Investigation - Advertisement involves communication to a target market.

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Richard Stott. Advertising Unit 22 A1.

Task 1: Investigation

Introduction

Advertisement involves communication to a target market. The intension is to attract the target market, primarily to the advertisement, then ether to the product, or the through the context of the advertisement to the product.

Their intension is to pursued through the point of contact between commercial interests and the audience as consumers of products and services. Although it is important to remember that that there are constrains to advertising, for example certain products and services may not be advertised – religions and doctors and fortune tellers, cigarettes and other tobacco products. Alcohol may not be glamorised for youth audiences. The National Lottery, slimming products and alcohol products may not be advertised around children’s programmes. The advertising of women’s sanitary products is not permitted until after 9.00 p.m.

Although small aspects, rules like these ethical constrains appear obvious. Using them as an example it is easy to see the ever-changing environments that advertisers have to navigate. Advertising is directed at mass audiences, so to be tasteful and descent appropriate in any work done.

Advertising is very similar to television, and other programmes;

Comes out of the same production base, technologies and production practices.
Has the same basic narrative structures, but compressed.
Uses genre material as a point of recognition and attraction for the audience
Makes interstitial references to other television material
Uses television performers (and their voices) whom we know from other programmes.
Creates it’s own ‘stars’ and popular ‘series’.

General, and obvious key areas adverts want to achieve:

(*The connotation strategic methods)

Persuasion

An advert communicates, and attempts to win over the audience.

*Persuasion:- It is illegal and sinful to use subliminal messaging

Justification

The above persuasion would not be possible with out justification

Advertisers use special tools in there advertisements to avoid problems such as ethical complaints, taste and decency ect (above). Tabaco companies such as Marlboro use hidden and covert messaging to avoid such regulations.

Fear and emotion are the main aspects advertisers try to tap. In this tool box aspects such as the following help towards a direct approach at communicating with audiences;-

Surrealism/ inversion

*See Orange mobile phone advertisement (*currently showing 11/04/02). There is a man who is on his way somewhere (not specified) and keeps meeting people he knows. The orange phrase is; ‘connecting people’; the man must represent the (advert directed) orange philosophy, demonstrated as lots of people waving, saying ‘hello’, where he replies.

This approach is very surreal, this man appears to know every person he walks by, but is conducted in a very natural manor, expressing an un-real environment. In an attempt to express the communication aspects of him, appealing to feelings such as recognition, social achievement ect.

Endorsement

This comes in the form of celebrities, or presenters appealing to audiences emotions involved in a range of representations. I.e. health, social direction, lifestyle, point of sale ect.

A good example of popular endorsement would be the use of sporting personalities to endorse products. *See Nestle ‘Sporties’, this commercial used Mike Own a well-known footballer to been seen eating the product. This would entice fans of this player to eat the breakfast cereal he does.

Endorsement around the identity of the product, can be seen with release of Lucozade Sport, where the product endorses the Sport image, inventing slogans and ideas, such as energy replenishment, leading to express a statistic stating ‘33% more energy from lucazade than standard pop drinks’ (I think it must be packed with more sugar than the other drinks).

Concern of Compassion

This strategy is used widely in the cosmetics industry. Where the common form of advertisement is to use and portray perfect models, or perfect beauty to express youthfulness.

Or in charity advertisements of i.e. third world countries or RSPCA adverts, where an audience have concern and compassion over an example of poor, or needful persons. From what small donations would make large differences.

Concern of compassion on a more overt level can be seen in such advertisements for cleaning adverts. I.e. The advert demonstrates to the mother that she should clean the kitchen surfaces to stop germs breading. Depictions of the child playing on the floor, with reassured looks demonstrate to audience that this is the right way to clean, and she uses ‘Flash’ to do it with, the right choice of cleaning product.

Politics:

This can benefit and obstruct advertisers. Obviously advertisers need to work in the conjunction of rules and regulations, but can also feed off any political headlines at that time. With out reference; politics can benefit an advert on many levels. Whether that would be from such things as tax, or political issues ect. (i.e. foot and mouth, tourism industries).

Physical techniques:

Repetition; is used to remind audiences of the advert/ product, service.

Steady repetition is used regularly in advertisement

Advertising relies just as much on visual appearance as the overt connotations; (*denotation)

Content of the advertisement: Strategies

Companies develop strategies to assist them in meeting their objectives. The types of strategy which might be identified in terms of advertising could include:

Identifying the benefit being offered to the consumer by the organisation or its products/ services.
Putting forward an argument to help to sell the product
Identifying to whom the argument is being aimed
Being able to convince the target ‘audience’ to believe the message

Product-Oriented Strategies

These strategies relate specifically to the product itself, i.e.:

Generic strategies

Sell the category of product, e.g. slimming drinks, toilet roll, trainers. They do not sell the actual brand, e.g. Heinz Baked Beans. Generic clams relate to the highlighting of a particular benefit of a product, i.e. quick effective relief from indigestion, clean Wight’s etc. Some advertisers highlight this kind of generic claim and then relate their particular brand to that claim to gain a cumulative benefit.

Features of the product

Highlighted in an attempt to appeal to the individual’s reason.

The advertiser attempts to suggest that the logical choice would be their particular brand in preference to others. This is an effective approach if the advertiser is attempting to gain distinction for his or her brand.

Positioning Strategies

This strategy attempts to carve out a desired and very distinct market niche. The idea of ‘positioning’ was developed by Trout & Ries. Consumers tend to place products into a hierarchy, and the positioning is about where in that hierarchy the advertiser’s brand appears. Coca Cola’s campaigns ‘Coke is it’ and ‘the real thing’ were an attempt to position the product as the authentic cola drink.

Pepsi on the other hand attempted to reposition Coke Cola by suggesting that it was a drink for older people, with the campaign ‘The choice of a new generation’. This type of strategy works well for new products.

Questions that need to be addressed in terms of positioning are:

What the brands present position in the market?
Where are your competitors placed in the market?
Does the company wish to reposition its present position in some way?
What type of advertising approach could we use?

USP

The unique selling proposition will depend upon the culture of the company and it’s approach to advertising. Every company’s ultimate aim is to create an idea, which will result in the sale of the company’s product/ service.

The USP was a philosophy developed by Rosser Reeves. It suggests that every product/ service has characteristics that make it unique at its level. Preferably, these characteristics should be a major feature of the product, thereby making the brand superior to others. A slogan like ‘Guinness is good for you’ is a unique-selling-proposition statement.

A unique selling proposition based on a physical characteristic limits potential, however, and could run into difficulty with strict advertising codes that now exist. The claim by Persil that it ‘washes wighter’ is an example of such a proposition.

All advertisements should, nevertheless, promote one specific benefit to the consumer.

Consumer-Oriented Strategies

These strategies are aimed at the consumer:

Brand image strategies

These strategies attempt to give the brand a personality, and that personality- instead of any ‘built-in’ or intrinsic features of the product – is what is being sold. David Ogilvy is credited with developing the idea of a brand image in the 1950s for products like Schweppes.

With Coca Cola and Pepsi we have two similar products which are differentiated by the way each brand is portrayed and communicated through advertising. This approach works well in a competitive market environment or where the product ...