AS1 Task 5 - Regulations of Advertisements

Regulating adverts is important because the television adverts need to be monitored to not offend anyone and to suit the majority of the general public. This means that adverts which feature extreme violence will not be aired on television as people who may have been previously traumatized will complain about the content being shown to everyone.

Regulating television adverts need to go through several processes and two British government businesses: ASA and Ofcom. They are the two main bodies that regulate adverts, if they're not the only ones, and everything goes to and through them. They need too follow strict guidelines that then allow them to rank and rate the adverts in the suitability of airing them on television and at what times.

In 2013, ASA have said on their website that they have dealt with over 31,000 complaints about adverts aired on television, and over 4000 adverts were changed or removed from television in the same year. If you visit their website ( https://www.asa.org.uk/ ) you can check the latest adverts that they have not allowed access to be advertised and it explains why.

Since the ASA regulate thousands of adverts every year, they have several people discuss and go over an advert, each saying what they think about it, what would a possibly controversial part of the advert do or make the public think and they also find anything that might be false advertising, such as the Maltesers advert where the company had said that they "help you stay slim" when in actual fact, they were high in calories per each Malteser, meaning that the company had lied to the public by using the advert which contained a slim and possibly attractive woman.

Sometimes the company may not always find that the advert is not allowed to be aired on TV straight away. Sometimes it just so happens that people see the advert on their TV and start to file in complaints, and when ASA go over them, they realize that the advert needs to stop being aired on TV and sometimes even on radios.

Ofcom is another company that regulates the adverts on television, but they also try to maintain several other things for the English public, such as that people who watch TV are not going to see "harmful or offensive material". 

There are have been a lot of adverts that have been removed for breaking the rules that were set by these advertisement regulation businesses. Some adverts broke them so blatantly that you might be wondering why they still went along with the idea.

This advert was removed 2 weeks after being aired on television. You can obviously see why. The advert was stated to have been removed because it encouraged the bullying of over-weight people.

AS1 Task 4 - Deconstructing Adverts

iPod Shuffle (25/12/05): 

My initial response to the advert is how contrasting the colours are, lime green, black and white. It's nothing special but also kind of dull.

There's not much I really like about the advert. The music is good but I don't think it fits in with the advert and how there are break dancers dancing to the music. Also, they seem to be selling the iPod by showing that its best feature is randomising the songs being played, not by its actual function: playing music with good quality, which is what they should be saying.

The audience is obviously for young people, possibly ranging from ages 16 - 25 or 30. I guessed this by linking the type of music, the colours used which is a lime green, black and white and the youth dancing energetically and breakdancing. The product is not aimed at a specific gender as both genders can be seen dancing and is aimed to give them a nice experience with sound.


iPod Shuffle (4/8/06): 

I don't like the advert. It's stereotyping blonde women by saying that they're stupid. You can clearly understand this because she tested to see if she's pregnant by using an iPod Shuffle. Then she couldn't understand if it was saying positive or negative. This could also mean that she either didn't read the packaging and didn't notice the price on the product (which is quite obvious, near $100 for a pregnancy test is stupid) or she just doesn't care. Then at the end of the advert, her husband/boyfriend says that HE's pregnant. The advert does say that it's "good for music" but the idea behind it is stupid. It doesn't try to sell it in any way that I can see.

The target audience for the product is possibly young adults, shown by the fact that they look like they are around 30 years old. No specific gender is targeted.

Ghost in The Shell:First Assault Trailer: 

The trailer makes the viewer feel as if they are going to be extremely cool and good when playing the game. This entices them to get the game and play it. It does this by creating a rhythm with the music that is playing (Imagine Dragons - Radioactive) by matching gun shots with the beat of the music.

The trailer shows the base game quite well, viewing several maps within seconds and what is possible to do in the game; deploying drones, melee executions, different weapons, graphics, colour scheme, plot.

The colours clearly show that the universe that the game is set in is in a dark and troubled one, that also encourages players to already choose a side in the game, good or bad. The overall look of the character models also makes the players want to get the game as gamers tend to want to play as a character who looks intimidating and epic. This is also done in the trailer by showing the player that they can jump through a window and blast someone else in the face.

AS1 Task 3 - Styles of Television Advertising

Humour: These adverts use humour to make the advert and the product associated with the advert stick in the viewers mind. The most successful adverts (such as the Terry Crews Old Spice adverts) tend to be really silly, fictional and exaggerated. This combination tends to make the viewer laugh and remember the advert for its silliness.

Parodic: Parodic adverts mimic something else and tend to make a bit of a joke out of it. We will sometimes relate to the adverts as we understand what it is making fun of and some people may be inclined to go and look or purchase the product they may be trying to sell.

Shock: Shocking adverts tend to shock the viewer. They show images that will be stuck in the viewers head when they will be doing something that the advert may have showed to be careful doing. The most common shock adverts, at least in England, are adverts which relate to vehicles and speeding. They normally show a person, people, friends or family driving at speeds above the limit and having to suddenly break, but due to the speed and short notice before needing to stop, the vehicle tends to end up hitting a child or a person/people. Some adverts may even add a surprise shock where the camera follows a person leaving their car to check on the injured/killed person and find that they were with their child/children. 

Surrealism: Surreal adverts tend to make the viewer watch something that is not that far away from reality that it could be real if some things were different. These adverts can often confuse the viewer as to what the advert is trying to sell to them by mixing it with other things that may distract the users attention.

Intertextuality: Intertextual adverts mix texts with texts but also merge and transform them in some way. They use the viewers previous knowledge about something in their advert and this makes them connect with the advert more.

Repetition: This method means that adverts are repeated constantly so that they get into the viewers minds and they think of the companies product first when they want to buy a product. They repeat themselves in several ways, they either constantly show their advert after every break on a TV show which will eventually annoy you if it's not good or entertaining enough, or they can either advertise themselves through magazines, newspapers, radio stations and other sources of information or entertainment.
There are many companies that advertise their products constantly, some are known as Coca Cola, Apple, English ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and many more companies and businesses.
One of the most annoying adverts that I have seen around recently is the Giffgaff "Hey You!" advert. The most annoying thing about it is the introduction because the guy's voice is just annoying. =(

Sexual theme: These adverts use sexual content (attractive women, alluring poses and clothing etc.) to entice men and women to think about a product. Lynx (or AXE in the Americas) is quite a popular one as it always features men and women in their underwear at some point being attracted to the opposite gender just because he/she sprayed or cleansed themselves with their product, which makes the viewer think that their product will make them attractive to the opposite gender.

Famous faces: These adverts use the faces (and full-view bodies) of famous people or celebrities. These adverts tend to make the viewer think that the product is of such a high standard that even famous people use it and recommend it enough to actually participate in the advert itself.