Analyse an Advert and Prequel to it in Depth

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GCSE English Media

Analyse an Advert and Prequel to it in Depth

        Advertising is one of the world’s foremost businesses. Companies use this media to communicate their ideas, products and messages to the general public. This is one type of advert, which is used to draw people to donate to a cause. It is called an appeal.

        This appeal is from Help The Aged, a fairly large charity, dedicated to helping the older and less able people. This particular advert is for the SeniorLink pendant, a small telephone pendant that helps people when they get into trouble where they can’t reach the phone, because they are immobilised.

        I will analyse this form of the appeal and elaborate the techniques and tricks used to convince people to part with their money.

        This form of the appeal is a leaflet. Leaflets can be specially designed to appeal to a particular audience or aspect of society; this leaflet is aimed at anyone who has money. The purpose of it is to convince these people that their product is: reliable; fast acting; state-of-the-art; easy-to-use and most of all, lifesaving. If it succeeds than Help The Aged will get their reward of a donation that, in theory, should then be spent on the pensioners.

        The advert uses several conventions to convey their tricks and tactics to the target audience. I will elaborate these as I examine the advert.

        On the first part of the leaflet (The ‘Front’) we see Vera alive and well, along with a caption to the picture that, arguably, could be seen as the title to the leaflet.

Join now!

The photograph of Vera depicts her as smiling, cheerful and in good health. From this, empathy is drawn from the audience, giving the advert a good note from which to begin with. It can also be seen as a pointer to what the outcome of the event is, in a similar way to the introduction to Romeo and Juliet.

        The caption or ‘title’ of the leaflet is in large, white, bold, capitalised text, which is mapped on a black background. This is to make the text stand out considerably, as there is no bigger contrast than black and white.

        At ...

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