Codes and conventions in Advertising

Codes and conventions are important in advertising for the creation of meaning, and it is fundamental that the customer reacts and responds to the advert in the way that the media wish, for it to be successful. The media constructs its own verison of reality, through their own forms, codes and conventions, audiences then negotiate the meaning based on their identification with these codes and conventions. in this way, the credibility or realism of an advert or other media text depends on the degree to which the audience identifies with what is being portrayed. This means a successful advert will contain conventions that the audience can relate to and identify with, these are successful well used things that appear in many adverts, hence why they have become conventional, due their excessive use. For someone to connect with an advert, and therefore mentally buy into the product or service, they need to trust it, interact with it and bond with it, which is aided by the conventions and codes within it. I did some research into the common codes and conventions found in some types of advertising, however these will differe depending on a multitude of factors such as the target audience, viewing times, product and type of advert.
codes are seperated into three categories:

l  Technical Codes:

 Camera techniques, framing, depth of field, lighting, exposure and   juxtaposition

l  Symbolic Codes

 Objects, setting, body language, clothing and color

l  Written Codes

 Headlines, captions, speech bubbles, language style

. According to Gillian Dyer (Advertising as Communication Routledge 1988) advertisers use, among other techniques, the following lines of appeal. They use images of or references to these things to tap into our desires - and fears:

Happy families - everyone wants to belong

· Rich, luxurious lifestyles - aspirational
· Dreams and fantasy
· Successful romance and love
· Elite people or experts
· Glamorous places
· Successful careers
· Art, culture & history
· Nature & the natural world
· Beautiful women - men AND women like looking at beautiful women, so the thinking goes: men admire them, women admire what makes the men admire them.
· Self-importance & pride
· Comedy & humour
· Childhood - can appeal to either nostalgia or to nurturing instincts

these lines of appeal are conventional because they connect with different audiences. another important convention in tv advertising is the language, as adverts are designed to persuade customers.Hermerén (1999 English for Sale: A Study of the Language of Advertising), suggests different ways an advert can be persuasive.

Different types of advertising may have different proportions of informative and persuasive content.

•reward power: the product promises some positive benefit.

•coercive power: the product is presented upon pain of threat or punishment.

•referent power: the message associated with the product fits into the reader's value system.

•expert power: the product is presented by an expert ,

these are commonly seen persuasive aspects of advertising.

i feel it was useful to look into the basics of codes and conventions of television advertising but i think i should revisit this in more depth when i have more of an idea of my product, audience and style of advert and specific conventions differ according to the advert style.