Sunday, 12 February 2012

Advertisement: Strong & Weak Theory Part 2

National Wedding Show
I believe that when looking at the national wedding show it would be more useful looking at the strong theory in advertising, similar to Sherlock Holmes. Unlike the sherlock holmes sequal that may have garnered loyalty with the audience that had watched the previous movie, the national wedding show may not have that kind of loyalty with previous attendee’s as this event is mainly a one-off for people, mainly because it attracts soon-to-be brides but once these women are married the need for attending this event is gone.
As Schultz et al in their Integrated Marketing Communications book the obvious and main communications objectives when advertising would be ‘to make the consumer aware’ and as a side objective ‘to inform the consumer’. They are trying to attract the recent brides-to-be to attend the event, similarly like the previous years that they try to attract these women. In the case of their advertising techniques using the strong theory, their advertisments try to show women what they would want for their wedding and not neccessarily need, targetting the women’s mind to make them think that the products in the advert is something that they need.



These print ad’s highlight the allure of the event, showcasing wedding dress, expert advice and the whole VIP experiance for the day. The magazines these ads will be advertised in are mainly women doing pre-wedding research, thus targetting their target audience directly. Even though we are currently still in recession and recently the Church of England have increased the wedding fees ‘The current plan, which will be introduced from January next year, will increase weddings fees by 40%, from £296 to £415’ (Source: nationalweddingshow.co.uk). This is further reason for the national wedding show to adopt the strong theory and why they have done so for many years in my opinion. People don’t generally come back to these events after their wedding but can get customers through word-of-mouth which these people are relaying the needs the adverts have instilled in their minds.
So with regards to the strong theory viewing consumers as rather intelligent or stupid in the case that they are easily manipulated that can seem to be the case. Women only want what they deem to be special or is given the aura of being something that not everyone can have, this trait in women is enhanced as it is for their wedding. So the national wedding show are relatively smart in using the strong theory in their advertisments and can even beat the increase in prices and the recession as society will always have people getting married and divorced then remarried.
It’s a sad reality but weddings are something every girl dreams to have whether it be once to the guy you love or many because you haven’t found Mr Right.

P.S
More articles about weddings can be found on the following link --> 
http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/home/weddings-fees-to-increase-by-40/6507736.article

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