In this essay I am going to try to discover what makes an advert stylish by comparing a “Maybelline” advert and a “Jameson” advert. I will also see if adding visual style to an advert contributes to or reduces a written message. Colours are well known to help you feel certain emotions. In advertising, emotions compel you to buy and to believe the advertisers spin on a product. On the one hand, the Jameson advert is predominantly white which is a cool, smooth, stylish colour.
The green they use in the Jameson advert is also cool and refreshing. The condensation on the bottle giving it a misty look again adds to the cool, calm, stylish look which is seen throughout the whole advert. No inconsistency here. The only other colours in the Jameson advert are from the bottle’s colours and the lettering’s colouring which is black, a good contrasting and stylish colour against the white.
On the other hand, the Maybelline advert has different shades of pink, purple, bronze, blues, browns and blacks. This indecisiveness of not having one striking colour just contributes to making the Maybelline advert look tacky. Although there are those underlying problems with the Maybelline advert’s colours, the shades they use are very exciting. They tie in with the metallic theme and give off a shiny high-tech, modern look. The shade of the model’s skin works a very good contrast with the metallic shades as well.
Slogans are used to catch the eye of the prospective buyer and lure them in to buy the product. They also show a company’s image. So a cool, stylish company is likely to have a slogan which is also stylish. This is why it is important for the two adverts to have chic slogans. Firstly, the Jameson advert just uses the slogan “smooth” which is simple and shows both the advert’s and the company’s approach to marketing is about being smooth but it also relates it to their drink being smooth with it being a whisky.
In contrast the maybelline advert’s slogan, “maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline ” is long, which detracts from its style. It is however good because it plays on the word maybe being present in maybelline, and repeats it. Fonts are used to tie in with a company image. So if a company uses stylish, cutting-edge fonts then the same would be thought of the company. This is why when maybelline uses three different fonts it does not work. He fonts are not stylish in any form because firstly, their outlines of metal shades looks dated, secondly, because of their overall incoherence and thirdy, because of their poor contrasts of the clashing white and silver which went out with rolled up jacket sleeves and male perms.
In quite the opposite way, in the Jameson’s advert, the coherence between the sleek black font and white background was true brilliance and inspired. It puts so much more emphasis on the product. The font that Jameson uses is easy to read and simple. It is saying to the reader, “I am simple I am not trying to trick you”. Then they use bolder text when they are trying to get across a particular message with an important word.
