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].
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