Television Advert Analysis

1. What is the ad for / what is the message?

This advert is for the brand 'Lynx' (also known by the name of 'Axe' in the US), introducing the new 'Attract' (or 'Anarchy') line of deodorants and emphasising the fact that there would be both a version for men and a version for women; due to the fact that almost every Lynx product before this was exclusively for men, this is a pretty big focus point in the ad.

2. Who is the target audience?

The primary demographic of this product is young males & females, mostly between the ages of thirteen and twenty-one and being in the social grades from the lowest level of social status, up to the lower end of the middle class. As for the secondary, this can be considered as men and women older than twenty-one, perhaps even up to their fifties, with people even from anything up to the upper middle class who do not bother with buying expensive, posh branded deodorants because they simply enjoy Lynx's scents enough. When it comes to the primary and secondary psycho-graphics, it seems to primarily target its product towards 'mainstreamers', with the secondary audience being targeted including 'strugglers' and 'succeeders'.

3. When was the advert aired / when would you expect it to be aired?

According to the website 'campaignlive.com', this advert was first aired on television on the first of February in 2012. Due to some of the features of this ad, like the car crashes and the sensual nature of some of the clips, based on my research on websites like 'BARB' and looking at typical TV listings, this advert probably aired later in the daytime, maybe around six o'clock, give or take a couple hours.

It's also fair to assume that the ad did not air on any children's channels, like Nickelodeon or CBBC for example, again for the reasons I stated, but instead only aired on more general audience channels, like ITV, Channel 4, Sky 1, etc. If all this is accurate, based on the length being one minute long, it would mean that each airing of this advert would cost the company between ten to twenty thousand, ten to thirty thousand, two-and-a-half to four-and-a-half thousand, and six hundred and fifty to one thousand, one hundred and fifty pounds; these would be the prices for ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky 1 respectively.

4. What form does the ad take?

This advert is a stand-alone advert, in the sense that it is not part of a 'mini-series' of advertisements that includes a plot or anything similar. It also takes the form of live-action as opposed to being animated, although it is fair to make the judgement that some of the event of the ad, like the helicopters flying towards the city and some of the larger 'disasters' that occur throughout, were not done practically but instead created using CGI.

5. What style is the ad / what persuasion techniques are used?

As for the styles this advertisement fits into, it could be considered as quite a few different ones. The majority of the advert fits into the style of 'shocking', due to the all the dangerous and harmful events that occur, like the car crash and the motorcycle driving into the pet store and smashing the entire window for example - perhaps these would also cause the ad to slightly fit as 'dramatic' as well.

These events however could also be seen as 'humorous', due to how insane and ridiculous some of them seem when considering that this advert is overall simply just for some new deodorants. The advert could possibly be considered as a little bit of a parody, not of any movies of TV shows specifically but instead just of action films as a whole. Finally, all of the things that occur in this ad are apart of a piece of hidden messaging from Lynx - that message being that if you buy and use our brand, you will attract members of the opposite sex to you (to an extreme degree). This message is put across in the advert using exaggerated results of what using the product will do according to Lynx, with the 'chaos' being released referring to this new product from the company, which has the intent of creating 'envy' from the viewer so they would want to buy the product themselves.

6. Does the ad follow AIDA? If so, how?

'AIDA' is an acronym which relates to advertising and features a good ad should include in order to work on the viewer the best it possibly can. (The acronym stands for 'attract Attention, arouse Interest, stimulate Desire, promote Action'). In terms of how this acronym relates to this advert specifically, the ad attracts the attention of the potential consumer by beginning showing a situation where two people of the opposite sex are suddenly attracted to each other, followed by many other examples of the same thing, with extreme accidents like car crashes and general breaking of large items shown in between each, often with each accident leading to the next couple finding each other.

This does a pretty good job getting the attention of their potential consumer due to who their target audience and typical potential consumer would be, them being young men and women who are most likely looking for something to make them seem more attractive to those they are attracted to. On top of this, the accidents happening throughout also do a good job of getting their attention as well, as it is typically accepted that younger people like things like that, like action movies. As for arousing the interest of the viewer, this ad does not do a lot to achieve this, other than simply pointing out that these are 'new' products. Other than that though, the advert does not point out the price being affordable or uses appealing adjectives to describe the product or anything similar that would do the job. When it comes to how this ad stimulates desire from the viewers, it could be argued that the entirety of the ad's story-line has been done with the intent of making the viewer desire to perhaps be like the people in the ad, also known as the people who use the product (as far as the advert makes you believe anyway). Finally, when it comes to if the advert promotes action from the people watching it who may be interested in the product at all, it does not really do that at all. No where in the advert does it tell the viewer to go out and buy it or that it's limited or anything that would fit into this area of advertising. Instead, it simply tells them the product's name - and that's it.

So overall, this advert follows some of the steps of AIDA, but definitely does not follow it completely.

7. Discuss the characteristics of products / services:

This advert's 'storyline' is done the way it is in an attempt to make the young men and women watching the advert believe that the benefits offered from buying this is that they would become more attractive to the opposite sex if they were to use the company's new product. These benefits are never explicitly said and pointed out to the viewer, but are instead put across through all the couples that are formed throughout the events that occur in the video, as stated. Assumingly, this product does a better job at what it is set out to accomplish better than any other similar product from a different company, but again, this is never explicitly stated throughout the entirety of the ad. The USP, or the 'Unique Selling Point' of this product, is that this deodorant is for both men and women, or as they word it, "for him and for her". This is the selling point that the advert focuses on quite a bit, as until this point Lynx had essentially only created deodorants and other products primarily for men. When it comes to the brand's 'identity', Lynx has a very noticeable shape for the packaging that a lot of their products come in. For example, the shape of Lynx's shower gels are very unique compared to a lot of the other brand's packaging, and specifically when it comes to the product advertised in this ad, their deodorant's aesthetics are quite recognisable too, maybe to a slightly lesser degree though. This shape of products is shown in this advert, first as an outline with a video of a man and woman using the products on themselves on the 'for him' and 'for her' versions respectively.

As for the 'lifestyle appeal' of the product, it could be considered as extremely similar to the benefits that are supposed to be offered from the product. The lifestyle appeal would be that the product would make anyone who uses it more attractive and wanted by those who they are attracted to.

8. Who is responsible for regulating this advert (and all advertising) in the UK?

'The Advertising Standards Authority' (the ASA), along with their sister organisation 'The Committee of Advertising Practise' are the two organizations who are responsible for regulating all advertising content in the United Kingdom, including this advert. When it comes to the specifics of what each regulator does, the ASA makes sure that any advertisements shown across the UK follow the agreed rules of advertising, or the 'Advertising Codes', while the CAP are the ones who write those codes. The ASA respond to any complaints or concerns that may arise about any particular advert from both consumers and businesses, banning adverts that are considered too harmful, offensive, irresponsible or simply misleading. They also check adverts themselves to be sure that they are following the rules put in place, and conduct research with the public to find out the typical opinions on where they need to 'take action' in order to protect consumers better in the future. As for the CAP, they are the people who are responsible for writing the codes each advertiser must abide by, as mentioned above, but they also offer authoritative guidance and advice to advertisers on how they can create campaigns that properly follow and comply with the rules they have set.

A slightly odd technique Lynx likes to take part in for their advertising campaigns include pushing the boundaries of what is allowed by the BCAP code in television advertising. This follows the idea of 'any publicity is good publicity', and at times, the company's ads have pushed the boundaries so far to the point of being banned. A good example of this would be the company's 'clean your balls' campaign. According to Mumbrella, the ad was banned for "demeaning older men", which goes directly against the fourth section of the BCAP broadcasting code, which states rules that must be followed as to "minimise the risk of causing harm or serious or widespread offence".

As for the way this advert broke these rules to the extent where an old man at the end of the ad produces two deflated medicine balls, asking "can you help me with these saggy old balls? Nobody’s played with them for years", which according to the advertising watchdog, was too far. They were, however, cleared of degrading both sexes, racism and bad language, despite them still receiving one-hundred-and-fifty complaints from the public about this advert's contents. 

9. Analyse the codes and conventions of the advert's construction:

The 'mise-en-scene' of this advert is very good and consistent. For example, at an early point in the ad, a man jumps off of his motorcycle, which leads to it driving into a window of a pet store and smashes it. From then on in the advert, birds can be spotted at random parts of the frame after they have escaped the store. On top of this, nothing seems to be in frame that isn't supposed to be there at any point - in fact, almost everything seen in the advert at some point leads into something else happening.

The soundtrack throughout this entire ad is the song 'It Must Be Something Psychological' sung by Katie Lee. The song itself is quite nice, almost calming tune, which is juxtaposed by the chaos that is occurring on screen, making what is happening visually more noticeable to the viewer. Also, the lyrics to this song relate to the theme of love, which fits well for the purpose of this advertisement, with some lyrics being heard in the ad including '. As well as the music in this ad, the sound effects heard in it include the sounds of the crashes, smashes and the other events that occur, also of which juxtapose to the gentle song playing in the background. When it comes to dialogue, this advert does not include any; the only piece of voice that is included in this advert is at the very end, what being a voice-over of a man introducing the product that is being shown to us.

A lot of the angles this ad was filmed using were eye-level or shoulder-level shots, but these were not the only angles used during the filming of it. Multiple examples of both high and low angles were also present throughout, such as the shot of the upturned bus surrounded by cars and the shot of the man running down the stairs away from the fake head rolling towards him from behind respectively. There is also a short example of what looks like a birds-eye shot in the ad, looking directly down upon the plant pot which was knocked from the roof above by the two people who are seen at the very start of the ad. Other than this shot though, this angle was very rarely used, as is typical for many videos in general, not just adverts.

Shoulder-level

Eye-level

 

High-angle & Low-angle

Birds-eye

Many different shot types were used throughout the duration of this advert. The shots included in this ad include long-shots, close ups, shot/reverse shots, a couple wide shots, an establishing shot of the city at the very end, some medium long shots and some regular long shots. These shot types are alternated between each other quite quickly during the advert, due to the fast-paced editing of the ad. Some shot types only occur a minimal amount, like shot/reverse shots or wide shots, but some are quite common, such as close-ups and long-shots.

Shot/Reverse Shot

Close-up

Wide Shot



Establishing Shot

Medium Long-shot

The camera filming this advert's events is very rarely still. For a lot of it, the camera is being moved, usually following the action that is being filmed. As an example, during a lot of the car crash shots, the camera seems to follow one of the cars which is involved, moving itself wherever the car itself moves, like when the blue car at around half way through flips onto its side and the camera pans across in order to jeep the car in the shot for the entirety of the crash. While the camera is being moved for a large majority of the shots of this ad, there are still some where it is kept still, but these shots are very minimal, as for most of them there is constant movement, even if quite subtle and small. As stated above, this was to keep the viewer focusing on all the action happening on screen, with the almost constant movements of the camera slightly adding to the action of it all, as opposed to it just being still, which in turn which make the events seem a little more boring as a result.

The use of iconography in this ad is quite minimal, due to the fact that a lot of it consists of live-action footage, with the only iconography present being at the very end. This being when the outlines of the products come up in the centre of the screen, with the middle of the outlines being filled with a video of a man using the product that is for his gender on himself in front of a blue background, and a woman doing the same in front of a pink one inside the other one. These do eventually fade into regular graphics of the product's cans not long after, with the iconography before it only lasting for a total of around two seconds.



The editing of an advert is very important. Depending on the way an ad is edited, the final result could end up either perfectly fitting the tone wanted from the start, or completely getting it wrong, affecting the overall quality of the advertising included within it. In the case of this advert, especially in the middle of it (like during the car shots), a lot of quick-cuts are present, reflecting the idea of chaos, which a lot of the advert revolves around.

By the look of this ad's main set piece, this advert seems to have been filmed mostly outside. Besides a single shot, none of the events of this ad are set inside. Due to this, it would be plausible to assume that this would mean the people who created this advert used natural light for a lot of its shot's lighting. Basically every shot in this advert is well lit, except for the one shot which is semi-based inside, where the lighting is not perfectly lit purposefully. For this shot, we can see two people to the right of the screen kissing in the foreground, with the chaos of the city still perfectly visible to the viewer behind them. The people in the foreground are not lit at all, which has likely been purposefully done, as to not too much attention away from the stuff happening behind them, but the darkness of them is clear enough that they will be realised by the viewer.

This advert's use of graphics only appear at the very end, placed on top of an establishing shot of the city where all the ad's events just happened. Specifically, the graphics shown are of the company's social medias (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube), the products themselves in the center, which is first just the can's outlines with footage placed inside them but then fades to the cans themselves with the text "New Lynx Attract for him + for her" in between them, a flag-like graphic in the top right of the Unilever logo which rolls down, and the campaign's social media hashtag "#UnleashTheChaos" at the very bottom center of the screen.

A heavy use of special effects is present during a lot of this ad; the car crashes, the fires, the glass smashing -  all examples of scenes in this advert which were created using special effects. Although it is unclear which of these effects, if any, were created for the advert practically as opposed to the other option of them being created digitally, they would still fit under the term 'special FX' either way.