Defining TV adverts as a genre

What distinguishes adverts from other TV programming?
Adverts tend to last a duration of 30-40 seconds and there are certain traits that all adverts share. For example it is directed to the audience.They seem to be louder so that you could hear them from another room. Most advert tend to have a voiceover and images to engage the audience. adverts canbe trailerd to different classes and age range. On a channel such as Disney XD or Cartoon Network, there would be adverts for toys and games because that is what children enjoy. Other channels like ITV or Channel 4 have more adverts based on future and estate agenties.
What kind of images would we expect to see in an advert?
Slogans, logos, the product, CGI, statistics, text, music and narration.
Someties an advert may only have graphics to make the product more glorous such as the BT boardband advert.The product woul dbe in the middle of the screen with simulated 'flashing cameras' making the broadband loook like a film star on the red carpet.
Halifax use animation and live action together to sell their business. They use characters such as Scooby Doo and The Flintstones to create a feel of nostalga. It also targets families with young children, because they could be money conscious.
What kind of characters would you see in adverts?
Celebrity indorsment, everyday day man:
In an advert such as Santander it features Jessica Ennis-Hill and Jenson Button. When people see a famous celebrity in an advert they may think 'if they go there or use that product maybr I should too'. The media are subtly telling people to go out and buy certain products that keep with the times.
Using everyday people in adverts creates a personnal connection with the audience so that the actors are more relatable. The adverts also feature people from all walks of life and with gives a sence of inclusiveness.
What sort of expectations do you as audiences have of adverts?
Directed at the audience with a meaning, it is suppposed to rouse you to buy whatever product is being advertised. The advert can be misleading by exaggerating the facts or diguising opinion as fact. This is true in many areas of advertising, especially with clearing products. Almost all of the adverts (Detol, Cilet bang etc.) for clearing products say 'Cleans 99.9% of bacteria'. This cannot be true for all clearing products, this is just a competitve method to get their product to stand out. another phrase competitors use is 'Against the next leading product'.
Can you identify the different kinds of adverts that there are?
Demonstration, promotional- an example for a promotional advert would be Sky who are currently are advertising 'The Lego Batman Movie'. Other films that Sky has promoted are, Inside Out and Kung Fu Panda 3.

An advert for a vacuum cleaner such as Dyson or Gtech will have a demonstration of how the product works. It is a cleaver method to entice the viewer to buy the product because the advertising company believes that seeing is believing. this can also be said for adverts about childrens toys. Whther it is a nintendo game or a new set of action figures, children will be shon playing with them and enjoying themselves. The children who would watch the advert would then feel bored with their currect toys and ask for a new toy.
Image refernce: https://uk.images.search.yahoo.com



How do advert styles merge with one another, pastiche or parody existing adverts?
Pastiche is a polite rip off of another existing product. A pastiche can also be someone using another person's style as a sign of respect. Such as Lady Gaga dressing up as a nun in her video for 'Alejandro'. This was a pastiche of Madonna, 'Like a prayer'.

Parody is the mockery of an existing product. For example LYNX did an advert for hair gel and basically mocked their own product. The image below is showing the man flicking his hair like he is a model because that would be the typical thing to do in a hair product advert. there is a slogan that says "Get the LYNX look" which is a parody Rimmel London's slogan "Get the London look".

Fairy

Simeoctics
Signifed- The image or the meaning of an idea, going back to the example of the word rose, this may not be related to the flower but, it could mean someone is called Rose. When someone gives a person a rose it is a sign of affection.
Signifer- The signifer can not the be tired down to any specific thing. It can be a word or an image that signifys something e.g. the word rose. This makes people think of the flower.
Denotation- What you see e.g. a woman and child.
Connotation- What you preseve to be presented. e.g. You could assume that a woman and child are mother and daughter but, that will not always be the case.
Fairy liquid advert 1960/70
In the 1960/70s adverts there is are three elements that stay the same: a woman doing the dashes, a child and the mild green Fairy Liquid bottle. The denotation is is woman washing up. The connotation is this stereotype that the woman is the home make and does the washing up. It also implies that women are slightly vain because they always remark on how soft their hands feel whilst using Fairy liquid. this links in with Levi Stauss's theory that stories can sometimes influence your opinions and believes. We see a woman washing up and within in second thought we think that this is the norm. There is always a child present, most likely the daughter. This may show that the daughter would one day be doing the same thing. Over the years that has changed so that the father and son are present to show balance in the family home. The father would not usually be present because you would automatically assume that he is at work.
The advert has no celebrity endorsement, it featured the everyday man, or woman in this case. It makes sense to feature ordinary working class people because they are the target audience. Using a celebrity to inspire people to buy the buy is not a crazy idea, but it seemed to make a more personal appeal to the audience to use the everyman (or woman).

In both the 1960/70s and the 2015 advert, the mum is seen as the hero because she is using Fairy to fight tough stains on the plates and pans. There is some form of equilibrium in that there were clean plates but, then the disequilibrium is there they get dirty. The realisation is that the mum used diary to get the dirt off; then there is a new equilibrim because the plates are now clean again. In the 1960/70s the message of the advert did not change, use fairy and you can keep your hands soft, whilist making your dishes sparkly clean.
As time went on the advertises notices that people started to get more money conscience. The adverts started to change to make people think that one product was cheaper than another or a certain product would last longer. Fairy took the chance to persuade people that there product would last longer that their competitors. So the hero would be Fairy because it is save people money and lasts a very long time and you would not need to buy Fairy liquid as often.
Fairy liquid advert 2015
This advert is showing how Fairy liquid lasts 50% long than the next leading brand. There is more balance because there is an acceptence of men taking the responseabilty of household work. the family is a wife, husband and child. Usually in family based adverts there are no same sex couples. This may be because the director would chose to direct the advert to nuclear families. The social class, specially for this advert, target audience is C, D and E. This is becuase people is these classes in the 21st century people appear to be more money conscience. The previous Fairy liquid adverts showed a table with twice as many dishes on it compared to another table which had places there were cleaned by the next leading brand.
The son telling his dad that he wants to make a space ship out of the bottle. This shows the creativity and curiouslity of young children. It could be questioned as to why a girl would not want to do the same thing. It is a sterotypical idea that girls play with dolls and boys play with spaceships. This that suggests that the boy would be interested in engining and the girl may be interested in fashion. It is quite strange that all the fairy adverts feature the typical nuclear family. It is always a family themed advert and it does not show single mums (or dads), couples without children or person living on their own.

Narrative Theory

Narrative theory
The way in which a story is told both in fiction and non-ficiton media context.
Claude Levi-Stauss
He was a social anthropologist and he studied myths in tribal cultures. He also examined how stories unconsciously reflect the values, beliefs and myths of a culture. These are expressed in the form of binary opposites. Binary opposites are relate terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning.
Myths like Robin Hood have heroes and villains. The hero is Robin Hood who provides for the people of Nottingham when they are starving and have no money. The villains would be Prince John and the Sheriff because they are taxing people out of house and home. The news is influential to how we view people, such as Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton in the presidential election.
Back in Levi-Stauss' day it was less obvious to distinguish the similarities in the plots of stories.
Vladimir Propp
He believes there are set characters and storyline. He researched fairytales which is seen in most media nowadays. There was a constant rhythm to the stories such as a hero goes on a journey and fights a villain to then win the heart of a princess. To us today it is obvious to pick out the key plot points of a film or TV show. This is because they all seem to share the same rhythm.
Hero- Luke or Rey
Villain- Darth Maul, Palpatine, Count Dooku etc.
Dispatcher- The rebel alliance or even Yoda
Princess- Leia, she could also be considered a hero
Helper- Maz Kanata, Po Dameron
Father- Organa or Darth Vader
False hero- Han Solo or Lando Calrissian (not exactly in the long run)
Doner- Yoda or Obi-wan
Tzvetan Todorov
Equilibrium
The beginning were everything is in order.
Disequilibrium
Something goes wrong and everything is out of balance.
Realisation
Someone realise that something has to be done to resolve the situation.
Restored order- new equilibrium
The hero completes his quest and the villain is beaten. This means balance is restored.
Example: Frozen or The Incredibles
Roland Barthes
Codes theory text has different means, narrative form different points of view
Example: Gone girl
Dropping hints about the true but it wasn't revealed until the end
enigma building up a story and leaving people guessing
Symbolic
Semitic
Cultural- cultural recognition, for example in China

Bowling for Columbine audience response

Bowling for Columbine and audience response

Clip 1:

In clip one the question is raising, why isn’t bowling blamed for columbine? The last activity the children were doing before the shooting was bowling. This is a dominate clip because it shows that you can blame the event prior to a disaster. People around the world go bowling and that does not mean people get influenced to shoot people. There were also clips of other potential reasons such as heavy metal, violence video games and films. This video is giving the message that people are not directly influenced by violence things. It is possible that the influence for gun crime comes from a personnel background. Other countries such as the UK, Germany, France and Japan have gun crimes but, the USA has had 11,127 gun crimes (so far). People may have guns because they feel safe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWSlhzsE8sc

Clip 2:

This clip is an animated video on the history of America. It shows how the people of America felt insecure about the world around them. Guns are seen as a method of protection and people feel that they have control. This clip shows a negotiated response to the ownership of guns. In America people are consumed by status and people who do not own guns are considered weak; this is because they are seen as unable to protect themselves. The animation is childish and mocks the ownership of guns. The clip shows that people use guns so that they feel less stressed. They are less stressed because the use of a guns seemed to solve their problems. Although guns seem to solve programs, they are cause them too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqh6Ap9ldTs

Clip 3

This clip shows an oppositional response to the initial meaning of the director. This is the introduction to the film Bowling for columbine, it shows Michael Moore responding to an advert in the newspaper. The advert was from a bank that was giving guns to people when they open an account. He is quite vague in showing the process of obtaining a gun. It seemed like you could just walk in, open an account and they would casually give you a gun. In reality is that you would have to wait 6 months after the bank had done a background check. This is misleading to the audience because the director cut out the middle man and did not show the whole process.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cglnvXzitOQ

Mean world and moral panic

People have different views on how events displayed via the media effect our day to day lives. Some people may see news stories from abroad and think nothing of it because it does not directly affect their life. Others may get paranoid, if they saw a reported terrorist attack, that one day their life would be affected by a terrorist attack. The media may put on emphasis a news story to make the public think that the event is more horrific that it actually was.
People may see the news and think that all the world is a cruel place and they take action to either make the world a better place or try to defend themselves. These people would turn their back on what is happening in the world and detrach themselves of the media.
The phrase was coined by George Gerbner to describe a phenomenon whereby violence-related content of mass media makes viewers believe that the world is more dangerous that it actually is. George is a research on the effects of television on sociability.
No matter how dramatic a situation is, it just becomes yesterdays news.
The media can ‘milk’ a news story for all it’s worth however, there would be no still be no change in how people go about their day to day lives.
People can be more affected by the media than others, this can be related to people's social bubbles. They surround themselves with things that they agree with. So this may make them less passive to the world around them. Their social choices influence how they act and behave. Some people, regardless of their own opinions, decide to copy what their friends do because they fall more included.They fear that if they go against the crowd, they would be socially isolated. What they do not realise is that everyone has something that makes them different, but it is through people's similarities that make everyone connected.