Forms and Conventions of Advertising

There are several conventions that adverts generally follow, these act as a guidline to ensure the advert is viewer-friendly.

Conventions;

- The advert manages to make a connection with the audience.

- To make a successful advert, the advert needs to be easy for the audience to recall it, it needs to be
   memorable.

- The advert must make sure all information is correct and easily understandable for the viewer,  the viewer must not be confused, this makes an unsuccessful advert if the viewer doesn't understand what is being sold.

- The advert must get the necessary information out as quickly as possible, whilst still making sense to the audience.


Types of Adverts;

Entertaining:The comparethemarket.com website is now ranked as the 4th most visited insurance website in the UK – up from 16th in January 2008; sales have more than doubled year on year as a result of the TV ‘meerkat campaign’.

As of August 2009, Aleksandr, a character featured in the meerkat campaign, had more than 700,000 Facebook fans and 22,000 followers on Twitter, while on a photo-sharing site called Flickr there is a photo gallery of Aleksandr's family, all this helps promotion of the insurance site, itself.

The character remains extremely popular and even a record company has expressed an interest in releasing a single featuring the character Aleksandr.

The meerkat campaign has been extrememly successful in its advertising, as it has continued over a span of several years, people will tune in to see the latest installment of the meerkats, the campaign has also has successfully launched merchandise for the website, promoting a free 'meerkat' with several to choose from, when you join the insurance site.

Following adverts is not a new thing, in the past there have been several 'story-like' advertising, where there is the same character in the advert, with each new advert there is a new 'storyline' following the character as well as the promotion of a product, popular adverts like these include;

Nescafe Coffee;

 BT;

Other types of media aside from continuous adverts featuring the characters have also come from the advertising, particularly the Meerkat campaign.

Since the first Meerkat advert aired, there has since been a number of other merchandise surrounding the meerkats including books; In 2010, a book titled "A Simples Life: The Life and Times of Aleksandr Orlov" was released in October. The book gained more pre-orders then any book that was released at that time, including Tony Blair's memoirs and also doubled in pre-orders then Danni Minogue and Cheryl Cole's autobiographies.

There have also been several downloads available since the launch of the website, including wallpapers, text alerts, ringtones etc. Following the iPhone application trend, there has also been an application that consists of meerkat background information and meerkat translations available in a download for the consumer.  Meertkat Downloads

The biggest piece of merchandise since the campaign started however was the plush toys of the characters featured in the adverts, with several types to choose from.

Sentimental;

A sentimental advert allows the audience to be more engaged into the advert, it entices them into viewing and also makes the advert very memorable if it emotionally touches the viewer.

An example of this advert is the Google Chrome 'Dear Sophie' advert, released in 2011 to promote an internet browser, the advert consists of a father writing emails to his daughter as she grows up, the advert uses a potential use of the product is promoting in the advert though chooses the most heart-wrenching possibility to touch viewers, particularly those with children themselves. The advert has recieved over four million viewers to date, the advert was also voted as one of the top ten adverts of 2011 by The Globe and Mail.

The Advert has since recieved a number of positive reviews, these comments are taken from the video uploaded to youtube.

Serious 'Hard-Hitting';

A serious 'hard-hitting- advert usually tends to be an advert promoting a charity of some kind, or even a type of illness, initiating awareness. The advert usually uses some form of statistics of footage that was designed to shock its audience, the more shocking and hurtful, the more likely the viewer is to give money to the organisation etc.