The Purpose of Ad Campaigns

We are surrounded by advertising wherever we go. There are the hoardings and the advertisements on buses and trains. We look thru our newspapers and magazines; there are adverts on nearly every page. Our TV and computer screens are all trying to sell us something. Do ad campaigns work? I guess they must, otherwise companies wouldn't spend millions of dollars on them. I only doubt it because they don't seem to work on me.

Even when I've found a TV commercial stylish or humorous, I very rarely remember the brand of the product. All the car ad campaigns, for example, blur into one. They never seem to give much hard information on the car. It's a lot of razzamatazz and trying to make an arty looking advert. I think the people who create the ad campaigns are products of art colleges, and not business schools. What's the point of winning awards for a great looking ad, if you don't sell any more cars?

The nature of advertising has changed a lot over the years. Many manufacturers used the average nuclear family to promote their products. The husband would come home from work to a home cooked meal made by his housewife spouse. 2.4 well-groomed children would rush to fetch his pipe and slippers. How things have changed! Now the average family is represented by all the members rushing about and throwing a ready meal into the microwave. A lot of ad campaigns focus on the speed and convenience of a product, because they know we are all time poor.

A degree of social concern has crept into the way advertising is regulated. It will soon be forbidden in the UK for junk food and fizzy drinks to be advertised during children's programs. This censure of ad campaigns for potato chips, burgers and so on is the result of growing obesity among the young generation.

The run up to Christmas is the most stressful time for parents, when they come under pressure to buy the latest, must have toy. Ad campaigns for toys start about two months before Christmas and often feature very expensive items. The products are cleverly filmed to look larger than life and very real.

I see the future as even more of the same, with the emphasis on style and not substance. Many directors shooting ad campaigns go on to direct movies. It's the means to an end for them, in their career path. In the meantime, I still can't remember the name of the product they just paraded in front of me.