(P1) Analysis of Specific Audio Visual Promotions

Audi RS e-tron GT - Christmas advert. 'Future is an attitude' (2021)

Audi RS e-tron GT - Christmas - 30" - YouTube

This advertisement is to sell a product.

Audi is a very luxury driven brand. Their products are often considered high class, and they are part of the famous German trio that involves BMW, Audi and Mercedes. This means that immediately the audience will associate the advertisement with class and dignity.

This advertisement is immediately associated with class, and uses very minimal colour and dark lighting to make an audience feel calm and content. The overall feeling is initially very high class, and feels aimed towards a richer audience. The camera shots and techniques in this advertisement are very generic, but are majority mid shots to show the environment around the people and the car, and highlight the lifestyle they want the audience to perceive. The costume design is very reminiscent of this, as they use suits of greys and desaturated dark red colours to convey the rich and luxury lifestyle. This promotes a lifestyle through an advert, showing people that if they buy the Audi E-tron, they will gain the lavish lifestyle that it imposes on the audience through the advert.

Another important part of this advert is the use of colour. Everything in the advert seems upper-class but bleak, however, the Audi presented is a very bright red colour. This may be used to infer to the audience that the car, however being associated with class and money, is actually very fun at heart and contains personality.

The preferred meaning from Audi in this advert is to associate the feeling with class, however, an audience member with an oppositional meaning may infer this as a depressing or upsetting environment, as it has very little colour and appears very dark which has connotations to negativity. This means that people may take the wrong reasoning with the colours.

Structure - 

There is not much of a narrative order to this advertisement, as it does not have a true meaning or storyline. However, it does show the progression from lack of colour to an extremely bright coloured car, which could act as a metaphor to how it is brightening up his life, making it more exciting etc. 

Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High? - Arctic Monkeys Music Video. (2013)

Arctic Monkeys - Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High? (Official Video) - YouTube

This music video is a very good video with the use of cinematography and mise en scene elements it uses to promote the lifestyle of the music. The song is called 'Why'd you only call me when you're high?' and the song reflects this showing Alex in a trance-like state, this is used to reflect the feeling of the song, which has a similar feel to how the music video is portrayed. The video has cinematography elements such as warping the screen to make the audience feel the same way that Alex does, and visually show how he is feeling. This promotes a lifestyle for the music, and conveys a feeling that many viewers may aspire to receive from the video. The preferred meaning from Arctic Monkeys in this video is to create a lifestyle and a feeling to an audience that matches how their music. Figuratively saying how their music is so good that it will make you feel 'high'. However, an audience may take this as the band promoting drugs and being high, which could be received negatively and they would lose listeners because of this.

The video has a range of techniques, such as editing messages onto screen, and using warping tools to simulate the feeling. They also include shots such as mostly medium and close up shots, which show how Alex is stumbling and his reactions to the visions he is having. This all adds meaning to the advertisement, as the mise en scene elements also portray a classic British 'Saturday night' style theme. This is obvious through the British streets on scene and the nightclub that he starts the music video in. The video also has a very dark colour scheme, which sets the feeling for the video.

The video is targeted at people of a younger age, younger adults for example. This is obvious through the feel of the video overall, as younger people are usually seen as the type of people to get drunk or high, and go on nights out acting 'irresponsibly' like Turner in the video. This means that it would fall under the 'mainstreamer' or the 'struggler' psychometric category. This is as it is a very popular UK tradition, but also tends to be people who have a more normal attitude, or maybe are not as responsible as older more successful people.

The structure of the video is very straightforward. It is based from Alex's point of view and shows him trying to get home after drinking and taking drugs, which hinders this process. The video is based around him having hallucinations of the people around him doing things that they are not. 

Inform - COVID-19 Information Campaign (2020)

First TV ad for Coronavirus public information campaign - YouTube

This video is used to inform the UK population about the risks and symptoms of COVID-19, and how they can stop themselves from being at Risk of the virus, or lessen the probability of getting it. The advertisement has Chris Whitty in it, who is the chief medical officer of the United Kingdom. This means that people will see the advertisement and know that the information comes from a trusted person, so they are more likely to listen and take guidance from Chris, which would mean that the country can be safer about the virus.

The video is shot backed by a blue screen, this means that Chris is the main subject of the video which is purposeful as there is nothing to distract the viewer from the information being presented. They also play a short animation showing what symptoms are, and where they would be. This is useful as it means that the viewer has a clear representation of what to look for. The use of an animation also means that it is more likely to interest a viewer and stick in their mind.

There is also a HM government logo and an NHS logo present throughout the video used as a call to action for information, as when you would search these names in that time, there was a lot of information about coronavirus so that people could read about the virus. These is also a link in the video to nhs.co.uk, which at the time had a page dedicated to information about the virus.

The cinematography in this video is very bleak, as it is not supposed to be visually impressive, as it is purely serious and is only used to get information out. This means that the only shot in the advertisement is a medium close up of Chris Whitty, as he explains the problems and risks with COVID-19.

Educate - Dumb Ways to Die Railway Safety Advertisement. (2016)

Dumb Ways to Die - Avoid running in the station - YouTube

This advertisement campaign was an Australian Public Service Announcement and was streamed nationally across the country. This is an advertisement that promotes dumb ways to die as a game, whilst also attempting to highlight the risk of trains. This is a very effective advertisement, as it completely flips the audience expectations. The advertisement is based from a fun game called 'Dumb Ways To Die', which is a game based on ways that the characters die, in seemingly normal ways, which is used to show the dangers of everyday life. This sounds like a morbid game, however it has a light hearted tone to it, and the game has always been used to spread awareness about the dangers of the world, and how to stop them.

The advertisement is short and simple, and show one of the games characters running towards a train in a station. Then the audience sense imminent danger as the other character on the platform shakes his umbrella and the water falls on the floor, which acts as a slipping hazard to the character that is running. The character then slips and falls into the train doors, and gets pulled across and 'killed' by the metro tunnel. The entire scene is an animated long shot of both characters, which gives the audience both perspectives to looks at, and realise that the other person has no bad intentions but something as small as an accident can result very dangerously.

The advertisement is shot in a very light hearted tone, to convey a very serious message in a  nicer tone so that an audience take a lesson from it, rather than a fear. This means that they can promote the message of safety that they want to promote, but keep it entirely suitable to all audiences regardless of age or ethnicity. This means that they can stream/broadcast the advertisement all across the country.