Radio Adverts Research

Jaffa Cakes - Pack your Bags Radio Advert

The target audience for this advert would appear to be all fans of football, and not even necessarily hardcore committed fans because the advert clearly provides references to the FIFA Wold Cup and the England football team, and many people who would not otherwise boast a great interest in club football become patriotic and show and interest in England around World Cup.
I personally am not a fan of this advert, however using football and footballers to advertise a product is often successful, and on television in particular creates memorable adverts. The recognisable voice of Steven Gerrard - an England midfielder - helps in this advert to enforce the links to the World Cup and his endorsement will help sell the product. His voice is used at the end to recite the slogan of the advert "of course it's every cakes' dream to go to the world cup". The use of a well known football player's voice helps to influence an audience, which works particularly well in this instance as he is advertising an already well known and popular product.

Three voices feature within the advert;

• The first is a quiet Japanese female voice that we hear after a dialing tone, she is answering the phone. The dialing tone lets us know she is on the opposite end of the phone, and being recorded through it. It becomes apparent through "ENGLAND HOTEL!" (spoken by the booming male voice on our end of the phone) that she is an employee at said hotel, that the hotel is in Japan, and it is supposedly the hotel the English squad stayed in during the 2002 world cup. She is seems a little slow, and confused throughout, obviously because the call is presumably random, and it is likely there is a bit of a language barrier as well.
• The second voice you hear is the booming male voice aforementioned, reminiscent deliberately of Channel 4 reality show 'Big Brother'. He calls himself 'Davina' (this is not funny!) but instead of straight referring to 'Big Brother' the radio advert equivalent is called 'Jaffa Cakes'. Again, not funny.
• Lastly at the end of the advert you hear the voice of Steven Gerrard who delivers the line albeit nervously (to the point i question if it is truely his voice... However i also don't see why it wouldn't be) linking the World Cup and Jaffa Cakes.

The advert is designed to be funny and the use of these popular elements from modern culture help sell the product.

The advert features in the YouTube video at the end of this post.


Marmite - Our Tune

This advert was designed to be funny and has a comical element to it. There is only one voice present within the advert and that voice is from a male. The voice tells a sad story of two people who fell in love and lived horribly but happy lives together until the female he is describing discovers that her husband doesn't like the product that is being advertised. In the final seconds of the advert there is the theme tune 'My Mate Marmite' that is associated with the product. The jolly tune creates a contrast to the sad non-diegetic background music and this contrast helps to create a comical element that will entertain listeners and encourage them to buy the product. This advert is aimed at anyone who enjoys Marmite as the product is famous for it's 'You either Love it or Hate it' slogan. You can also say that the product is aimed at the people who do the weekly shop as it is a product that you would find people buying when they shop. Others who could also buy this product could be people who have never actually tried the product and are curious as to which side of the slogan they fall in.

Marmite - Our Tune Radio Advert
http://www.aerialsfoundation.co.uk/hof/HallOfFame.xml - Go to number 17 to find the radio advert.


Alton Towers - Job Vacancies

This advert made obvious from the offset is set on a rollercoaster at Alton Towers. An excited

mans voice (not too dissimilar to Peter Dickson, the 'voice of E4') introduces us to the theme park - "At Alton Towers..." - so we immediately associate the dominant sound effects with a rollercoaster. The mans voice seeks to sell the park to us, "...we are serious about ... FUUNNNN!", and it becomes obvious that he himself is on the roller-coaster it is effecting his speech, he pauses as the carriage evidently reaches the apex of a climb, before screaming and almost laughing the word 'fun' as it rushes into its descent. This pattern continues through the advert, and added to the sound effects is the screams of other passengers on the roller-coaster. The advert ends when the ride ends, and the man gives details of how to get in touch if you are interested in a career at Alton Towers, before exclaiming "I think i need to lie down for a bit!" obviously because the ride was so exhilarating. The use of an older mans voice (i would hazard a guess that voiceover is a man in his 50's-60's, possibly older) is a subversive one for a theme park, which would usually be made more appealing to kids and younger generations by a younger sounding voice. I think this is partly because the primary objective for the advert is to advertise job opportunities, and partly to highlight to potential custom that theme parks are not just for younger people, anyone can visit and anyone can have fun.

The target audience for this advert is 'enthusiastic' and 'dedicated' people who are 'cool headed'; "if you think yo can keep your head when everyone else is losing theirs...".

The Alton Towers Website (http://www.altontowers-jobs.com/about-us) informs there are positions for all ages and backgrounds so their target audience apart from the charismatic personality desired is a broad one...

"Some of our employees are sixteen and have just left school; some are over eighty. Some come from just around the corner; some from halfway round the world. Something for everyone indeed."

Besides prospective employees the advert is definitely designed to make the Staffordshire theme park attractive and appear fun to anyone who listens, and entice people to visit the park as customers as well.

This radio advert can be heard below.

Guinness

This advert features a female voice telling us every single thing she did on a certain day, her voice is sped up effectively to emphasise just how many things she is fitting into her speech, it sounds like a busy day.
The advert, being for an alcoholic product is aimed first and foremost at people aged 18 and over, however because of the apparent age and situation of the voice heard it is suggestable it would appeal more so to people of similar ages and in similar situations.

Judging by the dialogue, tone, and accent, the mentioning of a gun, and then paying attention to particular lines i.e "Took the kids to school...Played with the kids....Read them a story", i can tell the woman is married, and would guess she is middle class and lives rurally based on her accent and the connatations of having a gun in England. I would suggest she is her 30's, no older than 40's judging by the assumed ages of her kids. Therefore it can be said the advert would appeal strongly to anyone in a similar situation and who possesses the ablilty to empathise.

The broader and likely intended target audience is really anybody (over the age of 18) who works hard, whether it be at home or not, and who would appreciate putting their feet up and having a relaxing drink after a long hard day. It is promoted that Guinness is the perfect drink for this; [sighs] "Oohh, lovely it was my lord!"

This woman's speech takes place in a Court Room, we know this from "well my lord" and "as far as i remember my lord", but it only becomes apparent why she is there and that she herself is the one on trial at the adverts' very comic ending... We are told that after her long and stressful day her partner, Fred, has come home and jibed that she is lucky she doesn't have to work...
"And that's why i shot him!"

It is also worth noting that amongst her rambling "Fed the toucan" is one of the errands she completed that day. The Toucan is a recognised symbol for Guinness, almost as famous for the Irish stout as the harp that features so prominently nowerdays. Anybody old enough to remember this might well make the link to Guinness before the adverts end.