Advertising – the car industry

Advertising plays a major part in the sale of many objects, from daily needs such as food, to things that aren't a necessity. Each advert has a different target audience and we can tell this by looking at many things in the advert, such as the amount of copy and the language that is used. The companies look deeply into the meaning of their adverts through research and studying what people want, and then put these ideas into the advert itself. They use many different techniques to get across their points, and make the customer want to buy the product on offer.

By exploiting the customer, they can make them think that they need a product, when actually it isn't a necessity. There are three main types of advertising, using moving pictures on television, using still pictures in magazines and newspapers, by speaking on the radio and also by word of mouth. The two that I am going to concentrate on are moving image and still image. The moving image advert that I have chosen is "In the nick of time" which advertises a new Audi car, which was shown on television in 1989.

The advert is very well produced, as the person viewing it doesn't immediately know what it is actually advertising. It could be a wide variety of things, and this makes the customer more interested and wanting to know what it is that is being advertised. The advert is a narrative, and the main story is that there is a young boy and an adult who are rushing somewhere. We don't know where they are going, or who either of the two are until the final few seconds of the advert.

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The story that is being told throughout the advert could be, at first perceived as being very sinister, as throughout the advert it point towards bad things going to happen, such as the dark mysterious man walking the street. This adds to the whole effect of the advert, by promoting the safety of the car, and how reliable it is. The car can also be described as a family car, but at the same time it is speedy. It uses the latest technology, and is mainly aimed at people who are fairly wealthy, and we know this as at the beginning of the advert there the man is in a large and expensive house.

It represents the end of an era that saw many yuppies, who were only interested in power and money, but this car is a family car, yet also for a professional businessman who is in touch with his feelings and his family, called "New Man". It is almost saying that although having money and status are important, so is looking after your family and being with them. I have chosen a few still shots from the advert, to explain how they have used techniques, such as the angles of the shots, and tried to get details of the car across to the customer, such as how safe it is.

All of the stills that I have chosen are very sinister, as I want to stick to this side of the advert. The first still that I have is the man getting his coat. There is a dark shadowy figure in the background of the shot, and we cannot make out what the man is actually doing. This shot is low key, and they have it like this because it is more imposing, as the shadows make the shot look like something out of a horror movie. It is also of a low angle, looking up at the man, and this adds to the effect of the shot, as we don't immediately know what the shot is.

The man has hard lighting surrounding him, so that he looks very sinister and is different to the front of the shot, which is soft lighting. The second still that I have chosen is when they have arrived in the town, as this again links in with the sinister theme throughout the advert. In this shot, it is at eye level and is low key, which creates a shadow around the car, and also to the left and right of the car it is very dark, and this links in with the image of the car, it being safe.

The third shot that I have chosen is about half way through the advert, and in this shot there is a man in a tunnel with a fairly large shadow on the wall behind him. It uses intertextuality, as it uses parts from a Hitchcock film, which make it like a horror movie, "The Third Man". The shot is at a low angle, which makes the shadow of the man elongated, creating a better effect for the shot. Also the fact that it is a low key shot, adds to the overall sinister theme of the shot. The next shot is also of a man, but thus time there is a very large shadow that is over the car, and onto the wall.

This shot indicates how safe the car is, as they are away from the outside world, and that nothing in the outside world can hurt them in any way. We don't find out what the man was doing, or who he was. The low angle shot makes the shadow very big on the wall, which totally overpowers the car. The second to last shot that I have chosen to use is when the car is in the arches, and this like all of the other shots that I have chosen is very dark and menacing. The low key shot causes there to be light above the car, which creates darkness in the arches, and the car becomes shadowy.

The light overall surrounds the car, as though it is moving away from the light and into the dark which creates a creepy atmosphere. The final shot that I have chosen is totally different to the rest of the shots, because it has nothing sinister or dark about it. It is of the new born baby, and this is the point where the viewer realises that the advert wasn't in fact sinister at all, but they were rushing for the birth of the baby. Nearly the entire screen is filled with the baby screaming, and the colour of it, pink, hits you as the rest of the advert has mainly been dark colours such as black and grey.

This links is with the idea of there being a new generation of cars, as there the baby is a new generation of the family, as in the voice over they say, " The sound throughout the whole of the advert is mostly no-diegetic, as there is only music and a woman saying a voice over. The music that they have chosen is slow and mysterious, as this links in with the sinister effect that they want to get across. Also the woman figure adds an element of calmness to the creepy music and the actual advert itself, as she have a very motherly and soothing voice.

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