Advertising Campaign- Water aid

Thee target audience of water aid are the general public, who aged between 18- to roughly 60. They need to think about who are more likely to spend their money. Also as the main target of water aid are african children they may try and target families with children at similar age, so they may put their adverts on family channels.

The idea of the advert is too raise awareness about children in poor countries who drink unhealthy water. The advertising company are trying to make the viewers donate money to the cause. The message is that children in Africa are having to suffer and are being forced to drink unsafe water. The message is convincing as the advert contains real life image of the children having to drink unsafe adverts.

What is cross platforming advertising?

During this essay, I will be explaining the true meaning of cross platform advertising and where and who uses it. I will be exploring the range of media types that cross platform advertising is used, for example on the TV, Radio, social media and print media like bus advertising and billboards.

Cross Platform advertising on the Tv

This is, in my opinion the most effective and most used form advertising. All the high business and companies advertise their brand, idea, product on advert breaks during TV programmes. ITV is funded by advertising. On all ITV programmes they have advert breaks during and after the programme. The idea behind is that viewers of hit shows like Coronation street  and This Morning watch the adverts, whilst waiting for the programme to come back on, they are persuade to buy the product that is being advertised. Lots of companies advertise their products on the screen. For example McDonalds advertise their business on the Tv to persuade people to come to eat in the restaurant.

Most of their adverts are humorous or tell a story. There are always different McDonald’s adverts on in the same year. They all have a different message. For example this year their adverts theme has as followed:

·         McCafe madness

·         Big Flavour Wrap

·         like to get your money’s worth

·         Carving for gherkins

As I have already mentioned McDonald’s have two categories for their adverts sentimental, with a story of real people’s lives and a humorous ordeal. Examples pf the sentimental adverts is the ‘cravings for gherkins’ advert. This advert is about a pregnant mother and her partner who struggling to cope with the difficulties of pregnancy. In the end the partner gets her gherkins to tackle her food cravings. This sort of advert helps the viewers in a similar scenario to connect with the item being sold. The other category is a humorous element, an   example is the common theme of ‘like to get your money’s worth’ they express this idea in different scenarios. For example:

·         Wearing wedding dress to work

·         Wearing Halloween costume other than Halloween

·         Using leaf blower to dry wife’s hair

These humorous adverts allow the viewer to be entertained which also is a technique to make the viewer go into the restaurant. These adverts are also advertised on Social Media, Radio and print.

Cross Platform advertising on the Radio

Advertising on radio stations like Capital, Heart and Smooth, is another popular way of advertising. Most companies who advertise on the radio often also advertise on the TV as well, this is an example of cross platform advertising.

A radio advert must be more descriptive than acted. As listeners can only hear not see what’s going on.  Often adverts they have one or more people talking together and they explain what is going on. Companies who advertise on the radio often use the same script as their Tv advert, but they re–word it so listeners can understand the advert without physical acting.    

This is a script from a McDonalds radio advert in 2016 (found from campaign website).

In this script we can see McDonald’s main message in this advert is that they are open 24hrs, which is informed to the audience at the end of the advert.  The advert again contains a person who is an everyday scenario. If this was an tv advert there would be less talking and the man in the car would be shown. But as this is an radio advert the ‘male driver’ explains the scenario. After this the narrator ends with the idea of the advert.

Cross Platform advertising on  Social media

Companies whose target audience are young people often advertise on social media platform like Instagram and Snapchat, as most young people use these. For example H&M and NIKE. On Instagram adverts are shown on users feed as they scroll down, they will come across. The advert will often be a poster or a short video, including key information about the selling point. It is the same thing on snapchat. A short video appears after looking at their stories.   Also lots of companies create their own social media pages so people can follow them and keep up to date with the company

This advertising platform is used to promote their product to a younger audience so they get them to use their product. The advert also contains a link to the website of the company, which helps to get the person to buy the product as it makes it easier for them. Most of companies who promote on social media often advertise on the tv and other media platform.

Cross Platform advertising on print

When we use the term ‘print’ in media we mean publishing products on items like, magazines, billboards, prints on buses. This media form of advertising is used so mostly everyone can see it. As of the majority of world travel everyday by public transport, they are almost certain to come across this form of advertising.

Examples include in many train stations there are digital or paper billboards that feature a poster of a particular company. Another form is on the sides of buses, most double decker buses have advert strips on either side of the bus, they mostly advert upcoming films, however they also advertise big companies like, McDonalds, coca cola and reed.co.uk.  Most companies who advertise using print also advertise on the TV and the radio.

Cross Platform advertising digitally

Finally lots of smaller companies and some big ones. Display their advert posters on some websites. For example when a child is doing their homework they may click on a website and on the top or side of the page there will be an advert, containing a link the website, which is very similar to social media advertising.  The more people who click on the link the more money the host website gets, this is called pay-per-click.

Conclusion

To conclude lots of companies market their products on a range of different media platforms, which is called Cross platform advertising. Each platform attracts a different type of user and is used in different ways. There is no official study to suggest the best form of media advertising. But the company would try to use a form that best suits the product. But most companies use a range of media advertising.

Bibliography

·         Unknown. (Unknown). How are ITV and BBC funded? Available: http://www.answers.com/Q/How_is_ITV_and_BBC_funded. Last accessed 27th sept 2018.

·         Unknown. (2018). McDonald’s Advert Songs (2018) . Available: https://www.tvadsongs.uk/tag/mcdonalds/. Last accessed 27th sept 2018.

·         Staff. (2016). Top 10 radio ads of 2016. Available: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/top-10-radio-ads-2016/1418495. Last accessed 27th sept 2018.

·         Unknown. (Unknown). Bus Advertising. Available: https://www.exterionmedia.com/uk/our-products/bus-advertising. Last accessed 27th sept 2018.

·         Jason in Hollywood. (2013). Apple ipad mini billboards. Available: https://www.dailybillboardblog.com/2012/11/apple-ipad-mini-billboards.html. Last accessed 27th sept 2018.

·         Jenn Herman. (2014). 5 instagram tricks you don’t know. Available: https://www.jennstrends.com/5-instagram-tricks-dont-know/. Last accessed 29th sept 2018.

·         Unknown. (2016). McDonalds Saver Menu - Wedding Dress advert UK 2018 . Available: https://abancommercials.com/uk-ad/1033/mcdonalds-saver-menu-wedding-dress-advert. Last accessed 27th sept 2018.

By Jake De Souza 

Music Video Key Terms

Purpose 
Purpose- The idea or point between the product that is shown. so in this the point or idea behind the music video and what idea is trying to be portrayed.

Promotion of single/album- how well the single or album does, for example how many copies were sold or downloaded

Moving image codes
Camera shots/angles- Close up- close image shot of an object, for example a persons whole face.
                         Extreme close up- a zoomed close up, e.g. just the eyes of a person, represents emotions
                         High/Low angle-  From a high angle looking down on the actor/actress, making them look weak and defenceless/ from a low angle makes actor/actress long threatening and powerful.
Movements-  Pan- Moving the camera around from a fixed postiion  
                     Tilt- Camera is tilted from a fixed postion
                     zoom- camera zooms in or out of an object creates suspense
Editing-      Cut and fade- introduces next sequence or scene
                   Cut to beat- video is cut to fit the beat of the song

Visual Codes 
Expression  + gesture-  Used to captivate the actors feelings and emotions. In 'norf norf' video the white police officers facial expression connotes that he is aggressive.

Costume + props- These help to explain the context of the video, for example in the 'norf norf' video the officer has a gun which again shows his power.

Icongraphy- images used in the video

Lighting and colour-  darkness can connote seriousness and independence

Graphics- a serious of illutrations    

Key Terms      

Genre- A category of the song, pop, classical, grime
Star persona- The singers personality in the video. In  the Katie perry video ( California Girls) she is shown as immature and fun.

Motif- What the image means in the video, and the idea in the artist work.

Anchorage- when a piece of media uses another piece of media to reduce the amount of connotations. So the image goes along with the lyric

Binary Opposites-  a related pair that are opposites, e.g. poor vs rich

intertextual references-  References from another media product, a movie

Style

Narrative- the story behind the music video. ' dear future husband' is about her ideal husband

Thematic- relating to other themes or subjects


Representations- how a specific group is being represented in the video 

• Ethinicty 
• gender 
• sexuality 
• nationality 
• religion

Audio 

Lyrics/ dialogue- what the words mean and have to do with the narrative

Gender representations 

Avengers Assemble 

Black widow:

In the first avengers film in 2012 Black widow, played by scarlet Johansen was the only female main character in the cast. In this scene where her character is being introduced, can be seen as both a positive and negative representation on woman. Also the darkness in the picture also connotes that she is being threatened. The high angle shot again emphasizes her being threatened.

Negative

In this scene
the character is shown as weak and vulnerable, as she is being tortured and interrogated. She is being interrogated by three men and the only female in the scene is shown as the weak one. The negative stereotype in this scene is that men are stronger and more important than the woman.The character is also wearing objectifying clothing and the men are fully clothed. This is another negative stereotype as the woman can be described as a sex object as she is the one who is being objectified rather than the men. 

Positive
After she receives a phone call the tables turn as she takes charge over the situation her captives. She is being represented as brave, heroic and superior. This is a counter stereotype . As she starts to fight them and acts like nothing happened.

Tomb Raider

Lara Croft

This example is quite similar to my first example. As she is being objectified with her clothing  and the poster only features from the waist up. However the positive counter stereotype is that Lara is the main protagonist which is good as the main character of most action films feature a male protagonist. It is positive that the main character a female and is presented as heroic, brave and superior just like black widow. In the poster Lara shown as a strong and an intelligent female hero.