Advertising Week One

Advertising week one

Avoid "common sense answers".

Suit advert ideas

The colours black and white suggest a sense of class within an advert.

When the main focus is the person within the advert, you're almost buying the brand and the image over the actual product on sale.

Conventions definition 

Conventions are the building blocks of a genre

Advert Discussion

What is an advert? An advert is a promotion for a product or a service. It sells the product/service by making it look appealing to a target audience, and therefore making them purchase it.

What is the purpose of an advert? The purpose of an advert is to sell an idea (such as a brand). Adverts are supposed to make the audience feel dissatisfied with their lives.

For example in the suit advert the audience may feel dissatisfied by the fact they are not the celebrity in the advert (Ryan Gosling). It makes the audience comparative towards the person in the advert. The advert further makes the audience feel dissatisfied because they do not own the product within the picture, and therefore makes the audience feel envious. In the advert Ryan is standing confidently, and makes the audience feel as if they lack what he has, the class he has and the wealth he has. We can infer the suit is expensive due to there being no price stated on the advert.

The reason we buy the suit is to feel satisfied with our lives and make these problems go away.

Types of advert form:

Posters, targeted ads, promoted posts (instagram, twitter, snapchat), billboards, banners on websites and radio - just to name a few.

What are the conventions of a print advert? Image of product, image of a model (commonly) and text explaining what the product is.

KEY THEORY 1

Roland Barthes

Semiotics - study of meaning

Signs, signifiers and signifieds

Signs: Anything that can have meaning

Signifiers: The thing that creates meaning.

Signifieds: The meaning that is created.

- The bright colours in the advert suggest the brand is for a younger audience, because typically younger people are more confident in wearing more "out of the box" fashion ideas.

- The brand is unisex, and features men and women in the advert, but there is probably more selection for women, as they are closer to the camera, and our focus is more on them. Similarly, there are more women than men (two to one) so more outfits are showcased.

- I believe that it's trying to suggest that by wearing the clothes you will become more confident, and also more attractive

- The models are not well known, so they feel more relatable. The audience feel as if it's easier to look like them, because they're more down-to-earth

- I think the clothing is expensive as no price is displayed, so therefore saving money/reduced price is not the main selling point of the product

- The advert is slightly sexualised, the woman at the front has her lips parted in a flirtatious manor, perhaps suggesting to the audience that by purchasing the product people can look more attractive and better looking.

KEY THEORY 1

Roland Barthes

Semiotics