Analyzing Advertisements

Advertising is everywhere It’s on the styrofoam cups from which we drink our coffee. It’s on our clothes. It’s embedded in the movies we pay to see (i.e. product placements). You cannot escape it.

Example Every home run hit by a Houston Astro at Minute Maid Park earns a corporate contribution to a charity, and the announcer makes sure the audience knows that -- sometimes even before the baseball has cleared the wall. Doubtless, the charity is a worthy one, but…

the fact is, that the corporation’s marketing department sees the charitable contribution and the announcer’s trumpeting of it as advertising, not altruism. In effect, the corporate sponsor has managed to hang a big, splashy billboard on that little, soaring ball.

All advertisements contain multiple messages beyond the obvious one --which is “buy this product.” Let’s think about the corporate-sponsored home run example for a moment.

Advertisers generally tailor their messages to very particular audiences. Who does the corporate sponsor assume is the audience for the advertisement that is “attached” to the home run ball?

What are some words you associate with the idea of a home run?

Power Excellence Skill Victory

By linking its name to the home run, what is the corporate sponsor saying about itself?

The corporation is injecting its name into the euphoria an Astros fan feels watching that ball go over the fence.

When you combine those positive associations with the fact that this advertisement is also “hidden” behind a charitable contribution, which has its own wholly positive associations, the corporate sponsor has tapped into something very powerful…

which it hopes will result in…

PROFIT$ it’s brilliant, really.

I’m not arguing this particular corporate sponsor believes that its audience is thinking about all of the associations we have discussed each time a home run is hit.

In fact, I would argue that the sponsor is hoping the audience doesn’t.

All the sponsor hopes to accomplish is to connect its name to that brief moment of joy its audience experiences after an Astros’ homer, and that with repetition throughout the baseball season, the audience will develop an overall positive association for the corporation and its products. It’s a little scary, really.

Let’s look at some advertisements together and, using the questions from the assignment sheet, analyze them together.

The text reads: "More education for girls in Islamic countries."

white print: “I HAS A DREAM.” The ad makes its case by appealing directly to African Americans: “Does this bother you? It should. We’ve spent over 400 years fighting for the right to have a voice. Is this how we’ll use it? More importantly, is this how we’ll teach our children to use it? If we expect more of them, we must not throw our hands in the air and agree with those who say our children cannot be taught. By now, you’ve probably heard about Ebonics (aka, black English). And if you think it’s become a controversy because white America doesn’t want us messing with their precious language, don’t. White America couldn’t care less what we do to segregate ourselves. The fact is language is power. And we can’t take that power away from our children with Ebonics. Would Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and all the others who paid the price of obtaining our voice with the currency of their lives embrace this? If you haven’t used your voice lately, consider this an invitation. SPEAK OUT AGAINST EBONICS The National Head Start Association 1651 Prince Street, Alexandria, VA 22314″

Analyzing an Ad: Brainstorming As with all brainstorming activities, the idea here is to get as many ideas onto paper as possible. Even if an observation seems over-obvious or weird, or just plain stupid, write it down anyway. You never know when an idea is going to trigger other ideas. Sometimes an obvious observation takes a little examination to get down to something really useful.

General Questions 1.What is the ad for? 2.What does the ad look like? Describe it thoroughly, including the text. 3.Who is the audience for the ad? How do you know? How would you describe them? 4.How would you characterize their interests and desires? What assumptions are the writers of the ad making about the people who make up the audience? 5.How is the ad designed to appeal to that particular audience? What message(s) do the designers of the ad want to give them? What is the ad “really” saying? 6.Based on your analysis, what response should the audience have to the ad?

1.What is the ad for? a.What is the Complete product name: Cadillac Luxury SUV communicates a very different message than Cadillac Escalade XL – Eddie Bauer Edition. b.What are the general associations you have with this type of product? Does the overall appearance of the add reinforce those associations, or does the appearance seem incongruous? c.What are the explicit and implicit claims this advertisement makes for this product?

2. What does the ad look like? a.What general mood does it create? How does it do this? b.What is the design of the advertisement? How are the basic components or elements of the advertisement arranged? Does the style of the ad remind you of some other media or artistic form?

2. What does the ad look like? continued c.What is the relationship that exists between pictorial elements and written material (the “copy”), and what does this relationship tell us? d.If there are figures (men, women, children, animals) in the advertisement, what are they like? What can be said about their facial expressions, poses, hairstyle, hair color, age, sex, ethnicity, education, occupation, relationships (of one to the other)?

2. What does the ad look like? continued e.What does the background tell us? Where is the action in the advertisement taking place, and what significance does this background have? f.What is the spatiality in the advertisement? Is there a lot of “white space” or is the advertisement full of graphic and written elements (that is, “busy”)?

2. What does the ad look like? continued g.What action is taking place in the advertisement and what significance does this action have? (This might be described as the plot of the advertisement) h.What theme or themes do we find in the advertisement? What is the advertisement about? (The plot of an advertisement may involve a man and a woman drinking, but the theme might be jealousy, faithlessness, ambition, passion, etc.)

2. What does the ad look like? continued i.What about the language used in the advertisement? Does it essentially provide information or generate some kind of emotional response? Or both? What techniques are used by the copywriter: for instance, humor, alliteration, “definitions” of life, comparisons, sexual innuendo? j.What typefaces (i.e. fonts) are used, and what impressions do these typefaces convey?

2. What does the ad look like? continued k.What about aesthetic decisions? If the advertisement is a photograph, what kind of a shot is it? What significance do long shots, medium shots, close-ups have? What about the lighting, use of color, angle of the shot?

2. What does the ad look like? continued l.What sociological, political, economic, or cultural attitudes are indirectly reflected in the advertisement? An advertisement may be about a pair of blue jeans but it might, indirectly, reflect such matters as sexism, alienation, stereotyped thinking, conformism, generational conflict, loneliness, elitism, and so on.

3.Who is the audience for the ad? How do you know? How would you describe them? a.What type of people usually buy this product? (think about age, sex, ethnic origins, income levels, education levels) b.Is this ad targeting them or a different group? c.Why would the advertisers target this group?

4.How would you characterize their interests and desires? What assumptions are the writers of the ad making about the people who make up the audience? 5.How is the ad designed to appeal to that particular audience? What message(s) do the designers of the ad want to give them? What is the ad “really” saying? 6.Based on your analysis, what response should the audience have to the ad?