The one wearing the boob tube surrounded by men has Secret Weapon lip gloss on, there is a tube of Secret Weapon lip gloss on the bar which has orange juice on it, it stands out because it’s orange, blue and purple; the colours are a lot brighter than the background, the men are all in smart shirts .
The slogan is humorous even though it is written as if it was a government warning; they are using jealousy to get people’s attention.
The woman who is not wearing Secret Weapon lip gloss is pouring orange juice into her bag because she is jealous that the other woman is getting all the attention from the men. The advert is about being popular and people liking and loving you and if they don’t you feel left out and insecure.
Jealousy is a common trait in girls and women, so the advert is using that knowledge to get people to buy their product. The advertiser is trying to make you think that ‘Secret Weapon make-up and accessories’ will attract men in a way the men are not able to control, and which women who are not ‘In the know’ and using it will not be able to understand.
This is an advert for a beauty product; I would think it was for teenagers from age thirteen to nineteen years old because that is the biggest market for beauty products.
The models in the advert appear to be about eighteen years old, so they are using teenagers to advertise the product. The picture is in a night club and that’s where teenagers like to go; they dress up, wear make-up and make themselves look attractive.
The image of night-clubs is glamorous, so the advertisers are trying to sell their product by associating it with the glamorous lifestyle; “I could wear it to a night club”.
As teenagers are first introduced to cosmetics they won’t want to wear a lot of makeup, so something like lip gloss is perfect and seems subtle.
The main anchorage this advert uses to promote it is the slogan, it is telling the readers that if they wear Secret Weapon makeup people will be jealous of them and then they will want to buy it for themselves,
The advertisers have made it funny so it keeps the product alive in people’s minds. They remember the words and then think of the advert and then ‘Secret Weapon’.
The advert is set in a night club with lights, pictures, a DJ and a silver pillar, there is a marble bar were the models are sitting. Both of the female models have necklaces; one has earrings and the other has a hair clip. All of the male models in the photo are wearing shirts, one is holding a glass, and he has a watch on.
The main model has a red boob tube on and she has a sparkly silver bag, the other has a more dull looking dress on. There is a tube of Secret Weapon lip gloss on the bar which the main model is obviously wearing; she is smiling in a quietly self-satisfied way and she has large, open blue eyes and long blond hair. The other woman has brown hair and eyes which seem to be closed because she is looking down; she is obviously unhappy. all this is the presentational code of the advert; it creates the atmosphere and helps sell the advert.
I do think this advert is very effective and successful. The slogan sticks in your mind so you remember the advert, it’s the picture that first attracted me because it’s humorous and I would buy this product because I think it looks good, and makes the models lips look good.
The second advert I chose to analyse was for Avon ‘Color Trend’ make-up, I was first attracted to the advert because the pop band Atomic Kitten is on the advert, it is a common technique for advertisers to use well-known celebrities to advertise products, particularly hair and make-up products. The advert is for various Color Trend products, not just one item like the other advert I analysed.
The image of Atomic Kitten is set in the centre of the page and there is no background, all three band members are wearing ‘going out’ clothes; black boob tubes and sparkly tops, they are all wearing make-up and I can guess it is from the Color Trend range.
Underneath them in various bold fonts is written: “Atomic Kitten love new Color Trend” this is persuasive language in that it makes the reader think it is a personal recommendation from Atomic Kitten, the idea that a pop band use and love this make-up would convince fans to buy it.
The nearest to a slogan Avon use is “fresh, cool and sassy make-up exclusively from Avon” this uses upbeat language and is using the fact that teenagers must be up to date with the newest fashion, to sell their product because they make it sound as if it’s a ‘must have’ and the new style everyone will be wearing. This shows the advertisers have done qualitative and quantitative research and are using the facts that celebrities become idols to teenagers, and that teenagers are under pressure to be wearing all the ‘coolest’ clothes and make-up to sell their product to the readers.
Using fashion and peer pressure is another common technique used by advertisers, especially to sell clothes and make-up. The word “exclusive” tells the reader that they can’t buy the product from another manufacturer, this term is used a lot throughout the different types of media; in newspapers it is used if they have got a story no other paper has, similarly in television it is used if the programme is exclusive to a channel. The text on the advert is quite informative as it also gives you a web site address at the bottom where you can find out more information.
At the bottom of the page there are five pictures of the products available in the Color Trend range, all of the products have bright packaging and this makes them stand out from the dark background, also it makes the image stay in the readers’ mind so they would recognise the product when they were out.
The characters have a distinct relationship to the reader because they are role models to many teenagers, the advertisers’ choice of celebrity fits in with the target audience of the advert and so does the magazine the advert would be published in, in this case it was Sugar which attracts a readership of eleven to sixteen year olds making it guaranteed to be seen by the audience the advertisers were aiming for.
Over all I think the advert is successful and effective in targeting it’s audience because it uses celebrity idols to sell the product,
I personally would not buy the product because the advert does not make me remember it and if I was reading a magazine I would probably skip past it because it does not stand out.
The Secret Weapon advert used humour to attract their audience whereas the Color Trend advert used celebrities, also the Secret Weapon advert had a story behind it unlike the Color Trend advert; this meant that the message was more interesting and it did not rely on the influence of celebrities to sell their product. In my opinion this made Secret Weapon more successful in targeting its audience as it was able to target a wider range of teenagers; not everyone likes pop music, or has different individual tastes and so those who don’t identify with Atomic Kitten would not be interested if they loved Color Trend make-up or not, and the advert would not influence them to buy the product: there is also the risk that people who actually dislike the celebrities used would be biased against the product by its association with them.
