1. Advertising case study
Dr Strangelove
‘Or how I stopped worrying and learnt to love the bomb’.
https://youtu.be/QA0NuPx4yfs – link to film’s radio advert.
Dr Strangelove was a dark comedy directed by Stanley Kubrick and released in
the U.K in 1964. Its advertising campaign was co-ordinated by Colombia pictures,
the distributors of the film with the costs paid by the 1.8million dollar budget for
the film, that when adjusted for inflation equals to 8,264,243.42 dollars.
The advertising campaign won no awards itself but saw a rebirth in 2016 when
posters hung in bus-stops around New York City as part of the Clinton Campaign.
These showed Donald. J. Trump riding a nuclear bomb in a parody of the famous
scene from the film where a pilot rides a nuclear warhead as it drops onto a
Russian military base.
The target audience for this product at release would have been middle class
males, around 30-40 years of age. This is because the male dominated cast and
theme of nuclear war would attract a male audience who would want to see
actors of their gender discuss war – a stereotypically male topic. The mention of
the director ‘Stanley Kubrick’ in the advert would also help the films objective of
attracting audience members from alternative media audience groups who may
already be familiar with his previous work like a ‘clockwork orange’ or ‘2001: a
space odyssey’ and would prefer to see a less mainstream film, giving it a unique
selling point of being related to these other successful films.
The product is presented humorously but in a serious tone of voice to fit in the
comedic genre of film while appearing like a news bulletin to grab the audience’s
attention. The selling point of this campaign is to find out the context of bizarre
lines of dialogue inserted into advert regarding major plot-points of the movie
with the narrator of the advert questioning these plot points, urging people to
watch the film. An example of narration being “why does Dr Strangelove want 10
females to every male?” .This is followed by the narrator stating the names of the
2. actors and director of the film, helping to attract further audience members who
are fans of the popular actors listed as members of the cast.
The ASA broadcasting codes would affect the radio advert of this product due to
the restraint of harm and offence, as the advert could possibly contain material
that listeners could find offensive such as taboo language or topics such as
nuclear war which features heavily in the film that would be inappropriate for
possible younger viewers such as children to hear. This also helps to regulate this
advert from preventing the use of volume levels that could cause physical harm
to listeners who suffer from epilepsy or the use of shock tactics to advertise.
Another topic where this advert is moderated is the privacy of real persons whose
privacy could be infringed by the radio advert, limiting the advert to only use the
names of people who have given their consent.
The ASA:
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK’s independent advertising
regulator. The ASA makes sure ads across UK media stick to predetermined
advertising rules that prevent harmful or inappropriate material in adverts being
exposed to the public.
OFCOM:
Ofcom is the government regulator for the communications services in the United
Kingdom such as Radio, TV, Broadband and Mobile services. They make sure that
the public are not affected by the bad practices of company’s and that paid
services keep up to scratch. These would inforce radio stations to provide their
promised service by the law of parliament.
BBFC:
The British Board of Film Classification is a non-governmental organisation,
founded by the film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national
classification and censorship of films exhibited at cinemas and video works these
include television programmes, trailers, adverts, etc. This process gives age
ratings and content advice on films and other audio visual content. This
organisation deems what is and isn’t appropriate for children and family’s to
watch.
The advertising campaign for DR Strangelove also used print and audio-visual
advertising to promote the film. The print advert shows the world leaders of
3. Russia and the U.S talking over the phone while a fleet of aircraft fly overhead
behind the title and tagline of the film. This helps to establish to the audience
that the film takes place during the cold war and that it is not a children’s film due
to the mature topic. The cartoonish appearance of the world leaders also helps
to establish the film as a comedy as well with exaggerated features helping to
create a comedic affect.
The audio-visual trailer for the film uses the same unique editing technique as
the radio advert where a narrators sentences are completed by inserted clips of
dialogue from the film, with the same questions as in the radio advert that
encourage the listener to watch the film and find out the answers to them with
the unique editing helping to grab the audience’s attention as well. Like the
poster it shows imagery of the U.S president on a phone call with the Russian
premier, helping to establish it as a key plot point of the film due to it
repeatedly being shown in both advertising mediums. An element that all three
adverts contain is the presentation of the two lead roles of the film and the
film’s director, suggesting to the audience that they are important to the
product.
Link to TV/Cinema commercial:
https://youtu.be/IutX5AGEYZc
