Compare and contrast two advertisements for similar products
Compare and contrast two advertisements for similar products. You should evaluate the techniques used in the adverts and comment on the extent to which they comply with ‘The Code’ established by the ASA. I have chosen two adverts for washing-up powder, ‘Persil’ and ‘Bold’. I will be comparing and contrasting the two adverts and evaluating the techniques used. I will also comment on the extent to which they comply with ‘The Code’ established by the ASA. The first advert I will talk about is the ‘Persil’ advert.
The target audience for this advert is young children as the advert looks like a drawing and has a picture of a child with bits of coloured paper stuck all over him. This attracts a child because it is very colourful and there is coloured paper with scissors and crayons which children like. The picture is close up and fills the whole page. This is so it will immediately attract children to it because children notice big images rather than small images. At the top of the advert it says in large spaced-out writing ‘Guess whose school got free arts and craft materials?
‘ This is easy for a child to read because the language is not complex and it is not too close together. When a child reads it they will want to know the answer because they want the free arts and craft materials. At the bottom it says ‘Collect the stars on special packs and hand them in at school. Get creative with Persil. ‘ This tells you how to get the arts and crafts materials and has a slogan (‘Get creative with Persil’), which is quite catchy to remember. The writing is quite big and is also spaced-out for children to read but parents can read this also, to find out how to get the arts and craft materials.
In the bottom right-hand corner there is a picture of the product, which also looks as if it has been drawn so people will know what the product looks like. By having something free it encourages more people to buy the product and since there is arts and craft materials free it is aimed at children. You would not expect an advert for washing-up powder to be aimed at children but this is a good idea to get more people to buy the product. This will make children ask their Mum’s to buy the product and then they will hopefully buy it for their child.
Also the advert is trying to get across that if their children’s clothes get dirty from the arts and craft materials it will not matter because ‘Persil’ will get any stains out. The advert uses consumer expectation by appealing the advert to children by having the free arts and craft materials because children are likely to ask their Mum’s to get the product and they will want to get it for them. I think this advert is good because it immediately stands out; it attracts children to the product so their parents will by the product and it has a gift free with it to encourage people to buy the product.
I think this advert complies with ‘The Code’ established by the ASA very well; it is not bringing the law into disrepute, it is not causing any offence to anyone, it is clearly understood and it is not misleading anyone. The second advert I will talk about is the ‘Bold’ advert. The target audience for this advert, unlike the ‘Persil’ advert is for basically anyone who washes clothes. It is not aimed at anyone in particular, just anybody who does the washing. When you first look at the advert you wouldn’t know it was an advert for a washing-up powder as there is no writing at the top of the page just small writing at the very bottom.
The advert is filled with a picture; there is a red shirt in the middle of the page and about a centimetre away from the shirt all the way round are lots of fish swimming away from the shirt. This will make you want to read on to find out what is going on and what the advert is for. The advert attracts attention because there is lots of grey fish and then in the middle of the page a red shirt, which stands out. At the bottom of the page in small writing it says ‘When you’ve cooked fish, the last thing you want is the smell to stick to your clothes.
New Bold’s built-in conditioner with FreshGuard actively fights cooking odours, leaving clothes ‘just-washed fresh’, all day long. ‘ By saying this people know what the advert is about and gives you a feature that the washing-up liquid has and explains how it works so people will understand and are more likely to believe that the clothes will stay fresh. Like the ‘Persil’ advert, this advert also uses consumer expectation because they know that people don’t want their clothes to smell after they cook and so this will make people want to buy this product.
Like the other advert, next to the writing it has a slogan, which says ‘Freshness that fights back’ in quite big, blue capital letters to stand out. This is a good slogan because like the other advert, it is catchy. Also if you don’t read the small writing you can understand the basic point of the advert. Above the slogan, like the ‘Persil’ advert there is a picture of the product so people can know what product it is. The advert is quite funny because of the fish swimming away and then it says ‘Freshness that fights back’ which is good because when an advert is funny it will stick in your mind.
I think this advert is also good because it shows a feature of the product and explains briefly how it works so people can understand. Like the other advert I think this advert complies with ‘The Code’ established by the ASA well; it is not bringing the law into disrepute, it is not causing any offence to anyone and it is clearly understood. The only thing which could be a problem is that it could mislead people into thinking the washing-up powder will always keep their clothes smelling like they have just been washed.
However, I do not think this very misleading. Adverts are a part of our everyday life and so people don’t think about the techniques used to encourage people to buy their product. By analysing these two adverts I have found out how companies do this. I have thought about the target audience, the type of language used, images used and the selling strategies used such as humour. Some adverts bend the rules of ‘The Code’ established by the ASA but these two adverts did not although the ‘Bold’ advert could slightly mislead people.
