How Guinness and safe style windows use persuasive strategies essay The Guinness Evolution advert target audience will be C1 to B, males of 18 and over of any ethnicity. This is because this advert has delved into the traditional stereotype attached to who predominately drink beer. Beer is stereotypically part of a male’s lifestyle, a stereotype that Guinness seem to have been well aware of when making this advert. It is aimed at a mainstream C1 to B class because people below the C class probably can’t afford to go out drinking beer on a regular basis so won’t live the kind of lifestyle presented in the advert and people above B class will have a high social standing [for example an aristocrat] and they will have a public image to uphold and will look down in drinking beer in a pub because they must be seen to be more refined. C to B class people will have a stable disposable income and need to relax after a hard day’s work. This is clearly shown in the advert through the scenery, which is brilliantly shown in wide and aerial shots that tell the audience this is a trendy pub in the London. The age group they target is restricted, to due CAP codes. Cap does state that an alcohol advert must not resemble youth culture in anyway and the code also state in chapter 18 section 16 ‘people shown drinking or playing a significant role must neither be nor be seem to be under 25’, another significant reason for the choice of actor and location. You can clearly see the affect of the CAP code by the selection of trendy London pub, not a night club and three men who seem to be in their 30s, rather teenagers. They have not market this product at any specific religion but if they did they would be restricted to what audience they can market their product to because some religions for example Muslims don’t drink alcohol. I think it’s also aimed at mainstreamers because it’s a well known brand of beer and wouldn’t be aimed at aspirer for fear of possibly inadvertently breaking CAP codes because they could be found guilty of making alcohol consumption something to aspire to. The safe style window adverts are aimed at mainstreamers who are D to C1, males of probably about 30 to 70 because younger people will unlikely to own their own homes. This advert provides free fitting so older people don’t have to fit it themselves for fear of not being physically capable. Although people over 70 might be in a retirement home so will not have to worry about home improvements they don’t have their own home so they couldn’t have the power the power to change the windows anyway. I think it’s uses avarice to appeal to a D to C1 audience because it clearly highlights the free fitting and the buy one get one free offer which appeals to the audience’s desire or necessity to obtain value for money. I also think it aimed at mainstreamers because aspirers or suceeders as with A and B class would be more interested in the quality of their windows so would want more information and to see the window up close rather just on a TV screen. Both advert use humor as a persuasive strategy. The humor of both adverts is built into the concept of the advert. Neither advert takes its self too seriously. They both make fun of themselves. The Guinness advert does this by using the surprised facial expressions of the animals as they evolve, to humanize them and convey that they know it’s a strange situation, which connects with the audience. For example the fact slugs at the end of the ad don’t like the dirty water and pull facial expressions to express their disgust identifies them with humans because they share the same views on taste. In some ways breaks the diegesis of the advert to speak more directly to the audience briefly. Furthermore the use of diegetic sound also combines with humanization to help
convey the strangeness of the situation by adding realism so the audience is drawn into the narrative, which allows the humanization to stand out by way of contrast. For example the sounds of the asteroids across the sky put you in the setting of the advert and then the cavemen looking around confused makes the audience see the human in them and makes the audience think the advert is also in on the joke. By subtly identifying the novelty of the concept it connects with the audience because it shows the advert doesn’t take its self too seriously. The Safe Style Windows advert does this by parodying the typical cheesy cheap adverts of this style by over exaggerating the typical conventions of this style of advert. For example the presenter speaks in a loud northern accent and dresses in a tacky costume and plays a caricature of a dodgy salesman by knocking over the windows and putting on a very fake smile and its set in a cheap looking photo studio with a cheap blue backdrop. The use of sound contributes to the intended cheesiness of the advert. The non diegetic sound of the cash register is timed brilliantly with the oversized lairy font to emphasize the cheesiness of the advert as is the fake over the top voice over and diegetic sound of the presenter’s northern accent because the audience clearly knew that this wasn’t a serious advert because if it was they’d try to be a bit more factual and sophisticated and use smaller text and have a professional expert giving a friendly voiceover like the auto glass adverts, and be less ‘in your face’. Furthermore this advert over exaggerated the typical professional auto glass advert to its extremes so the audience could see the intentional parody it was creating, the same way parody films heighten reality to let their audience know it’s not a serious film. The advert works to the same effect as the Guinness advert by letting the audience know the advert is in on the joke. These adverts therefore connect with the audience because it doesn’t seem like the advert is directly trying to sell the audience something like a shampoo advert would. The adverts tongue and cheek approach uses the concept to generate humor. They relate to the audience by being in on the joke which connects with the audience and makes the audience trust the product more which is important to the success of a product because if a consumer trusts a product they will be more likely to by it. The use of humor appeals both of their target social classes because the concept of the humor isn’t too complicated to understand but it might not translate across different ethnic groups and nationalities because they’d be likely to have a different sense of humor. The Guinness advert also uses inversion, which can be seen in the tag line ‘good things come to those who wait’. In the 1990’s Guinness conducted some qualitative primary research by asking their target audience what they most didn’t like about the Guinness and a common complaint was the fact that it take a long time to pour a Guinness because it took a long time to settle so you had to wait before you could drink. So Guinness have used a famous inspirational phrase and turned the criticism into a selling point. It also surprises the audience and makes the audience smile because it supports the concept of evolution being worth the wait and directly relates to the narrative, which acts as a payoff. It also makes the advert memorable by being at the end because it’s the last thing the audience will see of the advert as well as the product displayed just beneath it. This means people will remember the tagline and then by ideas association remember the theme of the advert and therefore remember the product and hot it links with the theme that made them smile or laugh. The Guinness advert also uses gluttony to appeal to its stereotypical male audience
because beer for them is a luxury item that is a big part of their social life. Its use of gluttony can be seen in the shot composition at the beginning and the end of the advert by making the beer the focus of the shot. The final shot zooms into the beers, which are framed center of the screen. The camera zooming in which makes the beers appear bigger in the frame is synchronized with the non-diegetic trumpets of the grand finale of the song ‘Rhythm of life’. The use of shot composition can be seen at the start of the advert by the fact they take up a majority of the frame when the beers are being drunk. Also the diegetic sound of the men sipping beer and putting the glasses down on the bar at the beginning of the ad appeal to the audience’s gluttony because it’s quiet an identifiable sign of pleasure. The fact that this was the only point in the advert with no non-diegetic sound also made it stand out even more. I think it appeals to out gluttony at the beginning and the end of the advert is very important because they are two things that will be more likely to stick in the audience’s mind. Another persuasive strategy the Safe Style Windows ad uses is avarice. The advert uses avarice in a clear over exaggerated way to appeal to its D1 to C target audience because they will be more likely to be concerned with the price rather than the quality of the double-glazing glass. An example of how the ad does this is by the fact that the on screen graphic displays the special offers such as ‘buy one get one free’ in a direct, visual, simple to understand way by using the big noticeable font. It also times the sound effect of the register to be in sync with the text to draw people’s attention to the special offers. Also in the advert the character knocks over the windows to show the benefit of having a buy one get one free because you can afford to have one broken because you still can get another one free. It has the effect of making the audience feel empowered because they can risk a window being broken and still having a back up and replace the broken one because it’s so affordable. This also appeals to their target social class because they might be likely to live a dangerous area such a council estate where vandals will be likely to break their windows. The Guinness advert also uses conformity to appeal to the target audience because drinking beer is a big part of the target audience’s social life because when they go out with their friends they are likely to a have a drink and by not joining in, it somehow distances you from your friends as non alcohol drinkers will tell you. So this advert’s setting attaches beer to the audience’s lifestyle so they will feel more pressure to conform and drink like their friends so they can share the experience. You can see how the ad uses conformity by the fact that there is a group wide shot of three males throughout the adverts with match on actions of them from scene to scene walking roughly equal speeds to show the unity of men sharing an experience an experience and going on an adventure, which is what the target audience desire in their social life. The reason for going out of an evening is to have fun and having an adventure is a typical 18 and over, male C1 to B idea of fun, which is also most people’s idea of fun when going out for an evening. The fact the advert’s narrative is clearly fictional and not a realistic portray of a typical night out, like for example going out to a club, getting drunk and waking up in a skip the next morning means it doesn’t violate the CAP codes such as section 18, chapter 1 which states ‘marketing communications must be socially responsible and must contain nothing that is likely to lead people to adopt styles of drinking that are unwise’. Both adverts also appeal to our need for security in different ways. The Guinness advert uses conformity to make the audience feel that by drinking this beer you will
fit in. It is playing on the audience’s fear of being left out among friends, that’s why it’s set in the pub because it’s an environment where most people would drink beer and socialize so it could relate to a mainstream audience and their desire for acceptance and security. The Safe Style Windows advert uses security by giving us extra windows and showing a man knocking them over to show audience even if a window breaks its fine because you have a spare one. Also there are lots of professionals in costumes to make people feel secure that it’s a proper business and it will be alright. They also offer free fitting so the consumer doesn’t have to know how to fit windows himself. It’s very visual and there’s not a lot of technical language which is good for a mainstream audience because they probably won’t want to read lots of text and might not be interested in the details of windows and might not understand technical terms that people in the window fitting industry would know. Also if they are D1 to C they will probably be buying a window out of necessity rather than design. The fact the Safe Style Windows ad doesn’t use lots of terminology also makes the audience feel secure because they know they are not being cheated through the use of technical and legal terms because they understand everything in the advert. It simply talks directly to the audience about the selling points of product, which is the price. The product features consistently in the mise-enscene where as in Guinness advert the product is only featured in the beginning and the end. If this were not there you wouldn’t know what they were advertising. The Guinness advert uses cinematography to attract people’s attention by visually exciting them rather than just displaying the selling point of product, which is the price. For example there are lots of adventurous camera shots like bird’s eye view shots, tracking and pan shots. It’s filmed in the style of a Hollywood film trailer. It uses CGI, like the spawning of the dinosaurs and it uses lots of diegetic sound effects to grab the audience, such as the sound of the dinosaurs and the sound of the asteroid flying through the sky. Also the sudden transformation of the scenery at the beginning of the ad grabs the audience and it’s continual transformation and the evolution throughout draws the audience to the narrative so they get the pay off at the end which is seeing how the concept links to the product which acts as an element of surprise, which makes the audience smile. A lot of the advert hasn’t got much to do with beer; it just draws people’s attention so it can bring the beer into the advert at the end so that’s the last thing people will see. It takes more care in aesthetics than the Safe Style Windows ad because it’s got more money to pay for special effects and the creating of all sorts of visual techniques that Safe Style Windows ad’s budget couldn’t stretch to. So you could say Safe Style Windows parody concept was making the best of a bad situation, but even so it still works. Although the Guinness as will leave a lasting impression in the audience and is more of a work of art hence it’s won several awards, by creating a visual spectacle it’s table to expand its audience beyond its consumer base because people don’t just watch this advert for the product they watch it for the advert itself. This might expand its range of consumer where as I think, only people who have an interest in buying double glazed windows will watch the Safe Style Windows ad. The Safe style advert breaks the 180-degree rule when the presenter kneels down by a man in uniform to add to the parody idea of the advert. This could put an audience off if they don’t subscribe to, or are unaware of the concept. Whereas the Guinness advert is edited to a very high standard, which will not aggravate any of the audience. I also
think the Guinness advert should show the product on a more regular basis because some people will not know what they are selling or may not be patient enough to wait till the end of the advert. These adverts are very different; they are made on very different budgets. The high budget Guinness advert is more complicated using a more complex structure technically an aesthetically where as the low budget Safe Style Window advert only uses 5 cuts and doesn’t really have many complicated camera shots at all. The Safe Style Windows advert is more topical and consistently advertises the product better than the high budget Guinness one does. In conclusion the Safe Style Windows advert use avarice and the Guinness advert uses conformity, Inversion, gluttony and both advert use humor and need for security, but I think Safe Style Windows uses persuasive strategies to better effect than Guinness because the Safe Style Windows advert has a more constant direct reference to its product.