ASA and OFCOM (Task 4)

Advertising needs to be regulated. Regulation takes place through two main bodies, OFCOM, and the ASA.

OFCOM has wide-ranging powers across the television, radio and postal sectors. It has a duty to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by protecting the public from what might be considered as harmful or offensive material. Some of the main areas OFCOM presides over are licencing, research, codes and policies, complaints, competition and protecting the radio spectrum from abuse. OFCOM allow you to send in complaints about anything you find offensive or wish to comment on, and you can do this by going onto the website and selecting from a list of ‘Television & Radio - Phones, Internet & Pay TV – Postal Services’. From there, you can then select from a number of various subcategories in which you feel your complaint most relates to. You will then be directed to a page where you can fill out a form explaining your issue. OFCOM will review your form and decide whether they feel that your complaint is legitimate and if they feel something should be done; they will then make their decision and act at the right time, in the right way. They will sum up other people’s opinions and the outcome if they decided to make changes, and then carry on from there accordingly.

The ASA, which stands for Advertising Standards Authority, it is the independent regulator of advertising across all media produced in the UK. They deal with complaints and are always checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful, or offensive advertisements. They try to ensure that all advertisements are legal, honest, and truthful to the public. Their aim is to successfully regulate advertisements in all media; they will do this by regulating online advertisements, effectively responding to issues shown to be affected by advertisements, placing more emphasis on preventing harm from advertisements, and keeping up to date with what consumers, businesses and society wants. The types of advertising that they cover are magazine/newspapers, radio/TV commercials, shopping channels, advertising on the internet, commercial email advertising, posters, leaflets/brochures, cinema commercials, direct mail, ads on CD ROMs/DVD/video, and sales promotions.

Upon checking whether the ASA cover what your complaint is about, you can go onto their website and navigate to the page ‘make a complaint’. You can then complain online, write to them via email, or phone them up. They will then take you through the steps in which you can tell them what your complaint is. They will then review your complaint and, like OFCOM, will decide whether they feel that it is legitimate and if something needs to be changed. They will then deal with your complaint accordingly. If they feel that your complaint is valid and others agree, they will inform other parties about the case and take the case from there.

This is an advert that caused controversy and the ASA received 316 complaints about it. It is the John Lewis 2010 advert, which shows a little boy hanging up a Christmas stocking on dog’s house in the garden, although he walks away and leaves the dog in the cold whilst it is snowing. Many people complained saying that is shows irresponsible pet ownership. Viewers complained that the advert suggested it was acceptable to leave an animal out in the cold. At the end of the advert, as the child is seen walking off leaving the dog, a slogan appears saying ‘for those who care about showing they care’. Many people hit back at this, stating that the advert doesn’t show that they care by leaving the dog outside instead of letting him in.

The ASA, on the other hand, disagreed to these complaints as they felt that the advertisement did not encourage people to be cruel to their animals or neglect them. The complaints were not upheld, and the advertisement continued to be aired. On the other hand, if the ASA did agree with these complaints, action could have been taken and the advert could have been removed. 

This next advert, which is no longer on TV or online, gained OFCOM 350 complaints from viewers deeming that it glamorised gun culture. It is a Land Rover commercial in which a woman is seen firing a gun as she is chasing a man that had left her house. The man then enters a Land Rover, and the woman takes aim. She then aims upwards and fires (like that of a person that starts a race) and the man smiles and drives off. The advertisement is in the top 10 most complained about adverts of all time. OFCOM state that “the glamorisation and normalisation of guns, even indirectly, is simply offensive to many people”. Land Rover hit back, stating “this advert was created to reinforce the association with sport that the model inspires.” 

OFCOM decided to ban the advert and it is no longer aired nor can be found online. They agree with the complaints that it glamorises gun culture and sends out the wrong message to the viewers. They feel that the advertisement has breached guideline rules on harm and offence, thus resulting in not being played again. This advert would be played throughout the day near Christmas time, which means that children will be watching and they may be influenced. Land Rover have since apologised saying the company was “very sorry” although they are “extremely concerned to hear viewers found the advertisement distasteful”. 

Audience Segmentation in Advertising

Audience segmentation in advertising from Lucasjwarren

Different Forms of TV Advertising (Task 1)

Realism:

Realism is the representation of whatever is possible in real life or in a non fictional way, an example of this is this AA advert which has nothing outlandish or fictional in it.

The positives for this type of advert is that they are simple and easy to make, but on the other hand this kind of advert will not stand out over others, and do not give a big enough impact to be remembered over time.

Anti-realism:

Anti-realism is the representation of anything unrealistic, the use of fictional/unreal situations or ideas, for example this Cadbury’s advert which has two children who wiggle their eyebrows to the beat of the song.

The benefits of using this kind of advert is that it makes people laugh and therefore will be remembered for longer, also it gives the creators to createive freedom to invent all sorts of crazy things. However not everyone will understands these ads, and can be thought of as strange or confusing, which can alienate some viewers.

Animation:

Animation is the process creating frames one by one then displaying them quickly in sequence creating the illusion of movement. There are different styles of animation for example computer generated images (CGI which can be 3D or 2D), stop frame animation or clay-mation. An example of CGI is this coke advert which is almost entirely computer animated. The advantages of animation are that you can create what would be impossible in real life, it can be cheaper live action (depending on production/scale), it can look a lot better now days using modern technology. Also a lot of companies now days have created a character/brand identity which is often an easier way of helping the audience relate back to the company. However animation can be a very long process to produce and it can also be expensive, and if the company doesn't spend a decent amount of money on the production, it can end up looking cheap and strange. 

Documentary:

Documentary style adverts tend to use real locations and sometimes real staff in order to establish trust and gain credibility with the audience, they also tend to give a lot of facts about how good the food is in order to gain more trust. This can be beneficial, but sometimes the audience can see through the what they say and the advert becomes a little shifty and it seems as though the company is trying to manipulate everyone. An example of documentary style advertising is a Dominos ad which starts off with them looking at problems with their pizzas, then fix it.

Talking Heads:

Talking heads adverts tend to have people talking about the product/company and give their positive opinions. The positive aspects of this is that people believe they are receiving genuine advice from people who have used the product/company. However many can see through this realize they are being manipulated by the advert.

Stand Alone:

A stand alone advertisement is a form of advert that is a one off, there will not be another advert by the same company that is related in terms of the story/narrative. Yell produced many stand alone advertisements in a three month campaign of adverts to tell their consumers their new products.

Series:

An advert which is a part of a series has a constantly developing story. The series usually has a main character and additional characters. BT uses a series of adverts, in each of their ads we see a family consisting of a mother, her son, and her new husband. This family goes through some problems that audience members will be able to relate to and in the series, BT broadband helps the family to cope with trouble they face.

Another example of a series advert is the ‘Compare the market . com’ series. It includes characters from the main meerkat ‘Orlov’, his associate ‘Sergei’, but over time and many adverts later through the campaign, the company has added more characters, and new scenarios for them to act and promote the company.

Similarly, the Go compare ads use same character to sing to people in different situations. However they realized halfway through the campaign that people do not like ads and find them annoying, so they started putting the character in negative situations for example, in one commercial Ray Mears traps him in a net, and later he is blown up by a rocket launcher.

Persuasive Techniques in Advertising

There are three different strategies that advertisements use to make you buy their products, Pathos, Logos and Ethos.

Pathos, is used to evoke an emotional response in the consumer. Often the advert will show someone either being happy with their product, for example in many Food adverts the people are shown in an attractive and cheerful way. However other ads try to gain a more depressed/guilty response for example charity adverts or ads for the RSPCA for example.

Logos, a technique which appeals to logic or reason in the audience, adverts will often state facts and figures to gain trust and confidence with the consumer. An example of this would be many of the toothbrush/paste commercials of today:

Ethos, which relates to the credibility/character of the company, showing that they are trustworthy, honest and credible meaning you should buy their product. Ethos ads can also involve statistics for example a lot of make-up ads say '9 out of 10 women liked...', attempting to prove to the audience that their product is legit. Also manny ads now days use celebrities to advertise their product as they give the brand a good look.

In the advert for Sure Maximum Protection, the techniques used were Logos, as they used figures, for example when it said '2x the protection' which sugests that it is better than the other products. The advert also uses Ethos