequently use pre-modifiers and superlatives to emphasise products and make them sound better, and in many cases these are opinionated and not factual. Facts and figures are an important part of adverts, as it makes the product or company sound technical, serious, and informative, and they are often accompanied with pre-modifiers to make them sound better.
Colours play an important role in magazine advertisements as they can make certain things stand out so the reader will read them first, and contrasting colours; fonts and text sizes also highlight specific objects or words.
In still advertisements the advertiser uses puzzles in the picture so that t6he advert portrays the simple message, but when you think deeper into the advert there is usually another meaning, which is quite often easy to solve but when the reader solves this they think that they are smart, therefore thinking that the advertised product is for smart people and so the reader buys the product.
Overall, still adverts are effective, especially in local newspapers advertising local shops, as they are direct and simple, and are more cost effective than television commercials.
Richard McKeown