Media is a powerful force, sending messages to nearly everyone on earth. It uses every communication tool possible. No matter how hard you try, you cannot get away from it.
Media, whether you like it or not, to a large degree, defines how we live our lives. One of the most important things in media is audience. If there was no audience, all of the papers, broadcastings and recordings would mean nothing. For an advertiser to attract their audience they need to think of things that would appeal to their target market. In advertising they use their target market to determine the different selling points they use.
The main intent of an advertiser is to persuade their target market and capture their attention. When studying and comparing adverts you can see the many different selling points they use to attract their audience. All of the adverts I have chosen, are from different types of media but they are all are from the same genre, pet care, so it makes them easier to compare. Advert 1 is advertising IAMS, a healthy cat food.
I took it from a woman’s magazine. The first thing that catches the readers eye is the picture in the center, of the cat running up the stairs. The sense of movement in this picture tells the reader that this cat is healthy and you tend to automatically assume that this is because the cat eats IAMS. The cat in the picture is very bright eyed and its nose is very pink which also implies good health.
The background in the picture looks like a very expensive apartment block, maybe to say that the food is expensive but worth it. The advert is mainly dominated by browns and oranges, and this tends to be the theme for all adverts promoting IAMS. The next thing that draws the readers eye is the text at the top which separates the main picture from a smaller picture above it. This smaller picture doesn’t make much impact on you and seems as if it is just there to take up space. The text that separates the 2 pictures is in a brown and orange box and stands out because the text is white on orange and brown. At the bottom of the advert there is a box which contains the logo and the main information about the cat food.
The top line of text in the box is in a bigger bolder font and the word IAMS is slightly bigger than the rest. To the right hand side of it there is a little picture which again doesn’t really have any impact on the reader and doesn’t need to be there. To the right of the text there is the logo. It stands out quite well as the writing again is white on brown and orange. It shows 3 different packets of IAMS. The logo says “ Good for Life”, which is implying that if your cat eats IAMS then it will be healthy all of its life.
The background in this box is brown that fades into orange and the same with the top text inside the boxes. Because this advert is in a woman’s magazine I am assuming that they are aiming this advert at women who have cats and want them to be healthy. They use a woman to make it seem like they are directing it at the women readers, and it is a very happy advert. My second advert is advertising The Dogs Trust and is trying to get you to give money so that they can look after these dogs that have been abandoned or neglected. I got this magazine from a teenage girls magazine.
The first thing that draws the readers eye in this advert is again the picture in the center. This picture is reaching out to the readers emotions, it shows a dog lying on the floor. The dog looks a little neglected and sad. The next thing the reader would look at is the text at the top of the advert. It is in a big bold font and the word “ love” is in a bigger font than the rest of it.
The way the text is written it makes it seem like a lonely hearts advert. The text under the picture puts emphasis on a lot of important factors. They use a rhetorical question to start off the text, “ Looking for love?”, this makes you want to read on about how you can get this “ love”. The next thing they put emphasis on is “ For just �1 a week,” This is making the �1 seem like nothing, because of the use of the word “ just”.
They also put lots of emphasis on the fact that, “ they never destroy a healthy dog.” In the last part of this text they write “ unconditional love”, they seem to have repeated the word love a lot in this advert to draw you in to wanting this love and wanting to sponsor. Although there is a lot of text, the way they have written the first few sentences it makes the reader want to read it all. At the very bottom of the advert there is a coupon to send off to sponsor a dog. At the top of this coupon, in large text it tells you the telephone number and the website and at the bottom it give you the address, which is freepost. In the bottom left hand corner there is the logo.
I think that the logo is very boring compared to the rest of the advert and needs to be on a different background so that it might stand out a bit more. The back ground of the advert is very bright and colourful, which makes the black text stand out. I think the yellow background should have continued into the coupon although it makes th coupon look different I think it would look better if it was on the yellow background. My third advert is advertising Catsan, a cat litter. I have taken this advert from the TV, on channel 3 and was placed in between the soaps at about 7: 30pm.
The time it was show tells me that they are trying to aim this advert at women as it is women who tend to watch soaps. To the reader it seems as if the advertisers think that the majority of cat owners are women as they use women in their adverts and they have put a television advertisement in between soaps. This advert lasts for 20 seconds, and contains 9 frames. I have noted down the script, Kitten: – Where’s the loo? I’m sure it was around here.
I’m bursting! Narrator: – Compared to ordinary cat litter Catsan is three times more effective against odour. So even sensitive noses need some help! Catsan, absorbs before odour can develop. In frame one and two a white kitten comes out from behind a blue curtain and walks across a wooden floor. In frame three and four it shows the cat going under the table, this cat seems to be looking for the litter tray and it shows this also in what it says, “ Where’s the loo? I’m sure it was around here!” In frame five it shows a computer demonstration showing and trying to persuade the viewer that it is the best cat litter around although it uses different wording. In frame six and seven the woman in the advert picks up the cat and places them in the litter tray, during this frame the narrator says, “ Catsan is three times more effective against odour. So even sensitive noses will need some help.
” The way that they word this means you can’t really see what they are intending to say but after studying the script you can see that it means that no matter how good you sense of smell is you will still need help to find it! This Catsan advertisement uses mainly blues and whites, these tend to be the colours that you would use in a bathroom and generally symbolise cleanliness. The use of wooden furniture and flooring makes it seem as if the advertisers want to make the white kitten stand out because the wooden flooring seems like it is dirty against the white fur of the kitten. You will also notice that not one of the kittens are at all dirty and all have perfect white coats. In the script it compares Catsan to other cat litters, and quote, “ Compared to ordinary cat litter Catsan is three times more effective against odour.” This is an opinion presented as a fact.
By comparing their brand to “ ordinary” brands they are in effect saying that their brand is the best. Because media is such a powerful force we are all influenced by it in different ways. All of these adverts manipulated me in some way maybe more than another person because I am an owner of cats. For people who don’t own cats the advertisement will not have much of an influence on them as they have no need to buy it, although it might sway them towards getting a pet cat because of the way they present the kittens in the TV advert.
Comparing all of these adverts you can see the different methods that advertisers use to persuade their audience to buy a product or a service. I think TV is a better form of advertising but it is very expensive for the advertiser. It is a better form because you see movement, sound and colour. It gets the message across easily and efficiently.
