TV advertisement analysis

The majority of Specsavers adverts follow Todorov's theory: Situation, problem, resolution, the resolution being going to Specsavers; 'Should have gone to Specsavers'. The comedy of the adverts is achieved by exaggerated unexpected situations in which the characters obliviously find themselves in. It is a surprise for both the characters and the audience. The adverts almost suggest that a lack of glasses results in a sense of ignorance, therefore encouraging the audience to buy glasses to avoid this undesirable intelligence. One advert that we found especially funny is shown below. The advert is promoting a new deal of "30% off for over 60s" so the target audience is over 60s.

The initial situation is always an everyday event that the target audience can relate to, in this case the old couple are sitting down on what looks like a pier, implied by the diegetic sound of seagulls, to enjoy their cheese sandwiches. It then becomes apparent that they have sat down on a roller coaster, the rest of the advert is a sequence of shots showing their journey on the roller coaster in which they do twists and turns and are smacked in the face with an explosion of water. Fast changing shots are used to create a sense of speed and energy. These contrasts with the initial simple shots at the beginning. Contrast is used to emphasise how old the characters are by showing the roller coasters' other passengers who are a much younger and are obviously supposed to be there. Close-ups of their faces are used to show how horrifically alarmed they are and their ignorance is reinforced at the end when the man says "what kind of cheese was that?". It's extremely funny because the characters are so out of place and the situation is so out of their control, and secondly because their oblivion to getting into that situation is clearly grossly exaggerated. Comedic adverts are incredibly engaging because they cater to the audience's desire to be entertained. In my experience they are very memorable and they become a hot topic for conversation and so secondary promotion of the product takes place as well as primary promotion (the advert).
In respect to the representation of our target audience we must be careful not to offend. The Specsavers advert has done this by showing them walk off at the end, apparently unaffected by their experience. This implies that the old people are not physically or mentally challenged and that their only impairment is their bad eyesight.  

This is another good example of a funny Specsavers advert which I have heard fuss about among my friends. It's use of dramatic irony make it very funny. It has a more general target audience and doesn't promote a specific deal. 

Notice that the association of Specsavers with humour goes against any preconception that glasses are 'nerdy'. Especially in the case of this advert when the characters, at least those who represent the target audience, are young and attractive.   

We want to apply this mistake in an everyday action to our advert. We want to do an advert for a new product and not a specific deal like the one above. Therefore we must relate the advert to as wide a target audience as possible. We all agreed that the most common daily activity is getting up and getting ready for the day. This includes waking up, washing, getting dressed,eating breakfast etc. During one of these tasks our characters will make a mistake that will result in a negative reaction, be it from the character themselves or other characters. Some brief ideas follow:

- Using the wrong product while applying make up or brushing teeth. This will insure that the mistake is visible to other people the character will see during the day (or at least the beginning of the day as is the case for the toothpaste).
- Putting salt in the tea of the character and perhaps other characters. This will be unsavoury to the character themselves. They could even spit it out on to another character; the more negative results the more likely the audience are to see the need for going to Specsavers. 

We have come to the conclusion that being humiliated in public is far more undesirable than being in personal discomfort for a short period of time. Therefore are narrative will involve this. 
Our favourite idea is the toothbrush idea, as we all agreed this is the funniest, we asked a few of our peers and they shared the same opinion. We decided that the toothpaste should get mixed up with black paint as it has the same packaging, however this is when we came to a thinking block as we weren't sure how or why the paint gets into the bathroom and near the original toothpaste. Now that we have the starting point to our new idea we are going to expand on this and hopefully plan the entire storyline.