Blog Post 6: Research Into Existing TV Commercials (Other Genres)

I researched into other genres of TV commercials to understand the conventions of other genres of ads which could potentially be used in genre hybridity. It also allows me to take inspiration from the innovative advert ideas and the techniques used to anchor and reinforce a message or a brand value.

Common conventions that I found across all the adverts I researched were:

• use or promo image of the product in the advert
• logo
• tagline
• website
• variety of camera shots and editing techniques

Adverts also tend to have one strong message that is prominent throughout the entire advert. Emotional adverts have more diegetic noise, seen in the Cadbury Mum's Birthday Advert and Ariel #ShareTheLoad advert. On the other hand, more humourous adverts make use of upbeat music to add more to the comedic effect, for example, the KFC South Africa Streetwise 2 advert and the HelloFresh Challenge Accepted advert.

Below is my advert playlist, which has all the different 'non-food delivery' adverts that I looked at

On the other hand, Cadbury Roses Thank You advert uses a more heartwarming, emotional appeal to send its message across. The narrative doesn't make sense until the end, but it instantly evokes the emotion of empathy when the audience realises that the boy was being polite to everyone who did something for him. Furthermore, the phrase "Roses" is repeated multiple times within the advert, which emphasises the brand values of spreading love. The title card at the end also had the slogan "Another way to say thank you", which anchors the narrative and suggests that their product is the best way of showing kindness or gratitude. In the advert, most of it only used diegetic sound, which made the whole advert seem more realistic and personal. There is no representation of non-white ethnicities but has a positive representations of lower socio-economic classes, as the child was presented as grateful and polite.

Source: South Africa KFC Streetwise 2 Advert

An advert that I also looked at was the KFC South Africa Streetwise 2 advert which utilises slapstick and physical humour from when football players fall over and fake injuries. This appeals to males and subverts expectations massively, as it was so hyperbolic that it creates humour. An example of this is when the footballer stops at the traffic lights, but then continues rolling after the light has turned green. Furthermore, the fake injuries could be an intertextual reference to similar occurrences seen on live football.

Furthermore, I looked at the use of genre hybridity in the Chicago Town advert, which uses explosions, a deep-voiced narrator and slow-motion to refer to blockbuster action movies, which typically appeals to males. Overall, the genre hybridity created a memorable advert which allowed the product to reach out to action movie fans and the typical male audience.

Researching into other genres of TV commercials proved to be useful to me as I learnt that making my advert memorable could be done through different ways, e.g humour, emotional appeal, intertextuality and genre hybridity. Furthermore, the adverts I looked at indicates the importance of having a good narrative for the audience to link the brand to, so I will spend more time on my narrative to make it more engaging and innovative.