Combining Image and Sound
Putting all of the pieces together
We’re now at the place where sound and sight must come together.
Watch (and listen to) this Suzuki ad (sorry, it can’t be embedded).
Do interesting computer graphics and exciting music ramp up the excitement one might feel for…a car warranty? As strange as it sounds, I think this is a fairly successful idea for Suzuki. If you are buying a used car it’s nice to know you’re getting a warranty–but it seems a strange thing to use as the main subject of an ad.
What is the first thing you notice about the narrator? For me, it is a combination of his inflection and his accent. He sounds like the actor who plays Mohinder Suresh on Heroes. Because I’m a fan of the show, I want to listen to what this voice has to say.
The 2nd thing I notice: he is able to infuse excitement into very boring wording. Listen to the words and tell me if there is anything exciting about them. Clearly, I will argue that there is not, but the writers have employed some rhetorical tools, such as the true rhetorical question which is asked and answered.
What else have they done with sound? They have backed this warm, effective voice with a techno dance beat which adds to the speed/rhythm of spot. And it highlights the great production of the spot.
It’s hard to see online, but the CGI of throwing the keys from vehicle to vehicle is really exceptional. Add to this closed-track driving techniques, excellent shots, etc., and this looks (on the TV screen) more like the trailer of a movie such as the Italian Job and less like an ad! The film-like quality adds to the atmosphere the ad is trying to create.
So why did Subaru go to so much trouble to promote a warranty? I don’t have an answer to this question! But it is the kind of question that might make for some interesting analysis.
Bringing together sound and image is the great challenge of television advertising. To make them work perfectly together takes more thought and planning than you might think. Even a local commercial can be convincing if some thought is put in to it.
A few years ago, I directed a TV spot for a charity fundraiser called “A Night in Havana.” A few of the charity members dressed in formal attire and we filmed them in black and white playing poker. Then we filmed still or blurring shots of cards, a smoking cigar in a crystal ash tray, poker chips, etc., and cut them together. It looked amazing! I voiced a very simple invitational voice-over in my sexiest radio voice. It cost less than $500 to produce. The ad was a hit and the event was a huge success!
This week we will look at and analyze several ads for effectiveness. We’ll consider how voice, music, and sound effects (including jingles) work with or against the images the producers have chosen.
Responses.
I believe there are four ways in which we respond to ads:
Intellectually
Intuitively
Through recognition
Emotionally
All but intuition can, I believe, be analyzed at some level of objectivity. For an ad to which you respond intuitively, either positively or negatively, you will have to make up your own mind. I think I do this naturally through my experience–and I share frequently with you whether I think an ad is successful in its rhetoric or not. I don’t always respond intuitively to an ad that is successful with its audience. For example, the ad series I use in the “recognition” section is one that I passionately hate. I think they are terrible in every respect. But they are effective in a way no other ads like them have ever been.
Before I get into individual responses, however, I want to throw out this question: can you (and should you) have more than one response to an ad? I don’t think it is really possible to completely separate any one response from another. In fact, I believe that each of the three ads I analyze below combine all three forms of response. But I am going to focus on one aspect for each ad and let you fill in the blanks.
Intellectual
These ads are among my favorites, and not just because I am a Mac user! They are very clever in every detail. Let’s take a closer look.
First, they take advantage of both master tropes and lesser tropes. If you need a refresher, reread the chapter on tropes before continuing.
Metaphor.
What is the base metaphor here? It’s actually our use of the word “virus”–a word that has come from RL (real life) and been imbued with new meaning in cyberspace. A virus is really a program, but we don’t really understand it as such–what we do understand is the idea that a virus can make our computer “sick.”
Synechdochy.
Next, the actors themselves serve as synechdochal representations of computers. This works really well for people like me who talk to their computers. Come on, admit it–you do it too! When you’re mad, I bet you rant and rail at your computer! Well, I treat my little Mac as if it were my child.
Irony.
Many of the ads in this series (you can watch through them at youtube) use irony. There is a wonderful little ironic exchange at the end of this ad–when PC says “I need to crash” and Mac responds, with a hitch in his voice, “OK, if you feel like that’ll help.” Of course he is not only implying that it probably WON’T help, but that he (Mac) doesn’t crash as a result of viruses.
Humor.
As a “lesser” trope, humor often gets a bad rap. And well it should–it’s very difficult to do humor well. But this ad series is very funny. I disagree with most teachers about humor. I believe it appeals to an intellectual response rather than an emotional one. But this is because I usually only find intelligence to be truly funny. Last week’s “Dude” commercial is a rare exception, and that one is actually smarter than it appears on the surface.
This PC vs. Mac ad shows a perfect marriage of conception with delivery. And no detail is unimportant. Look at the way the two characters dress. This is explained several times throughout the series: PCs are found at work; Macs are used for fun, creative endeavors. This opens the door for a great spoof in which Mac shows up for an ad in a suit, explaining to PC that he, in fact, goes to work as well. (I find that particularly funny, since I’ve worked in an industry that is almost 100% Mac dominated for most of my working life–the media industry.)
Additionally, the music is important–they are developing a recognizable pattern with it. This is a very smart series, and should evoke a strong intellectual response.
Recognition
When I was a teenager, this is the kind of anti-drug ads we saw (at the time, there weren’t any serious anti-smoking ads, but they all fall in the same category):
Take one guess how many young people chose not to do drugs because of these ads. (That, by the way, is irony!)
The next series is one I find extremely annoying. In fact, I am shocked that this series of ads has had any success at all. And yet, in the history of this form of ad, the “truth” anti-smoking campaign is the first to claim any measurable success in reducing initial smoking in young people.
I’ve placed this series in the “recognition” category because they worked very hard to develop a recognizable product in the ads themselves. (By the way, this is an example of an selling an “idea.”) I see two ways in which the agency which produced the first series (someone else did the ridiculous and failed Whudafxup campaign) worked to produce a recognition response.
Color.
What comes to mind in the spring when small, pink ribbons, the color of Sweet ‘N Low packages, begin to appear in every store window, on women’s clothing, on food packaging? You would have to have lived under a rock for the past 20 years to not immediately identify the annual “breast cancer awareness” campaign.
The truth campaign, although on a smaller scale, also used color to identify itself. In fact, by the second or third ad in the series, when I saw the orange screen, I knew I could switch channels immediately because one of my least favorite commercials was coming on.
Of interest to me–the multiple sclerosis folks are now using the same shade of orange for their awareness campaign. I only know this by accident–they have not done much to promote recognition.
Visual analogy.
Have you ever had an economics class (or heard a political speech) in which an amount of money is compared to some physical representation? For example (and this is completely made up–so don’t repeat it!), the war has cost $600 billion dollars. If you stacked silver dollars over an area the size of Texas, 600 billion of them would reach halfway to the moon! Analogies are very recognizable “lesser” tropes.
And my example is the sort of analogy the truth campaign epitomized. Every single one used a visual analogy like the body bags. What DOES a stack of 1200 body bags (assuming a body is inside) look like? How effectively did they illustrate it?
In these visually recognizable ads, what part does sound play? I think the ambient sound and “unrehearsed” feel to the dialogue is what actually makes them work. They sound like truth.
Emotional
One of our greatest poets was Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and I’m certain you are all familiar with this poem to some extent:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Now watch this (again, it’s in a site and can’t be embedded–but I recommend that you listen to it at least once with this window open to compare the wording).
So much is right about this commercial. Let’s begin with audience. This ad would have been played during race season on ESPN and similar channels. It would have had a very narrow audience–race enthusiasts. Within that audience, there is a broad range of demographics, and this ad provided something for almost everyone.
First, it cleverly rewords the well-known poem, which is then delivered by a warm, midwestern/southern voice. The voice seems familiar, perhaps a celebrity such as John Cullum, who would be known to this audience. I especially like the line about “our checkered past” and the way that is interwoven with video.
Next, it combines new film with stock footage of historic races. Included in the background are the sounds–ambient noise from the track and the crowd, voices of the sportscasters; noises the audience will resonate with. Every element has been chosen, whether visual or aural, to evoke a response.
The ending tells us what is being promoted…sort of. We find out that this is a Firestone commercial, and, after all, Firestone sells tires. But this ad is doing two more things–it is image building and it is selling an idea: “Innovation.” How odd that an ad which incorporates old film is selling an idea that means “new.”
Finally, the ad uses music which is deliberately emotional in nature. It stands in stark contrast to the subject matter, but gives value to the words, delivery and production. Wow. This one gets everything right!
Looking back for a brief analysis
In the last two lessons, I have had you watch a couple of ads I want to analyze quickly before I end. Watch and listen again:
Now for some questions:
Who is the audience for these two ads? Do you believe there is some overlap? A lot of overlap?!
What do you notice immediately that these two ads have in common?
Did the same agency produce these ads?
Here are my answers:
The audience for these ads is largely the same–young men.
When I first saw the “Dude” commercial, I immediately wondered if the music was by the same composer as that used in the Halo trailer. Imagine my lack of surprise to discover that the Halo music is Chopin’s Prelude No. 15, and the “Dude” music is Chopin’s Prelude No. 8. That is some pretty heavy-duty serious classical music. What is up with that?
Here’s the thing I find truly fascinating. The Halo trailers were created by McCann Erickson and the “Dude” commercials by DBB Chicago–both great ad agencies, but completely unrelated to one another. So there is something going on here. Why would two different ad agencies choose the same kind and style (and composer–most shocking) of music for ads aimed at a very young, very “cool” audience? It’s a risk I’m not sure I would have taken, but it is brilliant.
The music–this serious, intelligent music–adds something that another more “relevant” form would never provide–legitimacy with a wider audience.
Final note: every bit of info in this brief analysis was found on Google. This is the minimum of information that I expect you to find in your research as you work during the last weeks of the semester on your major project.
