DESIGN FOR ADVERTISINGIRN-BRUTask 1 – Research

After conducting some research into the drink Irn-Bru I have found out that they are owned by a company called A.G Barr (Barr) who also owns a number of other soft drink companies such as the well known Orangina, Rockstar and Rubicon. In 2013 the UK Soft Drinks Report showed statistics that soft drinks in general are consumed within 99% of households world wide, 39% of them being drinks which contain and the rest of the 61% not including sugar. The report also outlined how overweight or obese people will be more likely to choose a drink which says to contain no added sugar rather than the sugary drinks that the myth of soft drinks consumption being one of the causes of obesity. I found that the target audience for Irn-Bru is not very specific at all, men, women and children on average consume the same amount of carbonated drinks according to the report. When you compare this with the amount of people who drink sports and energy drinks (men; 58%, and women 42%) you can see that the main target audience for the Irn-Bru product is mainly men, but also women however no children under 13.

Irn-Bru’s Intended Audience

Style, Design and Content

When looking at past Irn-Bru adverts, we can see a very specific and unique style to the adverts and the way in which they have decided to capture the audience’s attention. The style of the whole company is very laid back and has a unique kind of humour throughout their company and products, making their advertising a kind of entertainment for their customers and other viewers of their adverts/products. Irn Bru have been known to create controversial adverts in the sense that the quotes of which are included in the content are usually suggestively rude and some have been banned by the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) for being too sexually suggestive for example.

The design of their range of advertisements seem to all be set to a house style, all having an image to the right hand side with a set of text which is a quote from the subject in the image, weather they be animal or human. This style is very simple however very effective in engaging their target audience, which is both men and women aged 13+, the simple style therefore is a good way of attracting a wide range of people as anyone will find it easy to read the copy within the advertisement, and the fact that the image is just as large as the text means that the eye is drawn in with curiosity as to what the image’s meaning will be.

The content of the adverts is very interesting in the way that Irn-Bru have matched their product with an image that on first glance you would think has nothing to do with the energy drink, however they have then gone on to anchor the image with a quote which talks about Irn-Bru specifically, for example explaining how much the subject enjoys the beverage, however with the typical style of Irn Bru the quote will be humorous and slightly suggestive.

Logo and Colour Scheme

The colour scheme of the company correlate with the colour scheme of their product; orange and blue. The adverts specifically also have a black and white image along side the orange back drop to the quote which is coloured blue. This makes the black and white image stand out in contrast and makes the advertisement even more bold and eye-catching. All of these colours will be pantones and will be replicated within every marketing material for the business in order to create their house style and individual identity in order for their audience to automatically associate the colours blue and orange with their products.

The Irn-Bru logo is the same throughout all of the products that they create and all of the marketing materials that they produce, this will be to make sure that they can preserve their unique identity. They have first of all created an image of a running man in the colour of silver on an orange back ground (in keeping with the house style and colour scheme) this image is very clever as it is clearly a man running, however also has the look of a water ring made when you place a beverage down on a surface and it makes a liquid mark on the surface in the shape of your drinks container. This is a clever illusion and fits in well with the drink. Going on to the second side of the logo, they have created a font for their product’s name which is bold, large and punchy. They have included a thick black stroke around the font making it stand out even more and become very eye-catching. The tag line used for their product is: ‘Original & Best’, making the audience believe that the product will be of a high quality. They have also included the name of the private limited company which owns the product, giving them advertisement as well.

Marketing Materials:Irn-Bru’s website

Irn-Bru produces a wide variety of different materials in order to promote their product. They have a website which gives information to the public about their product, shares with them their campaigns and offers competitions and events to be involved in. Their website is a great way to ensure that their audience is able to find their productsand advertises them. In the generation that we are in at the moment, the internet is a large part of everybody's lives and the majority of people will use the internet every day, the fact that Irn-Bru have a website ensures that their products are viewable and accessible to a wider variety of people world wide.

Irn-Bru’s website is in keeping with their house style and colour scheme, again reinforcing their specific identity and unique look. They have included a variety of images of their products on the header of their website, meaning that no matter what page the viewer goes to, their product can always be seen. The language that has been used within their website is very informal and laid back, they have used conversational and personal language which makes their audience feel like they are being spoken to specifically be a human, when they are just on a computer reading text. The website offers a variety of different pages to visit, they have included information on how to get involved with the company making the viewer feel like they are part of their success. The news page within their website is not the conventional news page, the items of news that they include are subjects that someone would not usually see as news worthy such as an Irn-Bru Turkey recipe. A list of the Irn-Bru products are also provided on their website, along with all of their contact details and past adverts. They even show some of their adverts that have been banned by the ASA and in a humorous manner explain why they were banned.

Irn-Bru’s Sponsorship

Since 2008 Irn-Bru have been in sponsor of the rugby super league and they have said that they will be supporting at all of the Cup competitions, including the Challenge Cup, Carnegie Cup, Play Offs, The magic Weekend and The 2012 Grand Final held at Old Trafford. The soft drink will also be in sponsorship with Sky sports and Rugby Football League. Being involved with these kinds of organizations means that the profile of Irn-Bru as well as the visibility of the product will be massivelyimproved, for example, during the football season, the image of Irn-Bru was seen by over 10 million through the 60 live shows that were broadcast. Going into sponsorship with groups like this can cause further growth for the future of Irn-Bru, as well as drawing many more different customers to the product. Because the product is an energy drink, using sports as a way to advertise is a very good idea, as it is well known that people who play sports take energy supplements and drink beverages that will give you energy. The type of people who will be watching sports channels will be people who are interested in sports or play sports themselves. When you put these two factors together you can see that in sponsoring sports groups and working with sports channels Irn-Bru are consciously trying to attract and be viewed by a specific target audience in order to improve their sales.

In the picture above you can see that Irn-Bru’s sponsorship has gone very far and they have been able to make team players wear the same colours that fit in with their specific colour scheme and house style (orange and blue), this is a very good idea as when it comes to the beverage industry, the colours orange and blue have become associated with the drink Irn-Bru, therefore seeing the players wear this colour will also trigger the viewers to think of the drink, weather it be consciously, or subconsciously. This type of advertisement is very clever and very subtle, making it easier to advertise your products without people being completely aware of it.

Irn-Bru’s Taxis

Taxis like this (Left) have been seen all around the UK and have been a loved and eye-catching past of the city streets for 15 years and have become a well known colourful part of the nation’s roads. The taxis are not just one of a kind, there are hundreds around the country, having your logo stuck on a vehicle is a very good form of advertising, however Irn-Bru have gone one step further andcovered the whole of the taxi in its trade mark colours, blue and orange, and placed the logos on the front, back, sides and top of the cabs, making them unmissable and making the brand noticeable from every angle.

The fact that the vehicle is a moving object means that it will travel to almost all parts of the country and is a sure fire way of getting a product noticed in places where you may not be able to advertise in other ways such as bill boards or bus sides. A vast number of people use taxis as forms of transport everyday n and this is why using a taxi as a good way of making sure your advertisement will reach a wide variety of different people from different walks of life and different backgrounds viewing your advert, which means more potential customers and more potential sales.

It is advertising strategies like this where the advantages of using bold, bright, eye0-cathcing colours become most apparent. You can see by the image featured that the natural colour scheme for Irn-Bru works incredibly well on a large object such as a car, the orange and blue contrast in such a way that each colour looks particularly bight and bold. The copy on the side of the cab has been sizes large and despite some of the text is cut off, you can still clearly see what the advert is for (again the association with orange and blue applies here).

Irn-Bru’s Billboards

This is the usual style for the latest Irn-Bru campaign. These posters work very well being on a billboard, especially since this particular one is of a controversial nature, the main image being a woman dressed only in a bikini. Having this kind of image on a billboard is a good marketing technique; the image that they have used is very eye-catching, (especially to the male majority of their audience, assuming that most of the will have an attraction to women) this is due to the fact that it is an irregularity to have such an image on a billboard claiming to be advertising an energy drink. The viewer will be drawn to the image in curiosity and will then be led to read the text featured within the advert. The tag line that Irn-Bru have decided to use is anchored to the image as it seems to be a quote from the subject within the photograph placed next to the text. They have used a short sentence, which will appeal to a wide variety of people of all ages and educational backgrounds as well as being punchy and effective. The sentence itself; “Diet Irn-Bru, I never knew 4 ½ inches could give me so much pleasure”, has the Irn-Bru trademark humour and sexual suggestiveness, which got this particular advertisement banned by the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority). Even though this advert was banned, it still has certain aspects which are very effective for marketing and promotion of their product; using a sexually suggestive statement along with the image that they have chosen has the same kind of effect on the viewer as the image does. The initial reaction when first reading the sentence featured is slight shock which then leads to the curiosity of wanting to know what the statement is referring to, this is the point at which the image below the text (a labelled can of the energy drink) explains what the statement is referring to – the size of the can in this case.

Using a billboard for advertising is a great way of getting your product seen, mainly because of the general size of a billboard – very large. They are usually placed in built up city areas and motorways, this means that because of its size it will be seen by a very large amount of people wand will be noticed from a distance as well as up close. Using a billboard will make the advert very eye-catching and accessible to a vast amount of people.

‘Boost’ energy drink posterHere is a poster which has been created for a similar

energy product which is currently on the market. First of all the imagery they have used is very clever with the text which it is anchored to. The fact that the sentence they have used it referring to tiredness is connected to the subject wearing pajamas as they connote sleep and tiredness is very clever in making the viewer of the poster believe that the product which it is promoting is going to give its consumer energy when they need it most. This is a vey good advertising technique as it is affirming to the audience what the product claims to do. The second point of interest is the pose in which the subject within the photograph is in. The man is clearly in an aggressive fighting pose – however you cannot see what he is trying to fight – this is where the viewer of the poster will again be drawn to the text. The text helps the viewer to decipher what is going on in the poster; in this case it helps you realize that the thing which the man is trying to fight is ‘tiredness’. The eye is the drawn down to the image of the can of Boost, which is being portrayed as a cure for tiredness.When compared to the posters that Irn-Bru used within their advertising campaign, I personally think that this particular poster is much less effective. I think that the colours being used within this poster are very dull and boring -they are not the kind of colours that would usually be used to promote something. I think that the colours should be bright and full of energy, just like the effect of the rink would have on someone. The poster could have taken some pantones from their own logo or product to tie the product in with the poster and promote the product more. Without this technique it is hard to tell what the advert is about, therefore it is not doing a very goo job in promoting the product. Despite this I do think that the language they have used within the avert is effective as it is very informal and almost slag. The have also included a hash tag which is something that is used within Twitter to set a trend. In trying to make their product a trend they are advertising it even more and also appealing to a younger audience who are more than likely using such social medias like twitter – which is also becoming a very powerful marketing an advertising tool in itself.

‘Monster’ competition

Here is an example of a competition style advertising campaign. Monster is a very well known energy drink an are renowned for the different companies that they sponsor and he different events that they organize. All of the different advertising tools that they use have been very effective for them, however I really like the idea of organizing a competition in order to promote your product or company. Here you can see that Monster have teamed up with a new Xbox game (Call of Duty) which is vey popular among Monster’s own target audience. First of all the choice of prize here is very important as you need to chose a prize for your target audience that they will like personally, this is another reason why it is very important that you know exactly who your audience are. Monster’s main target audience are males between the age of 16 and 30, which is also the same target audience for this Xbox game. In creating this competition it will mean that both products are being promoted to their full potential as the specific target audiences are being attracted to both products. This is very good for Monster as it means that more people are going to buy their product in order to win the prize, it also means that they could even be attracting new customers who have not tried the energy drink before however are wanting to win the prize, this means that there is a huge potential for accumulating a new target audience and getting their product noticed by a wider and larger variety of people.

Visually this advert is in keeping with both colour schemes of each product, includes images of both a can of Monster and an image which is usually used for promoting the game, this means that both products are equally being promoted. The text which has been used within the advert is in keeping with the theme of the whole advertisement; it is very boxy and aggressive, which will be attracting both the products target audiences. All of the information that is needed to take part in the competition is given within the image however there is not too much text which means that it is going to be appealing to both ages of 16 and 30 – both ends of the target audience.

‘Sting’ Internet headerThis is an image which had

been taken from the Facebook page of an energy drink called Sting. A website header is a very important part of a products advertising as it will be the first thing that customer will see when they click onto the website. It will give the first over all impression and gives you a chance to put forward the concept of the product in one image with text. This particular header is very effective in grabbing the viewers attention. The colour scheme that has been used is very eye-catching; the colour red is well known for being old an communicating a sense of urgency within an advert. They have also used a separate black background underneath the text, which makes the text itself stand out very well as the main colour is white with a slight red stroke around the edges, meaning that without that separate black background beneath the text, the text would not stand out as much. There has been a number of different fonts that have been used, which this makes the image seem very exciting and is eye-catching, I personally think that t makes the image look too busy, disorganized and messy. I don’t think that using this amount of different fonts has worked well because I find myself skimming over the text and just looking straight to the images and photography.

The images that have been used within the advert are very effective in promoting the product. Photographs of a man and a woman have been used where both subjects are appear to be smiling and laughing – this immediately portrays that the product has had this effect on the subjects, and because everyone in life has a desire to be happy, they will automatically in theory have a desire for the product which has made these people happy. The eye is then drawn to the next image on the their side of the advert which is an image of the drink itself, it is important that the audience and viewers of this advert are able to see the product which it is promoting clearly, which this advertisement has done very well, the colours that have been used in the background are very effective in making the images of the rinks stand out and look very appealing and eye-catching to the viewer.