How ads start fads
You’ll need
- Pens or pencils
- A4 paper
- Glue sticks
- Scissors
- A selection of newspaper or magazines, enough for each group
Acquire the adverts
- The person leading the activity should ask the group to bring with them a used newspaper or magazine. Ideally, they should look through their newspaper or magazine to see if it has a page with food adverts on it.
- The person leading the activity should gather together a selection of newspapers and magazines with food adverts in them. Try to find a range of different food adverts.
Understanding adverts
- Everyone should get into pairs or small groups. The person leading the activity should give out newspapers or magazines, scissors, paper and glue sticks. Everyone should take a newspaper or magazine with food adverts in it.
- Everyone should look through their newspapers or magazines to find the food adverts, cut one of them out with the scissors and stick it onto the paper. When sticking, each person should leave space to write around the cut-out.
- The person leading the activity should read out or write down some of the 'Advertising techniques' below.
- Each group think about each example advert. Together, they should work out the following things:
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- What is the advert selling?
- Who is the target audience?
- Does it make you want the product?
- What benefit do they give for buying the product?
- What would you change about the advert?
- Now, everyone should think of a healthy food product that they’d like to advertise in their groups. This can be on TV, on the radio or in a newspaper or magazine. Everyone should write down some ideas on the back of their paper.
- Each group should plan out an advert to promote their chosen food product. Think about if the advert will show the health benefits in a normal person, or whether it’ll have a celebrity say nice things about the product. Each member of each group should play a part in performing/displaying the advert. Give the groups 20 minutes to do this.
- Everyone should perform/display their adverts to the rest of the group. The audience must decide what technique from the sheet has been used, who the advert might be targeting and make suggestions of things they would change.
Emotional Appeal
Usually looks at a customer’s need (for something new, to be healthy, to change etc.) or their fears (of an accident, of putting on weight, of missing out etc.)
Promotional Advertising
Involves giving away product samples. You’ll often see this in supermarkets, food shows and sometimes in magazines.
Bandwagon Advertising
Encourages customers to join other people who’ve already bought this product. For example, “Thousands of others are already doing this, so why don’t you?”
Facts and stats
Use of facts and figures to demonstrate how good their product is. For example, “This product is 80% lower in saturated fat than the market leader”.
Unfinished adverts
States that their product is better, but doesn’t use facts and figures to define by how much
Endorsements
Often uses celebrities or experts to advertise their product. This encourages the audience to relate to or trust this person, making them want to buy the product
Ideal Family
This approach will often show a happy, healthy family enjoying the product. The target audience will often relate to, or want to be like, this family, so will want the product.
Patriotic Adverts
Gives people the impression that they will be supporting their country by buying this product. You’ll often see phrases such as “Grown by British farmers”.
Questioning the Customer
Asks questions that the customer feels they can answer, with the aim of the customer placing themselves as the target audience. For example, “Do you struggle to find time to make a healthy and nutritious meal in the evening? Well then you should buy our product…”
Bribe
Bribes the customer with something extra if they buy their product. Examples include “buy one get one free”, “50% extra free” or similar.
Reflection
The group have looked at some advertising techniques often seen on TV, on the radio and in printed media. Which ad technique did you think appeals to you most? How might your perspective be different from someone else, say, for example, someone 20 years older? How do you think advertisers know how to talk to people of a certain age or from a certain place?
Using what they’d found in their research, the groups then made some adverts of their own about food products. What kind of food product did you choose to advertise and how did you sell it to your audience? What benefits did you talk about or perks did you offer? Will anyone try out their ad on someone who fits the target audience to see if it works?! If it does, it might lead to a successful career one day.
Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.
- Scissors
Supervise young people appropriately when they’re using scissors. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.
- Glue and solvents
Always supervise young people appropriately when they’re using glue and solvent products. Make sure there’s plenty of ventilation. Be aware of any medical conditions that could be affected by glue or solvent use and make adjustments as needed.
Advanced advertisers might enjoy the challenge of having foods picked at random for them to try and advertise. Unusual combinations might make this even trickier. Try selling ‘chocolate salad’ or ‘cauliflower pizza!’
Help those who find it difficult to pick out the different advertising techniques. It’s useful to imagine seeing the advert on television. Think about what the voiceover might sound like and who he or she might be addressing.
Have a quiet space somewhere where people can go to if they’d like some time away from the activity
Cue cards might be useful to help those who get distracted easily stay focused.
If groups prefer not to perform in front of the others, encourage them to draw a colourful ad on some spare paper to display.
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
The group should find out more about food advertising to see how it differs from other adverts. If there were any adverts for other products in the magazines and newspapers, take another look at them. Pick out things that are the same and things that are different.
Let the groups choose their own foods to advertise.