Modal verbs appear in adverts AandB of the selection: “you can harness” “Tiredness can make” “Doesn’t have” Modal verbs accomplish the tone of suggestion and implication showing how the audience benefits by these products. I have discovered that the adverts with a more referential manner do not use modal verbs. A reason for this may be that they convey facts compared with implication because they appear to be aimed at an audience that prefers a well-researched angle than a thought provoking one. All 6 adverts are in the present tense which is revealed as they use verbs that convey this: “looking”, “leaving”, “immediately”, “nourishing” and “combining” all show this by the present participle verb ving. The present tense creating the desirable impression that the effect will be immediate and quick.
Metaphors are used in adverts BandG: “you can harness the power”, “wrinkles I attack them” and “heart of wrinkles”. Metaphors create emotional associations the advertiser wants to implant in the target audience. They are effective as they produce visual images which provoke thought and stimulate the imagination. In advert G, the spoken ad, there are more metaphors because when they are spoken they have a greater effect.
Spoken features
Advert G is of a spoken mode and makes use of prosodics. The advert uses two speakers of different genders and the manner between them is unrelated. The use of the female speaker is to understand and talk from her experience which is effective as the target audience will relate to her. The male speaker, who is unseen, gives the referential information and uses specialist language. This creates the feeling that there is a great deal of research behind “Loreal” which establishes a trust between the audience and company. Also the change in speaker keeps the audiences attention and they become involved.
The opening of the advert is effective “double action ( ) I’m ready”. This does not relate directly to facial cream and creates a powerful opening. The audience would be drawn to it as it is short and sharp keeping their attention and not giving unnecessary information. Turn taking is used as there are two speakers. The female begins and ends the advert which gives a sense of a cycle. The intonation patterns vary throughout the advert and this is significant: “because you’re worth it”.
The pitch increase reflects the enthusiasm and excitement in her voice which influences the audience by holding their concentration and helping the audience remember key facts. For some of the advert the pitch is midway and the effect of this is that it becomes like everyday speech which the audience can easily relate to. The male voice has a deeper tone and lower pitch. This is because he talks more seriously and technically about the cream describing the actions in detail and the lower tone helps the audience distinguish between the two speakers.
Emphatic stress is used which keeps the audiences attention and emphasis key points: “DOUble” and “inFIRMing” are used to stress the vital words which means the audience will remember the important parts of the advert and therefore will be more likely to purchase the product as the benefits will be clearly remembered. The pace is slightly quicker than the average everyday speech word pace of 2 words per second which convey excitement and rapidly communicates information. However as the pace is quite close to the average speed, this makes it sound similar to everyday speech which the audience will not feel intimidated by and is familiar with.
Pauses are another prosodic feature that are used throughout. “( ) i’m ready ( )”-fractional pause and “I attack them (2)”-2second pause. The functions of pauses are to break up the speech information load acting as punctuation and enable the audience to consider and reflect upon the information. It makes the advert appear to have an everyday tone and therefore is more informal so the audience can relate and believe the product is targeted at them. Also pauses mark the grammatical end of an utterance and can work as punctuation which helps the audience make sense of information and understand it.
