Stumbled upon in the 50’s, the Slurpee
was created to provide ice cold refreshment to the masses.
The Slurpee’s ‘love to hate’ elements
include staining tongues blue and red,
containing ridiculous amounts of sugar/additives and inducing painful brain
freeze.
It’s the epitome of artificial
and unsophisticated, but that’s part of the Slurpee’s charm.
Although, the reason the Slurpee holds
iconic status is because it represented a small (but important) exploration
into fun and excess when I was young.
Walking into shops as a child and
seeing the mystifying plastic tanks of blue and red slush never failed to amaze
and draw me in.
It was essentially like the iced
drink equivalent of ‘The Pied Piper of Hamlin’.
From its luminous colours to its
almost psychedelic-looking packaging, the Slurpee knew it was the brash candied
devil in disguise and it simply didn’t care.
You should ask my parents as its immense
sugar content usually ‘entertained’ them to some casual after-school
hyperactivity from me.
Like many children though, I never learnt my lessons (and to
be honest I didn’t want to!).
Instead, I’d buy another and embark giddily on my next risky adventure into the land of ice cold and saccharinely sweet.
Advertising in all its forms has never really shied away
from the fact that sex in its industry is a key mechanism to garner the
attention of its audience. The prevalence of sex has definitely increased and
is on the rise, moving on from the past when it used to be a more guarded
topic. Sex plays a direct role in selling a wide variety of products like
magazines e.g. FHM,
deodorants/perfumes e.g. Lynx and
obviously sex-related products e.g.
Condoms. Issues do arise when adverts become too explicit or racy and if
they mislead the consumer heavily, such as the banned Lynx advert of 2011
featuring Lucy Pinder, a UK glamour model. The problem of sex in advertising
does not inherently lie with these campaigns for which the audience broadly
recognizes as acceptable due to the nature of these products. The problem is
when it is used indirectly to advertise other products. An example of this is
when Microsoft’s Office XP advert of 2007 was banned due to complaints of unneeded
nudity, quite understandable when such unexpected raunchiness comes from an IT
manufacturer!
'School's out.' campaign 2014
There has been one brand which has been particularly slated
for using gratuitous sexuality in their advertising, American Apparel. The
worldwide clothing company’s ex-Chief Executive Officer Dov Charney was famous
for steering the company’s advertising strategies, but steering the strategies towards
inevitably disaster. His raunchy and misogynistic campaigns propelled him into
infamy with the press from 2003 onwards, culminating in his job loss in 2014.
The advertising campaigns showed for example, young (almost too young) women
essentially naked bar some minimal clothing in some very inappropriate settings
such as riding a cycle with their bottom completely on show. This degrades women in
general and portrays them as weak and vulnerable, as cited by many journalists
like Cobb 2011. The campaigns in some sense were a large reflection of
Charney’s ‘pervy’ nature, according to media outlets, which is the most obvious
and likely correct judgement. But is it possible this is not the whole truth?
To answer this you have to ask, ‘Where do you draw the line?’ I think if you can answer this
question with definite certainty, you must be underestimating the question’s
complexity. Realistically, the line moves around all over the place in this day
and age, mainly due to our friend the internet. The internet is such a fluid
environment with example platforms like Instagram having often very revealing ‘selfies’
from the public and models posting equally exposing photos to gain followers
online. Also, being in such a trend orientated culture in regards to body image
and fashion, things like ‘twerking’, ‘side boob’ and general promotion of
certain body shapes as more desirable than others just fuels the fire for the
argument that the internet is becoming a more innately sexual and revealing domain.
Therefore, when many advertising mavericks live and die by the notion that
‘advertising is simply a reflection of our society’ like Jon Steel, surely the
internet which contains such a vast array of sexualised things should rightly
play a justified part in advertising campaigns to reflect this changing society.
Now, what I mean by this is not that it is always fine to have overtly sexual
adverts, but this ‘line’ which reflects what’s wrong and right in terms of sex
in adverts is if anything becoming less visible and harder to judge due to this
online factor.
So, the internet is a large part of society, but is it large enough? In my opinion it
is not large enough yet. It still
does not incorporate all the older audiences who make up a big proportion of
the people that watch these adverts on TV and may be more guarded towards the
subject due to less online involvement and likely stricter upbringings. In
addition, with the internet being most people’s escape from everyday life, even
if they think it is totally fine when they are looking at something online that
is overly sexualised, it may not be fine in a more public television
environment due to current social conventions. So there is one rule for one environment
and another rule for a different environment which makes the issue more complex
and this does not apply just to sex, but for many other things such as violence
or swearing.
Although, I see these environments becoming more similar as
the internet age develops, with increasing social connectivity online, these
almost forbidden subjects are starting to be discussed and critiqued via forums
and other social media, hence giving a better and more proactive way to allow us to draw this hard to judge line for
sex in advertising. In all consideration, the power is more with the people
than ever before and deciding what is right and wrong in advertising and more
broadly speaking in the media, is not down to a select few as it was in the
past, but it is now shifting towards the masses.
One thing this advert does not lack is class and
sophistication from a bygone era fondly looked upon by film critics and
enthusiasts. The iconic film ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ is where two of this
advert’s key selling features come from, Audrey Hepburn and the song ‘Moon
River’. Audrey Hepburn, a style idol of the sixties, is the centre piece for
this intricately created CGI advert and with the charming song from Hepburn’s
most famous film and it makes for a powerful and nostalgic 60 seconds. Even for
people born after this era, the legend of Hepburn and her successes are still
well broadcast making her appeal wide and powerful.
The crux of this advert as I said before is Hepburn herself.
The enormous task of creating a CGI version of Hepburn has been well documented
in the news, often viewers on Youtube suggesting the uncanny resemblance to be’
slightly eerie’ and bordering on ‘creepy’. But there is no denying recreating
her at all has allowed a sudden flood of emotions and nostalgia to pour into
the minds of the UK TV audience.
Although as important as the CGI is the story line of her
getting in an attractive man’s car on a beautiful day in the Amalfi Coast but
then to give him the cold shoulder to revel in her true desire, the Galaxy
chocolate bar, exemplifying Galaxy’s final caption ‘Why have cotton when you
can have silk?’ and it brings the viewer to unintentionally compare Galaxy to
Audrey’s unattainable and timeless class. In essence, why have ordinary ‘cotton’
Dairy Milk or Snickers when you can indulge in the exquisite silk that is
Galaxy?
On the other hand, the advert’s story of Hepburn taking
advantage of her beauty to manipulate the man into chauffeuring her around does dampen appeal slightly as some woman such
as feminists may argue that this places a stain over a strong and independent
female audience. It is a small problem in a generally well made advert and I
don’t believe many would take offense to it. This is due to the fact a lot of
Hepburn’s films and success centred on her beauty and unattainability during
the 50’s and 60’s, the story line Galaxy has created is not too dissimilar to
Hepburn’s previous movies. Hence, keeping the authenticity of Hepburn and her
films is more important than the slightly anti-feminist plot.
Overall, Galaxy has hit the proverbial nail on the head. To
the older generation she was their film icon and ideal leading lady, seeing her
again would allow them to drift into memories of youth and fond days of past
gone. To the younger generation who had possibly not previously seen her work,
the advert allows them to fascinate about this scenic era and see Hepburn for
the first time with a Galaxy in her hand, which indirectly puts Galaxy in the
same mythic category as Hepburn for these younger viewers. These are only but a
few of the reasons why this advert is such an unforgettable 60 seconds and will
have stuck with many people.
Online advertising is an increasingly important part of any
brand’s marketing strategy. With 51% of B2B (business to business) marketers
saying they are increasing budgets for content marketing, it is no wonder that
brands have to make effective campaigns online to keep a hold of their market
share. It is also evident that the types of online advertising campaigns vary
hugely. A more pressing question even is where to put your online advert? Now a
lot of articles online focus on these questions, so to put it simply I’ll
discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this marketing strategy as a whole.
A key strength of online advertising is having the ability
to target your particular demographic through sites relevant to them and target
audiences when it is more effective. For example, stationary stores can put
more advertising content before a semester start and on social media platforms
that the young demographic are more likely to use like Facebook and Twitter.
Furthermore, when you put out online adverts you can track the success and
exposure of the content much more effectively unlike TV adverts. Also, the type
of content is usually more interactive and hence can improve engagement with
the audience. Content come in video, audio, pictorial and written formats mainly
but the options will inevitably grow due to further technological progress. The
lengths of video adverts vary too from a few seconds to minutes long, hence
more control in video length than TV advertising. Due to the nature of a lot of
social media platforms, becoming ‘viral’ as an advert is often the aim and a
good indicator to show if your campaign is succeeding, much like the ‘Lexus’
advert I reviewed earlier.
Although, there are a few drawbacks to online advertising
such as adverts being intrusive to users. This is a problem as pop-ups and
random video/audio suddenly appearing when you think you are just casually
reading an article for example can be off-putting to say the least. This does
cause a fair amount of annoyance to online users who often call on ‘adblockers’
to eradicate online adverts completely. This leads nicely on to the question
‘How effective are these adverts actually?’ The answer is it varies. They can
be effective but they need to be bold, engaging and user friendly which quite a
few are, but the ones that are not feel like irritating background noise and their
presence practically ignored by online users.
TV advertising is relatively established now and it has been
suggested by many it is becoming less effective at its job of reaching a wide
demographic and high quantity of people because of the growth of internet
usage. To an extent this argument makes some valid points especially when
considering younger audiences who are viewing more and more content online
rather than on TV. The point that TV advertising is essentially to interrupt
people while watching programmes is also a valid one, evident from many people
fast forwarding recorded or non-live TV shows when adverts are on. Finally,
budgets are usually much higher for shorter 30 second TV adverts than online
advertising budgets.
But, there are many advantages that TV still holds over
online advertising. One is that it can still consistently capture a wide
audience of people especially older audiences that online advertising fails to
target as effectively as it does younger audiences. The simplicity of the
concept of a 30-second advert is what makes a TV advert so beautiful. A
traditional advert unlike a lot of online adverts will occupy that whole screen
trying to persuade you to buy into a brand. It doesn’t annoy you or come out of
the blue; you are expecting it as you are watching a TV programme. This is why
TV advert budgets are high, they have to impress you and stand out otherwise
they lose a very wide demographic. A well-made TV advert can make such more of
an impact than a simple brand banner or video popping up on your screen; this
is why more money is put into this form of advertising.
To sum up, there is a place for both forms of advertising
and hybrid campaigns bringing the two together is likely to be the way forward,
such as the ‘Lexus’ advert I reviewed earlier. Issues arise from both forms of
advertising such as the intrusive nature of online adverts and younger
audiences viewing more content online. I think primarily where a TV advert
cannot be challenged is its ability to cause huge emotional impact or shock to
a viewer. The growth of online advertising will inevitably be very important
for brand management, but it will unlikely overshadow TV advertising, instead
work with this existing platform and hence complement it.
Spotify, a fast growing music streaming service was valued
at a staggering $5 billion in early 2015. The company’s revenue is generated
from a range of different advertising platforms on the service as well as an
estimated 15 million people paying subscriptions monthly. They have marketed
the service well thus far by forming partnerships with music magazines,
festivals, radio stations and charities. Furthermore, they have invested in
creating online adverts ranging from 75 to 90 seconds, one of which is shown
below featuring themes of Spotify’s advanced social media influence.
Although, they have not yet ventured into TV advertising due
to the company’s opinion that it may not be as effective as online advertising.
I believe this may be the wrong approach. The company knows it has captured the
attention of younger audiences well through online advertising and social media
but consequently they have not engaged with sections of the older audience who
may rarely use social media related platforms. Evidently,
people aged 45 or over only make up 25% of the demographic for Spotify Usage in
the US.
It is widely understood that TV is still the most effective
way to connect with a wide demographic, especially with the older
audiences. Potential themes needed to connect with a wide audience on
television would be ‘Music and its power to bring people together’ (a theme
already being used in their online adverts) and ‘The Functionality and Ease of
Use of Spotify on many devices’.
Outline Idea for Theoretical Advert
Scene 1:
Unknown Girl aged 16-18 is shown doing some school work
listening to Pop music on Spotify desktop. She gets message on her computer
from her Aunt saying ‘Hope your work is nearly finished, can’t wait to see my niece
tonight!’ the girl smiles at this message.
Scene 2:
Unknown Man (roughly in 40’s) is in a kitchen stressing about
the evening meal and simultaneously has some chaotic opera playing on Spotify
laptop. He gets a message on his phone from his father ‘Food better be on point
tonight, hungry!’ he sighs with hands on hips clearly slightly anxious.
Scene 3:
Unknown Boy aged 14-16 is doing some art in his room
listening to Spotify on iPad with rap/indie music playing. He gets a pop up
from Facebook or related service saying ‘Event Tonight’ he laughs texting his
cousin ‘Bring the football, got some new skills to show off ;)’.
Scene 4:
Unknown Woman (roughly in 40’s) finishing work and plugs
headphones in Spotify’s mobile app and listens to some vibrant jazz. She gets a
text from daughter ‘Hurry up, you’ll be late for tonight!’ and smiles, breaking
into a jog.
Final scene:
All four of these individuals present at home in their
living room with extended family having fun, laughing and joking with Spotify
playing in the background on a TV screen (music choice to be suitable for whole
family and upbeat). A big faded green comes over the screen, shrinking to a
deeper green in the shape of the Spotify logo with quote ‘Bringing Music Lovers
together’.
Reasoning
The whole advert centres on these different people, doing
different things with completely varying music tastes. It conveys the wide range of devices Spotify can be used on and also how easy it is to use the service due to Spotify’s compatibility on each application which will appeal to the older audience. The final scene is the crux of the
piece and shows how everyone is brought together and their time enhanced by the
Spotify platform. It must be noted the viewer does not know these people are linked before the final scene to highlight this theme of togetherness. Also, the final caption ‘Bringing Music Lovers together’ sums
the dynamic and versatile nature of the brand to the viewer. The advert as a
whole convinces viewers to see Spotify as a must need technology for both
social and personal usage regardless of age.
They could also use a recurrence of this advert format in
later adverts to allow viewers to feel invested in the brand, much like the BT
adverts centred on a dysfunctional family which started in 2005. In later
adverts Spotify could use four 25-30 year olds going about work, sport etc. in
their daily lives and then they could all end up at a party in the final scene
where a DJ or Host is using a Spotify playlist to entertain everyone. They
could also create a Christmas related advert with a similar format with the
final scene cutting to Christmas Eve at a family house. In essence, I
definitely think this format with the main theme of ‘Music and togetherness’
could identify well with all audiences, especially older audiences and hence
boost revenue from this demographic.
A great part of this advert’s success is based on previous
techniques used by many other car manufacturers to make a memorable and
effective advert. For example, using unrelated scenic places, environments or
larger than life situations to symbolize the quality of a car is not unheard
of. Lexus uses these techniques in abundance with the ‘Hoverboard’ and skate
park elements signifying a rebirth of a quirkier and more edgy Lexus brand.
Indeed, just recently Audi’s ‘Ice Hockey’ advert showed a car playing ice
hockey with humans to a similar effect.
Another technique which is firmly resonant in many car adverts
of the past is using powerful, emotive imagery to make the consumer believe
that there is something truly special about their car. Lexus uses the ’Hoverboard’
rider clearing a jump over the Lexus car to symbolize a great technological feat
being achieved, making the consumer inevitably in awe of what has happened.
Again, the Chevy 2014 ‘Maddie’ advert shows a woman dealing with various hardships
in her life but her dog and best friend Maddie is always there to support her.
Chevy uses this situation effectively to draw parallels between the loyalty and
reliability of Maddie and their new car.
Where this advert is predominantly different is how it has
so effectively harnessed the power of social media to make it such a talked
about brand online. The winning formula was when Lexus decided to marry their
brand name with the iconic and legendary Back to the Future ‘Hoverboard’. The
huge fan base of the movie have never been able to stop talking and speculating
about the possible inception of such a device, when Lexus somehow were able to
create and show this technology working, it was almost inevitable that the
internet would blow up with shares, tweets and likes for the campaign, as aided
by displaying the handle ‘#lexushover’ in the advert. Incredibly, mentions of
the Lexus ‘Hoverboard’ spiked to ‘20x’ on twitter and the video advert quickly
amassed 11 million views on Youtube in a matter of days. This also throws open
a whole new argument about the power of viral adverts to a brand compared to
only TV advertising.
Furthermore, the fact that Lexus is competing in such a
concentrated market means it has to stand out, almost show that other car
manufacturers are light years behind in development. They developed the elusive
‘Hoverboard’ and indirectly posed to the consumer the question ‘Which other
manufacturer can boast such an incredible feat of technology?’ Lexus is now
subconsciously a technologically superior car manufacture due to this. This is
an especially important factor in the modern era of car consumers and their car
sales increase of 9.1% from July 2014 to July 2015 may well be due to the
success of this advert.
In fact, Lexus aren’t even making the ‘Hoverboard’ a
commercial venture and are not developing the technology further. This to me
suggests that they have planned and executed beautifully a daring stunt which
will have done wonders for the power and longevity of their brand in the media
against other rival car manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
