Unit 30 - Structures and Techniques of Television Advertising

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-advertising-campaign.htm [accessed] 6/11/2012
'An advertising campaign is a specific course of action designed to advertise a cause that employs an intentional and carefully coordinated series of marketing tools in order to reach the target audience.'
The main purpose is to raise awareness for a particular cause. The structure will generally depend on the nature of the cause and also on the target audience that it has been designed to reach.

http://www.ehow.com/facts_5760908_purpose-television-commercials_.html [accessed] 6/11/2012
Commercial advertisements are designed to reach a target audience with the purpose to sell consumer products. 'Creative, imaginative and engaging advertisements inspire, excite and convey information and generate brand loyalty. Advertisements personalize the relationship between a business and consumer.'

Both types of advertisement have, ultimately, different purposes but they both inform the audience of something. Many advertisements try to evoke an emotional response in their audiences, campaign advertisements more so than commercial advertisements; commercial advertisements generally use humour, perhaps to engage the audience but also to make the advertisement memorable, while a campaign advertisement will probably not use any humour because it will interfere with the message that it is trying to convey. Some of the same structures are used in both types but there are also some differences between them. With some examples, I will discuss these.


This advertisement is anti-realist as this would never actually happen in reality but there is also a realist element to it as pregnancy is a general thing.

Humour is used to grab the audience's attention so that they will want to watch the advertisement and find out what the product is. Humour is also used to make the audience laugh and to try to convince them that this product is what they need. The humour is portrayed through the music and sound effects which do not necessarily fit the seriousness of the situation but which are used to show the audience that it is not meant to be serious; it adds a lightheartedness and stands by the anti-realism idea. This is completely different to the television campaign advertisement which does not use humour to portray its message, it is a much more serious production and usually consists of conveying important issues.

The idea of this advertisement is that Irn Bru can get you through anything and it is used to make the audience believe that they need the product. It tries to show the product as being so irresistible that even an unborn baby wants it; it tries to convince the audience that they need this product.

The splash shot that is used at the end makes the product stand out with the colour and logo that is used, it also stands out against the darker colour of the pregnancy scan so that the audience will remember the product or at least the bright colours of the logo.




The main purpose of this television campaign advertisement is to get the audience to help the cause: Anti-bullying. This is done in many ways throughout the production using different techniques.

This television campaign advertisement is different from the commercial advertisement because it is trying to persuade the audience to support the campaign and to speak out against something rather than trying to persuade the audience to buy a certain product which is the aim in the commercial advertisement. It evokes compassion, concern and fear within the audience in a way that will attract them and make them want to help the cause. This is done with the use of the acting, the 'bullies' blatantly choose to make fun of someone because of their hair colour, one of the other boys at the school yard sees this in action and comes in the next day with the same colour hair as the boy that is being made fun of. This act against bullying shows the audience what the campaign is about and gives them an idea of some ways in which they can help and support the cause.

The campaign advertisement gives a solution to the problem by giving information at the end; name and web address where the audience can find out the different ways to help. This ties up the end of the production and lets the audience know fully what the campaign is. This kind of information is not given in the commercial advertisement but a splash shot is used because it is a promotional advertisement.

The music adds to the emotional response element and creates a compassionate ambience through the use of the slow, orchestral music which gains a beat at the more intense parts of the story to emphasise what is being portrayed, this catches the attention of the audience and gets a response from them.

Both advertisements have similarities; they both inform their audiences of something and hope to get a response or reaction from them, and differences; campaign advertisements play on the more compassionate and concerned side of human nature while commercial advertisements simply make the audience feel like they are lacking if they do not own the product and that they will become a better person if they go out and buy it; they play on the more self-centered side of human nature. Campaign advertisements ask the audience to give; commercial advertisements ask the audience to get.