2. How have advertisements changed over time?  Music used to play less of a role in advertisements. Nowadays, however, music plays an integral part of adverts.  Adverts of the past were more talk-orientated and upbeat, contrasting with the modern use of downbeat music and minimal conversation between individuals.  Historically, adverts were dependent upon the content of the advert (the meaning of conversations, the use and price of the product itself, etcetera), modern adverts are “superficial”, and rely mostly on colour and sound.  Certain techniques, such as foreboding or piquing the viewer’s interest have grown in their use, whereas others, such as wordplay/puns have declined in their use.  Visual humour is the most common form of humour, nowadays.

3. What techniques are used by advertisers to capture the attention of the audience?  There are many different techniques used in advertising to capture the viewer ’ s attention.  An advert, in order to be successful, must attract the audience ’ s attention and make them question what ’ s happening.  Colour and music are particularly important to advertising, as you need to colour and music to convey meaning and attract the viewer’s attention. If you are going for a non serious advert bright colours are usually recommended as the bright colours will attract the audience easier and loud music gets their attention quicker.  Whereas if the advert is a more serious they use darker colours and slower music to make clear to the audience the tone of the advert.  Humour is frequently used by advertisers to attract the audience through making them laugh.

4. Do specific products lean toward certain techniques?  The choice of techniques used within the advert is mostly dependent upon two main factors:  the target audience (an advert directed at pensioners is unlikely to play dubstep).  the product (it would, in most cases, be inappropriate for an advert about funeral care to use black humour).  Certain techniques are more prevalent in certain types of advertisements (car adverts often focus on things working in coalition or the beauty of the natural and the mechanical, etcetera).  Perfume adverts like to use the Anti-Narrative technique and like using dark colours and slow music for their adverts.  Car adverts like to use very loud current music with usually very bright colours and like using shots of cityscapes

5. Advert 1 The Smash Martians adverts use humour effectively in there adverts through the use of Hidden advertisement. The adverts do this by showing us a bunch of Martians all talking about humans making us unsure on what they are on about only to find out they are talking about mash potatoes. This is very humour-us to the audience because they do not expect to see aliens very interested in mash potatoes. Also just the thought of aliens eating mash potatoes is very funny to people. Also the overall design of the Martians is also very humorous to the audience.

6. Advert 2 The Citroen C4 advert is a good use of humour in an advert. The advert uses humour to its aid by having the product they are trying to sell you by have it turn into a robot and start dancing. This seems very humorous to the audience because it seems very out of the blue for a robot to start dancing. And because it seems very strange for an advert to advertise in this way. This is why its a good use of hidden advertising because no one would expect a robot dancing to be in a car advert.

7. Advert 3 The Cadbury's gorilla advert is effective due to the use of imagery and music. It is also a good use of a hidden advert. The advert is effective because it shows a gorilla playing the drums to Phil Collins which makes the audience laugh because it is very strange and just comes out of nowhere. And then when the audience find out that they are advertising chocolate it makes them laugh even more because it just seems weird in contrast to what they are advertising. The weirdness of the advert in general is what makes it so memorable to the viewer making the ad serving its purpose