Task Seven - Sources of Information in Advertisements

Task Seven - Sources of Information in Advertisements

When producing a new advertising campaign clients or agencies would often gather information about the product they're advertising, this includes the audience that its aimed at and the demand for the product.

IMDB - "Internet Movie Database"

Any movie that is to ever be released to the public, from Blockbuster Hollywood films to Bollywood or University short films each would be added to the Internet Movie Database where it would contain information about the Movie/TV Show such as the people who worked on the movie and the cast; these movies would also be rated by regular visitors to the website.

IMDB is a very popular website that contains many users and visitors to the site, this is a great place to look at what movies would be popular and what kind of movies are on a trend. Advertising agencies would usually try to use websites such as these to gather information on whether the Movie/TV Show would gain a lot of hype from their advertisement, most often advertising agencies would often try and create demand by making a great enough advertisement that attracts a bigger and larger audience to their product.

BARB - "Broadcasters' Audience Research Board"

BARB was set up in 1981 and its main function is to provide the industry data on what programs audiences regularly watch, BARB have approximately 5,100 Homes participating in the panel where panellists would gather data overnight about the programs audiences would regularly watch. Using the information that BARB gathers you can come up with the conclusion that shows such as "Downtown Abbey" would be more popular with women over 50 years of age or programs about Football would be more popular with the male gender. 

BARB is useful to an advertiser as they would understand when to show an advertisement and where to show an advertisements for example an advert about washing powder would be more effective showing at a time of Downtown Abbey advertising breaks rather than showing it during Football advertising breaks.

The "Rate Card"

The rate card is a document containing the prices for the time in-between Movie/TV show breaks, some  show breaks would be more expensive then others for example buying advertisement space during a show as popular as the Superbowl would be far more expensive than paying for advertising space for a more unpopular show on an 'unsociable' hour, this is because more popular movies/shows contain more viewers thus increasing the price of the advertising space.
The cost of advertising is a significant factor for example a advertisement about kids toys would not be successful being shown during the Superbowl because the price of the overall advertising time would not be popular with the audience and would cause a deficit with the product.
Websites such as www.itvmedia.co.uk actually have the rates of their most popular shows on channels BBC One and ITV.