Media: printed advertising.
Media: printed advertising
Printed advertising is only of various media methods used to help sell or retail a product. Nevertheless, advertising on paper continuously proves to be one of the more successful ways of drawing the public's attention towards something, or more importantly boosting a product's sales. Many things are taken into account when a printed advertisement is still on the drawing board or still actually being thought out, for example, the advertisement must be categorised in order to appeal most to the audience that it is targeting. Media developers also use many different techniques in order to make an advert stand out more or be more effective in delivering its message. For example, areas of a page, which are more effective in capturing a viewer's attention, may be identified and used accordingly by an advertiser, sequentially, to help boost the sales of their merchandise by helping to make the product seem more appealing to the potential buyer.
The first advertisement that I will be looking at is for Twix chocolate bars, which dates from two years ago, the second a recent AA advertisement, for car data checks.
The purpose of both adverts is obviously to help to boost the sales of its product more, by making the product seem more appealing to likely consumers. The manufacturers may also assist the advert by allocating it where it is more likely to reach broader audiences of its target consumer.
I found the Twix chocolate advert in a Playstation magazine and I feel that this fact alone allows the viewer to accurately envisage the audience that the manufacturer is targeting with this product. By printing this advert in a Playstation magazine the manufacturers are hoping to reach younger people or perhaps more accurately, younger boys since they are the most likely category of people who would read such a magazine, although the advert may in fact reach a broader audience. Obviously since the manufacturers think that younger people are more likely to want to buy this product, they chose to advertise in a source which would reach these people more broadly than another medium such as a newspaper.
The AA car data check advertisement however, I did find in a newspaper, which to an extent illustrates the diversity of the audiences that each advert has been custom-made to target. Newspapers are for factual reference regarding current affairs whereas magazines usually specialise in areas of interest for different clusters of people. The choice of location for this advertisement is also comprehensible; not only did I find it in a newspaper, but also in the middle of car sales section of the newspaper. The advertisement would obviously relate to people buying cars and so would attain more attention as a result of its direct relevance to the reader.
It would have been illogical to have placed the Twix chocolate bar advert in a place such as that of the AA advert, and vice versa, since the target audiences of each advert would doubtfully have been reached at hand, should they have been allocated inaptly.
I feel that the choice of the actual location of both adverts is commonsensical in each case, and that the target audiences of both adverts would have been reached to some extent as a result of the adverts' understandable placement.
The graphology of each advert may also help in making ...
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It would have been illogical to have placed the Twix chocolate bar advert in a place such as that of the AA advert, and vice versa, since the target audiences of each advert would doubtfully have been reached at hand, should they have been allocated inaptly.
I feel that the choice of the actual location of both adverts is commonsensical in each case, and that the target audiences of both adverts would have been reached to some extent as a result of the adverts' understandable placement.
The graphology of each advert may also help in making it conspicuous to the potential consumer. The images used or features of an advert commercialising one product may not necessarily be appropriate or ideal for an advert aiming to sell another product or another type of product. The image that the advertisement gives off for its merchandise may make the difference between the product selling or not selling, and so the process of creating an image for the product must be thought out accordingly, with different variables being taken into account when designing the advert.
The image in the Twix chocolate advert is brightly coloured with the obscurity of 'Norm' contrasting heavily with the colours encompassing him, and in a sense, contrasting with the mood of the advertisement also. Norm separates the couple who, like their surroundings, are in full colour, warning them of the risks that they could be taking should they actually decide to kiss, echoing in effect the message on his badge 'sensible is the game', to the inconvenience of the two. Also, both above and below each of the couple, there also subsists half of a Twix bar, which would join together to form two entire Twix bars should Norm be out of the frame, illustrating that not only is Norm detracting from the couple's enjoyment, but he is also separating the Twix bars from becoming complete, suggesting that the Twix bars are alike to the enjoyment experienced by the couple, which would appeal to the viewer.
The advertisers purposely exploit the potential of the layout and positioning of this advert by including instructions for the viewer to fold the paper in such a way that Norm is effectively cut out from the frame entirely, and the sentence underneath compromised so that 'kissing at ...said Norm' instead becomes a clearly dissimilar message, to that previously in place of 'Twix a break from the Norm'. Aside from this, the couple are also placed much closer together and may continue in their practices without the objections of Norm detracting them from doing so.
The AA advertisement differs greatly from the Twix advertisement in terms of its graphology, which to an extent is due to the fact that the adverts have different types of produce to retail and hence, different target audiences and themes. Unlike the Twix advert, the colours used in this are not as vivid and instead of a more illustrative approach to bargaining the viewers' endorsement, this advert, using text and statistics, begins by worrying the reader with alarming facts that could result in the loss of their car and the money that they brought it with. The bold writing at the top of the page would be the first thing to gain the attention of a viewer along with the picture on the left, which after having bee seen may prompt a potential buyer to read the text.
The first glance at an advertisement may make the difference between whether or not it is read or its content is realised by a person, and thus whether or not a sale is made. It should follow then that the graphology of an advertisement is thought through warily, and though I think that the graphology of the AA advert is fine, I do not believe that it has achieved its aim better than the Twix advert in this case, seeing that, in my opinion, the advert for the Twix would have succeeded more in gaining the attention of its target audience than the AA advert would have.
The people and setting employed in an advert, as well as the props used, may also contribute to gaining the interest of the viewer, and hence also must be considered carefully before being used in an advert.
In the AA advert only an aged woman is shown down to her shoulders to the left of the main passage of text. The woman's expression here isn't particularly joyful, which is explicable in that this advert isn't trying to retail something that would give the buyer enjoyment, but rather is trying to concern the viewer with what may happen to them as individuals should they choose to ignore the advert. I feel that this picture was put in place in order to give the viewer someone to compare to or someone that epitomises the image of the audience that this advert is targeting, and so may immediately bear relevance to the viewer being aimed at. By giving the viewer someone to balance themselves against, the advertisers are also making the advert more noticeable in that a page that uses a visual reference by which a person could immediately relate is more noticeable at a glance than a page simply full of text. There is no particular setting for this advert, just a plain yellow background in front of which the woman is placed.
The Twix advert, I feel, synchronises the use of setting and characters, with the black and white-coloured tones of norm contrasting heavily with all that is around him, to good effect. This both catches the viewer eye from the offset, and also aids in promoting the image that the advertisers are trying to sell for the product. The illustration is much more vivid than that used in the AA advertisement. Norm is obviously the negative or dull embodiment that the advertisers are trying to contest with the personification of the Twix bars. The prop that the advertisers use by instructing the reader fold the page so that the Twix bars are complete and Norm is cut out from the frame illustrates the contrast between the two, with the image that the advertisers are emanating for the Twix bars being the opposite of anything dull or negative, which would obviously be something of a positive nature by which the viewer would covet to associate themselves.
In terms of the denotation of the adverts here, I feel that both excelled here in being appropriate and relevant in content to the aim at which was their objective. Although I found the Twix advert to be more eye-catching, I do not believe it would be fair to say that in effect it was better than the AA advert, as both adverts have different intentions to which they were created.
The linguistic features of an advert, depending on the adverts' context, may be appropriated and vary in order to help the advert appeal more to it's target audience. The language or text used in an advert may help in making it seem more appealing to a potential consumer, and help elevate a products sales when used relevantly and in conjunction with the rest of the advert.
The AA advert uses persuasive language to influence the viewer towards buying the product being retailed, and also attempts to jolt the reader into doing so by rendering some facts and figures, which would dissuade them from simply ignoring the advert, and appreciating the help that it could attain them. The Twix advert however contrasts to this and merely has a sentence from Norm being quoted as the main passage from which all else follows. 'Just Aask.' Is the slogan used by the car data check advert, making the AA seem like a helpful organisation and that no bother would occur to the person should they choose to enquire for further information whereas the Twix slogan 'Twix a break from the Norm' is revealed only when the original passage is enshortened as the page is folded in accordance with the instructions given to the viewer.
Appealing to the target audiences, which are being aimed at by each advert respectively, is ultimately the goal of both of the adverts that I chose, and indeed, all other advertisements.
Overall, I think that both the AA car data check, and the Twix adverts have been well thought through by media advertisers, as I believe that they both target their intent audiences suitably well and that the techniques employed by both of them have objectively been in coordination actively with the aim of boosting product sales. In spite of this fact, I believe that on this occasion the Twix advert targeted its audience better in terms of its content, although I found that the car data check advertisement may have been placed better in terms of its actual allocation. Whilst the Twix advert may not have been encountered by as many of its target audience, I think that proportionally it would have attained more attention from them than the car data check advert would have done due to its more appealing-to-target-audience-features.
Adeeb Elhag - 10ss