Media analysis

MEDIA ANALYSIS

Ad 1: Colgate 3D whiteners

1. The special techniques used in the ad are that in the beginning, it utilises a normal situation to make the product seem normal to use in any situation. Also, it incorporates many people doing normal things and smiling, showing how they used Colgate 3D whiteners to get better teeth. Also, at one point, another person possibly also using 3D whiteners smiles at the main character in the ad, and it shows how if you use this product, your social image will be better, and more people will talk to you, just because you used some kind of toothpaste to make your teeth really shiny.
2. In the ad, it clearly shows that you can use it and it whitens your teeth in two hours. Also, they comment that it can last for APPROXIMATELY 2 months to 3 months. Also, the last bit of info that they included is that the whitener also help destroy cavities, and that there is a mouthwash and toothpaste that go along with the whitener.
3. In the ad, I found that the word or phrase that was repeated a lot was that the whitener could whiten in just 2 hours. I guess that this is a very important aspect because I suppose a lot of other whitener brands don’t do as well as Colgate.
4. I suppose people with bad teeth or gums would want this product to supposedly look better.  Also, people who want to impress some other person might want this because the ad proclaims that it will make people spontaneously attempt to start a conversation with you, when the man talks to the woman about where they came from, and attempts to start a conversation.
5. I think the commercial persuades the buyer to buy this product buy repeatedly highlighting one point. This gets the message through very clearly to the viewer. Also, it uses many examples from real life situations to make you think that buying and using this product is very normal and that you should buy it considering how the woman in the ad got such a good reputation after using it.
6. I think the image of how the woman’s teeth whitened in 2 hours with the clock in the foreground was the most useful. It gave a very exaggerated version of what really happened. Reality is that she sat there for two long hours smiling while a film crew took footage of her mouth, sped it up a few hundred times, superimposed a clock in the foreground that was going really fast, and put in a lot of effects to make it seem like there hadn’t been any time passing. This creates the false sense that this product works much faster than it says. To me 2 hours is a very, very long time, and I felt that the commercial made 2 hours seem like seconds, which was actually how long the excerpt lasted. It felt so unrealistic to me, but I thought that people watching a lot of TV must be watching this ad every day, and feel that its not much of an exaggeration. I also realize that when your watching TV or playing video games, time seems to pass so much faster, and so to gamers and long-term TV watchers, it must seem like the shortest  amount of time they could possibly imagine.
7. I think the image that did not fit in very well, but was almost unnoticeable was at the six second mark, where someone held out some sort of blue ribbon into the air. Sure, it looked kind of fun, but I think it was completely irrelevant to what the ad is actually advertising, and is completely unrelated to the topic in any way.
8. I do not recall any ads similar to this one.
9. I think this ad is successful compared to the other teeth whitener ads that I have seen (which I admit, is zero). It kept my interest until I had seen it 7 times, and it would probably keep someone watching the TV from switching the channel, or so I think. There were some areas in which it could have improved on, and there were some strengths in the ad. It kept my interest with reasonably colourful pictures and an interesting ‘scrapbook-like’ background.
10. I think I would’ve removed the picture I previously mentioned, and I would’ve delayed less time on the long scenes in which the woman examined her teeth in detail and showed them off in several reasonably realistic scenes in which she would smile from underneath a hat that just happened to conceal her facial features up to her mouth, which was constantly smiling almost through the entire commercial. Also, I would’ve spent less time highlighting how it might improve your social image, and spent a few more valuable seconds to actually introduce the product and tell a few more ‘astounding facts’ and show off other products.

Ad 2: Scion IQ (car)

1. Some special techniques used in the ad are that they put in very ‘techie’ sounding music, they made everything look like some sort of secret project, and they also incorporated the fact that it is customized by you and not by the company. Also, they focus on the fact that the car seems very special, but they do not show many key features, such as MPG, crash safety ratings, etc.
2. In the ad, they mainly focus on the looks and how recent and popular it should be, and also how the car is ‘not a concept’ and at one point, the car even announces that ‘ I am going to be big’ and so it does not mainly focus on facts but more on opinion. There are not much facts announced. It actually doesn’t state any clear and obvious facts at all, not even pricing.
4. I suppose that any person wanting a car would possibly want one, but I can’t be too sure, because they might not want the specific type of car and want another type. I suppose normal adults would want it, possibly teenagers, definitely not anyone below the age of 18, and possibly the grandparents.
5. I think the commercial persuades by making the car seem like a person, when it announces that ‘i will be big’ and how it just speeds off all by itself. Also, it focuses on how it is very advanced because it is treated in this top notch laboratory, and also that clearly it is a very new car, because all the technology in the laboratory seems very advanced.
6. I think the image of many people gazing at it almost in awe was the most effective. It gave the impression that if you bought one of these cars, and you were just driving along, everyone would stand there gasping in awe and just stopping to stare at you drive by as if you were driving a Ferrari. This is just another aspect of social image, and I realize that is all people want these days, to have a good reputation or image in from of other people.
7. I do not see any place where a clip or image does not fit in except how long the car took to travel out of its little box in the ground. All the workers seem to be in awe at this moment, but it does not make much sense, why manufacture such an advanced system of hydraulics just to lift 2 little cars up a floor if their going to make millions of them and sell them without any of this ‘special care’. That is why I think they should have used less time making people admire the car.
8. This car ad is very unlike others I've seen, in which the car would only drive around a city, or a country road for a bit, then the narrator would talk about specifications, announce a price, and do the “small text” which is basically reading all the small text then speeding it up 50 times. In this ad, they don’t even announce a price, they just  show it off for a bit, and at the end they say their motto and their gone. I think this is just a display of self confidence, because they are so confident that people will trample down their doors just to buy these cars that they did not include specifications. Another reason they might have not included specifications is because they want their ad to seem different from other ads that are on TV.
9. I think this ad was successful in the purpose it was made for, to impress, to get a reputation, and to seem unique. To me it was very unique in comparison to other ads that I have seen before and I think the company was successful in making this ad.
10. I think I might remove the ‘gasping in wonder’ part that took so long at the beginning of the ad and I would also add pricing, some statistics, and some footage of people actually driving it around, but that would make it seem normal, and it think the company does not want it to seem normal. If they don’t, then I can’t think of anything to add to this ad.