Snickers:

For this task, we analysed a radio advert for Snickers, which was 30 seconds long.The style of the advert was humorous and there were two different voices/accents used in the advert – one was British and the other was American.The tone of language used was varied. The British man was acting quite serious, while the American, who was the telephone operator, was quite jokey and sarcastic.The overall message of the advert was, men should be more independent and, as mentioned in the advert, shouldn’t be following instructions to put something together because stereotypically, men ignore the instructions for something and get on with it.The name of the product was mentioned twice.There was a web address given at the end for more ‘man coaching’. This could be seen as humorous and sarcastic.The only sound effects was the ringing of the telephone.There was the typical ‘get some nuts’ slogan used as well as the ‘be a man’ phrase which is usually associated with Snickers.The main purpose of the advert was promoting their product by saying that eating that particular brand of chocolate, you will immediately ‘man up’.I think the advert was good and jokey, as well as memorable because everyone associates these phrases with Snickers and remembers them.

Guidelines are needed to be followed in order to ensure that the advert is suitable for radio. In this advert, we had to look at the guidelines on food and accents to make sure that the advert was reasonable and not giving a negative view.

When different nationalities or regional accents are used in advertisement scenarios, care is needed so as not to cause offence by negative stereotyping or by ridiculing the relevant country, region or racial group.

There are detailed rules on food, nutrition and health claims in the BCAP Code (Rules 13.1-13.15, Section 13, pages 64-70).The principle is that public health policy increasingly emphasises good dietary behaviour and an active lifestyle as a means of promoting health. Commercial product cannot reasonably be expected to perform the same role as education and public information in promoting a varied and balanced diet but should not undermine progress towards national dietary improvement by misleading or confusing customers or by setting a bad example, especially towards children. All the rules in this section apply to all advertisements that promote both either directly or indirectly, a food or soft drink product. These rules need to be read in conjunction with the relevant legislation including the Food Safety Act 1990 and the Food Labelling Regulations 1996.