History and Development

The First Advert:

The first television advert was broadcast in the USA on July the 1^st 1941; the advert cost $9 and was on New York station WNBT before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies.   The first ever advert was for a watch company called bulova. The first British advert was
shown on ITV on the 25^th of September 1955. The advert was for Gibbs toothpaste.

The Gibbs toothpaste advert shows the toothpaste with a toothbrush frozen by a river. The advert then cuts away to show the toothpaste being applied to the toothbrush and this is followed by a lady brushing her teeth using the new toothpaste.

Looking at the cinematography in the advert I can see that they use lots of pans, especially at the start where they pan to show the flow of the river which leads to the piece of ice with the product inside. They then use a zoom to show the toothpaste up close.  The editing in the advert was slow with the first shot lasting 7 seconds and comparing this to more modern adverts it is a very long shot length. The mise-en-scene in the film shows and icey night with a river flowing through it. I think that they have used this mise-en-scene of a cold, frosty lake to create the sense that the toothpaste is cool and refreshing when applying. The snow in the advert is used to represent how white your teeth can be if you use this toothpaste. Later in the advert it shows a woman brushing her teeth, the mise-en-scene is very plain in this part of the advert with a pale background. Also the use the the medium-close up would suggest that the focus for this part of the advert is to focus on the woman brushing her teeth, perhaps as a demo on how to brush your teeth properly.  The sound in the video first of all starts with the noise of the flowing river with soft music coming from a flute, this relaxing scene could help engage the viewer. There is more sound however throughout the video, mostly in the form of a voice over. the voice over has been used to tell the viewer about the toothpaste and things that would not be clear without it, for example what the chemicals in the bottle does and how it improves your gums.
 

Todays Advert:


This is a recent advert for buidweiser beer in which they group of boys have installed rubber flooring and are able to bounce things (the beer) to eachother. The fact that this would very rarley if ever happen add a slighlty comical side to the advert and that is something that the Gibbs toothpaste advert didnt have and this is one way in which advert have changed.

However the style used in the advert is not the only thing that has changed. They also use much faster paced editing. This is evident with the opening shot in the budweiser advert lasting just  2.5 seconds compared to the Gibbs advert which lasted 7 seconds. The mise en scene hasnt really changed too much in the sense that they are both quite realistic settings however they have added unrealistic item in the adverts to highlight the product for example in the Biggs advert they have put the toothpaste in a square block of ice so it stands out, and in the budweiser advert they have used the rubber floors to show the beers being bounced to eachother which can give the effect that if you drink this beer you will have "style" like the people in advert which is put across in the casual way they catch the beers.
I also think that they way in which advertisers go about advertising. In the Gibbs advert they use the voice over to show off the name gibbs toothpaste and is reapeated several times throughout the advert. However in the budweiser advert they dont have a voice over until the very end of the advert to just describe the beer as clean, crisp, refreshing budweiser rather than repeating budweiser several times. They also show a budweiser in the background getting the "head" chopped off it and they have used this to make the audiece desire a beer that is clean, crisp and refreshing linking the voice over to the pictures to add effect.




What I learn't:

I think that looking at the two advert I feel that the budweiser advert is a much better advert and I would expect this as it has had years of adverts to create this. I think that I will have to try and use some of the techniques that they have used. I will try to make sure that the editing is at a fast pace and that I dont use long shots that will bore an audience. I will also try to add some humour to my advert if possible because I believe that it will help an audience to remember an advert and the product, however this will be hard to do because if it is only funny to a small audience then it would not be a success. I think that the mise - en - scene in the advert will have to be realistic without anything being in the background that you wouldnt expect to find. I think that in our advert we will try to make the sound clear and loud like in the budweiser adverts with the sounds of the beer bouncing and then being caught is loud and clear. I will also have to try to make my advert compatable because in this day in age adverts pop up in different places such as on the internet if you are shopping, on the radio and also on public places such as bus stops, I think that taking this into consideration we could try to make some stills to add to the video TV advert to show that we could put it on a website or bus.