With age radio commercial styles and conventions have changed in order to keep with the current trends and culture, this is to make the adverts relatable and understandable to the listener. I decided to analyse two retro and two modern radio adverts to see the similarities and difference.
Retro
Nescafe
The Nescafe advertisement is mainly in song format which seems to be a common style in a lot of retro advertisements. This advert uses repetition as a means to raise awareness of the brand and the product. This 43 seconds advertisement has two components, the song and the speech at the end. In the song, ‘Nescafe’ and ’43 beans’ are repeated many times for emphasis, this is because they want the audience to know what brand it is, they also want to get across the main selling point of the product which is that every cup contains 43 beans which i’m guessing was a unique selling point of the product in the times this advert was created. The song is then followed by a 7 second speech which once again tell the audience the selling point, ‘extra beans is extra flavour’, and then the name of the brand. This helps to raise awareness of the product. The way the song is transitioned into the speech creates a contrast between the two parts bringing the audiences attention to the information.
The advert uses voices of people who sound the age of an stereotypically working adult. This would mainly be the advert’s target audience as working adults would mainly be the main user of this product. This allows for the audience to relate more to the product as they feel it is for people like them.
(click the link below to listen to the ad)
Dodge
The Dodge advert is a persuasive advert with the purpose of raising awareness of the brand and informing the public of the new product.
The Dodge radio advertisement is a conversation between two men. The advert gives you the feeling that you have to have this car, the extensive use of adjectives in the advert such as, ‘big, new, money saving car’. The target audience for this ad is for adult males which is why it is suitable for it to be a conversation between two men. The ad begins with the host ‘Harry’ complimenting his guest ‘Frank’ of how handsome he is and saying how the girls ‘crazy’ about him. This is to try and get the audience to associate the car brand with people that are good looking or live the lifestyle that Frank is pictured of living. This helps to attract their target audience as the audience will feel that if they have the product they will become, or live the lifestyle that Frank lives. The ad gives out good information so the audience is well informed of the product.
Modern
Lipton Green Leaf Tea
The radio advertisement was simplistic but effective. This advert uses repetition and slight humour. The advert was essential asking for different kind of people opinions to which they replied with the same one word answer ‘Mmm’. The word is connotated with what people think tastes good, but it also means that they are too busy enjoying the taste to speak real words. The people responded in a sound that was stereotyped to the people they are said to be, for example, he asked a race car driver what they thought, and they replied by saying ‘Mhmmm’ but in a way a race car sounds when driving. Another example would be, when he asked a barber shop quartet for their thoughts and they replied by singing. Since everyone answers the same the audience gets the idea that everyone and all types of people like it, the ad also creates curiosity in their heads as they want to try and see if it is actually as tasty as the advert makes it out to be. The people type of people that they ask also helps to enhance the audio experience keeping the interest of the audience. The ad then finishes on a smooth song where the speaker gives information on the product.
Coca-Cola Summer Ad
The advert is short but does the trick. This advert is aimed for the consumption of the product during the summer. This ad is aimed at young adults during the summer, using a young male adults voice allows it to be more relatable to the target audience who are also young males. The male in the ad says he is playing some sound effects for his ‘thirst’ but is really creating the summer environment/scenario that the audience may or want to encounter during the summer. In the last sound clip you hear him drinking what turns out to be a Coca-cola and then making an ‘ahh’ sound showing that he enjoyed the drink and that it was refreshing. He then identifies what drink it was saying it was a coke so that the audience now knows what is was that he was enjoying. His thirst then disappears meaning that the coke solved his thirst problem which is a common problem for people in the summer. Not only did the sound of enjoying the coke lure them into wanting one but the idea that it solves a common problem attracts the audience more.
The style of the advert is both simple and modern. The concept is simply playing sound effects to create an environment that the target audience may encounter while in the summer. The environments are a scenario where a person may feel thirsty and then they provide them with a solution which is the coke. This lures because it is a user benefit.
The purpose of this is to maximise sales but with a lot of coca-cola sales they use season as a reason to purchase their products, for example, the reason for buying a coke in the christmas season is different to the reason for buying a coke in the sum me period.
So from this analysis I learnt that with the modern adverts, they tend to use more creative methods to put forward the information, more sound effects are used to create a sense of environment, the adverts don’t tend to push the name of the product as much during the adverts and radio adverts tend to be a lot shorter in duration.
The Nathan Project 