Advert and thus saving money
Television is a popular form of entertainment throughout Great Britain, and is also one of the most popular ways to advertise through. The power of attracting costumers through the advert is based upon the persuasiveness of the advert. I will compare and contrast two adverts below to show how they provide their persuasive touch. The first advert is the Virgin Mobile advert which is giving away free mobile phone call minutes.
This is the sequel to ‘The Wycliffe Advert’ in which Wycliffe, who is a famous celebrity, still remains trapped in a middle-aged women’s house, who outwitted Wycliffe by asking for his autograph, but infact, tricks him into signing a contract, which makes him trapped in her house. This advert uses many close-up shots, because the change in expression of Wycliffe as he is continuously being held captive is where the majority of this adverts humour comes from.
What happens is, we see the establishing shot of the middle aged Texan women telling Wycliffe of how badly she’s sweating in the heat to locate the time of place of the advert, and we can easily identify her to the Wycliffe series of adverts due to her appearance in the previous advert. Wycliffe, who is sick of living in this house, attempts to escape from this living hell by climbing through the window and running away to safety.
The advert saves time, because it does not need to tell us that he is thinking of escaping, but they Wycliffe watching a wasp fly out of the window, and when we see the expression on Wycliffe’s face, we immediately know that his intentions are to escape from the house. Almost immediately, frantic country Texan music is played and a longshot clip of Wycliffe is shown running away from the house, with rapid editing to the camera, which goes very well with the music. This will attract the attention of viewers who are nearby the T. V while this is playing, as the viewers will immediately recognise this advert.
Wycliffe seeks for a way of escaping, and goes to a police car for safety. Unfortunately, Wycliffe is a famous person, and the policeman knows that he has broken the contract he signs, and he will be taken to prison. This conversation shows both faces of the characters in the car’s mirror, and it cleverly shows both characters in the car and shows the change in Wycliffe’s expression on his face, which is humorous and keeps viewers watching this advert. Then the advert is cut to the next scene of the advert, in which Wycliffe is in prison.
This saves time and keeps the viewers attention to the advert. We see Wycliffe and his fellow inmates in the showers in a midshot. A fellow inmate says, “Wycliffe, I’m your biggest fan” showing Wycliffe his tattoo of Wycliffe on his chest. We again see a close-up shot, depicting Wycliffe’s change of expression again, which adds to the humour. Then, a narrator’s voiceover is added near the end, adding the catch phrase to the advert- “Be careful what you sign, with virgin mobile you can earn free minutes without signing your life away”.
This single phrase will stick in the viewers mind, as after they watch Wycliffe’s humorous ordeal, they will remember about not signing contracts to people you can’t trust, so the phrase will be remembered. Also, this whole advert is packed into an advertising slot lasting just less than 30 seconds, so it doesn’t need to take much of the viewer’s time. This advert will probably get most viewers after about 6 o’clock in the afternoon, after many people from work and teenagers from school come back home, because these are the kind of people who buy mobile phones and use them a lot.
The values shown by this advert is that you cannot trust everyone. The second advert is the sequel of the John Smith’s advert, with Peter Kay given the part of John Smith. This is an adequate part for John Kay, because he is a famous comedian and well recognised. This advert begins as a diving competition, and nothing is given away to make people think it is an advert; it almost goes to all lengths to avoid it giving away that it is an advert to first time viewers of the advert.
This is done by adding a small image in the right hand top corner which reads “Live” trying to convince people it is an actual diving competition coming on live. Also, after a dive has occurred, there is a replay of it, which is done in such as way as to imitate actual diving contests. Our establishing shot shows us the whole swimming pool, the first diving contestant and the judges of the dive. This gives us an idea of the time and place of advert without actually telling us, saving time in the advert, and thus saving money.
The first dive is shown to be a quite elaborate dive, and is shown in high angle long shot, showing us that he is one of the important characters of this advert. After this, the second dive occurs, in which this dive is even more elaborate. The commentator says, “this final is heating up”. The word ‘Final’ will attract people to keep on watching, as a final will always show the best of the sport. After this, the third diver comes up, and we immediately recognise him from the last John Smiths Beer advert, acting as John Smith.
His average name and out-of-shape appearance allows viewers to relate to his character, and his character also says that you don’t need to be “fancy” to be the best, as he is the one who wins the competition. This will immediately refresh the memories of the people who watched the first of this series of adverts, so people will know immediately it is the John Smiths beer advert. His dive is not at all fancy; it is just a dive bomb, which splashes the judges.
The sounds in this advert are adequate for this advert, as they are the sound like any diving competition would. This advert will appeal to any average adult that is into sports, as this is the regular theme of these John Smiths adverts. Using the theme as sport, the viewers can relate the advert to themselves, which increases the beer’s persuasiveness to sell. Nothing but a beer glass full of beer with the logo of John Smiths is written on the glass which is actually relevant to the product, but only this needs to be done to sell this widely know product.
Nothing even has to be said, it is a widely known logo throughout the UK. If someone in the advert said, “buy John Smiths beer” it would be a waste of time and money. In conclusion, I’d say that these two adverts both have humour in common, and that is what will attract the average viewer to watch the adverts. Both adverts have their own persuasive qualities; the Wycliffe advert uses Wycliffe’s odd situations that he gets in, and works the humour from that, whereas the John Smith’s advert is not funny until the very end.
