The light silver that is used in the Mercedes advert is the stereotypical colour of a MB. This helps the audience to recognise this as a MB advert before they see the small MB logo. The logo is placed in the bottom right hand corner of the advert. This is a powerful position for a logo because readers will see it as they turn the page. Differently, there is no specific logo of GM used in the GM advert apart from the small, hard to see logo on the painting of the car. This entices the reader to read the text above the painting to find out what make of car is being advertised.
The oranges, yellows and shades of brown used in the GM advert connote warmth, colour and homeliness, which is how the advertisers want the audience to see the car. The colours perceive the car to be a good and safe place. The angle at which the car is shown in the advert highlights its size and connotates safety; this may appeal to a family audience.
The text used in the GM advert is sometimes alliterative: “soft seats, wide windows…” wide windows are not something people generally tend to look for when buying a car, but the alliteration used make it seem more appealing to the reader. The text used in the MB advert is designed to have an air of humour about it.
The MB advert does not use any pictures at all which shows that they are a popular and well-respected manufacturer. It shows this because for this advert to work people have to trust the quality of a MB car. It is enigma advertising – you have to read it to figure out what it’s all about. The GM advert uses a large painted picture (typical of the style of the time – printed technology then was not as good as it is now.)
In conclusion I would say that these adverts are not particularly similar, this reflects on how society and the audience has changed over the past 40 years. People are generally educated to a higher level and therefore more aware of deep-rooted meanings in adverts in modern society. This enables advertisers to use more abstract adverts.
Neither advert would be particularly successful if they were used in the other adverts era. People are very busy in contemporary society, so they would not have time to read the entire GM advert, nor would they want to. People in 1959 (when the GM advert was made) would not understand the MB advert as they probably wouldn’t understand how anyone could be persuaded to buy a car when there is no picture of the car in the advert. Such is modern society that we would think nothing of doing it because we understand the quality that is associated with the MB logo itself.