After The Break

Adverts are incredibly clever in the way in which they get their messages across. Adverts have to touch the heart of the audience and sometimes this audience can be of a variety. This is particularly important. An example of this would be the 'I love Ponies' advert this is because the advert is talking to the child it does this by saying 'you' it's a direct mention to the audience watching. It also shows a young girl playing with this toy this will gain attention from the child watching this advert because they'll be seeing someone having something that they want. The children watching this advert will most probably be children from middle class families as this is the market that the advertises are aiming for. The reason for it being aimed at the middle class is because they know that this is the class that will ask their parents to buy it for them. A lot of children would play the guilt trip in telling there parents to buy it for them because if they don't buy it for them it will look as though they cannot afford this which leads to the child getting picked on at school. Therefore this kind of advert is very clever in the way it targets it's audience.  This kind of advert would be on during a child's tv programme this is because it is hitting the target market on young children.

Another advert that does the same thing but in a completely different way is the classic aftershave by 'David Beckham.' This advert would appeal to middle class men ranging from the ages of 20-50. The reason why it is aimed at this class is because they are appeal to afford these luxuries. This advert would be placed on during a sporting event such as football/rugby this is because this is the audience that knows who David Beckham is but also because this is the audience which will buy it. Another reason for this age group is because in the advert David Beckham is seen to be taking off his shirt and it shows his six pack therefore it gets the audience thinking that if they buy this aftershave then they will end up with a six pack like him, This advert is playing the mind of the audience and therefore making people buy it. However this advert won't just appeal to men it will also appeal to women, this is because they will see David Beckham spraying the perfume and it gets into their head that if they buy this for their partner then they will turn out looking like David Beckham

There is a lot of regulations when it comes to advertising. There has to be a set number of adverts on a channel, these adverts are only aloud to be on for a certain amount of time. Peak time advertising needs to be able to show to all ages and there is only aloud to be a certain amount of teleshopping adverts. There have been regulations that have been put in by Ofcom so that between midnight and 6am there is aloud to be 6 hours of teleshopping. In order to do that it has had to remove the restrictions on the amount of teleshopping that non-PSB channels may schedule. Ofcom also put in their regulation that they must remove the ‘peak-time’ designation for the period from 7am to 9am on PSB channels and to regulate this period in accordance with the rules applying to non-peak periods. The reasons for these strict regulations is because these kind of adverts are not always suitable for all ages groups which is why they are moved to a later time. 

In the UK, censorship is very important when it comes to advertising. No adverts are aloud to be offensive towards children, homosexuals and ethnic minorities. A lot of people will question whether censorship is needed or not. Censorship covers a lot of issues. One of the biggest issues within censorship is nudity although this is an ever going debate whether it is wrong for women to be nude while there is nothing wrong with men doing it. There is standards set that make sure that certain things are censorship but there are ways to overcome these, the way in which they do it is through tricking the audience in what they are portraying. 

Although censorship is important there is an issue whether too much is being censored, this is because children learn a lot from adverts and if they are all being censored then they are learning nothing about society. Some advertising can give off the wrong but there are a few that children could learn from. Although a message a lot of advertisers use is that they are selling the toy to the parents because the children don't understand the ideas behind advertising, all they know is that they see a toy that they like and they want that toy. 

There any many, many adverts that have been banned, a big reason for this is because they are sexually explicit. The two adverts that have come under scrutiny are Skittles and Sprite for their rather exploiting and are very inappropriate for children to be watching. However both of these adverts got people talking, it certainly wasn't for the right reason. The fact that these adverts were created by big brand is kind of shocking, someone in the ranks must have thought. how is this aloud? Somehow though it made it's way onto parents television screens.

While both of these adverts are highly amusing 

they certainly aren't suitable for television. 

Both of these adverts definitely have the shock value and while some will be disgusted others will find it funny. The whole point of these adverts were that they got people talking and that is certainly what they did. Even to this day years after these adverts were banned they are still be spoken about. Although many adverts which are not banned hint at sexual content, they do not go as far to intimate it. An example of this would be Flora they do it in a way that it's hardly noticeable. This way their advert isn't banned and yet still has the same message as Sprite and Skittles. Flora have done this advert with children talking about it therefore it just gets brushed off.

The question I have to ask, is this fair? Should all adverts that hint at any sexual content be banned during the early evening when young children are watching television.

Adverts are monitored by the Federal Trade Commission, although there are strict rules in place this doesn't mean that they are always obeyed. It is relatively easy for people to have leeway if they want to violate the ethical standards which have been put in place for this reason. The biggest area of care in when advertising to children, they have to make sure that in no way can these adverts be harmful towards children such as using psychological tactics to meet the demands. The way in which they are careful is by having what they can and cannot use in an advert in front of them.

Some of the tactics that advertises use are still legal such as emotional appeals, taking advantage of those who are less educated and spreading propaganda for certain political debates. However much they are able to do this it doesn't always mean that they are going to succeed because a lot of people aren't going to buy from something that is harming youngsters in a psychological way.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/list-ethical-legal-issues-advertising-11466.html - 17th January 2014