Analyzing the Effectiveness of Advertising

The analysis of advertising in today’s hyper-competitive market is considered universally critical to optimize the impact of the advertising. In effect, companies want to know what advertising best contributes in turning consumer purchasing behavior in their favor.

Many of these techniques have direct relevance to the preparation of a business plan in that building a specific image for your company is an important step towards its success. In advertising analysis, many facets are taken into account, but the all fall within two general categories: technical effects and psychological effects. While identifiably different, these two categories are almost never found in isolation.

Technical Effects

Technical effects are the visual, audio, and environmental techniques used to “set the stage” of the advertising. Almost everyone remembers Apple’s “Big Brother” commercial of the early 1980s. The camera cuts, industrial complex setting, and storm troop-like figures pursuing a beautiful rebel set a particular image in the minds of American consumers, indirectly calling on them to resist the tyrannical hold big businesses had on the computer industry prior to that time period.

Some of the technical effects used today by advertisers include:

• Suggestive and provocative camera angles, close-ups, and shot backgrounds
• Musical cues triggering excitement, nostalgia and sensuality of the ad
• Scene shift pacing, settings and content

Psychological Effects

The other side of the advertising coin is psychological effects. For the most part, products are sold to the consumer by playing upon three basic emotions: humor, fear, and sexuality. The use of emotional assault causes the consumer to set aside the intellectual analysis of an offer, inhibited in part by the personal values of the individual consumer. The major techniques used in this virtual psychological warfare are:

• Playing upon the universal desire to be accepted by the larger society
• Playing upon the consumer’s desire to have the best value for the money spent
• Using “testimonials” from credible images, rather than intellectual reasoning from knowledgeable individuals
• Playing upon cultural and social stereotypes to achieve consumer action
• Sensory slamming with images and claim repetition, regardless of support or relevancy

The Analysis

Analyzing advertising requires the analyst to identify, evaluate and report on the advertising techniques used, how effective those techniques are used in the advertising, and determination of any weaknesses the advertising might have that need to be addressed.

Our writers are used to handling such assignments. The base techniques for literary critiques, media reviews, and advertising analysis are closely related and our writers have high levels of experience in all of them. Combined with their flair for writing, they can quickly and easily prepare a full analysis of any particular ad, or an overall analysis of an advertising campaign.

All we need is your order and, perhaps, a copy of the ad would be helpful. See what I mean about humor?