Even a casual study of commercials (at least those made in or for the United States) will reveal that they can be broken down into a number of fundamental "atomic" types or approaches. These can be used by themselves or in combinations to create advertisements.
Tropes:
- Advertising Disguised as News
- Appeal to Flattery
- Bandwagon Technique
- Beer Commercials
- Bottled Cool
- Celebrity Endorsement: Trying to convince the audience to want your product by having a celebrity speak fondly of the product.
- Character Celebrity Endorsement: Convincing your audience that your product is desirable by having a fictional character praise it.
- Commercial Switcheroo
- Consumer Conspiracy
- Design Student's Orgasm
- Face on the Cover
- Hive-Mind Testimonial
- Infomercial
- Kitschy Local Commercial
- Made of Shiny
- The Man Is Sticking It to the Man
- Perfume Commercial
- Phony Article
- Phony Newscast
- Product as Superhero
- Public Relations Ad
- Public Service Announcement: A short film intended to educate the viewer on important social subjects.
- Put a Face on the Company
- Reverse Psycho
- Scapegoat Ad
- Scare 'Em Straight: A public service announcement intended to deter people from misbehavior by claiming that terrible things will happen to them if they do this bad thing.
- Sex for Product
- Straightforward
- Talking Pest: A mascot for a product that's a member of the species the product is designed to wipe out.
