Callum Wallace

Radio Advert Analysis 2

Within the “Wonga” Radio commercial, it was evident that the management behind it aimed for an advertisement that would be engaging and entertaining to the audience listening. They achieved this through the hyperbolic music played throughout the whole commercial, which demanded attention from the primary audience. As the Radio advert is likely to be played within a car or less constructive environment, the makers understand this musical choice will fit the platform, thus allowing their product to be sold and understood by many more consumers. To some extent, the advert must also portray an element of entertainment, as many Radio adverts become a boring element to the stations and in doing so distaste listeners from engaging fully into the advertisement. However, the “Wonga” commercial purposely uses a catchy theme tune, to do both entertain and persuade the audience to invest in their product. The use of a women’s voice is stereotypically more inviting and welcoming, and so it creates an inviting tone throughout the whole message and takes away from the fact they wish to make a profit. As the brand name is mentioned within the song thirty four times, it is clear the makers predicted and purposely worked towards a catchy theme song that would have people thinking about their brand long after it was played.

Interestingly, the actual information given about the brand is extremely limited in the facts it selects to showcase to the audience. The advertisement is played for thirty four seconds, out of the forty one, before any information is exposed to the audience, perhaps highlighting the company felt that the information portrayed within the theme tune would be more engaging and successful in selling their product, then endless lists of statistics. The small amount of information given includes, “Wonga.com”, but fails to give any added details about a telephone. Thus, portraying their audience is up to date with technology and will be able to contact them hassle free. This technique allows the advertisement to stand out amongst the rest, as the common radio advertisement is frequently interpreted to be fast paced speech, produced to give the audience as much information in the time span. Despite this, the “Wonga” adverts different approach appears to be unique amongst the rest, thus making it a key selling point of its brand and the audience can infer this is one of their values and they will not receive the same service elsewhere.

The advert introduces its tagline as being, “Straight Talking Money”. This gives the connotations of simplicity and an unchallenging way to take out a loan, which too many audience members would be deemed as appealing, as they do not have to worry about the technical terms and conditions following the loan, which arguably distaste people’s views towards loan companies. Despite this being the adverts message, this also gives evidence to support the company’s blackened name by the interest rates and bad reviews given by past customers of the brand as they wish to give the simplest loans, despite the side effects it would have on their paying customers.

Callum Wallace

To conclude, I believe the “Wonga” advert was successful in achieving its purpose to sell, persuade and entertain the audience. This is due to the fact that the overall advertisement was incredibly repetitive, thus engaging and allowed the audience to remember the song behind it, instead of the actual information. In doing so, the public are encouraged to engage in a less overwhelming list of facts, but to enjoy the musical advertisement which is deemed as more entertaining and rememberable. I also realise by using this technique, that sales could have increased frequently, which achieves the target of the products advertisement.