Media Coursework, Advertisements

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English Media Coursework                        

        Look at the advertisement for three national charities and comment on how each advertisement persuades people to support them.

  1. Wildlife Millennium Covenant
  2. Christian Aid
  3. Help the Aged

Three advertisements: Wildlife Millennium Covenant; Christian Aid and Help the Aged all persuade the audience to support them. By using many techniques they engage the readers’ attention, getting them to sympathise with their cause, and in some cases give the reader a chance to get involved.

The first advertisement- Wildlife Millennium Covenant- has a clear main purpose: to make the audience empathise with the animals in danger therefore getting money from them to help the animals. The advert is also written to inform the reader and to raise awareness of their cause. It is aimed at adults as there is a lot of text and the purpose is to collect money. Also it aimed at animal lovers- they will feel the most emotion for the animals.

        The advertisement stands out to catch the readers’ eyes. An emotional appeal is written on the front with a large quotation title taking up half the page, pulling the reader in. Pictures and quotes from both a male and a female who have donated money are also shown. This interests both the male and female audience because it proves that anyone can donate to the charity. The use of colour in the photographs also attracts the readers’ attention and the contrast of colour between the text and the background- black and white- reflect the positive and negative sides of the advert. The columns of text are similar to those of a newspaper, which makes the appeal more believable. On the reverse of the advert there is a coupon for the reader to send off money, which is an open invite to get involved and “make the commitment”.

The emotional appeal for the charity is on the front of the advertisement, meaning that most of the text is on the back. The text contains more of the information with statistics and facts; these back up the information and make it more reliable. The emotional appeal, however, talks about the need for money from the audience: “the chance to redress its balance in the last few years” and to get money it contains emotive language and photos. However, the back of the advert talks about what is done with the money- showing it is going towards a useful cause: “six projects will be given priority”.

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        Finally, there are also many linguistic devices within the advert: alliteration: “senseless slaughter” and repetition: “there are… there are… there are” are used to stick in the readers’ minds. Emotive language: “human crimes” and pronouns: “you” direct the advert at the audience and ‘crimes’ suggest the reader has done something wrong and should make up for it. They can do so by donating money. Words such as “harpoon” contain connotations which relate to whaling and semantic field; “the gun, the grenade”, are associated with war. War and whaling are both wrong which, with pronouns (“you”) which direct the advert at ...

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