TV Advert Theories

Adverts need to be creative and memorable and every Creative Director should know about advertising theory, one way to understand how most people decide what to purchase is with a tool called Consumer Involvement Theory.

In order the begin producing an advertisement, the first step is to consider what the company wants the consumers primary reaction to be towards the advert. This is not needed for all adverts, particularly those companies that have products that are already well established but new company may choose to go back to basics.

There are considered to be three different primary reactions that could occur when watching an advertisement;

- To think, to understand and to maybe remember.

- To feel and to experience some sort of emotion.

- To take action and do something.

The goal of branding is to be able to get people thinking about the product or service the company is trying to promote, the ultimate aim of advertising however, is being able to influence the viewer into becoming a consumer of the company's product, in order to do this, the company must be able to gain viewers and establish a relationship between the product and the viewer, getting them to like the product and want it.

Direct Marketing and Direct Responses are more about the audience responding to a click of a website, or picking up a phone to place an order for the product, each of these ways means a product could be brought in minutes.

However, to advertise on the television, the advertiser must know how to evoke a reaction within a viewer, the viewer may not respond to the advert at all or they may feel something towards the advert, the advertiser must know how to be able to advertise its product to its target audience and if there is more than one, know how to advertise it to a wider audience.


Children's

To appeal to a younger audience, it is more likely to gain attention to the viewer with the use of colour, cartoons or even familiar characters that the younger viewer may recognise.

The advert is promoting a children's toy which features the character 'Hannah Montana' from the same titled show, the advert would appeal to young children who had watched the show and therefore recognise the character because of this a relationship has already been established between the product and the consumer. The advert also uses songs from the show which the child may also recognise and want the product.

Humor

Humorous adverts generally appeal more to an older audience, usually in these types of adverts the humour is subtle and usually reflects a real-life situation that the viewer could or may have found themselves in.

The 'John Smiths' advert uses what is considered to be a 'Typical British Man' who makes himself look foolish over the course of several different adverts. The advert is promoting a brand of Beer, which already alienates the younger audience since there is an age restriction.

The advert also uses a well-known comedian 'Peter Kay' as its leading man which immediately targets the comedians fanbase into paying attention to the advert when it airs.

Sex Appeal is also commonly used in adverts when selling a product, the most common products that use sex appeal in adverts are usually for products such as perfume or aftershave. This is can be used to appeal to the consumer - which are mostly aimed for women - because it can target the women with the idea that if this product is making one women feel attractive, then it can make them feel that way too. Perfume adverts also appeal to men for gift ideas as perfume is a common bought gift for women from men.