A Comparison of Two Advertisements
Advertising is a form of introducing the public to a product to increase its sales. The purpose of advertising is to make the public aware of a certain product, so that the next time they need to replace it, they would choose that make, but ultimately to encourage them to buy it straight away.
There are many different types of adverts, including adverts appearing on billboard posters, football teams, ‘Junk’ mail, radio and television, magazines, the Internet and flyers. Advertising really affects everyday life. People are encouraged to spend more money by seeing adverts and deciding they would like to purchase the product.
The two adverts to be discussed are a ‘Mars Bar’ and a ‘Head and Shoulders’ shampoo. Mars bars are chocolate bars made by Mars, and Procter and Gamble design Head and Shoulders. The two advertisements are very different and that is the reason why I chose them. The Mars Bar advert is very striking because it is three bright colours on a black background. The Head and Shoulders advert is unusual because there is a boy about to kiss the girl’s hair, fitting with the slogan: ‘for dandruff free kissable hair’. Although both adverts came from teen magazines, the content is very dissimilar.
Both the adverts have writing on them. The Mars Bar advert uses the same three sentences repeated over and over again as an outline of the picture. The words used are, ‘In your colour. In your size. In the sale’. The letters are in capitals to catch the attention of the reader. The text is not informative about the product because the words have nothing to do with Mars bars. In the Head and Shoulders advert, after looking at the picture, which is very unusual, you are drawn to the words between the boy and the girl. These read ‘sample the side effects’. In a large type near the bottom is ‘the source of dandruff free kissable hair’. As it is in a large type it draws the attention of the reader to the bottle of shampoo close to it. At the bottom are three lines of text in small writing, explaining the effects of Head and Shoulders. The words continue to encourage you to use the free trial, which was stuck on to the page. The words are very different on the two adverts. One has the same three phrases repeated, and the other has a paragraph of text that the producer expects you to read. I would be more likely to read the Mars advert because there are fewer words and the whole advert is more striking.
