Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Help me pick out a company to analyze their advertising...

I've been given the assignment below. I could use help from my readership. Finding TV ads on YouTube is not so hard but I need like radio, newspaper and magazine, too, all for the same product. Does anyone have ideas? If you see or hear an ad current in a magazine, newspaper or on the radio that you think the company would also advertise on TV... I know I have OTD blogreaders who listen to the radio and watch TV... think, who's on both? I just heard a Raid ad on the radio but that's the other problem, I need copies to analyze it all.



Select a product (such as Tide detergent, Dove soap, Target stores, project Red etc.) - please run the product by me before you begin to write. You are going to do a analysis of an advertising campaign for this product. Then take a look at a minimum of 3 different media where ads appear for this product (such as the internet, TV, outdoor, radio, newspapers etc.). You must be very specific in describing the ads - the talent (which is an indicator as to the demographic for the product), the mood, the copy, is there music?, the lighting etc. Therefore you can not do this from memory - you must find the ads and study them - do a "close reading" of the information carried within each ad. Do a bit of research on the history of the product, which will help you in understanding perhaps what the manufacturer is seeking in the advertising campaign. Just how do the ads in the different media represent a campaign (sometimes it is the color, the headline, the talent like Joe Isuzu, etc.) Is this an effective campaign? Do the ads in the different media offer information or mood or a need that the consumer will respond to? Why is this campaign compelling? A research component is helpful - remember to cite any sources used and use quotation marks for any direct quotations. The analysis should run about 5 - 7 pages, double spaced. Grammar and spelling count so use grammar and spelling check please.

2 comments:

  1. Hmmmm... interesting assignment. I'm quite a fan of seeing ads as a window on the pulse of a society. Whenever I pick up an old National Geographic from 1949, the first thing I do is..... look at ads!

    In the meantime, here's a link to IMO the best advertisement ever made for any product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8t19-FobYs. The link actually has 2 ads for the company back-to-back, but IMO the really great one is the one starting at 0:59.

    It's an ad for.... Boeing of all companies. Raises the curious question of who exactly is supposed to be the audience. Which is why I think the piece is so good: it's everyone on the planet.

    Boeing does alot of print advertising, probably tilted towards aerospace and defense trade magazines but also in TIME, NYTimes, etc. They do some radio ads, but mainly around Washington DC to influence policymakers and DoD procurement folks.

    I guess this is primarily just an excuse for me to point what I consider an amazing work of art...

    :-]

    but you gotta admit, it's alot cooler than an ad for Clorox.

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  2. McDonalds, Allstate, GEICO, Nationwide, Burger King, KFC (PepsiCo), Wachovia, Ford, BP, Dell, AT&T, Cingular, DirecTV, Intel and Verizon are a few companies that come to mind that advertise across all media. So do alot of the TV networks (Big 3, Fox, and some of the cable channels).

    BP could be interesting this summer as a study in "crisis advertising"....they're practically inventing the genre!

    Or it might be interesting to track the advertisements for, say, a specific book or movie across all media.

    >>"I know I have OTD blogreaders who listen to the radio and watch TV"

    No kidding! Everyone's journey to OTD starts small, but for me it was those Verizon bus shelter ads that led me to turn on the radio after Shabbos in hopes of hearing more...

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