Sade Oriowo – Lawrence

Assignment 45.A

Radio Advertising Analysis: Style, Structure, Purpose and Regulation

The history of commercial radio adverts

Before the war radio adverts were usually done by using morse codes messages. It became useful for communication with vessels in the water, especially in emergency situations. Around the 1920s radio adverts became the main source of where the public got their information. Radio advertising is actually the most affordable marketing techniques out of other techniques like television commercials and magazines.

There are many purposes of commercial radio. Advertising, promotions and sponsorship.  Radio advertising this is advert that you normally see on the television however they are also made into radio adverts. Commercial radio stations usually charge advertisers to broadcast their advert on their station so that their listening audience will be exposed to it.  Depending on the amount of air time they need or how big the advertiser is depends on the amount that they get charged.  

Many listeners usually listen while doing other things. Like driving to work, exercising etc. Another way is sponsorship. Sponsorships are usually weather, sports and news. It is another way to get exposure for your brand and push your message or product to listeners. Promotions create an awareness of a product or brand. It helps generate sales and publicise. The overall general purpose of adverts is to sell, inform and persuade the members of the public into investing their money.

There are many different styles of adverts these include, shock, humour, factual. I will be closely analysing two contrasting adverts in this essay. First being factual/informational and second being shock.  The style of advert I am going to be looking at is factual/informational advert. On the 26^th April 2016 the Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer was released. The Dyson hair dryer is created by James Dyson. The advert opens up with an inner view of the axil blade that is used to generate the power and spin in the hair dryer. 

A female's voice is used to narrate about the technology inside the hair dryer that has been advertised as a new kind of hair dryer. There is also a brief explanation of what the hair dryer claims to do. The female's voice is almost seductive which suggests this could be to draw the customers (mainly women) to the product. Technical words about technical words about the technology being use in the hair dryer is also explained.

Some may not know what 'supersonic' means or 'axial blade' means but it sounds 'fancy' it is most likely they will be drawn to it because it sounds highly complex and smart. A formal voice is used in the advert to make it professional. In the whole duration of the advert it is very simple. the main focus of the advert is on the hair dryer. Even the model is very minimal in appearance. There is also highly skilled animations in the advert showing the blades and the inside blue print of the hair dryer.

Dyson will usually promote their other products that they think consumers could potentially be interested in. an example could be when buying a cylinder upright vacuum they could suggest buying a hand held vacuum as well. This tac tic is used to essentially drive up sales and bring in revenue. An example of seasonal awareness could be the fact that Dyson introduced their new Dyson V10 Cyclone vacuum in spring. Spring is usually when people clean their house top to bottom-spring cleaning. And so introducing a vacuum would be appropriate at this time of the year.

Non diegetic sound can be heard throughout the video from start 0:00 seconds to 0:48 to 0:56 there is more non diegetic sound heard, this is the music playing. This gives an ambient feel to the advert. Then at 0:57 the non-diegetic sound is heard once again but this time it is the voice over done by a female. The voice has a British accent, this is due to the fact that James Dyson is British himself. The Dyson Hair Dryer is sold on their website and also in stores like Tesco, Argos, Curry’s, John Lewis & Partners and online stores e.g. Amazon or Ebay.  The Dyson product is not just a nation-wide known product it is known all over the world.

The consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations have stated that adverts that are advertised to consumers cannot include any unrealistic images or misleading messages, they cannot leave out crucial information and they cannot use any aggressive sales techniques. The Dyson Hair Dryer advert does not have any inappropriate images that would be offensive to individuals or young children.

The next style of advert I will be looking at is shock. The Think campaigners made an advert 11 years ago that was titled, its 30mph for a reason. It is an advert about the speed limits in the UK and why they are set to a specific limit. In the advert it said that hitting a child at 40mph there is a 80% chance that they’ll die however if you hit a child at 30mph there is an 80% chance they’ll live. They are stating that 10mph difference is the chance between life or death.

At 0:01 seconds a child voice is being heard where she is beginning to explain what will happen if she is hit by a vehicle this is non-diegetic sound. While she is speaking, the opening scene is her lying by the side of the road. She looks pale in colour. And the camera cuts to her face, then hands then ear, where drops of blood have been coming out. At 0:06 eerie music begins to play, the music plays through from this point. This sets a very moody atmosphere to the advert. At 0:22 she then takes a deep breath in, which is a diegetic sound as this could not be edited in. This is a sound that was made in recording, done by the little girl in the advert.

This advert is part of a series. New think adverts raising awareness to road safety and road speeding these advert are done every couple of years. To be updated and relatable to the current decade. The girl’s voice sounds young and so more people are attracted to listen to the advert as a young child’s voice triggers our emotional response system subconsciously. Using the word ‘you’ engages us even more as we feel like they addressing us or directly talking to us. And so once again we are more likely to listen and pay attention to what the advert is trying to show. The advert is shown nation wide in the UK so that it can impact as many as possible.

This advert is a PSA advert which stands for Public Service Announcement. It is a free ‘advert’ for an organisation which is a non-profit organisation. That was aired by individual radio stations and television stations. The ASA which stands for the Advertising Standards Authority have restricted the Think campaign adverts to after 9pm as they are too graphic for young children that could be Watching television. Which could scare them a little too much.

To conclude, I think radio adverts and television adverts are the best ways to draw in consumers or listeners. To be successful in getting your message or product across is a skill and talent which requires innovative thinking and fresh new ideas. However when adverts are done without much thought or too graphically the end result is banning the ad or watershedding it.