Advertising is used to attract their target audience to advertise their products, and if successful, to purchase their product. Advertisers

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Rebecca Stoneman 11S4

Media Coursework

General Introduction

What is advertising?

Advertising is used to persuade us to do something. Whether it is to purchase a product, or to donate our money to a charity. Advertising is to persuade you to give something, to take on a message – not just to buy something.

Advertising is not just pictures, words and slogans, but font’s ands colours are essential when advertising.

There are many different forms of advertising. Some of these include:

• Television

• Magazine

• Radio

• Junk mail

• Direct

• Text messaging

• Billboards

• Banners and flyers

• Bus shelters

• Pop-ups

• Internet Sites

• Cinema

There are loads! But the main forms of advertising are generally – Television, Radio and Print based, we see them everyday and everywhere.

Advertising is used to attract their target audience to advertise their products, and if successful, to purchase their product. Advertisers use certain techniques in order to make us feel as if we have longed all of our lives for this, and they are very clever at doing so.

It is thought that approximately £98 million is spent every year on advertising.

50% of money that is spent on advertising is spent on the press newspapers, magazines and trade papers. 27% is spent on television advertising, 11% is spent on direct advertising, and 7% is spent on Radio advertising, approximately 5% for Billboards and Bus shelter advertising and 0.5% for Cinema advertising.

Personally, I feel that Print – based advertising is the most popular form of advertising as is long – lived. By that I mean that unlike television advertising, it does not appear for a certain amount of time, then disappeared and then quite often forgotten about. Another issue is that with television advertising you may not be watching when the advert is shown, therefore you would never have known of it in the first place.

The UK Advertising industry is controlled by the Advertising Standards Authority. The ASA Council decides whether or not an advertisement breaks the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing - The CAP Code. This is written by the advertising industry through the Committee of Advertising Practice.

The Two adverts in which I have chosen to analyse are:-

• Lux Shower gel for women

• L’Oréal straightening cream for women

I chose Lux shower gel advert from my recent cosmopolitan magazine. Already it is clear who the target audience is for this advert. Cosmopolitan is an expensive, designer magazine. Aimed towards glamorous and the higher class women, implying that this product must also be expensive. From my point of view I feel that the target audience for this advert is younger women who want to be more mature, and the older women who want to look younger.

My second advert is advertising L’Oréal hot straightening cream for women. I also took this advert from the number one magazine for women – Cosmopolitan. This is because this advert is aimed specifically for women, and for the more mature and well off women. And this I feel is the age that this advert is aiming for, though it appears to me that it may also be attractive to the younger age group as the advert comes across to be very girly and focused on the younger audience. This advert is clearly for the more late night, party ladies who enjoy a laugh and some fun unlike the Lux’s adverts audience was the complete opposite to this advert, though they come from the same magazine.

The brand name “Lux” could be an abbreviation of the word luxurious, perfect for the description of this advert. This is also clear from the use of font in this advert. The smooth curve from the letter “L” to “x” (LUX) is connected and flows well. It looks smooth, and this comes across in the advert. The product name Lux is written at the top of the advert; we are first drawn to this as it is the largest text on the advert. In gold font colour, with a shadow background it looks as if it is in blocks of letters. We are drawn to this first when looking at this advert.

The company for the product “L’Oréal” is a well known cosmetic and beauty company, they are reliable, but they do not come cheap, though their products from experience are always to a high standard. “L’Oréal” is written in large blocked capital letters spaced out on the top line of the advert. The font colour is black and shadowed with a white background so that therefore it doesn’t stand out too much from the advert or automatically draw attention to this. The product name is not the main focus of the advert and it looks almost as if it is trying to hide behind the women herself.

Join now!

My first impression of the advert for Lux was that it was clean, fresh, light and very feminine. At first glimpse I thought it was advertising a new fragrance, but then after looking further down the advert I realised that this advert was trying to sell a new shower gel, and it was obvious that it was to women. There are lonely a few number of adverts these days that re trying to sell shower gel, and if there are they are mainly aimed more for men, so it was nice to see something different.

When first ...

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