In advertising to persuade the audience to watch the advert and to buy

the product there is a range of different persuasive techniques used.

There is a wide range of techniques used from nostalgia, humor and

avarice e.g. in the Guinness advert humor and security is used.

Persuasive techniques can range from techniques that pray on your fears

e.g. conformity or techniques that pray on your weaknesses e.g. avarice.

When looking at advertising budget is also very important because it

effects how the ad looks thus changing the way the audience views it for

example the Cillit Bang advert is very low budget but it is also very

effective as it uses basic product demonstration to sell the product

without spending lots of money to make a high tech advert. The audience

also effects the way adverts look for example in the Honda advert the

audience are people that were alive in the 60’s so they have flamingos

dancing and parading like they did in the 50’s and 60’s musicals

. At the start of the Guinness advert there is a close up on the man drinking

the beer, to show his facial expression. From the expression on his face you

can tell he’s enjoying the beer and he is happy when he drinks it which is

going to make people want to buy the beer as they are playing on our

weakness of envy, people envy the person drinking the Guinness because

they want to be as happy as he is so they will buy the Guinness. In the advert

they use close ups when showing the stages of de-evolution e.g. when the

cave man evolved into a monkey. The reason they show the stages of de-

evolution is because it shows how long people have had to wait until they

invented Guinness so they are saying it was worth the wait because its 1000

times better then what we drank millions of years ago and that’s why at the

end of the ad it shows this mud kip take a sip of dirty water and say “urgh” and

spit it out. In the advert most of the time the camera is static and the people/

animals shown are reversed so walk backwards which gives the effect of time

rewinding. In the advert they use birds’ eye views and a panning shot to show

the changes through evolution. The advert uses a non-diegetic musical sound

track called Rhythm of Life, which is parallel to the images shown. In the

advert they also use the diegetic sound of ice cracking as well as the sound of

an ostrich type bird cheeping. They also have a sound effect when a meteor

hits the ground crashes and explodes. In the Guinness advert there are many

persuasive techniques used such as conformity because people just want to

fit in so if your mates go to the pub with you you’re going to want to fit in, so

you’ll probably have a drink with them and if they’re all drinking Guinness

you’ll probably do the same so you don’t look stupid. The commercial also

uses humor because of the non diegetic sound track it uses and by the way it

shows the stages of de-evolution. The advert also plays on your fears

regarding security because people like to be secure in their life whether that’s

financial security or emotional security via having friends and with Guinness

you can be social and go to the pub with your friends to drink it. The Guinness

advert is a very high budget high production value advert with all the C.G.I

animation. 

However the Cillit Bang advert is totally different as it is very low budget. The

Cillit Bang advert uses a range of persuasive techniques such as appealing to

our sloth, health concerns, envy, humor and need for security. It appeals to

our sloth because it makes cleaning look so easy so people would buy it to

make their lives easier as it takes less effort. It also uses your fear of ill health

because in the ad Barry Scott says the product makes your bathroom

hygienic so people would buy it to minimize the risk of them getting ill from

lots of nasty germs.  The advert also targets aspirers as an audience group

because in the commercial  the product makes a persons bathroom seem 

nice and shiny, which is what people would aspire to and so they would buy

the product. The Cillit Bang advert uses humor because of its slogan “Bang

and the dirt is gone” it’s humorous and it’s catchy. The ad is also humorous

because a random person that no one knows just comes on and he says “hi

my names Barry Scott” just out of the blue it’s got nothing to do with the ad, or

the product. The target audience for the product is people that do cleaning in

their own home so anyone from 18 plus. The product is for people who are at

the bottom of the social scale D and E who do their own cleaning and don’t

have a lot of money to spend. Cillit Bang is a mainstream product. At the

start of the commercial there are shots that start off as a small rectangle in the

centre of the screen then they spread out horizontally and vertically until they

take up the whole screen before moveing on to the next shot, they are shots

of dirty toilets, bathrooms and blocked sinks showing that this is what the

product can help clean. In the commercial the audience were showed pictures

of cleaning products in a cupboard under the sink suggesting the product the

person was using before didn’t work. There is also a panning shot on the

supposedly useless cleaning products to show how many there were giving

the impression this person has tried everything to clean their bathroom and to

fix blockages but nothings has worked until they found Cillit Bang. The person

advertising the product holds up the product for a close up so the person

watching the ad can decide if they like the look of the product and to let the

audience see what the product looks like so they can buy the product in

stores based on recognition of the packaging. There is then a cut used and

we see a shot of the person putting a metal baking tray in a solution of Cillit

Bang and he takes it out and it’s really shiny. This shows the high quality of

the product. There is also another close up on a person cleaning a bathroom

with Cillit Bang and they were showing the after effect of using Cillit Bang to

show how effective Cillit Bang is. Its called a basic product demonstration, it is

one of the oldest and most effective advertising techniques. At the end of the

ad there is a medium shot of the bathroom to show how Cillit Bang has made

the bathroom cleaner and more hygienic. There is also one last close up of

Barry Scott holding the product. There is some use of diegetic sound such as

Barry Scott talking throughout most of the ad and whilst the character shows

how the product works the person doing the non-diegetic voice over explains

what the product can do. He is positioned as the expert while Barry Scott is

suppose to represent us, the ordinary person.

 

In the Honda advert there are many different persuasive techniques. It

appeals to our maternal and paternal love, humor and nostalgia.  This advert

also uses humor with rabbits wearing headphones to protect their ears from

the noisy old diesel engines and hippos jump on the old engines. The advert

also exploits maternal and paternal love because this advert uses bright

lighting and colour’s within the animation and is about thinking about a

pollution free world for the future. The ad also uses nostalgia to make the

viewer believe that if they buy the product that their children would get the

idealized past they had. It’s nostalgic because the colours used are very

reminiscent of the 1960s psychedelic phase and the way in which the diesel

engine moves is very like the animation in the 1960’s film ‘Yellow Submarine’.

This advert would be aimed at people who were young in the 1960’s and are

now parents. I would suggest this advert is aimed at reformers because it is

suggesting Honda listen to their customers and care for the environment and

the future. The ad is advertising a more  eco friendly diesel engine which is

something they can buy.  This advert uses CGI animation, to create lots of

characters and movements and the appearance of different camera angles.

There are flowers, engines sunshine, animal characters clouds and all kinds

of bright objects and colours. I think this is to try and attract the viewer, to

catch their attention. It also goes with the theme of an eco friendly engine as,

before you even  get the plot or premise of the advert you think it might be

something to do with the environment. Also the idea of nature attacking the

old diesel engines is brilliant. It expresses what the product and advert is

about in a positive, vibrant way. It’s also something you’ll remember. The

soundtrack Hate Something Change Something is parallel to the images and

the ideas within the commercial as the animals hate the engines so they

destroy and replace them with eco friendly diesel engines. The colours and

actions are inspiring and motivate people to buy this product for the greater

good. The soundtrack throughout the advert expresses how the animals and

nature in the advert feel about the diesel engine. The advert also uses

diegetic sound like water splashes and the sound of the broken down engine

to highlight its point.  The ad is like a parody of musical films from the 30s and

40s with the flamingoes dancing in the fountains.  The advert is set in the

outdoors, in an animated garden, to show nature and how beautiful the planet

is to encourage people to buy the diesel engine. It tries to make the audience

feel guilty. It’s a moral thing. It’s very good and works effectively. The advert is

mostly a panning shot to make it feel like you’re going on a journey. The

journey goes from bad (the polluting diesel) to good(environmentally friendly

new diesel engines) made by Honda..

The Cresta advert features many persuasive techniques that appels to our

gluttony, and celebrity endorsement as well as appealing to, maternal and

paternal love and using humor. The advert uses the persuasive technique of

gluttony because the drink is something people would want but they do not

need. Another persuasive technique is celebrity endorsement; kids would

pretend to be and want to be like the bear in school to show off to their

friends. The bear was actually based on actor Jack Nicholson in the 1970’s.

The advert uses humor because the bear acts really crazy and hyper because

of the frothiness of the drink and he falls over which is humorous. The ad uses

maternal and paternal love because it makes children want the drink due to

the appeal of the bear and so parents would want to buy them to make their

children happy.  The type of animation used is hand drawn cel animation,

which is watched by young children. The target audience is young people

probably children because it’s a soft drink and the advert doesn’t use very

sophisticated humor or narrative so it makes it easier to understand for

younger audiences. However it would be parents that bought the product  This

advert is aimed at people who have drunk Cresta before, but it is also trying to

gain more buyers by making a more memorable “funny” advert in fact they

made a series of these with the bear representing the brand. The only props

that have been used in this advert are sunglasses and a bottle which is the

product and the only thing featured in colour to make the product stand out

from the white background. The sunglasses are used to go along with the

characters voice and portray the bear as some one who is cool like Nicholson.

The bear has many different facial expressions and is extremely animated. He

intially leans against the wall quite relaxed and chilled to show what state he’s

in before he drinks the Cresta to reinforce what effect the drink can have on

someone. When he drinks the drink he seem to have a strange reaction. He

looks like he’s having a stroke. The camera zooms in and he looks straight

into it and laughs. He falls over and he then gets up to regain the stance he

was in before. I think he does this to show that drinking the drink is an exciting

experience because the drink is so frothy. The advert is all black and white

expect for the product to of course reinforce its importance. The polar bear is

aimed at young kids about 11 because of his designer sunglasses and his

branded black currant drink. In the advert there is an extreme close up on the

black current bottle this is again to reinforce the importance of the product and

to show the audience what the product looks like. The sound in the adverts is

all diegetic and all the sounds are sound effects and weird cartoon sounds

from the bear to help target the audience of the advert which again is primarily

young children.

The Iceland 2008 Christmas advert uses a wide range of persuasive

techniques to help persuade their target audience to buy their product such as

sex appeal, gluttony, conformity, security and maternal and paternal love. The

advert uses sex appeal and makes the ad provocative to advertise the Iceland

food, by the way Kerry Katona and Coleen Nolan were dancing around Jason

Donovan and pulling at his clothes. There are also several sexual references

used e.g. when Kerry Katona picks up the gateau and says a bit on the side

which suggests a mistress. Katona also refers to the gateau as a pleasure

you can not deny which suggests having a mistress or sex is a pleasure you

cant resist/deny. The advert also appeals to our gluttony to sell their product  

because of the sheer amount of food they stick on Donovan’s plate as if they 

expect him to eat it all and they put a bit of everything on his plate which suggest 

the food is all really nice. There was a lot of food on the table which suggests 

everyone loves the food so much that they wouldn’t mind eating it all and that 

they need a lot of food as it goes down a treat. The food is advertised  as a guilty 

pleasure that people just cant get enough of for example in the way Kerry Katona 

picked up a jumbo king prawn and bites it as if she can’t resist the food or wait to 

sit down and eat it. The gateau is called triple chocolate indulgent gateau which 

suggests its pleasurable when you eat it and its irresistible almost as if it’s a 

deliciously, so Iceland is using word play to mirror the image that the food is 

delicious and tempting. The Iceland advert also uses conformity to persuade 

their target audience by showing that everyone at the party is eating the Iceland 

Christmas food through a pan shot so people would want to fit in and feel like 

they’re not the odd one out by eating food that is not Iceland’s food. This has 

been done very cleverly as one of people’s biggest fears is standing out from the 

crowd and not fitting in with their friends. The advert also uses security to help 

sell their product in this case the advert particularly uses financial security as 

Iceland is known to be low budget and affordable so it is selling the message that 

no matter what a families income is they can afford to feed their families. This is 

shown when every time Katona picks up some food it comes up with the prices 

along the bottom of the screen to reinforce the message of cheap affordable food 

for example when Katona picked up the duck and vegetable boats an on screen 

graphic revealed it’s only £2 for twelve. The Iceland advert uses maternal and 

paternal love to appeal to mothers and fathers who want to do anything to keep 

their child happy and safe and in the Iceland advert when you see the children 

they look very happy and content primarily because they look like they are 

enjoying the food and loving the atmosphere at the party. So a child’s parents 

would probably buy the Iceland food if they know it makes their child happy and 

because they know it’s affordable food. They might even throw a party with 

Iceland food which will make them even happier and they will feel safe as they 

would be around their friends. So security and maternal and paternal love very 

much links in together. 

The initial Establishing shot in the ad is of a cold frosty unwelcoming place which 

is outside then it zooms out and into the warm welcoming house party 

promoting Iceland food suggesting that Iceland food keeps people happy and 

creates a nice warm environment for the family even though its low budget. The 

target audience for this ad are mothers but particularly single mums or families 

on a low house hold income. So probably people that are soc E to D that have no 

qualifications or aren’t very skilled. The advert is really targeting single mums 

because some of the main actors are single parents and Iceland’s slogan is “that’s 

why mums go to Iceland”. They are also targeting big families. The ad 

stereotypes single mums as people that are on low incomes who are apparently 

people that usually shop at Iceland.

 The sound runs parallel with the action as the actors are singing to help 

advertise the food. This is done to give the advert a happy and cheery tone to 

help encourage people to shop at Iceland. The singing is done to go along with 

the Christmassy theme as at Christmas people sing carols. It is important and 

interesting that Iceland launched a Christmas campaign because around 

Christmas time is when people find things hard economically so the advert is 

there almost to remind people that Iceland sells low budget food which will help 

them save a bit more money to spend on their kids but it’s also done to help 

boost sales around Christmas time as a lot of people will have less money so they 

might shop some where cheaper so Iceland will maximise their custom as 

around Christmas there will be more people on lower budgets than usual.  The 

song goes with the theme as it starts off with a winter Christmas snowy day and 

it looks freezing and they end with ‘it’s cold out side’ which is clever because 

Iceland sells frozen food. The advert is set out like a musical film because families 

and females would watch and be interested in musicals which will help maximise 

audiences thus maximising profit and potential consumers.

The Ariel pure clean advert differentiates in target audience a lot in contrast to 

the Iceland Christmas advert 2008. However they use similar persuasive 

strategies to sell their products. The Ariel pure clean advert uses techniques such 

as pride and envy, maternal and paternal love, security, conformity and personal 

success. The advert uses pride to persuade their target audience by showing how 

clean the washing is and how nice it smells (even though the audience cant 

actually smell it) so the customer will feel proud of the fact that their children 

and them wear nice clean clothes and they look well presented because of the 

product. But at the same time the audience of the advert will envy them as they 

want to live like them in the idealistic setting and be like them as they are care 

free and have no worries. They also use security as a persuasive strategy because 

people want to feel safe and secure and live in a safe environment like the people 

in that ad do all that is clean and they are safe from troubles like economic 

depression and war. The advert uses conformity because they make it seem like 

if you don’t use the product you wont get the fantastic results of the cleaning. 

People friends would start to use it to get these fantastic results so to fit in you 

would probably start to use it so you end up conforming to fit in so the product 

becomes the norm. The ad is also using personal success as it’s showing these 

successful white people who obviously have a good job as the mother doesn’t 

work and is a house wife, that live in a big house with a big garden and can afford 

to bring up 4 children while using the Ariel product, which is quite expensive.  

People would want to be as successful as them so they will be tempted to buy the 

product as it associates itself with that successful lifestyle. The Ariel pure clean 

ad uses maternal and paternal love to sell their product also by showing children 

in a clean safe environment. They seem germ free so the audience would be 

persuaded to buy the product to help keep their children’s clothes clean which 

will reduce their risk of getting unwell and a parent doesn’t want their child to 

get ill or look uncared for so they would buy the best cleaning product even if it 

is expensive. The target audience for the ad are families but particularly families 

with young kids as young kids get dirty a lot when they are out playing and 

running around in the mud. It’s also aimed at mothers and house wife 

stereotypes that do all the washing and house work as they will know what 

product is best to use when washing so they have to try and sell it to 

mothers/females predominantly. The product is aimed at quite rich families or 

well off families so C1 and above who are people in skilled jobs, or managerial 

positions, or housewives who can afford to stay at home like the woman in the 

advert. The advert would also seem to be is particularly targeting white people, 

who are seen as perfect and part of this ‘pure clean’ as all the cast are white and 

blond. There is an ‘absence’ of certain types of people and this could mean covert 

connotations of racism. Where is the blackness? White here is associated with 

purity and cleanliness which is what the people buying the product want (clean 

clothing). This is because of society’s view that has been held for millennia even 

since the time of Jesus that white represents purity and goodness and black/dark 

represents evil or something demonic. The ad may not be intentionally racist 

however they are purposely using whiteness because of its symbolism and this 

helps maintain prejudiced attitudes. In the advert they use soft focus and an 

almost slightly over exposed image to put emphasis on the colours that are 

natural/neutral which helps enhance and reinforce this mood and feeling that 

they are happy, care free and safe. The image is also over exposed to empthasise 

the whiteness and the representation of purity so the skin seems even more 

white and soft as a result of the over exposure. The advert/ environment that the 

people are in appeals to all of our senses-sounds, smell, taste, touch, sight. The 

sound is appealing as you can hear the children having a fun time and you can 

hear the icicle cracking so it makes the audience feel like they want to be there, 

so it suggesting you can bet there by using the product. When you see the clean 

washing it is as if you can almost smell how fresh the washing is and it entices 

the viewer. The ad appeals to the sense of touch as the washing seems so close 

that you can just reach out and grab it and feel how smooth and soft it is thanks 

to ariel. The sense of sight is used to appeal to the audience as when you see the 

washing and the environment they live in you want to be there and be part of the 

surroundings and you can supposedly have that by buying the product. It 

Reassures consumer that somehow using this washing powder will create the 

perfect world/family.  When the camera does 360 degrees pov shot in the sky 

you can see a washing machine almost in the clouds swirling in the blue sky 

which is again reinforcing the idea of washing your clothes with the product, to 

get the best effects. The green logo at the end of the ad adds more appeal because 

it reminds the viewer whose product it is and when you see the neutral happy 

colours it could encourage people to buy the product. The fact that the product’s 

logo is green could infer that the product is eco friendly which would encourage 

reformers to buy the product also even if it might not be.