Inspiration in 89 minutes

Art & Copy is a documentary film which explores the development of advertising and its influence on society, showing revolutionary campaigns and the people behind them. This was really inspiring for me as this is the kind of work I want to be able to create, and I can't know enough about this industry. In the film I discovered some really interesting facts:

• 65% of Americans believe they are constantly bombarded with too much advertising
• People are exposed to 5000 ads per day
• 7 billion dollars is spent on billboard ads per year in the USA

I found these facts fascinating because they seem so contradictory; how can so much money be invested into something which people don't like? That is the problem, I think, with how people view advertising; people don't like bad advertising, but as a lot of it is rubbish everyone lumps all ads together and claim to dislike all of them. To quote the film, 'people trash ads because most ads are trashy'. Many people (myself included most of the time) like to think that most ads don't work on them, but I think that it is more likely that most ads don't work. If they don't connect with people they have failed, like someone trying to call a phone with no signal, the message isn't communicated. 

Some of the examples in the film were amazing; the George Lois' campaign which launched Tommy Hilfiger's career as one of America's (and the world's) best known men's fashion designers in a week, which just goes to shown that good advertising can be extremely powerful, and I think that anyone who has a negative view on advertising or doubts it's effectiveness should watch Art & Copy. (After watching Art & Copy, I bought 'Damn Good Advice' by George Lois, which is a fascinating, funny and inspiring book which I would recommend to anyone.)

Core Principles

For this module, I have to choose a brand to analyse the ads of and create ads of my own. To do this successfully I have to look at the core principles of the brand; what they consider the most important aims of the brand. My chosen brand is Nivea, as I think skincare ads have become very dull and samey, and I would like to try to something different with them, and I am interested to see why they don't seem to connect with some people. From the information I have gathered about the brand, Niveas core prinicples are:

• Trust
• Expert skincare
• Quality
• innovation

Cultural Differences

Advertising in a different culture

Yesterday, my Creative Advertising class was given an hour brief to develop an ad campaign to sell Aston Martins in India. Initially, I was excited to be working on a campaign, especially for another culture, which was the aim of the brief. I thought that this brief would be quite simple, I mean look at it, it sells itself.

(I mentioned this to my group when we were first set the brief, and 'look at it' was developed into the end line 'Just look at it. Just hear it. Just drive it.')

However with an ad campaign for a different culture there wouldn't be the same kind of brand loyalty, a point which was mentioned in an article we read before the brief, Aston Martin steps into crowded Indian luxury car market [The Guardian, Friday 15th April 2011]

As we only had an hour, we didn't have chance to do much in the way of research towards the target audience, although this is one of the most important aspects when creating an ad. We did however  research the core principles of Aston Martin, which are; Beauty, power, soul, heritage and craftsmanship. This fitted in very well with the 'Just look at it' end-line which we had initially come up with, so we added the 'Just hear it. Just drive it.' onto the end to reference each of the principles. When other groups presented their work they had discovered the target audience was 30-40 year old males who were most likely businessmen who had studied abroad, which our end-line seemed to fit quite well, as they would be perceptive to more western ads.

To target the ad more at the other culture, we referenced the bad traffic in our next idea, a TV ad which showed an Aston Martin on a busy road with the Band theme tune playing and different images of the car from different angles flashing in time to the music. The car would only move about 2 meters before stopping again, and the end-line would read, 'When you're in an Aston Martin, traffic seems irrelevant.'

Our time was up after this, which was disappointing because this brief was so fun to work on. It is definitely more difficult to advertise a brand in a different culture, especially one like Aston Martin which is so well known in Britain through the Bond films so it is difficult to separate the global perception of the brand with my personal perception. I can't wait to work on more like this in future. 

Marks In Time

1.       List the five M&S core principles.

• ·         Quality
• ·         Innovation
• ·         Value
• ·         Trust
• ·         service

2.       Pick two M&S ads from different decades and describe the contextual influences (social, political, technological, etc.) upon the M&S brand at each period of time.

I think the summer 2012 ads for M&S show clear social influences on the brand. The TV ads show many products with the union flag motif, which links to the Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics which refreshed British pride over the summer. The ad shows a group of people having a gathering similar to the street parties which occurred for the Jubilee celebrations, and taking part in Sports Day style events such as egg and spoon races, referencing the time of year and also linking back to the Olympics. The ad also shows a tennis match being played which references Wimbledon as well as the Olympics, again linking to the sense of British pride as British tennis player Andy Murray became the first male British player to reach the final of Wimbledon since 1938, and who then went on to win a gold medal at the Olympics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh28zTosjd4

                The Autumn 2006 advertisements also show social influences on the brand, and as with the 2012 ads, they show a sense of Britishness which links to the British heritage of the brand. This British overtone comes from the setting of the television ad, which is London, and may be a result of social influences of the year such as the Queen’s 80^th birthday and the release of the film The Queen. The monarchy adds to the British identity as the Queen is globally recognised as a symbol of the country, and this shows as a social and cultural influence in the ad. However, the setting and tone of the ad could be a result of the political influences at the time, including the fighting in Afghanistan which had been continuing for some time. This political influence could have inspired the brand to show its British roots to show or create a sense of unity within the country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTilNYnpN1k

3.       Describe how the 125 years of M&S ad represents its core ideas to audiences, through art direction and copywriting.

        The Marks and Spencer ad celebrating 125 years shows the brand through the ages since its beginning until the (then) present day, highlighting the core principles of the brand to the audiences.
        The start of the ad is set in 1888, when Marks and Spencer began as a penny bazaar on the streets of London, using visual clues such as Victorian dress and sounds such as horses’ hooves to contextualize the scene. This displays how the brand is innovative as it shows the very beginning of the brand which the audience can then compare to the present day. Innovation is emphasised as a key principle throughout the ad and seems to be the main focus, as the audience is told that from the beginning at the stall they had ‘the vision the change the lives of us ordinary Brits forever’. Through this copywriting the Marks & Spencer brand value trust is also represented through the use of the word ‘us’, which creates a sense of unity and familiarity with the brand which the audience would pick up on. This is repeated later on in the ad; ‘we girls’.
        This core idea of innovation continues and is evident through the copywriting ‘they brought us a taste of the exotic’ which suggests to the audience that Marks & Spencer were the first in Britain to sell exotic products like the ones shown in that section such as avocados. The mention of the ‘curry in a hurry’ also demonstrates Marks & Spencer innovations and also assists the art direction and the copywriting  of the scene (‘housewives were liberated’) as it links to the era when it was introduced, the sixties where there were more women in work so they had less time to prepare meals. This could also reference the core idea of service as the brand was providing a service which its customers needed. As the ad moves through more time periods more of Marks and Spencers’ innovative products and services are featured such as the drip drying, the tumble dry suits and sell by dates on perishables, and the innovation continues past the present day; ‘they’re changing the way we treat our planet’ which shows that the innovation is on-going.

       The core principle value is shown in the opening section by the sign on the stall, ‘don’t ask the price, it’s a penny’, and this principle features throughout the advertisement to the present day; ‘No-one goes further to bring you the best possible food for the fairest possible price’. This also shows the core idea trust as it creates the impression that Marks & Spencer is the only brand that the audience can trust to supply them with the products, and also quality as it implies that the brands products are the best. The message is reinforced by the images being shown simultaneously of Fairtrade producers which gives the audience the impression of quality, service and innovation as it shows that the brand is keen to help other people. This also represents and reinforces the core idea of trust as the audience would probably be keen to support Fairtrade and other similar organisations and therefore they would feel that they relate to the brand more which would create trust between the audience and the brand.

        In addition to the examples which the ad gives to show the core ideas, the copywriting also adds humour to the advertisement, ‘cheeky!’ which makes the audience relate to it more and therefore creates more trust between the brand and audience which is already highlighted as an important value for the brand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4V9K6KtniY

4.       Name the classy setting for the Autumn 2007 ad and explain why you think this location was selected and what meanings this expresses.

         The Autumn 2007 ad was set on the Orient Express, which through many popular culture references is associated with luxury and class. The most famous popular culture reference of the Orient Express is ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ by Agatha Christie, which also links the brand to British culture. I think that this location was chosen to connect these qualities relating to the Orient Express with M&S, and to also make the brand more appealing to the target market which is usually more mature women who will be more familiar with the Orient Express than younger customers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSvre5M-9ao

5.       Describe the target audience of Your M&S and what your view is based on.

        I think that the target audience is mainly women who are over the age of 25-30, as many of the adverts feature mainly female models/ actresses of between those ages and older who are wearing a range of Marks & Spencer clothes. This also suggests to me that the campaign is targeted towards more fashion conscious women who try to dress age appropriately, as shown by the range of ages of the models. I think that the younger models are used to widen the appeal to a larger number of women, which will improve M&S sales for many years as the younger women will continue to shop there over many years. 
The food ads use quite a soft male voice to narrate which also creates the impression that the campaign is targeted at women as the voice would be more appealing to women than to men. From the products shown in these ads, the target audience also seems to me to be working women who may have less time to prepare full meals all of the time.