Investigation into advertising

Advertising is a way of promoting a product; it only shows the good points of the product that is being sold to the public. Adverts are powerful tools for large companies, charities and organizations. There are various forms of advertising. Some of which are magazine adverts, television, Internet and posters. They have the power to influence us because you are able to associate the audience to the advert. Within our reports we are aiming to show how adverts make you want to buy their product and how it attracts/aims towards a certain audience. We are going to include an analysed print advert and also a TV adverts. We are going to write about what is shown on the advert that helps the product to sell and the history behind the brand that is being promoted. The sources I am going to collect information from is the Internet. Using websites and YouTube to find the information I need. The product I am researching is a Nike Air Max Courtballistec 3.3 trainer.

The print advert I chose to do is for the Nike brand, promoting their trainers: Nike Air Max Courtballistec 3.3. On the front of the advert the first thing we see is the tennis player Rafael Nadal. He is shown on the advert because Nike is his official sponsor but also because people see the shoes as something that could give them the power to make them professional.  His facial expression is very serious; this shows us that he doesn’t see tennis as a joke but as a profession. The tennis player also has a powerful strong look; the audience want to gain his strength. Body language shown by the tennis player shows that he has just finished playing the sport because he is all sweaty. However he still looks energetic. The brand makes you want to carry on. It gives you the motivation to keep going.

The angle shows him and the audience have equal power because he is eye level. The image of the tennis player is the largest image on the advert; this is used to draw the audience in. Showing a Mid-shot of the person shows what type of clothes he is wearing. Lets us know he is an athlete.  The colour on the print advert is important because it relates to what the product is. Using the colour yellow suggests a sporty product, makes it standout against the black. The print advert uses a lot of white. It is a calm colour and is bright so the slogan is contrasted against it. Helps the slogan stand out. It is a very bright image. The Wall background behind the tennis player is white so we can see his shadow just behind him. It makes it look like he is having his picture taken. Being put in the spotlight. The slogan is large on the advert.to help it stand out. It also uses the word ‘Power’ twice to make the reader want it. The product is shown to give the audience an idea of what the shoes look like so they know what they are looking for if they go to buy them in a shop. The costume that the tennis player is wearing, matches the pair of shoes, suggesting to us that he wears them.

I chose to analyse two TV commercials for Nike. The first commercial is from 1987 called ‘Nike Air ‘Revolution’’.  The reason I chose this advert is because it shows how Nike shoes have developed over the years. In this commercial, they have selected footage that shows people doing lots of different sports and activities whilst wearing the Nike Air trainers. This gives a message across to the audience that anything can be done. However the song ‘Revolution’ by The Beatles created a bit of mayhem when the advert was released. Although The Beatles were very popular at the time, people complained that the song should not have been used to advertise the product. On the other hand people did argue that the song did have some preference to the commercial as the Nike brand became a ‘revolution’ over a short period of time. The second television commercial I chose was released more recently. In the commercial there are many different athletes that star in it. The commercial has a comic affect to it that draws the audience in. The commercial is saying that the athletes air is pumped into the sole of the shoe. This helps sell/advertise the product by suggesting to the audience that you are in the atheletes shoes. You are them. This will make the audience feel more powerful and stronger about themselves. The use of athletes being in the commercial, shows to the audience that many sports stars wear them. Letting them know that the shoe is of professional standard. Also celebrities are used to help draw the audiences attention to the commercial because the audience my be a fan or might enjoy what the celebrity does. The athletes are relevant to the commercial because it is a sport brand.

1987 Nike Air Commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMXhtFik-vI

Recent Nike Air Commercial ‘: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfYJeS_Zm4g

Nike was first created in 1950 by Bill Bowerman who invented new shoes for his students to wear whilst he was coaching at the University of Oregon. Phil Knight, a track runnner at the University, tried to contact a variety of shoe manufctuers in Japan, but however there was no reply. Knight became a distubutor of tiger running shoes in the United States. In 1960, Knight and Bowerman became partners and formed a new company called Blue Ribbon Sports. Every pair of shoes they made, runners at the University of Oregon test ran them to see if they were good enough to sell. The first person to work for Blue Ribbon Sports was Jeff Johnson, he created print adverts, product broshures and shot photographs of the shoes himself. In 1972 the first line of NIKE footwear was established and in 1985 World known basketball player, Micheal Jordan, helped promote and boost NIKE footwear. The slogan ‘Just do it’ was stated in 1988. Their ‘Bo knows’ ad campaign was used to help make their Cross- training become popular. In the years after 1990, NIKE started to sponsor football teams, this helped them get noticed more and made them what they are today. Not only do NIKE make trainers, they also make clothes for women, men and children.

A target audience is something a company uses to help them pick out an audience who they think will be interested in the product and who is most likely going to buy it. A target audience can be variefied by age, gender, socio-economic status, geographic area, race and religion. A company having a target audience is important because it makes it easier to single out who thy are aiming their product at. NIKE has a target audience that is aimed purely towards enegetic sportsman. Their clothing is made to help sports players train easier and have comfort whilst playing. Although it’s mostly men who are athletes, there are also women who play sports. NIKE is aimed at mixed gender audiences. This is good because then they have a vast audience so more people will purchase their products. NIKE’s products are more Working to Middle class items. Although a variety of people wear their products, they can be quite expensive.

NIKE’s advertising campain helps with picking out their target audience. Although their first adverts were mainly men based (Micheal Jordan wearing NIKE air trainers) over the years their adverts have developed to more mixed gender because more women have been getting involved with sports. Towards the olympics they try to advertise more by sponsoring athletes. Also in recent adverts they use a lot more celebrity endorsments. This helps sell their product because people can see that they make you more powerful, giving you the strength to be like an athlete.

The brand itself is one of the most successful company’s in the world. They have created more and more products over 63 years and have been promoted by famous athletes to make them even more popular. NIKE is worth $31 billion. I think NIKE is successful because they are well known by everyone and also have a very wide range of products that are made for all ages. 

Print Advert: Nike Air Max Courtballistec 3.3

This is my print advert that I have analysed. It shows what images and text on the advert helps advertise the product.

Nike Air Max analysed advert

My advert that I chose to analyse is for 'Nike Air Max Courtballistec 3.3'. As the product 'Nike' is a sport brand, the audience it is aimed towards are going to be athletes, energetic and sporty people.
Using different advertising techniques, the advert makes the audience want to buy this product because they use a celebrity endorsement. Showing Rafael Nadal, a professional tennis player, makes the audience believe if they wear/buy this product they will gain the power that he has.

The slogan 'THERE'S NO SUBSTITUTE FOR POWER. EXCEPT MORE POWER.'  This is telling the audience that they already have power but to get more, buy the product.

Advertising

Adverts are powerful tools for large companies, charities and organisations. There are various forms of advertising. Some of which are magazine adverts, television, internet and posters. They have the power to influence us because you are able to associate the audience to the advert, for example the Andrex puppy advert might relate to the audience because they may have the same dog or they have a dog that also plays with their toilet paper.  

Adverts surround us every day. Because of this, we must know how to read them. places where adverts can be found are on the sides of buses, in the cinema, billboards, websites, flyers, mobiles, newspapers, magazines, handouts, radio and business vehicles. Other small things that can be associated with advertising are badges, stickers, poppy's, logos and also business mascots,

There are many recognisable advertising campaigns. My current favourite is the Coca Cola advert. This is because whenever it comes on Television around christmas time, it makes the audience get in the christmas mood. 

Evaluation for Presentation

Evaluation

Within our presentation we had to talk about the different conventions of Soap Opera's and also include a storyline of our own opening Soap Opera episode.

for our Soap idea, A mum and her five year old daughter escape after abuse from her husband. They move to a new street away from the husband. They start a new family and after a few months the husband finds them however at this point the mum has a new boyfriend that protects them. The husband find them and kidnaps the mum and daughter and once they are found the husband is sent to prison.

The presentation went well because we included all the different aspects of Soap Operas, such as, Genre, Representation, Narrative, Camera angles, audience and the five parts of Mise-en-scene (Settings and Location, Facial Expression and Body Language, Position of Characters and Objects in a Frame, Lighting and Colour and Props, costumes and Hair and Make-up). We were able to connect to the audience and it was easy for them to understand. I think our presentation improve from the previous one because we had a better understand of what we were talking about and we were a lot more relaxed whilst presenting.
From doing the presentation I have a better understanding of the different conventions of Soap Operas and also have an idea of what I could do to improve on how I present to an audience.
I think our presentation could have gone better if all of our group was present. Although our presentation was very detailed, we could have used more images to break up the writing so the audience found it easier to read and using more image would of helped us present because it would have been shorter and less to read.
When we do our next presentation, as an individual I aim to read less straight from the script but to bullet point what I am going to say so the audience do not get bored. Another thing I could improve is to look at the audience rather than looking down at my script. As a group next time we would put less writing and more images on our presentation so the audience get a visual understanding rather than just reading from the screen.

Our Soap Powerpoint

The Function Of Soap Operas - Part 7