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An investigation in the use of humour in adverts and what affect it creates

What is humour? The answer to this particular question is not a straightforward and simple one. Rather it is a combination of several explanations put together to reflect different attitudes towards humour from the diverse people the society consists of today. Humour is a very interesting and amusing way of gaining people’s attention. It is used in movies, trailers and advertisements. Humour in advertisements in particular is very popular. This is due to the fact that there is a very short time frame to convey the message desired by the creators of the advertisement. It instantly breaks through and hopes to capture the audience’s attention. Emotions and feelings that are generated through the use of comedy can often result in positive brand links. I will be researching into various different advertisements and what effect humour creates within them.

Take the Volkswagen advertise for example. This advertisement is about a car, Volkswagen Polo. It is set in a very middle class white posh area. The trailer begins with a motorist leaving his house and getting into his Volkswagen Polo. He has a distinct Middle Eastern appearance and has also an Arab checked scarf wrapped around his neck. These scarves are commonly used by many Arabs around the world. After a short period of driving, the driver stops outside a busy café that has a very ‘English’ feel to it. Women are speaking on the phone, holding the baby and just walking by. The driver pulls out a detonator and depresses the button. At this moment of time, the car does not explode, there is just a explosion inside of the car and the car manages to contain it. Straight the slogan is seen ‘Polo. Small but tough.’

The institution that created this trailer is Lee and Dan team. This trailer is aimed for mature minds, people who are 18 and onwards. The reason why the target audience might not be younger than that, because being at a naïve age, it is really easy for the minds to be indoctrinated in any way possible. If this is seen by younger audience, it can cause a lot of havoc and chaos, resulting in hatred amongst youth for other ethnic backgrounds. Having said that, it can be argued that it is created SO that the youth of today can link with what is shown on the news about WHO are the terrorists and what ‘kind’ of appearance to look out for. This viral advert is on youtube, msn windows, facebook ads, anywhere possible on the net and because there is a huge population of teenagers accessing the internet, maybe it IS created to target them. There are many issues with Muslims being linked with terrorism.

Around the world today, peoples mind have been programmed to think that every terrorist act is committed by a ‘Muslim’. What this Volswagen trailer has done is reinforce that statement. It is like a stamp mark on something that has already been said a lot of times, indirectly. Arab Muslim’s have a history of terrorist acts, which took the media by a storm and caused a lot of controversy to ensue. This act is destructive and economically can result into havoc. The more people that are a victim of suicide bombing, the more the population will start to decrease which will soon result in a downfall of the economic system.

In May 2006, one of many adverts from Mac computers challenging Pc’s was created. One of which included a Japanese woman representing a digital camera. As soon as the advertisement starts, the audience is captures by the bright white plain background and the diagetic sounds coming from the two men standing facing right at the camera. One man is dressed in a grey and white suit and has quite a snobbish appearance. The man looks reserved, boring and old. He represents PC. He is holding hands with a guy who is dressed in casual ‘cool’ clothing. He is dressed in blue polo top and black jeans with converse type shoes. He looks ‘chilled back’ relaxed and fun. This guy represents MAC. There are long shots of these two men and soon Japanese woman appears on the screen wearing a light blue dress and links hands with MAC. At this point there is a long shot of all three representatives. She represents a new Japanese digital camera and looks quite chic. MAC starts conversing with her in Japanese, PC gets confused and says, ‘wait, wait, wait you speak her language?’ MAC says, ‘Oh yeah, absolutely, everything kinda just works with a MAC!’ This connotes straight away that MAC has made this advert to mock PC.

The irony in holding hands is that the advert is trying to make it seem like they’re ‘friendly competition’ against each other but in actual fact MAC is attempting to win the audiences hearts and for them to start disliking the PC. This advertisement targets everyone who uses computers. The lighting is very bright, denotes everything in great detail. The advertisement is simple yet effective. Does not include much content but it is the shortness of it that does exactly what MAC are intending to do. For audiences to think, MAC is better than the PC. Further on in the trailer there is an over the shoulder shot. PC is conversing with the MAC and we can the representatives back. At this point, the Japanese woman looks very delighted with the MAC. This implies that anyone and everyone can be happy with MAC computer. It also connotes that MAC computers are made to adjust to anyone’s wants and needs. There is a promise created that it’ll work however you want it to work. In the end there is more distance between the MAC and the PC than in between the MAC and the digital camera. This suggests that MAC suits the wider society’s needs much more than a PC does.

At this moment in time, there is huge competition between MAC and PC. They are going head to head in the market. Where the PC is simple and clear to use, MAC has a lot more interesting things to offer, evidently. MAC is also more desired amongst the younger generation because of layout, the programmes installed and simply the appearance of MAC computers. Before MAC became popular, PC was in every household and was the most wanted and relied computer as it is the only best one that existed. PC has been around for many years, this means that people are starting to get ‘bored’ using the same thing over and over again. Since MAC has been introduced in the market, it has instantly won many fans. It offers something new and exciting and that is why, overtime the popularity is growing