Task One:
For this assignment I have been asked to research into current adverts to enable me to come up with an advert of my own. I have been looking at the Coca Cola adverts of the past few years, and how they have changed. Coca Cola has always been the same, the adverts are all different but still are aimed at the same audience and have the same impact on their viewers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhFYOPvh00w&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hj0JMCHZpI&feature=fvwp&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2Cz5dZOtAc&feature=related
All three of these adverts are different but like I say have their similarities and all have a certain something that makes them ‘Coca Cola’. They all have the Coca cola logo, their advert MOTO, and the main character in the advert to represent the audience as a whole. I have decided to research into the 2010 Coca Cola Christmas advert. Every year Coca Cola makes a Christmas advert, it is almost as if people wait for the advert to they feel that Christmas has begun. The Christmas advert is always slightly different, but will always have a child, a father Christmas and a Christmas lorry carrying the Coca Cola. I have decided to analyse last years Coca Cola Christmas advert.
The target audience for this advert is very hard to decide, Coca Cola in general aims its advertisements at young men and women aged 59-25. In their adverts there is always a white middle class young person as the main character who is drinking the Coke. They use this character to represent their target audience. Most fizzy drinks are aimed at this age group, the drink itself limits the target audience. Usually when a person gets to 25-30 the excitement of a fizzy drink has worn off and warm drinks are then the favourite (tea/coffee etc..) Young children being the opposite, very young children often only have fizzy drinks as a treat as it is very high in sugar. Therefore Coca cola isn’t going to target its product at a young audience or an audience over 25. The fizzy drink fan base is between the ages of 15 and 25 therefore this is why Coca Cola uses this age group as its target audience and uses people of this age in their adverts. Although this is all true, when it comes to Christmas it is children that are used in the advertisements. Does this mean that it is children that are the target audience for Coca Cola at Christmas time? Children look forward to this advert and recognise what is being advertised straight away because the music and colours are so well known for being Coca Cola. However the fact that Coca Cola is using a child to advertise their product doesn’t mean they are only aiming it at children, Christmas is a time for memories and I think Coca Cola uses a child because Christmas reminds people of when they were children, so Coca Cola uses this to represent the children in their viewers. Therefore the producers haven’t changed their target audience for Christmas, they have stuck to the usual Coca Cola target audience, just used a child to represent the child in them.
In this advert they use Coca Cola as a source of memories. The Christmas Coca Cola advert is the beginning of Christmas for most, and the memories of past Christmas’. The producers use these memories of past Christmas’ and their childhoods which brings happiness to their audiences, this makes the audience want to drink more Coca Cola around Christmas time to create more memories. So instead of using an advert to convince the audience their drink can; ‘give them wings’ or ‘bring out their WKD side’, Coca Cola brings happiness and memories.
The advert starts with a young male heading to the vending machine, the male is aged between 19 and 25, the advertisement producers chose a lead this age because he represents the target audience. Once he’s at the vending machine he puts one coin in, the use of the one coin is to make the drink look cheap and hassle free to buy. Whereas in reality vending machines charge something like £1.20 for a bottle of coke, but to have someone scrounging in their pockets for loose change for a bottle of coke wouldn’t advertise the drink in the way that the producers would like to do so.
From this point on we (as the audience) are no longer the one buying the coke, we are inside the vending machine following the coin and watching the drink being made. We follow the coin through this wonderful imaginary land, with imaginary creatures. The producers created these animals to involve the audiences imagination. The land and creatures create an abstract interesting and incredible process, that for the sake of the advert could be how the Coca Cola is actually made. After every process the creatures look happy and proud of their creation (the Coca Cola). Everyone celebrates when the process is finished, happy to give the finished product to the buyer.
From this point on we (as the audience) are no longer the one buying the coke, we are inside the vending machine following the coin and watching the drink being made. We follow the coin through this wonderful imaginary land, with imaginary creatures. The producers created these animals to involve the audiences imagination. The land and creatures create an abstract interesting and incredible process, that for the sake of the advert could be how the Coca Cola is actually made. After every process the creatures look happy and proud of their creation (the Coca Cola). Everyone celebrates when the process is finished, happy to give the finished product to the buyer.
The second time I watched this advert I analysed the sounds. The same music plays all the way through the adverts, however there are changes in volume and other sound effects throughout. The first sound we hear once ‘we are inside’ the vending machine is the coin, the sound is very loud and gets louder as if it’s coming towards us, this makes us as the audience feel dominated and very small compared to this large coin. The music starts once the coin has landed, it starts with a very gentle beat to start of the Coca Cola process, at this point the bottle is empty and is being taken to the first stage. As the bottle gets closer the music gets louder and another tune starts to join in. Once the Coke is inside the bottle the music gets louder again. The music gets louder and more upbeat at each stage of the process. Some kissing creatures start kissing the bottle to create the sense that the drink is make with love. After every process the creatures wave goodbye to the bottle. After this process the music is a lot quieter and more mellow and sounds more like a Christmas carol that an upbeat song, this music is chosen specifically for this process, because the drink is being carried through the frozen process to make it ice cold, once this is over it is ready to be dispatched and the music starts up again. The music is much louder and we can hear other instruments such as; symbols and drums, all the creatures gather to say goodbye to the Coke and celebrate what they’ve all made together, there’s cheering and fire cannons going off in celebration. This is to show that it is a happy process that we should all be proud of. Once the bottle is dropped it is suddenly quiet.
It goes quiet again as we are brought back to reality and remember we are the consumer of the Coca Cola not the creatures. There is then a quiet familiar memorable tune that has been playing all the way through the advert, to remind us of how the Coke was made that puts a smile on the audiences faces. Watching the drink go through this process made me feel like the drink was freshly made every time and after watching this myself I even felt like drinking a Coke, which I guess means the advert has done it’s job
This adverts starts off with a male aged between 19 and 25, lying on the grass in the sun shine with a bottle of Coca Cola. The producers have chosen this person to represent their target audience because he is who the product is aimed at.
All we see is the male lying with his eyes closed therefore unaware of what is about to happen to him. A lady bird lands on the lid of his Coke and waves her wings in conversation with the grasshoppers and bee’s. The animals work together to roll the bottle onto its side and down a hill. I think the producers chose to involve animals like this to show that even animals love Coke and would go to the strengths to work together to try and get hold of a bottle, you can tell by watching that it is hard work. Every animal has their own role in the process. The bee’s use their strength to push it over, the grass hoppers push it down the hill, the dragon flies help it accorss the pond and the beetle uses its long nose to open the bottle top, Once the top is open the Coke runs down the leaves into the pond for all the animals to enjoy.
The second time I watched the advert I concentrated on the music. The music starts off very mellow and slow, as we watch the animals communicate through movement. It gets much louder when the animals are flying towards the Coca Cola bottle getting ready to take it. Once the bottle starts rolling the upbeat music kicks in as it is making its way towards the river. The bottle makes its way across the pond into a tree root where it is stuck. The music slows down and is very light and peaceful as the caterpillar spins around the bottle to get it into position. Once the bottle hits a halt we hear a loud clash of symbols and the mood of music is lowered as well as the pitch. Whilst this is all going on the young man sitting by the bank is about to realise his Coke has gone. The tension builds up in the music, but once the Coca Cola pours out of the bottle the music is light and upbeat once again.
This Coca Cola advert was created in 1985 therefore is a lot older than the other two adverts I am analysing. This one out of all three I would say is the most different.
This advert is very family orientated, I really enjoy it and the way it advertises Coca Cola, it gives off the vibe that Coca Cola brings people together.
The advert starts with one lady singing alone, she is singing ‘I’d love to teach the world to sing’ by The New Seekers. The song itself is a song that brings people together and makes us thing of the world as one. She seems to be aged between 19 and 23, she was chosen by the advert producers to look this age because it fits into the age range of the target audience.
The music throughout is just that one track, there are no sound effects used. The producers decided not to use any because there is no need. The advert does its job and has a big enough impact without using any unneeded music or noises. The only change in the sound is the volume, that gets louder as more people join in.
The young girl starts to sing alone, but as the camera zooms out we see other people standing around her, the more people in camera shot the more voices we hear joining in the song. It is a beautiful and peaceful song, I like the way the producers have chosen people of all genders and ethnicities to represent the target audience, to show Coca Cola is for everyone and really does bring us all together. As it zooms out we can see that everyone on screen is holding a bottle of Coke in their hand, it creates a family effect and makes people smile and want to be a part of this large family they are watching in this Coca Cola advert. For this advert the slogan is ‘it’s the real thing’ just shows that everyone means every word they are singing.
Logo’s and Labels
I’ve tried collecting logo’s for fizzy drinks to see how companies advertise their drink via a logo, the colours and shapes they use as well as the information they provide on the labels.
Coca Cola.
Coca Cola has been around hundreds of years, therefore the logo has changed many times over this period.
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| 1880's |
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| 1900's |
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| 1950's and 60's |
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| 1950's and 60's |
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| 1960's |
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| 1980's |
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| 1980's |
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| 1990's |
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| 2000's |
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| 2009-today |
Fanta
Fanta Orange has been around a while, however not as long and not a successful as Coca Cola, therefore there is not as many different logos, here are the ones from its time.
Sprite
All of these logos represent a fizzy drink company, and although the logos change over time or are different in other different countries they still have the same colours and same shapes. I think the colour is the most important thing in the logo, I can see from these that if the logo changes colour the whole link between that picture and the drink is gone, there is no connection. People link red to Coca Cola because the logo has always been red. If the colour was suddenly changed audiences wouldn’t think of Coca Cola as the same.
When thinking of a logo for my Fizzy Drink idea I want a colour that people don’t already associate with another drink. I’m going to choose an original colour that stands out.
Task Two:
Mountain Dew
I have analysed an advert for the Fizzy drink ‘Mountain Dew’ I chose this advert because it’s different to most fizzy drinks it is an energy drink, I think it has a different purpose and target audience to most other soft drink.
The advert is narrative based, I chose the advert that start Steven Seagal. The advert starts off with a shop being robbed. Steven Seagal walks in casually to get himself a Mountain Dew, oblivious to what’s going on, walks straight to the back of the shop. Accidentally knocks out two of the robbers and saves the shop without even knowing it. The main point of the story is that Seagal doesn’t know his own strength. The fact that he walks straight to the mountain Dew, makes the audience think that he drinks it all the time and that maybe if they did too, they’d be as strong as Steven Seagal. He’s very chilled out and friendly and makes the narrative comical.
There’s not very much conversation talk in this advert, we understand the narrative through the moving imagery and music. When Seagal does speak he speaks in a very soothing and mellow tone, he’s very polite to show the dramatic difference between himself and the robbers who speak quickly and rough. There’s a lot of different shots in this advert, it’s very quick in changing shots. There’s a lot of wide shots to show what’s happening all around the store. During the time that Seagal is getting his drink out of the fridge we see the robbers coming up behind him, this is one example of when the wide shot is used, this is actually an MCU/WS. There’s a couple of close up shots, but not many. There is one right at the beginning of the shop owner whilst he is being robbed. Before even seeing the robbers we know what is happening, a second into the advert we can see the CU of the shop owners face and hear voices saying ‘give us the money’. We hear a doorbell but unaware of who has come into the shop, we just see the faces of the robbers turn towards the door. There’s then a shot of Seagal to show the audience what the robbers saw before. There’s an MCU of the can of tomato’s, then a long shot of the tomato’s rolling, this was used to foreshadow, we as the audience know the tomato can is going to be of importance because of those shots. The shot that sells the drink is 53 seconds in when Seagal is drinking from the bottle. Although there wasn’t much talking in the advert there are a lot of sound effects used and the music playing in the background is what makes the advert comical.
Steven Seagal is the main character in the advert, he is known for his strength and the characters he plays in his Action films. In this film he is represented as a big strong well known actor who doesn’t know how to control his own strength. He is very laid back and sweet, Seagal is very apologetic when he accidentally hits one of the robbers, oblivious to the crimes going on. The Asian shopkeeper is represented as a stereotypical shopkeeper, very weak, and a pushover when it comes to robberies. When Seagal hits one of the robbers, the shopkeepers face lights up as if he’s seen an Angel, you can tell he’s so thankful that someone has saved him. The robbers are represented as stereotypical middle aged robbers, use their anger and words to get what they want, but when it comes to strength and picking on someone their own size they are represented as weak and cowardly.
I thought the target audience was difficult to decide, but I decided to forget about the advert and imagined that I had created that drink and I thought ‘who would I aim this drink at’. I came to the conclusion that I would aim Mountain dew at young men aged 17-24. I then related it back to the advert and realised why Steven Seagal was chosen, he is an Action here so a role model to boys of that age, to see Steven Seagal in an advert advertising an energy drink, they are going to go straight out to buy it.
I thought that the advert was very comical. There was mild violence shown that could be seen as action if the right music was set in the background, but without the action music it is so mild it is for comical value. The fact that all through the advert Seagal is so oblivious to the fact there has just been a robbery and he has saved the store, the audience knows, but Seagal just thinks the shopkeeper wants an autograph. The Hindi music in the background is what really gets me, the music is so relaxing and mellow that it is makes the humour of the violence incredibly amusing.
The slogan in the advert is ‘Do The Dew’ which is a gimic that means literally ‘Drink the Product’ Mountain Dew chose this for comedy value also, they’ve used rhyming alliteration to make the slogan sound interesting and almost get people thinking about what the mystery slogan is, when really it is just that simple.
The slogan in the advert is ‘Do The Dew’ which is a gimic that means literally ‘Drink the Product’ Mountain Dew chose this for comedy value also, they’ve used rhyming alliteration to make the slogan sound interesting and almost get people thinking about what the mystery slogan is, when really it is just that simple.
I think the advert is comical, therefore will catch the attention of people watching. I like the fact they have used a famous actor as their lead, this will bring in Steven Seagal fan base into the target audience, meaning a better sell for the product. It definitely reaches the target audience very well. I enjoyed the comedy of the advert and thought it was a great way to advertise the drink.
Vimto:
There is not a lot of talking at all in this advert, the only words are said by the computerised raspberry right at the beginning, other than this there Is only music and sound effects. Three computerised fruit are the main characters and 3 young girls, the girls are wearing summer tops, light colours to show innocence. Not many different shots used at all a few moving shots, some 2shots, 3 shots and some MCU’s. They are repeated a lot though, the producer has flicked between the shots repeatedly to fit in with the beat of the music. The computerised fruit were added in during the edit, however the rest was shot during filming.
There is a short narrative to the advertisement. A car with three girls in, is sitting as some traffic lights, and another car with 3 fruit pulls up next to them. The driver says ‘hello pretty ladies’ and they turn up the volume of their rap song ‘bounce and boom’ by big babby ft box bottom. The car starts bouncing up and down as the fruit are trying to impress the girls, they then burst and fruit goes everywhere, it’s only then that the girls are actually impressed.
The women are represented as quite stuck up, beautiful young women who are too good for these other guys pulling up next to them. The fruit are represented as ‘lads’ the producers chose the rap music and the pimped out car for comical value, because they are stereotypical ‘lads’.
The target audience for a drink like Vimto is youths around the age range of 13-19, who are buying a fun flavourful drink. Could be aimed at boys or girls, however I think an advert like this is more aimed at girls because of the ‘lad’ stereotype. Boys that are in this stereotype may not find it offensive but they are less likely to find it comical than girls are.
The genre is definitely comedy, it uses fruit to represent humans in a humorous way, I think the audience will enjoy this humour. A drink like Vimto couldn’t have any other genre for their advertisement. It is a fun and fruity drink, so have an advertisement that was full of action, it wouldn’t advertise the drink to the right audience, or suit the taste.
I enjoy this advert I think it is very comical, and enjoyable to watch, it’s got everything the advert needs in order to appeal to the target audience and it definitely does itself justice.
Task Three:
In order to come up with my product, I decided to ask a small group of girls between the ages of 14 an 19 these 4 questions;
1. What is your favourite fizzy drink?
2. What are your favourite flavours?
3. When looking at an isle of drinks, what is it in the packaging that attracts to you buying the product?
4. If you could invent your own drink to help you with problems in your life, what would yours do?
Question one:
From these results I realised that energy drinks and mixed drinks were very popular. Vimto and Lucozade with 19% , Rio with 15% and Red bull with 11%.
Question 2:
I was very surprised at my results, I thought the favourite would have been strawberry and raspberry, I was shocked to find to top two were banana and pear.
Question Three:
The public only came up with 5 different reasons for buying a product and they were all very close, people mostly care about the Bright Colours and the Design, so I will make sure I concentrate on this when designing the packaging for mny fizzy drnk.
Question Four:
29% said to keep them healthy, and 22% to improve their skin. This got me thinking that girls of this age need a drink that is good for them, with all the vitamins they need.
At the beginning of my research I had no idea what I was going to do for my advert, I brainstormed but I kept changing my mind, I then interviewed some young girls and gave them some questionnaires to fill in, this really helped me to see what people of that age actually like to drink, and what it is in an advert that encourages them to buy it.
My research showed me that girls of this age enjoy mixed fruit drinks and energy drinks the most, so I decided to combine the two and create an energy drink that is mixed fruit flavours. I was happy with my idea, and carried on reading through my results. I then came to question 4 ‘what would your drink do?’ I then realised that at this age health and looking good is really important, it’s the age where young girls are starting puberty and getting spots. Fizzy drinks don’t help, so I adapted my first idea ad decided to created a healthy mixed fruit and energy drink combo.
When it came to deciding on a name for my drink I really liked the name ‘combo’, I designed it on a can whilst coming up with the name.
The design changed again to Combo NRG.
From this stage I was then able to consider numerous ideas for the advert. After researching through the use of questionnaires I chose four of the favourite fruits proven most popular by the girls between the ages of 14 to 18. A further design idea stemmed from this, hence forth I decided to use fruits as the letters that create “CONBO”. I also considered the aesthetics, colours used and emotions initiated by the design. The final colour scheme chosen, needed to be bright and reflect and appeal to the target audience, therefore I intend on using the colours turquoise and purple.
For my television Advert I initially came up with the idea that I wanted people dressed as fruit. Developing upon this idea, due to its impracticality and funding issues, I created the following idea:
Instead of fruit I would have one person dressed as the “Conbo NRG”drinks can and one dressed as a grey unlabeled can. In summary the grey can asks the “Conbo NRG” drinks can for a race, emphasising on the extra energy given the “Conbo NRG” drinks the product and wins the race.
I intend on shooting this advert behind Suffolk New College, on the green next to the park. My advert involves 2 main characters, and some extra’s cheering them on at the race. I will make the costumes out of cardboard boxes and paint then with poster paint. I will also use face paint to cover the faces of the people dressed as cans. I would like a dramatic song playing in the background of my advert when the “Conbo NRG” can wins the race Vangelis- Chariots of fire. Before the race, I’d like to have some upbeat happy music when “Conbo” is on screen, and dark music when the grey can is on screen.
I’d like quite a few CU’s during my advert to show the facial emotion of the cans when it is tense, and long shots during the race. I’d like some moving shots whilst they are running also
