personal development plans: 'Think' drug driving TV Advert. 'Your eyes will give you away'

The initial reason I chose this TV advert to review was because it made such an impact on me. Every time it airs on TV, I concrete and watch it fully, and I am still majorly impressed by it every time.

The narrative of this advert is about a group of teenagers who have been out and taking drugs. One of them decides to drive. As the police drive past the car, the eyes of the teenagers give them away. After the police siren is alarmed, and the teenagers realise they have been spotted, the audience are left to assume they have been arrested.

As this advert is run by ‘Think’ who are a government run company, they are not advertising to create money. The primary aim for this advert is to warn people who take drugs that driving is extremely dangerous and also that it is very easy to be spotted by the police. Even though the target audience is very wide to any one who uses drugs, the advert stereotypically aims at teenagers. This may be because the biggest number of drug crime come from teenagers, or that teenagers don’t know as much as older people about the subject.

They get there message across extremely well by using hyperbole techniques, for e.g. the extra large eyes of the teenagers. The audience know that they are exaggerated, however it effectively get the message across quickly in the short 30 second space. The ‘silliness’ of how the eyes look, also mirrors the ‘silliness’ of taking drugs and driving. Hoping to make people realise, it’s not as cool as they think.

In the car there are a range of people, for e.g. both young white and black guys, and girls. Having both genders and race allows a large audience to empathise with the characters. It makes the scenario a lot more realistic. The advert also emphasises this by using a small car that teenagers are more likely to have. Within the car, the teenagers are having a normal conversation and laughing about the night’s antics. They seem ‘normal’ and apart from the eyes, they don’t seem phased or affected by the drugs. However, the dark lighting and the low, eerie non-diegtic music in the background lets the audience know there is hidden meaning and the advert is building up to something. Keeping the audience interested and wanting to know what happens.

When the police car drives past, the action goes into slow motion. This illustrates how reactions are slow and impaired by drugs. The camera then focuses on the girl in the back of the car. She looks very strange, scary and her eyes are incredibly emphasised. This explains how the police actually see you, and how clear the affects are.

The narration of this film appears to be in the driver’s point of view. It always goes back to his face, and the jerky, unsure movements of the camera signify how he is feeling. Whereas the other passengers seem carefree and not worried about being caught. This indicates that it is the driver who is responsible, and it is the driver who will be in trouble.

The advert ends openly, with only the noise of the siren in the background and the driver expressing a distressed look. This lets the audience decide how it ends, and therefore more affective as it makes drug users a lot more worried about the consequences. It then ends with a black screen, and the ‘Think’ logo at the bottom right of the screen. Using a simple back screen has connotations of danger and doom and leaves a sense of trouble for the audience.

This advert is extremely effective at getting the message across about drug driving. A lot of adverts are aimed at drink driving which use shock tactics to convey the message, for e.g. people having car crashes. However, ‘Think’ had to use a different approach for drug driving to make sure there was a clear divide between the two. They have successfully created an iconic image of the eyes so the audience will now associate drugs with the ‘involuntary effect’ it has. A follow up from this advert has now been released in poster form. Graphologically, the poster is simply a huge image of an eye with veins either side. The TV advert was so clear and effective that when people see this poster on the sides of buses etc they will know exactly what it is for.