What appeal and what kinds of humour are used in the adverts supplied? Are these creative strategies suitable for the target market?

Emotional appeals are common tactics used in advertising to generate an appropriate creative strategy. The appeals used depend greatly on the desired effect the brand aim to achieve and this blog will discuss the use of humour and sex appeal by Specsavers and whether they are the most suitable creative strategy for their target market.

Humour is a vital appeal used in advertising and ‘not only helps a firm to attract and hold attention of its customers… to create a positive mood’ (Sahaf, 2008). Specsavers is a company who through their various campaigns has used humour appeals to engage with their audience, for example OAP’s stuck on a roller-coaster having not used Specsavers. As a lower priced brand, Specsavers typically target 45+ and C2DE consumers (Get Me Media, 2009), however ‘The Specsavers Effect – Lynx Parody’ advert deviates away from this, mainly focusing on ABC1 Males under 30.

The 2010 Specsavers advert, although still using a variation of the famous ‘Should have gone to Specsavers’ tagline, moved away from their usual approach using slapstick humour towards humour explained by three theories of ‘incongruities, malicious pleasure and aggressiveness’  (Beard, 2008).  Specsavers created humour by producing a parody of the globally successful Lynx/Axe Adverts, showing hundreds of ‘attractive’ females running towards an ‘average looking’ man after spraying himself. The women are then put off when they see his choice of glasses and the brand slogan appears.

As humour is very subjective, this advert would be more suited to a male target audience, who according to Nielsen’s research study on Millennial in 2012, are more liberal to the use of exaggeration and stereotypes in humour. Men, 13-34 ‘identify with other “normal” guys placed in extreme or exaggerated situations’ (Nielsen, 2012) something achieved throughout the original Lynx advert when females cannot resist the man portrayed. In addition to this, arousal-safety humour is used by Specsavers, when initial tension and emotional arousal occurs, as females are attracted towards the ‘average’ male subject. This is followed by release; experienced as humour when due to his hideous glasses, the females no longer feel that attraction. This tactic in particular is something greatly appealing to generation X men.

To women, who according to Nielsen (2012) generally empathise more with aspirational, off-beat and harmless humour, the advert may be redeemed as offensive and therefore not be an effective approach to their more general, wider target audience of both men and women.

Sex appeal is another tactic used by Specsavers to reach out into the younger generation X target audience. This leads consumers to associate the advertised product with ‘sexy people and exciting lifestyles, and…by purchasing the advertised product the buyer could experience a similar lifestyle’ (O’Connor, Faille, 2000). As a tactic commonly used amongst many luxury fashion and lifestyle goods, the majority of the advert portrays this idea through the use of sexualised females, slow motion and dramatic music. This sex appeal combined with the humorous plot twist at the end, increases the memorability of the advert, consequently outlined by Kazmi and Batra (2009) attracting attention and improving brand name recall in particular amongst men.

The use of Norman Fairclough’s 1989 theory ‘members resources’ means by creating an advert based around a parody of Lynx’s iconic adverts, potential consumers already associate the Specsavers advert with the ‘feel good’ benefits of Lynx, even before the brand is revealed.

To conclude, Specsavers have created their ‘Specsavers Effect 2010’ advert based upon the use of the emotional appeals, humour and sex appeal. Wishing to deviates away from a more general and older target market of 45+, Specsavers have focused on the potential custom of 13-34 males of a higher social demographic and have done so through the use of sex combined with arousal-safety humour. Whilst these tactics would be appealing towards this target market, it may isolate younger female potential customers who generally don’t find this humour as attractive. The added surprise of the twist in the advert, along with these emotional appeals, whilst may not appeal and therefore be directly suitable for the wider target audience of Specsavers, it resulted in an undeniably memorable advert, therefore making the creative strategy effective in

References

Beard, F. (2008). Humor in the Advertising Business: Theory, Practice, and Wit. 1st ed. [ebook] USA: Rowman & Littlefield, p.69. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ICoMF3xMGjQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false [Accessed 1 Feb. 2015].

GetMeMedia.com, (2009). CASE STUDY: Specsavers target a male 45+ audience in the North. [online] Available at: http://www.getmemedia.com/ideas/case-study-specsavers-target-a-male-45-audience-in-the-north/gmg-radio.html [Accessed 2 Feb. 2015].

Kazmi, S. and Batra, S. (2009). Advertising And Sales Promotion. 3rd ed. [ebook] New Dehli: Excel Books India. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1fQuLiaGY4YC&dq=advertising+techniques+humour&source=gbs_navlinks_s [Accessed 1 Feb. 2015].

Nielsen, (2012). Newswire | Gender Divide Reaching Male vs Female Millennials | Nielsen. [online] Nielsen.com. Available at: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2012/gender-divide-reaching-male-vs-female-millennials.html [Accessed 1 Feb. 2015].

O'Connor, D. Faille. C.C. 2000. ‘Basic Economic Principles: A Guide for Students’ Greenwood.

Sahaf, M. (2008). STRATEGIC MARKETING: Making Decisions for Strategic Advantage. 1st ed. [ebook] New Delhi: Asoke K. Ghosh, p.350. Available at: http://STRATEGIC MARKETING: Making Decisions for Strategic Advantage [Accessed 3 Feb. 2015].