MARK MADSEN

Task 1

Television Advertising Commentary

​

​

​​

 

Hey everyone! I'm Mark and...

​

..today, we are going to be talking about Television Advertisements, and we’ll be specifically analyzing 5 adverts, each one adhering to one or more forms of advertising.

I will be talking about the 5 advertising forms; Realist Narrative, Anti-realist Narrative, Documentary, Talking Head, and Series.

​

METLIFE – MY DAD’S STORY

​

First we’ll be talking about an advert with a realist narrative; Metlife’s My Dad’s Story Ad.

In this ad, Metlife has decided to produce a relatable advert with a realistic narrative and a dramatic style. This makes sense because insurance is something that most actually need in their life so the ad can apply to almost anyone. But what Metlife wants, is for you to choose them over everyone else and the way they’ve decided to do this is to pull at those heartstrings and make you feel emotionally connected to the advert and quite possibly the company.

​

This ad is all about emotion and getting those tears to trickle, and they try to do this by using a series of tricks. The first is the surprise or ‘shock’ factor. This ad doesn’t necessarily do this in a drastic fashion its actually very subtle and not even necessarily ‘shocking’ per say but follows the same principles; Make a person feel one way and then immediately make them feel the complete opposite. Putting these two contrasting emotions one after the other often makes the latter emotion even stronger, therefore making the ad more effective. In the ad they first show us the positives; the girl is reading out her poem, as a series of clips of her and her dad having fun, living the perfect life playout. Then she reads out the line 'but he lies' and that there, is the climax. The moment when those emotions change, almost immediately. Now the emotions have changed into feelings of sadness, sorrow, pity but also respect as the girl talks about her father with clips of him moving from job to job, and doing manual labor, essentially working his ass off for his little girl and lying about it to make her feel better which I’m sure is something a lot of parents can relate to. The next heart-string pulling technique that the Metlife has adopted is the correlating relationship between the music and the editing of the video. As the music gets louder and faster, the clips also start to cut from one another faster. The combination of both the powerful music and the dramatic footage targets two of the sense at the same time, producing and even stronger effect. GENIUS!

​

Characteristics, what is it about this product that actually makes you want to buy it? That is what an ad usually has to answer. In Metlife’s case, they have offered one primary benefit; a better life and a promising future for you child. Metlife is essentially selling Educational insurance, so they have decided to tackle the topic of the dreams and the futures of children, something that a lot of parents would want their children to have. Phrases like ‘A child’s future is worth every sacrifice’ and ‘Pursue more from life’ are about the quality of life, and the role of a parent and its all about your childs future! Its not about you! And this is essentially supposed to instill a certain sense of duty in you as a parent, the duty to buy educational insurance from metlife!

Who? Who is this advert targeted at? That is the question isn’t it. Because when you make an ad, knowing your audience and who you actually want to be effected by it is going to take you a long way. In my opinion there are 3 main types of audience you need to think about. Psychographics, Demographics and Age group. Psychographics is essentially the personality type and I have identified Metlifes target audience to be The Mainstream and The struggler.(insert psychographics image for explanation) Mainstream because education is something everyone has to go through an experience and the struggler because the ad tackles unemployment. Demographics is a way to identify the social classes and in Metlifes case, I have found that the ad most likely appeals to classes E to C1; the lower half of the table, E being all unemployed persons or the lowest grade workers and C1 being lower middle-class workers. And finally, I have concluded that the advert targets people of ages 18 to 45. I start at age 18 mainly because that is the youngest possible age (I do “” because there are some exceptions of course) for a person to have a child eligible for primary education. I end at 45 because that tends to be the general age people stop making babies.

​

MEXICO AVOCADOS – ALIENS

​

Mexico Avocados here have produced an anti-realist advert with a surreal and humorous style. It is an ad set in a space ship setting with Alien characters being given a tour of the human race. The fact that Mexico Avocados are part of the exhibition and that aliens like it as well implies the importance of it as a product provided by humans in a hilarious manner.

Of course, what happens in the ad is not realistic, and doesn’t derive from any real events. But what it does do is pick at certain first world creations or problems and exaggerates the importance of it, leading to a fairly hilarious outcome. For example; calling airplanes a torture device, poking fun at the concept of emojis, saying that the white and gold dress ‘caused a civil war’. These are all things first world citizens will in a way ‘relate to’ or understand because things that don’t really matter like the white and gold dress have caused major debate online. Almost all people with an online presence will get the joke and feel smart about it and feel special for getting it, naturally appealing them to the advert. The ad begins with the rubrics cube, a very popular toy that has been around since the 80’s, the ad talks about how people considered it unsolvable, making people out to be fairly stupid. This is self-deprecating humor which is often the easiest to get. Next came the Airplane joke, this is the most widely relatable one because most first world people will have been on one at least once in they’re life and they will understand the “struggle”. As you can see the ad starts off with the jokes that target larger audiences, this is simply to gain the attention of the audience so they keep watching and so they can see if they get any more of the jokes. Of course, at the end of the tour, they reveal the Mexico Avocados. Even though none of the jokes relate to avocados, it still draws audiences in and that’s the point. The point of the ad is simply to gain people’s attention. The color palette is also very bright and colorful, another way to attract attention.

In terms of characteristics, Mexico Avocados ad doesn’t really talk about it. Like I said most of the ad is simply to gain one’s attention because the fact is everyone knows what avocado is and how its supposed to be, there is nothing about the product that is supposed to be different from others. However, near the end the Tour Guide does mention Mexico Avocados always being in season and always being fresh which is its main selling point. “always in season” is also the motto of Mexico Avocados and is said in all their ads.

The ad targets the mainstream, the explorer, and the reformer on the psychographics table. It appeals to Demographics C2 to A and ages 16 to 45; anyone who essentially has access to the internet and understands all the modern jokes.

​

And ofcourse you can’t forget the short catchy theme song/phrase 'avocados from mexico' .

​

APPLE – INTRODUCING IPHONE 7

​

Apple’s Introducing iPhone 7 ad is a realist documentary form advert and is essentially the most basic advert; simply explaining the qualities of the product itself. The video demonstrates all its perks as the technicalities are being explained.

​

Documentary adverts are often boring, slow, and is a rather old fashioned television form. However, apple has approached this form in a youthful, modern way by pairing crisp narration with top quality video footage and good computer-generated images of the phone and its insides. The Advert is also fairly fast paced, with interesting cinematography, constant camera movement, panning and great depth, producing a beautiful bokeh effect in every shot. The quality of the video suggests the same quality in the phone, and works especially perfectly seeing that its primary selling point is its great camera, lens and flash. The shots are extremely vibrant and full of color, containing lots of neon lights in the background of most shots, conveying a sense of youth and energy. The theme of light and youth is further augmented by the electric music. The music is also changes slightly every time the narrator begins to talk about another aspect, keeping the video interesting. The video also gives us the name of the narrator and his job title of VP, so we know who’s talking. This instills a sense of trust in the audience, because they actually have an idea of who is giving them all the information. This concept of trust was also gained through examples of photos taken by the iPhone.

​

The ad makes very big statements. Statements like saying that the iPhone 7 contains “the most powerful chip ever” and “It’s the best iPhone we’ve ever made”. Both these phrases are said in confidence and no hesitation whatsoever. This conveys confidence and allows the audience to trust what he is saying purely because he’s saying it with such purpose and understanding. He also uses “techy language”, certain words like “Quad LED, F1.8 Aperture” that most people probably wouldn’t understand, which is kind of the point. People don’t understand but alongside with the voice, and the brand people just accept and assume that it’s a good thing.

​

Now looking at audience classifications, It targets the mainstream and the explorer in terms of psychographics. I say explorer because the ad specifically advertises the waterproof aspect of the phone and of course the camera is also an attractive element to any explorer. I also say mainstream because it’s a phone, it helps us communicate and stay informed of each others lives and whereabouts. It appeals to demographics C1 to A, although a fairly expensive phone, smartphones are often products that people are willing to invest a pretty large fraction of there income to have, therefore this ad is appealing to fairly young audience who might not appear to have very high paying jobs.

​

OLD SPICE – THE MAN YOUR MAN COULD SMELL LIKE

​

‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” by Old Spice is a great example of a good talking head advert paired with humor. Throughout the whole ad, a shirtless man directly addresses the women in the audience, reassuring them that what they want is in fact “the man your man could smell like” – the Old Spice Man Isaiah Mustafa, a former NFL player.

​

The true genius of this advert is the supposed audience it addresses. The Old Spice Man Isaiah Mustafa starts off with “hello ladies”. Oddly enough, the product itself is not targeted at female audiences, but why has Old Spice then decided to address women? Because old spice know that men really only want to smell good for women, and by making them believe that women want a man like Isaiah Mustafa is a way to get them to feel insecure about themselves and go ahead and buy the product that can in fact make themselves smell like a woman’s dream boyfriend/husband, the old spice man. Phrases like “sadly he isn’t me” and “if he stopped using lady scented body wash and switched to old spice he could smell like he’s me” are said with total confidence, like the Old Spice man KNOWS that women want a man like him. Men start to worry because of this, and start to wonder if the Old Spice man Is what they really want. That is goal and I gotta say it’s pretty darn genius.

​

The old spice man is described as a Romantic Millionaire Jet Fighter Pilot and in the ad he starts off in a bathroom, then ends up on a yacht with hand full of diamonds. The man has already convinced the men of the audience that he is what women want, now he is trying another approach – if you buy old spice and smell like him, you will succeed like him and possibly even become a millionaire yourself. Men might not necessarily believe that but they can’t help but think it might help them get there or at least feel like a badass millionaire.

Old spice also uses other techniques like Celebrity Endorsement by placing Isaiah Mustafa a famous athlete as the main character of the ad. This grabs the attention of sports fans which are primarily men. Athletes are also often seen as the “definition” of a man which can also spark controversy, seeing as the ad is essentially saying that men aren’t men unless they’ve got money and the body complex of an athlete like Isaiah Mustafa. Many might also say the Ad is fairly sexist, putting down lady scented body wash because it’s not manly enough. It may put people off, but it also sparks conversation and spread word, attracting even more attention and gaining publicity.

​

OLD SPICE - AND SO IT BEGINS

​

Old spice is popular for its ads. In fact, ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ is part of a series of various ads made by Old spice all if not most consisting of the same forms and techniques. Some things do change depending on the product but are more or less based off the same concept and premise. They all consist of a talking head, and athlete and the theme of Manliness. Because of all these ads with the particular theme, the company has now developed an identity – The brand of ‘MALE’ grooming products. Previous old spice ads have been known to cast Terry Cruz a famous Body Builder, NFL player and actor. Terry Cruz’s ads were more about the aggressive, tough side of manliness. ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ changed that to promote the gentleman, the respectable husband material for their new product to produce a new identity but still conforming to its original theme of Manliness. Old Spice later combined these two persona's into one ad and got them to conflict. In those ad’s, Terry Cruz and Isaiah Mustafa kind of battle it out and argue over which one the audience should buy. Either way, both were old spice products and what Old Spice was trying to do was make you feel obliged to choose one.

​

Okay, I think it’s time we wrap up. I hope after watching this video you have a good  idea of what makes a great advert and maybe you’ll be able to make exceptional television adverts yourself.