Radio Adverts - Assignment

Our first assignment is to write a report comparing two contrasting radio adverts. Before I could begin my comparison, I first had to choose two radio adverts. I used numerous radio advertising websites, however I didn't really find anything too interesting to me, in the sense that I could say a lot about them. So, I moved onto using 'YouTube' instead of these sites. Eventually I found two extremely contrasting radio adverts that were long enough and interesting enough to use for my report. My first radio advert I have chosen is a very humorous, innuendo filled advert for a food product called Corn Nuts.

The Corn Nuts advert was produced and aired in the mid 90s, and was also a television advert too. However, due to its crude slogan of 'Bust a nut', it was quickly taken down off radios and televisions. The adverts message is told through a song, that promotes the good qualities of the product while also being humorous to some audiences. Also, the style of the advert is most definitely intended to be humorous (however, aimed at a specific demographic to find it funny), and it is also upbeat and happy. Although some of the lyrics are crude, and somewhat offensive to some people, they are said in an upbeat, fun song that is slightly catchy to some. From the happy style, the lyrics said get stuck in the listeners’ head, which in turn makes the advert a success as the product has been promoted and remembered.

Furthermore, the crudeness of the advert is very uncommon (hence why it got taken down) so therefore, when people heard the advert people were taken back and slightly shocked. This meant that the audiences were more intrigued and therefore possibly looked into the product. The structure of this advert is quite simple, it wasn't part of a series of adverts (such as the 'Go Compare' adverts), and therefore it is a one-off advert. The purpose of this advert is to sell the food product 'Corn Nuts', and therefore make it a more profitable product by reaching more audiences by using radio. It does this by the catchy (slightly vulgar) song, where the lyrics have two meanings depending on how you think; to some it may be obvious that they're talking about a food product, but to others - the majority of people - instantly think that it's talking about masturbation because of their catchphrase "bust a nut". However, although looked down upon by some people, overall by doing this it was successful to meet it's purpose and the shock of the video makes people remember it and therefore promoting 'Corn Nuts'.

The sound bed used in the advert is a song, rather than a narrative. Straight away, the background sound bed is an upbeat, cheery instrument, while a male singer sings the lyrics to the song that promotes the product. Lastly, at the end of the advert, once the song is over a person speaking informs the audience what the adverts for (Corn Nuts) by saying it's name and a little bit of information about it, such as "it comes in 7 different flavours". Also, as the voice over is singing, and saying humorous lyrics the dialogue is very informal. There's also a tag line that's used a few times - "bust a nut". The voice over is sang by probably a middle aged, American, man. This links to the niche target audience as because it's very vulgar, conventionally (sometimes older) men find pleasure in this type of humour, while young/old ladies wouldn't, they could possibly find it more offensive - at least in the mid 90s they could have, as more recently, gender stereotypes are breaking down and both males and females may have found this advert funny. But, for the time this advert was aired, the voice over definitely suites its target audience.

Some persuasive techniques used are repetition and humour. Obviously, the intentions of this advert were to be humorous, and this is a persuasive technique because the target audience would hear it, find it funny, then therefore feel persuaded to try the product as they enjoyed the advert. So, if it wasn't humorous, then the target audience wouldn't have found it as funny and therefore not feel obligated or persuaded to try the product. Furthermore, the other persuasive technique used is repetition; this is seen through the use of the voice over repeatedly singing the slogan of "bust a nut" and repeating the products name. By doing this it meant that it would get stuck in the listeners head, and therefore they would remember 'Corn Nuts' and possibly persuading them to buy the product. But if the name of the product was said once, then the listener wouldn't remember it and buy it.
Although this advert got quickly removed from radio, due to the complaints of being "inappropriate", when it was aired it was nationally (USA). One downfall of this advert is that it doesn't have any contact details, therefore the listeners wouldn't have any information in terms of contact, to be able to find out more about the product or even know where to buy them. Furthermore, it could be seen as breaking one of the ASA's rules of advertisement. Rule 3.1 states that adverts can not be misleading, which this advert clearly does do with its sexual undertone; this could be one of the reasons it got taken down.

Another completely different type of advert I have chosen to talk about is a road safety advert called ‘Road Safety Taskforce – Limit the speed. Limit the damage’. This advert is much different as it takes on a much more serious tone as it is raising awareness for road safety. It does this by having innocent sounding children, who were victims of getting in a road accident, and then the people who caused the accident try and explain and justify their bad driving; it ends up having a resolution that there is never an excuse to driving past speed limits, and everyone should drive safely. This was a one off advert, however there have been many similar adverts that raise awareness for road safety, and all in which that have a familiar style.

The style of this music video was obviously a serious and guilty style, meaning that it made the audience feel sad and somewhat ashamed about driving past speed limits. They chose to have this style to the advert, as obviously if it was anything other than this it wouldn’t have been taken gravely, so it wouldn’t have made a difference to anyone’s lives, meaning that road safety wouldn’t improve and therefore it would be an unsuccessful advert. So, therefore by making it serious it means that people listen and understand and realize that it is an important issue therefore not taking it light heartedly and possibly being more conscious of their driving. In addition, the overall purpose of this advert was to raise awareness and somewhat persuade the audience to be more careful on the road. It is successful at doing this because it uses a serious style, along with guilt to make the audience feel bad and be more careful. Also, the fact that it is on the radio, many people listen to the radio in their cars therefore they would instantly think about their driving as they would hear it in the car. However, if it was put on a poster and left around on streets, it may not have been as effective as people may not bother reading it, or even notice it. So, by putting it on the radio the target audience hears it straight away and can immediately start changing how they drive.

As for the sound bed there is a voice over of children and adults speaking, having a conversation. Also, there is subtle sad music in the background - this also adds to the guilt towards the audience because it adds a depressing atmosphere, therefore affecting the audiences mood. Whereas, if there was upbeat music playing it would create an undesired atmopshere of happiness, which contrasts with the adverts purpose. Furthermore this helps add to the audiences fears, as obviously no one wants to be in a car accident, therefore by using all these techniques by making it sound sad the audience would feel guilty and be more aware on the roads, therefore reaching the adverts purpose.
 The level of distribution of this particular advert was national, as it wanted to reach a wide audience, as road safety is a serious issue.  However, like the other advert there was no use of contact details, however this wouldn’t really be necessary as it is just raising awareness rather than trying to sell a product.

As well as this, radio adverts have a number of regulations created by the ASA that they have to meet in order to be allowed to air. For example, this advert must have an introduction; this means that they have to be clear on what their purpose is, by using clear key terms. This is seen when the voiceover says "Please, drive within the limit" therefore making it obvious to the audience that they are refering the road safety. In addition to this, there could be possible ethical and legal issues with the advert in particular, as there are strict rules on using children in adverts. For example, rule 5.9 states that children can not be used to exhort a product, this means that they can not be used as a persausive technique to sell something. However, although children are used a persausive technique in this advert, it is accepted as they are used as a way to promote safety and a positive outcome, rather than sell something.