Food adverts

I am doing my dissertation on food adverts aimed at children and weatehr it has influenced them and has helped cause the growing obesity rate this country is in at the momement. This short video shows a handful of adverts aimed at children and are some i will be studing. What do you think on the topic?

Banned Pepsi advert

I love this advert! I prefer Coca-Cola but I thought the advert was quite amusing.And in all honesty that boy would've made Coca-Cola money so everybody wins!

Becks

When we got the last delievery in at my pub, i couldnt help but notice that the labels on the becks bottles have changed to four diffenerent images, one is shown below:

This completely puzzzled me. Why would they suddenly change a well reconzined brand label into something ocmpletelty differnet that dont even contain they name on and have four different images that dont even link together in any clear way. So i done some research on it.

There main aim is to start an initiative that gives promising contemporary artists the opportunity to exhibit their work in pubs, bars and off-licences across Britain. The brand, which has been fostering emerging artistic talent in the UK for more than 20 years, has linked up with the Royal College of Art (RCA) for the new initiative which will raise its retail profile in the months ahead.

A panel of judges from the prestigious College have selected four talented young artists who will have the unique opportunity to showcase their work on the labels of more than 27 million bottles of Beck’s (275ml) available to retailers in the on and off-trade from August.

The four successful Beck’s Canvas artists are:
• Riitta Ikonen, 27, who is studying a two year MA in Communication Art and Design at the Royal College of Arts and graduated last month.
• Tom Price, 26, is an alumni of Sculpture (2006) who received a First Class BA (Hons) Sculpture degree from Chelsea College of Art in 2004 and currently works from his Brixton studio.
• Simon Cunningham is an alumni of the MA Fine Art, photography course (2007) who lives and works in London.
• Charlotte Bracegirdle, 34, is an alumni of the Masters degree in painting (2006). Originally from Devon, Charlotte spent seven years applying to art schools across the UK before accepting a place at the RCA.

So what do becks get out of this? Well they believe, that the striking new labels that will be featured in a TV campaign for Beck’s to be run throughout August – will boost consumer awareness during a key trading period for retailers and that the introduction of new bottle labels will also have significant benefits for retailers. They believe the four new designs will stimulate the interest of pub-goers and shoppers and attract new consumers to the brand in the months ahead.

Will this actually be in case? I am not so sure, certainly in the last 2 weeks we have had these new deisgns in the pub i work in i havent recalled the sales in them going up, but maybe i will be better of judging this once august has gone and the ad campaign is in full swing as i personally havent seen a tv advert for these bottles yet. What do you think?

Summer of love and Pimms

I am currently working at a wetherspoons pub in Leeds. At the moment we are trying to sell our 'summer of love' theme where we are trying to push certain summer drinks. This whole camagine is delievered in a number of ways. Including posters around the pub, a display table in the pub, on the wetherspoons website and in the monthly wetherspoons magazine. The website is shown below:

All the ambient media follows the same theme as this website screen shot. The colour of every background is this light blue featuring a hint of clouds. This is typical of summer as it reminds the viewer of bright clean summer skys. The whole campagine with the typeface of the 'summer of love' title and all the bright flowers, has a very 60s feel to it.

This is because the Summer of Love refers to the summer of 1967, when an unprecedented gathering of as many as 100,000 young people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francissco, creating a phenomenon of cultural and political rebellion. While 'hippies' also gathered in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Vancouver, and across Europe, San Francisco was the epicenter of the hippie revolution, a melting pot of music, psychedelic drugs, sexual freedom, creative expression, and politics. The Summer of Love became a defining moment of the 1960s, as the hippie counterculture movement came into public awareness.

One of the main drinks that the pub is trying to sell is Pimms and lemonade, it is our 'focus drink' of the summer and we are trying to be pushed to sell as much as we can. This is reflected in the fact it is on the front cover on our june/july magazine, shown below:

Agian on this magazine cover you can see the summer of love theme running through.

Pimms is a very well known summer drink, and it uses it advertising very well. Its very common to hear people saying the tag lines such as 'Its pimms o'clock' , 'ten of you one of me i make that pimms o'clock' or 'anyone for pimms' which was made famous by various advertising methods. The website for pimms follows through with this pimms summer theme aswell, shown below:

The background of the website is set in a park theme, you can see a couple blurred laying in the park, they have small movements like they are chatting but no movements to big to distract the viewer. In the right hand corner is a little note saying 'quite please' this is because the website has faint distance sounds of summer in the park, including noises like birds tweating and kids playing. This sets the scene really well. Links at the bottom of the screen include 'sunshine o'clock' and 'in the park'. As you first join the website home page the pimms pitcher is empty but this slowing fills while fruit like strawberrys roll across the scene, a common symbol of summer and things like wimbledon.

The famous pimms o'clock adverts which always end with the '?(a number) of you.....one of me.. i make that pimms o'clock' have been running now for several years. Alexander Armstrong plays the upper class twit with the picnic hamper containing his Pimm's mixing kit. He encounters a variety of different groups including motorway protesters, prostitutes, farmer workers and rave DJ's. One of the most popular adverts was one in a prison, shown below:

In this he is tunnelled into a prison, however the inmates jokingly tell them it's a Holiday Camp. In his usual brashness he has set up his travelling Pimm's case and is barbecuing sausages and making Pimm's for all, the party is ended when the Governor of the Prison chucks him and his case out.

The whole pimms series has been such as success supermarkets put Pimm's and punnets of strawberries on special offer together, and 80,000 half pints are served at Wimbledon every year, closely trailed by race meetings at Royal Ascot, Goodwood and boating at Henley.Also if you're feeling lazy or going on a picnic you can now buy pre-mixed Pimm's No 1 in can form. It is proberly one of the most successful advertising camagines in recent times.

Stop smoking

I felt the need to write about these set of adverts as there have been many stop-smoking campagins over the years, however this most recent angle being explored is targeting parents and playing on there emotions that the children are more likely to start smoking if the parent does, i feel that this is a great new way to campagin. Two of these adverts are shown below:





The esscence of both these adverts is the way they use music to stress there point. In recent times music in adverts has become very popular, which started with the Halifax adverts that have become so well reconized. It is good that the NHS therefore is looking at current trends and trying to incorporate them into there advertising. The music plays over the top the whole time with little narrative (which is only featured at the end of the advert) and relates well to the story that is trying to be portrated. The lyrics are clever and they try to tug on the heartstrings on the parents, it is a shock tatic to try and get parents to think. The I love you song is very catchy and makes you remeber the advert as it gets stuck in your head. However to make it more effective they need to re-edit it with the "I love you" at the end not narrated over to increase the punch.

The lyrics in the 'I love you' song, is sung by a child in a very child like voice. This makes the advert have a better impact then if an adult or the original artist - Shirley Temple - was singing it as its like we see the advert threw the childs eyes, and see first hand the impact smoking can have on them. In the other advert, the music begins to trail of and turn deeper when the child begins to mimic the smoking of her mum, agiain this is to create a deeper impact on the parent watching.

During the advert you dont actually find out that it is about quitting smoking till the very end. However in the I love you song advert it is easier to guess as they use shots of parents smoking the whole time during the advert and even have a close up on a childs toy truck full of cigeratte butts. On the other hand the second advert is showing children mimicing their parents in everyday activities e.g. cooking so the viewer cannot guess that it is going to turn out to be about smoking. This gets the viewer hooked on the advert as they want to find out what its for and even try to guess. The end outcome could be surprising.

KFC advert

While i was browsing the interent i saw a link in the msn homepage about controversial adverts, as this is close to the topic i was thinking of doing my dissertation on i was keen to look at what was on there. I was very surprised to learn that the most complained about advert of all time in uk tv history was one by KFC aired in 2005. This advert is shown below;



This advert got 1,671 complaints and it doesn't have sex, violence or bad language. Hundreds of parents were annoyed at the depiction of workers singing with their mouths full. However, the ASA decided that the ad wouldn't undermine the teaching of good manners and the complaints were not upheld. I think this is correct of the ASA to do one comment on you tube sums this up for me brilliantly 'Only in Britain could adverts with nudity and sex references be ok, but one with talking with your mouth full get banned! :p' What do you think?

Crimp off

"Crimping" is the singing of short, random songs, which has become a trademark of the 'Mighty Boosh' series, featuring in every episode. The mighty boosh stars Noel Fielding and Julian Barret, the show started on BBC three in 2004 but has since become a massive success resulting in more tv series, live tours, radio shows, an album and appearances at festivials. One of there main sketchs is when they would do a crimp, an example of this is shown below,




Therefore when the new sugar puffs adverts came out, created by Bray Leino, that seemed to be copying this crimping style hundred of boosh fans have kicked off, (including me) as there is no mention of the mighty boosh in the advert. Below is the advert,



On youtube, where i got these clips, people have left comments about this advert being like mighty boosh crimps, one wrote ' This advert is evil. I've been boycotting sugarpuffs since this advert came out.Shocked.AndDisgruntled!!' and another wrote 'can't believe sugar puffs copied the Boosh! it's an outrage!!!!!!!!' So has this damaged sugar puffs? and how have they got away with it?

Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, are reported to be speaking to lawyers about getting the advert pulled, according to a story in The Sun. Bray Leino, described the advert as a "bizarrely comical musical ritual". He said it was unable to comment on the Boosh fans' claims. A spokesman for the agency said: "As we only created the ad for Sugar Puffs we feel they should be given the chance to answer them as it is their brand that is in the spotlight." However, HM Foods, which makes Sugar Puffs, refused to comment about the similarities between the advert and "crimping".
Information from: http://www.webuser.co.uk/news/199018.html

Although this advert seems to have no clear target market, was its purpose therefore to spark this outrage to get people talking? Sugar puffs is seen as a childrens cereal therefore the people most likely to buy this, and therefore there main customer consumer, would be women aged 20-40 i.e mums, therefore i am not sure if this advert will actually damage the volume of sugar puffs being sold as this isnt the main target audience of mighty boosh and do they really care if the advert is copying it? Even if hundreds of people do?