Through the close examination of two or three advertisements explores the range of persuasive techniques employed to target a wide-ranging market. Advertising is when a person or a company presents to the public an idea, to boost profits or to change the public’s minds about a subject. When advertising a product for commercial profit it is called consumer advertising. Campaign advertising when an idea is advertised in order to change the minds of the public, but not for a profit.
The ‘Air Pacer advert’ is a commercial advert, which uses a number of different things to persuade us to by the product advertised. The advert is still advert, for example a poster is a still advert. Therefore in order to attract people it depends on images and text. Images are used because people find them easy to remember, therefore the images the images must show that the ‘Air Pacer’ is fun, easy to use and most of all works. This advert does this by using a celebrity, ‘Mr Motivator’. The fact that he is smiling shows that the ‘Air ‘Pacer’ is easy enjoyable, the fact that he is in shape, proves that the ‘Air Pacer’ works.
The main way images attract people is by size and colour. Still adverts use different size text and fonts to highlight the good stuff or to summarise the message the advert is trying to get across. Another way still adverts use text is by alliteration. This is the repeating of consonants like ‘Sturdy, Stable, and Superbly’. This use of words is used because the human mind it easier to remember than normal sentences. The advert also uses jargon.
This is used to make the product sound better than it is by using scientific language like ‘Techno’ etc. They also use this language to trick the public into thinking that the company who designed the advert are experts. Another thing the advert also does to persuade us to by the ‘Air Pacer’ is to play on the idea of America. This is done because America is known for having all the best machines, gadgets etc. So when this poster says ‘ the exciting new exerciser that’s taken America by storm’, its trying to say that it’s the best in the market. The ‘Air Pacer’ would mainly appeal to those who insecurities about their weight or how fit they are. I can tell this by the way the advert is always referring to health and weight.
A still advert is an advert that you would see in a magazine, poster etc. This type of advertisement relies on images and fonts to attract people’s attention. A TV advert is an advertisement that you would see on TV. These adverts have more techniques to attract people attention and for them to remember the advert, for example more pictures, better hummer and the use of vocals. The voice over is one of the main things that a TV advert uses to persuade us to act upon the advert. The voice over voice helps the viewer to feel a certain way about a topic or item, for example if the voice of the voice over is sad than the viewer will also feel sad. Therefore the voice over could also help the viewer to remember the ad.
The ‘Levis jeans’ advert is a TV advertisement. Since his advertisement is trying to boost ‘Levis jeans’ sales it is a commercial advert. The advert was set in a Russian train and in a small flat in the time of the cold war. The war whole advert is in black and white except for the ‘Levis’ logo at the end. The advert was done in this way so the logo would be what people watching would remember. The writing was also in Russian but it was flipped to say ‘Levis’ and the Russian symbols resembled ‘501’.
Throughout the advert there was a tense classical marching type of music but at the end the end the music changed to guitars and saxophones. Since the advert was about a man smuggling ‘Levis jeans’ into the country explains the tense music. The change in music probably represents a sign of relief as the man opens the case revealing the smuggled jeans. At the train station the smuggler has an encounter with an intimidating customs officer, judging by the background it looked like there was a war going on, this shows the jeans are valuable enough to risk a life for.
Adverts can be sorted into two categories they are campaigning advertising and commercial advertising. Commercial advertising is the promotion of products or services to make money, for example phone ads. Campaigning advertising is an advert trying to change how the public thinks or feel towards a certain point of view, for example voting, green peace etc. The ‘Anti fur’ advert is a TV advert, which falls into the campaign category. The advert is set at a fashion show where the three models are modelling fur coats when blood starts pouring from each coat. This advert was very disturbing because the directors are trying to change the way the public think about fur coats. The thing that makes the advert so disturbing is the amount of blood that comes gushing out of the coats, probably representing the animal that needed to be killed in order to make the coats.
The blood could also represent the revenge of the animals or the blood on the hands of the people who massacred the innocent animals. The audience were very rich looking with over the top make up; this make up makes the audience look ghostly. In my opinion the fact that they look dead could represent a cold dark heart. The models didn’t even notice the blood gushing out of the fur coats which they were wearing shows that they didn’t even care or thought that it was normal for the animal s to be killed for their fur.
At the end of the advert, the models dragged the coats as they exited the platform leaving behind them leaving a trail of blood. This had a lot of similarities with someone dragging a carcass across the floor. T the very end of the advert there was a statement ‘It takes 40 dumb animals to make a fur-coat, but just one to wear it’. The word dumb is not referring to the intelligence of the animals but to the fact they can’t speak for themselves but the wearer is also stupid.
The three advert use different techniques to draw people’s attention to them. The ‘Air Pacer’ advert used images, colours, text and fonts to attract people. This was a still advert which means it had limited techniques to attract people, where as the other two advert where TV adverts therefore they had more variety of techniques to use. The ‘Levis’ advert used a black and white technique this is when the whole advert us in black and white accept for one thing, in this case it was the ‘Levis’ logo.
The ‘Anti fur’ advert used music and sound effects to get the viewers attention and then used powerful images to make them remember. In conclusion I believe that adverts that appeal to the viewers concerns and emotion have more effect; for example I believe that the most effective in the ‘Air Pacer’ advert, was the way that it played on an individuals insecurities and feelings on their weight and health. In the same way, the Levis advert had played on the image of rebelliousness and coolness. Also, and in my opinion the most effective the ‘Anti fur’ campaign advert went straight to the heart and the mind, making the individual think twice and feel more deeply about the issue.
