Nicholaus1’s Weblog

As for my final project, I am going to analyze a series of Alltel commercials, using the wide campaign strategy.

 
I don’t generally watch ads, especially ads of places or things that don’t relate to me. One day my mom was watching television. I wasn’t paying much attention to the television because I don’t like the same shows as her. I was on my computer doing my own thing and I heard a familiar song come up on the TV. The song was “We belong in this world’ which was a very popular song and most college age students probably knew. This was the ad it was on:

 http://www.whatsthatcalled.com/forum/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=1&showentry=391

If I was ever watching television and an ad for Target came on, I would change the channel without even thinking about watching it because I never shop there. Well, because of the song they had played, I ended up watching the whole commercial. This just shows how important music is and how the music that was chosen directly related to me, therefore persuading me into watching an ad that I normally wouldn’t. The commercial overall wasn’t very appealing although there was some break dancing which was appealing to me.

For this week’s ad journal I’m going to evaluate an ad by covering the five questions mentioned in the lecture. The following is a watch ad, and in the background is the artwork of Michelangelo, entitled Creation of Adam. I think in general, the picture depicts “holy” people and wants the consumer to think that if they buy this watch, they will be considered to be high class.

In this picture, the design language for the ad would have to be a holy depiction. The idea of creation is presented and gives the picture a very Godly like tone. Though initially you might think the ad isn’t for a watch and maybe something more “sexy” like lingerie or perfume, if you stare at the picture you can see that it works well for the watch ad. The watches are probably going to be very costly and the target market is probably very specific. I would say upper-class to middle-class older men would be the target market. What’s interesting about the ad is the fact that picture of the watches are so small, and the main focus is on the background. The only details that matter in these pictures are those of the watch themselves.  

I would have to say I don’t totally agree with a lot of the lecture this week. I will give examples to show why. According to the lecture, it says that Ogilvy’s understanding is that “The more specific you are, the more you generate an image in the consumer’s eye.” I would have to only agree with this some of the time. I think less detailed images that just show one thing, the main idea of the ad, just as effective and leave a more lasting image in the consumers mind. For example, take this ad from McDonalds advertising the Big Mac:

This is a very simple ad that I believe to be very effective. There is hardly any detail and there are no images except the text of “IG MA.” They even cut out the first and last letter. I think it’s brilliant. Don’t get me wrong though, I understand that detailed ads do put some kind of perception into a consumers head whereas this might not as much. I just don’t feel that detailed ads are always the way to go.

Another idea that I initially didn’t agree with at all was that long copy works better. The lecture suggests that it’s hard to find longer copy because it’s pricy to have larger ads. However, I thought longer copy takes away from the main idea that the ad is trying to present.  I came to this conclusion because I just don’t see myself reading a lot of copy for a product. Then is started thinking about it and it might work for some products. Let’s take a car for example. I would want to know everything there is to know about a car before I buy it because it is so expensive. Therefore, if there were a lot of facts written about the car I might read it and it actually might help me decide if the car was right for me. Take this Lexus ad for example:

I think this a great ad and even though there is a lot of copy, I think the ad is still very effective and really builds an image of what would happen if you bought a Lexus.

One thing I do totally agree with is having a balance between not getting too caught up on specific but at the same time not being too vague and over impressive. I think this is a good example of an ad that has balance. I think a phone number maybe a little more effective but otherwise it works.