Analysing adverts in the media.

Media Studies Coursework

The main purpose of advertising is to persuade people to purchase a product. The secondary purpose is to inform the public about the particular product they are selling. Although advertisements come in many forms from posters, to leaflets, to moving images on television, essentially they use the same techniques and aim to manipulate our feelings in order to make us buy the product.

The adverts which I am using are both promoting cars and are both advertised in monthly magazines. Advert one is from Surfer, an American surfing magazine which is aimed at all people who are interested in surfing or similar activities, regardless of age or sex . Advert two is from She, a British women’s magazine aimed at females possibly between the ages of thirty and forty. The women who would buy this magazine are possibly those who have busy lives balancing career, family life and social life. Both advertisements are selling vehicles but because of the different target audiences the techniques which they employ are different.

The purpose of advert one, the Nissan Xterra, is to make the audience buy the vehicle featured in the advert or at least make them feel that their lives would be enhanced if they had this vehicle. The advertisers try to make the audience feel that by buying their vehicle a new world will open up to them and they will have more freedom.

As with advert one, advert two, the MG ZR, also uses audience centered techniques to promote the product, one of these being the psychological need to own the vehicle being advertised. Advert two could well make the audience, middle aged women, feel that they must own the vehicle being advertised, by suggesting that they will become more attractive to the opposite sex with this car. This technique could be effective on some single, middle-aged women who feel that they are becoming too old and lack confidence in their sexual appeal.

Advert one takes up a double page spread of the magazine and will therefore attract the reader’s attention. This also shows that the company is willing to spend large amounts of money advertising its products. The advertisement does not focus on the product being advertised but rather centres attention on the lifestyle that can be acquired by owning such a product. In contrast, advert two does focus almost entirely on the product, the MG ZR. The car with the headlights on appears to be driving straight at the reader, inviting or persuading her to take notice of it. In Advert one, the image is of sand dunes with the sea in the background, suggesting that the reader can have a carefree lifestyle if he/she purchases this car. The image of the vehicle is placed in the top right hand corner of the second page of the spread, on top of a sand dune and it is very small in comparison to the rest of the picture, thus making the advertisement more focused on the lifestyle that the car brings to its owner rather than the features of the car itself. This makes the advert more appealing to its audience than, for example, an advert focusing on the gimmicky features of a car, as the audience for this advert is looking for how practical the vehicle is and how it would cope with their lifestyle. People reading this advert would tend to be adventurous, outdoor types and therefore the picture created would appeal to their sense of adventure. Next to the picture of the car is a dotted line with the word “chairlift” written on top of it in an informal font. This gives an example of the practical uses having the vehicle brings to the owner and it again puts more emphasis on what the car can do for him/her. The word “chairlift” in this case suggests the power of the car. Nissan have a series of adverts similar to this one advertising the same car and each gives a different use for it, ranging from a tripod to a recovery room. There are two people, a male and a female sandboarding down the face of the sand dune on which the vehicle stands. This tells the audience that the vehicle is for both sexes. The fact that they are the only two people in the picture tells the audience that the car brings them the freedom to get to secluded destinations and take part in adventurous sports. We are not told the price of the car but as the two people are quite young it suggests that it is affordable.

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Unlike the first advert, the second advert is mainly focused on the car. This is because it has a very attractive design so the advertisers are focusing on this, rather than what the car can do as is the case for advert one. The reason for this is because the audience for this car is middle- aged women, who would be more interested in what the car looks like and the status that it would bring rather than the different places it could take them. The advertisers keep the audience’s attention focused on the car by positioning the car so that it is directly facing the audience, with the headlights on, as if it is targeting her. The size of the car is also exaggerated, to fill more space. The car is in a tunnel, which means that there is nothing in the background to distract one’s attention.

Advert one uses natural colours in the advert. Blues and sand yellow take up most of the advert. These natural colours represent getting close to nature and present an idyllic picture. The advert is trying to tell us that if we buy the Nissan Xterra we can get away from the urban areas to tranquil places such as appear in the advert and this would appeal to the advert’s audience.

Advert two mainly uses red in its promotion. The colour red is often associated with danger but can also signify love and passion. The fact that the MG ZR is red could be interpreted on two levels. One thought could be that you will be a more passionate and sexually attractive person if you owned this car or secondly it could be interpreted that you cannot fail to be passionate about this MG ZR. The red of the car contrasts sharply with the warm gold background of the tunnel. The gold represents elegance and wealth suggesting that people will see you as being more wealthy and elegant if you were to drive the car.

There is a logo and a slogan in the bottom right hand corner of the first advert. They are both simple and big enough to be noticed and remembered. The slogan is simply “driven” which is easy to remember and it also emphasises the simplicity of the design. The slogan tells us what the product is designed to do.

The logo for the second advert is large enough to be noticed and clearly states the company’s name “MG”. The logo is in gold which represents wealth and elegance. The logo is also right in the centre of the product and it is shiny and stands out from the rest of the car as it is a different colour. The make and model are also clearly stated on the number plate. “MG” and “ZR” the company and model name are very simple and easy to remember. The slogan for the MG is longer than the one for Nissan but is also quite easy to remember “Life’s too short not to”. It is encouraging the audience to treat themselves to something new as “Life’s too short not to”.

The writing in Advert one is at the bottom of the page and is quite small, the reason being, that the picture has drawn the reader’s attention and delivered the message; it has played upon the people’s emotions and therefore little writing is needed. The language used is informal to persuade the reader but it is not too pushy. The advert uses simple language to appeal to the wide range of ages and levels of education of the audience. It is simple enough for everyone to understand but it is not patronizing. The advert uses some jargon such as “supercharged V6” to impress the audience.

Unlike the first advert the second advert uses more writing. One reason for this could be because the target audience is much more specific compared to the audience for the first one so the advertisers can use language which they feel will be more effective for that target audience. The first sentence is written in a larger font and in red to catch the reader’s attention. The words in red are “Slip in to something a little more racy” which is a pun and refers to both the car and clothes that a woman may wear. The paragraph contains several sexual innuendos such as “…the excitement of a close-up full frontal.” and “see in the flesh” The use of these innuendos, the sexual language and the attractiveness of the car suggest to the reader that they will become more attractive to the opposite sex. The advertisers have targeted this area as single middle aged women may start to worry about looking old when they reach middle-age so they would be more inclined to buy a car that they believe would make them look more attractive. They may desire a life style change as middle-age approaches. Middle-aged women are also more likely to be able to afford the car. The whole advert is written in an informal and heavily sexual tone. The words written in brackets “(stop sniggering at the back)” remind the reader that the advertisement is about a car and not sex and so gains the trust of the reader. Like the first advert the second advert also uses simple language so that all readers can understand it. This advert also uses jargon for example, “1.8VVC engine” to impress the audience. The advertisers put the jargon in because they know that the majority of middle aged woman who read the magazine will not know the meaning of it and be impressed by it. In this advert there is not as much technical jargon as you would find in, for example, a car magazine aimed at middle aged men who would need to know more information about the car’s performance and refinements to be impressed as the majority of them would have a greater understanding of it compared to the audience of She. The paragraph starts off with a list of three: “Heart pounding? Hands shaking? A feeling of breathless anticipation?” This has a persuasive effect on the reader and quickly involves them in the piece of writing. In addition, at this stage the reader is possibly wondering where the advertisement is leading. The last sentence of the paragraph is written in bold to catch the attention of the reader. This is because the advertisers want to draw attention to the fact that the buyer get a three year warranty with the car which costs “just 9995 pounds” Cleary the word “just” suggests that this is not a lot of money for something that is going to alter your sex appeal and make you irresistible. We later find out that from the small print at the bottom that the price of the car is actually 14560 pounds. The small print at the bottom is purposely written so that it is unnoticeable because it is less important in getting you to buy the car but is required to be put there by law.

In my opinion the second advert, for the MG is a better advert. I think that the persuasive techniques used are cleverer than the techniques used in the advert for the Nissan Xterra. The presentational devices are well thought-out and the advertisers manage to keep the readers attention focused on the car very effectively. The language in the second advert is more persuasive as puns, rhetorical questions and lists of three have been used, whereas the language in the first advert is very simple and does not include much in the way of persuasive techniques of any sort apart from informal language.

There is also a sufficient amount of technical jargon and informative data which is not included in the first advert. In conclusion, both adverts are audience centred rather than product centred and the advertisements have clearly employed techniques which would appeal to their targeted audiences. I think that both adverts work well in magazines, and that advert one would work well on a billboard as it is more image orientated where as advert two relies on language to sell the product. Advert one also has a larger audience whereas advert two has a limited audience so therefore works better in a specialist magazine or publication. Advert two would also work well on women’s television channels as it would reach its intended target audience and it would also be possible to enhance the use of language with a narrator speaking in a sexual tone. Advert two would also be effective on radio for this reason, as it is less reliant on images to sell the product.

Analysing adverts in the media.

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