Research: ASA action

ASA

(Taken from the ASA website)

Each year, the UK public sees many millions of ads, direct marketing and digital communications about products, services, charities, causes and awareness campaigns. The vast majority of these are responsible and comply with the existing advertising rules.  

Last year we received just over 26,000 complaints and assessed thoroughly every one of those concerns, investigating the ads that seemed to breach the rules.  
As a result, nearly 2,500 ads were changed or withdrawn in 2008, thanks to a range of effective sanctions at our disposal and the cooperation of advertisers who respect

Adjudications

ASA adjudications provide important guidance to advertisers on how the Advertising Codes are to be interpreted. They act as a transparent record of our policy for consumers, media, government, industry and society at large on what is and isn’t acceptable in advertising.

They publish their rulings here every Wednesday (available to the media under embargo from Monday).  

Sanctions

The vast majority of advertisers and broadcasters comply with ASA rulings; however, for the small minority who don’t, there are consequences.
The main aim of the system is to help ensure compliance with the Advertising Codes, rather than punish advertisers.  However, some of the sanctions at our disposal can be detrimental to those advertisers who choose to not comply.
 One of the most persuasive is bad publicity – an advertiser’s reputation can be badly damaged if it is seen to be flouting the rules designed to protect consumers.

Non-broadcast

The majority of sanctions for non-broadcast advertising are co-ordinated through CAP, whose members are trade associations representing advertisers, agencies and media. There are several CAP sanctions, which can be employed in different circumstances:

Ad Alerts - CAP can issue alerts to its members, including the media, advising them to withhold services such as access to advertising space.

Withdrawal of trading privileges - CAP members can revoke, withdraw or temporarily withhold recognition and trading privileges. For example, the Royal Mail can withdraw its bulk mail discount, which can make running direct marketing campaigns prohibitively expensive.

Pre-vetting - Persistent or serious offenders can be required to have their marketing material vetted before publication. For example, CAP’s poster industry members can invoke mandatory pre-vetting for advertisers who have broken the CAP Code on grounds of taste and decency or social responsibility – the pre-vetting can last for two years.
Sanctions in the digital space - In addition to the above-mentioned options CAP has further sanctions that can be invoked to help ensure marketers’ claims on their own websites, or in other non-paid-for space under their control, comply with the Codes.
CAP can ask internet search websites to remove a marketer’s paid-for search advertisements when those advertisements link to a page on the marketer’s website that hosts non-compliant marketing communications. 
Marketers may face adverse publicity if they cannot or will not amend non-compliant marketing communications on their own websites or in other non-paid-for space online under their control. Their name and non-compliance may be featured on a dedicated section of the ASA website and, if necessary, in an ASA advertisement appearing on an appropriate page of an internet search website.

Broadcast

For broadcast advertisements, the responsibility to withdraw, change or reschedule a commercial lies with the broadcasters.

Broadcasters are obliged by a condition of their broadcast licences to enforce ASA rulings.  If they persistently run ads that breach the Codes, broadcasters risk being referred by the ASA to Ofcom, which can impose fines and even withdraw their licence to broadcast.

Although the obligation to comply with the Codes rests with the broadcaster, advertisers also suffer consequences if their broadcast ads breach the Codes. 
They might, for example, face bad publicity generated by an upheld complaint to the ASA. Advertisers might also have wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds making the banned advertisement in the first place and lost the revenue that it might have generated. And because broadcasters cannot show ads that breach the Codes, advertisers might lose prime advertising slots in which a banned ad has been booked to appear. 
Finally, any advertisements that break the Codes are disqualified from industry awards, denying advertisers and the agencies that created the ads the opportunity to showcase their work.

Research: Convergence/Media Consumption

Convergence in terms of the TV Commercial

Convergence is growing ever more popular and is essential for advertising and companies/brands to distribute their products globally. TV commercials were predominantly played on television, on most channels, excluding some like BBC 1 and 2, but over time the way TV commercials get to the consumer has changed dramatically.
You can now access thousands of TV commercials through download or streaming online anywhere, in a variety of different ways.

Audiences now consume TV commercials from many things such as:Smart phones – The development in smart phones (mobile phones) has been incredible. You can now carry round a small device that works the same, and has all the functions of a computer. Providing you with access to the internet and websites such as YouTube, within minutes you can download or stream an advert with great picture quality.

Ipads/iphones – Ipads are the latest creation in modern technology and again along with the iphone you can access numerous things like a computer can from almost anywhere in the world

Internet - YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, Vevo, Hulu and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program. You can find thousands of adverts aging back years that have been uploaded onto this website, which all have thousands of views/hits a week.

Social Networks- Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004. As of January 2011^[update], Facebook has more than 600 million active users. Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics. Every day millions of Facebook users share information, including sharing videos they’ve seen, showing the latest products or generally sharing links to shopping, gaming and many other internet websites. Advertising has grown with these sights; people are seeing commercials and sharing them with friends over the internet at a very large rate.

 

With this research in mind I believe it is important that we make our advert as accessible (in terms of the above) as we can. I think creating a long online advert that can be viewed via YouTube or on a web page and can be accessed by smart phones etc, is as important as creating a 35 second advert that could be broadcasted on television. If we want our advert to be globally viewed at a large rate and hit a larger audience, then considering the convergence of media and how everything is changing when producing our advert is vital

TV Advert Theories

Every Creative Director should know a little something about advertising theory. "How do these ads work, anyway?"

What we do know is that there are factors to consider:

Like most other people one way to understand how most people approach purchase decisions is with a tool called CIT:

(Consumer involvement theory)

The Communication

When the time comes to put pencil to paper, fingers to keyboard - to actually create your campaign or ad - it can be helpful to consider, "OK, what's the primary reaction I want from the target audience?"

You won't need to do this with every ad. But for new clients, new campaigns, or new ways of thinking, it can be clever to go back to basics.

What you will discover is that there are three primary responses your ads can trigger. Three basic things an advertising campaign can get people to do:

1.      To feel, to experience an emotion

2.      To think, to understand, perhaps remember

3.      Take action, do something

Getting people to think and feel certain things about a company, its products and services, that's the goal of branding, of brand-building.

The ultimate objective, of course, is to influence purchase behavior. But to do so by first getting viewers to like the product or understand the service or feel a relationship with the company.

Getting people to do something, and do it soon - to clip and mail a coupon, click on a Web site, pick up the phone and place an order - that's what direct marketing and direct response advertising are about.

In real life, of course, it's not that simple. When someone sees an ad, they can react in a variety of ways, most commonly with indifference.

And if they do respond at all, then thinking, feeling, and acting can blend together in different ways with different people. The human mind is infinitely complex.

Forms and Conventions

What makes a good Advert?

To help me create my advert I first need to research what makes a good advert and later look at successful ones to give me inspiration.

A good ad:

• Connects with its audience
• Is memorable and easily recalled
• Provides information quickly and sufficiently
• Doesn’t confuse the viewer or make them hunt for the pertinent information
• Calls the viewer to action

It’s okay to have white spaces, pauses, slow pans, or other elements that some might call a “waste” of space. Effective advertising does not lambaste the viewer with information; it allows room for the message to get the audience’s attention and connect.

1. Sentimental Stories:

Advertising that guides viewers with relatable characters in a storyline helps people to remember the advertisement far better than one that simply touts the product or company with a laundry list of benefits to consumers.
For example, in a heartwarming MasterCard commercial, a puppy finds himself astray from his family and winds up hitching rides from various travelers. In the end, the dog never found his way home as he jumped into a truck and rode down a long road. This ad actually was structured as two separate commercials: Parts 1 & 2. Part 1 posed a question of whether this dog would return home. A question that goes unanswered means it lingers in the consumer's mind. Weeks later, Part 2 aired showing the dog returning home his family, satisfying the question.

2. Make them Laugh:

Laughter is one of the highest forms of emotional therapy and allows viewers to let down their guards. The Got Milk commercials were some of the most memorable and talked about ads for years.
Rather than discussing a list of nutritional benefits of drinking Whole, Skim, 1%, or Fat Free milk, the advertisers brilliantly told hilarious stories of characters placed in situations where they desired milk after eating a delicious cookie. The milk of course, eluded their grasp every time and caused viewers to empathize with the character at an emotional level rather than an intellectual one.
Researching into these theories, is allowing me to identify the points we need to hit in order to make our advert successful. Making the audience laugh was something we decided to do as soon as we chose to create an advert and now with this research and evidence that comedy works in adverts, I think making our advert comical is key now.

Television Advertisement

A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message. Advertisement revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks. The vast majority of television advertisements today consist of brief advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to several minutes. Advertisements of this sort have been used to promote a wide variety of goods, services and ideas since the dawn of television.

The effect of commercial advertisements upon the viewing public has been successful and pervasive.
In many countries, including the United States, television campaign advertisements are considered indispensable for a political campaign. In other countries, such as France, political advertising in television is heavily restricted, and some, like Norway, completely ban it.

History

The first television advertisement was broadcast in the United States on July 1, 1941. The watchmaker Bulova paid $9 for a placement on New York station WNBT before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. The 20-second spot displayed a picture of a clock superimposed on a map of the United States, accompanied by the voice-over "America runs on Bulova time.
The first TV ad broadcast in the UK was on ITV on 21 September 1955, advertising Gibbs SR toothpaste. Until the early 1990s, advertising on television had only been affordable for large companies willing to make a significant investment, but the advent of desktop video allowed many small and local businesses to produce television ads for airing on local cable TV services.

United Kingdom

 

In the UK, the British Broadcasting Corporation is funded by a licence fee and does not screen adverts apart from the promotion of its own future programming. On the commercial channels, the amount of airtime allowed by the UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom for advertising is an overall average of 7 minutes per hour, with limits of 12 minutes for any particular clock hour (8 minutes per hour between 6pm and 11pm). With 42-minute American exports to Britain, such as Lost, being given a one hour slot, nearly one third of the slot is taken up by adverts or trailers for other programs.

The growth of multi-channel television has changed the face of TV advertising making the medium effective for companies with niche products and a targeted audience. 30-second advertisements on digital channels such as Sky News, MTV or E4 can be bought for less than £500000 and adverts on more targeted channels like the Business Channel, Motors TV or Real Estate TV for less than £500 per 30 seconds. New TV channels are launching every week in the UK and advertising opportunities are plentiful.



Advertising

Advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, ideas, or services. It includes the name of a product or service and how that product or service could benefit the consumer, to persuade a target market to purchase or to consume that particular brand. These messages are usually paid for by sponsors and viewed via various media. Advertising can also serve to communicate an idea to a large number of people in an attempt to convince them to take a certain action.
Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through branding, which involves the repetition of an image or product name in an effort to associate related qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers.
Modern advertising developed with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mass media can be defined as any media meant to reach a mass amount of people. Different types of media can be used to deliver these messages, including traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, outdoor or direct mail; or new media such as websites and text messages.
In 2010, spending on advertising was estimated at more than $300 billion in the United States and $500 billion worldwide.
Internationally, the largest ("big four") advertising conglomerates are Interpublic, Omnicom, Publicis, and WPP.

Types of Advertising

(Paying people to hold signs is one of the oldest forms of advertising, as with this Human billboard)

A bus with an advertisement for GAP in Singapore. Buses and other vehicles are popular mediums for advertisers.

Virtually any medium can be used for advertising. Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television adverts, web banners, mobile telephone screens, shopping carts, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches, human billboards, magazines, newspapers, town criers, etc.

The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format, as is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events. The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known as the most prominent advertising event on television. The average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached US$3 million (as of 2009). The majority of television commercials feature a song or jingle that listeners soon relate to the product. Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television programming through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into otherwise blank backdrops or used to replace local billboards that are not relevant to the remote broadcast audience.

Coca-Cola is one of the leading TV commercial advertisers with there advertisements dating back over many years.

(A Coca Cola advertisement from the 1890’s)

Current Trends

A recent advertising innovation is "guerrilla marketing", which involve unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the advertising message. Guerrilla advertising is becoming increasing more popular with a lot of companies. This type of advertising is unpredictable and innovative, which causes consumers to buy the product or idea. This reflects an increasing trend of interactive and "embedded" ads, such as via product placement, having consumers vote through text messages, and various innovations utilizing social network services such as Facebook.

Niche marketing

Another significant trend regarding future of advertising is the growing importance of the niche market using niche or targeted ads. Also brought about by the Internet and the theory of The Long Tail, advertisers will have an increasing ability to reach specific audiences. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible. However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs to social networking sites, provide advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much better defined, leading to ads that are more relevant to viewers and more effective for companies' marketing products.

Online advertising

Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web for the expressed purpose of delivering marketing messages to attract customers. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads that appear on search engine results pages, banner ads, in text ads, Rich Media Ads, Social network advertising, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam.

In terms of my project I am going to create an online advert that will be the official long/full version of my advert, but I will also cut this online version down to around 30 seconds so that I could be used as a TV commercial.

Introduction

Choosing Brief

Taken from the A Level OCR Media Studies Specification, ‘When centres choose briefs to offer to candidates, they should be guided by their strengths in terms of resources and expertise. Centres should also bear in mind the key areas: forms and conventions, production contexts, the role of technologies, audiences/users and representations.’

The production element and presentation of research, planning and evaluation may be individual or group work (in this case I have chosen a group of 4.)

You will need to produce:

• A media portfolio, comprising a main and ancillary texts;
• A presentation of your research, planning and evaluation in electronic format(s)

You may choose from the following main texts:

• Music Video
• Advert
• Documentary
• Computer/Video Game
  

The first objective towards completing my A2 Media Studies Coursework was choosing which project I wanted to do. Firstly I thought about which project interested me the most and creating an advertisement has always been something I have wanted to tackle. Also I needed to consider which project would allow me to display all of my knowledge and skills that I have learnt and picked up in the last two years studying Media. With both of these aspects in mind, I decided to go along with creating an advert.

My project brief was now to; create a promotion package for a new advert with a long online version and a short TV commercial version, together with two of the following three options:

• An advertisement poster
• A Web Pop-up Ad 
• A Radio advert

I decided to create a Radio Advert and a Web Pop-up Ad.