Referential Tactics of the Adman
* When viewing commercials, people may do so in the role of citizen or consumer, generally as consumer, because we tend to watch television at home (the cinema is a different kettle of fish) and at home we will be more relaxed than at the mother-in-law's
* When at home, commercials are either seen as 'a necessary evil' or as straight-up evil, a time to zap /do something else /talk with others...
* Ads are commonly upbeat, deformed mirror images of an advertiser's hypothetical dream society (in the West) where we are all subjects of King Kommercial, King of Dreamland
* Or where advertisers are like your best buddy (in Australia - sportsmen, France - Cerise), how could you not believe them when they give you advice ?
* Or where the sneaky adman has decided to create viral mayhem by 'creating' a 'banned commercial', knowing the Internet will do the rest in terms of visibility for the brand /product
* In terms of tactics, the advertiser may decide to employ the referential mode, which can be effective in that it calls up memories in the viewer, memories which, because they go back into a relatively distant past, are often emotional and thus not easily controlled
* Aside from abstract ideas such as time, power etc., many other potential references may be brought in : references to films, actors, songs, TV personalities, historical events, happy events, holiday destinations, sporting prowess...
* The top aim of the TV advertiser is to RELAX the adult viewer (from critical citizen to Joe Bloe in 5 sec flat) through the use of humour, childhood memories, images of social success, or positive ideas, like vacations...
* In France in 2004, Patrick Lelay, publicly stated that as head of private Channel 1 his role was to "sell available human brain-time to Coca-Cola" , a statement which caused a stir, people not being prepared to hear the naked truth
* In France, it is well-known that towards the end of news programmes and before the clutch of advertisements (now limited on public channels), there 'had to be' a cute sequence of images made to undermine the critical sense of most viewers, by showing (say) jumping dolphins, frisky baby tiger cubs with their mother, a baby foal's birth etc. At one point, such images were even integrated into the weather reports on a certain channel
* Emotion we know, kills critical judgement. Emotion sells. Aim for the child and you will reach the parent. In a fairly old French ad, a cute little boy makes a cute play-on-words for the Peugeot 806 ('huit cent six') van he wants his Dad to buy , misnaming it a 'huit saucisses' (eight sausage van) - LOL
(tbc)
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