Unit 30

Advertising Production Report

Advertising has been a large industry and key for promoting products, businesses, etc. to
the masses, since 1941 when the first ever TV advert was produced and aired on the New
York station WNBT, TV adverts have been produced to captivate audiences and entice them
into buying the product. Adverts have been made in various styles to stand out to audiences
and these styles were developed from the key thinkers of advertising and the work they
produced.
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Key thinkers such as Rosser Reeves, famous for his key idea of an advert being annoying
so the audience remembers it, David Ogilvy who would grab the viewers attention with the
advert and make them remember, Leo Burnett who would use iconic and rememberable
characters to make his adverts stand out with inherent drama, and William Bernbach who
believed the product must be as good as the advert and was famous for his opinion that
“word of mouth is the best medium of all”.

Rosser Reeves was one of the pioneers of

advertising, born in Danville, Virginia in 1910. Reeves
had an interested in law and history, going to study at
the University of Virginia. Due to economic difficulties
at the time and an uncertain future, Rosser Reeves left
the university to go into work at a bank in Richmond Va.
It was leaving University and going to work in the bank,
that lead Reeves to enter the advertising department.
Reeves joined Cecil, Warwick & Cecil in 1934, set in New
York city, Reeves became known for his brilliance for his
sales techniques and became a well-known
theoretician, moving to multiple different agencies
throughout the years such as Ruthrauff & Ryan,
Blackett-Sample-Hummert and Benton & Bowles.
Rosser Reeves left his former agency in 1940, to join Ted Bates’ own agency he was
establishing, Ted Bates Inc. Reeves developed his idea of the “Unique Selling Proposition”
USP for a product when trying to promote it, he theorised that to sell a product, you must
tell the audience what is special about the product. He was noted saying the USP was the
key element of an advertising campaign.
Reeves said a unique selling point must follow 3 rules: firstly, identify the definite
proposition, i.e. if you buy the product you will receive these benefits, secondly the benefit
received must be unique to the product, otherwise the question of why buy your product
when I can buy a cheaper version arises, and thirdly, the USP must be one that people will
buy the product for. Example, when Rosser Reeves developed an advert for Anacin, in which
the unique selling point told to the audience is that unlike other brands of headache
medication, Anacin gets to the source of the pain FAST, and is recommended by doctors, to
alert the audience that medical professionals recommend ingredients used in Anacin.
The announcer tells the audience how
the product targets the pain fast, has
benefits other products don’t and is
recommended by ¾ doctors, the direct
nature of the advert gets straight to the
point and tells the audience why they
should choose this product over others.
With low quality animations to describe
how the medication gets to the root of
your head pain, and lines connecting to
the 3 animations inside the head that
describe types of head pain, implying us the audience that Anacin tackles all headache
issues unlike aspirin which only will tackle the one type of head pain and not supply relief
to the others, reaffirming that Anacin can with its 3 ingredients that doctors recommend.
Using repetition to drill into the viewers head that Anacin is better than average pain relief
brands, the advert makes you believe that the product is the best one can buy in that range
of products, encouraging the viewer to choose Anacin when next buying headache relief.
The adverts memorable, and direct approach, along with the low quality animations, that
perfectly describe the types of headaches one can receive, this advert stands out from other
ads and can entice the viewer into buying the product long after the advert has aired,
because of it’s memorable style and drilling of fast pain relief into your head.

In Comparison with the rest of the critical thinkers of advertising, I believe Rosser Reeves
was revolutionary and a brilliant mind from whom key theories of advertising were
advanced and improved upon, however without Reeves being there at the beginning,
advertising would not be the industry it is today, we wouldn’t have so many iconic adverts
that stick out in our minds due to their narking, sticking in your head themes, adverts such
as the Southern Comfort on the beach and Go Compare ads with the opera singer play in
your head over and over again, and stand out to the viewers based on the key principles of
advertising devised by Rosser Reeves.
The man brought advertising to new levels and helped inspire many in the advertising world
even though advertising wasn’t the industry he planned to enter.

Sources:
https://realbusiness.co.uk/the-worlds-first-ever-advertisement/

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/advertising-industry-profile-bill-bernbach-38613

https://adage.com/article/adage-encyclopedia/reeves-rosser-1910-1984/98848

https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=dmk6kCNRCo0 (Anacin Advert)