BTEC Assignment Brief 45.A 


Marie Curie Cancer Care 

Commercial radio concerns itself with making money, the ways in which commercials radio look to gain profit is mainly through advertising. Additionally, another purpose of commercial radio is also to sell products.

In this assignment I will be analysing a radio advertisement. My first radio advertisement is produced by Marie Curie and the release date is June 2016. 

The message of the Marie Curie Cancer Care radio advert is to raise awareness about the disease of cancer, as well as to collect donations that will help support the charity.  

The style of the radio advert is factual. The advert features a casual, informal approach as appose to a shocking one; by choosing to make the advert more informal it allows more people to relate to the content, ultimately turning a morbid subject into an easy-flowing conversation. 

This advert is a one-off advertisement for the charity Marie Curie Cancer Care.  Upon researching additional advertisements for the charity, this advert is the only one which features and individual story from a person who the charity has helped. 

The purpose of the advert is to sell a service. The way in which Marie curie looks to sell its service, is by providing the target audience with what ??? (will add at home later today )
try to trigger empathy within the listener-which is done so through the use of music and a personal anecdote- to make the listener want to donate and support the charity. This advert made me sympathise with the narrator as well as making me understand the necessity for this charity to exist therefore making me want to donate to the charity to help raise funds.  The narrator then references a link to another media platform, to further spread knowledge of the charity to attract more people to help support it. 

In the Marie Curie Cancer Charity advert, from zero seconds to four seconds, the listeners are immediately introduced to a non-diegetic sound of soft guitar playing that is carried throughout the entirety of the advertisement. Four seconds into the advert, the listeners are then acquainted with diegetic sound of the narrator, who begins to talk about the relationship between him and his mum. Fifteen seconds into the advert, the narrator then starts explaining how the Marie Curie nurses helped his mother, the non-diegetic guitar sound playing faintly as background music. With twenty five seconds left of the advert, the narrator then begins to discuss the purpose of the advertisement, being to raise funds and gain supporters, then following with information on how someone would get in contact with the charity.

The voiceover within the advert, which was only a singular narrator sounds roughly around the age of 30, maybe late 30’s, which is to be expected as 30/40s is about the age people are having to start looking after their parents. As the narrator seems to be in his late 30s, the target audience for the advert would also be roughly 30’s/ 40’s as peoples parents will be roughly, 60 or 70 and will struggle with looking after themselves even without a terminal illness.

By opening the advert with a soothing guitar sound, it instantly relaxes the listener and allows them to be introduced to someone who's had a first hand experience of looking after someone with cancer, making the advert instantly feel more personal to the listener, causing them to feel empathy with the narrator and more open to the message of the advert. This makes the advert more popular and successful as the added use of colloquial language allows the company/charity to connect to the audience, as they are being addressed in a friendly, conversational tone. To personalise the message like this makes the listener think about someone they know who could benefit from this charity and might need the support that the nurses are said to provide. 

The narrator then begins explaining how beneficial it is to be a part of the Marie Curie community, describing the nurses as 'fantastic' and friendly with the patients. The narrator then goes on to explain how easy it was to have someone looked after at home as opposed to in the hospital due to the help of the marie curie cancer care charity. Towards the end of the advert, the narrator then invites the listener to join him in supporting the charity, giving out details to contact the charity. 


 

This advert was broadcasted nationally across the uk. With contact details provided in the end of the advertisement, the narrator mentions a website, https://www.mariecurie.org.uk - as well as a phone number, which is 0800 716 146.

To avoid causing offence to listeners and potential consumers, during the the production of this advertisement there would have a series of assessments which would have determined whether this advert had broke any regulation laws. Regulation bodies like OFCOM and ASA exist to provide a service which assists in helping broadcasters follow these regulation laws. OFCOM provides protection for under 18 years olds as well as making sure radio and tv advertisements follow the law and are not prejudice. I do not think an advertisement like the Marie Curie Cancer Charity would have broken the regulation laws as its purpose is to encourage people to support their charity and would have been made for a family friendly audience.