The advert uses the “impact centred” techniques to sell the idea of saving the tropical rainforests. “The Earth’s life support systems are failing” and “Help the Earth fight back” are in big prints with a black and white colour contrast. They are positioned in the upper and bottom part of the main writing part in the advert. When the readers read the big heading, they will be interested in why the Earth’s life support systems are failing and hence start reading the whole advert. And after reading the last heading “Help the Earth fight back”, it reinforces the need to save the Earth and the tropical rainforests. If the readers agree with it, they can then fill out the leaflet just below the last paragraph. It is a very wise design because people do not need to find out where the leaflet is.
The advert also includes a picture of a very thin person with an earth-like big head. There is not much land in the Earth surface and hence suggests that the remaining rainforests are very small. The whole figure and the person’s x-ray image provide an idea that the person is unhealthy. Since the person’s head is an earth, it is easy to link that the person is actually the Earth. It means that the Earth is in an unhealthy and weak condition because of the damage we did to the Earth and the tropical rainforests. The whole picture is linked to the information provided at the right hand side of the advert.
The reading level of this advert is appropriate for the general public. It does not use long or difficult words in the advert because the advertiser wants to make it as simple as possible so that even not highly educated readers can understand it easily. On the contrary, the advert uses quite a lot of emotive language to provoke some kind of emotional reaction from the audience and hence they are likely to donate the money. The use of emotive language which is often intended to influence readers’ feelings. This includes words such as “collapsing”, “hacked”, “disastrous” and “destroying”. Some other examples include “There will be virtually no tropical rainforest left on Earth.” They all imply that it is time for us to do something to save the Earth. Otherwise the tropical rainforests will be vanished with a single generation. It also uses some strong and violent-sounding words like “quick killing” and “die” to convince that the rainforests are suffered in a serious damage. The audience may therefore want to give a hand to save the poor rainforests. The advert also mentions that “We are not powerless” and “Let the forests live, let the Earth breathe”. It touches people’s hearts indeed and encourages them to follow the plan, ie. contribute their money to save the rainforests.
The advert helps the readers to consider the damage humans have done to the Earth and the tropical rainforests. If some people are damaging the Earth, there must be someone else to protect it. Otherwise, even the Earth will be damaged greatly eventually. However, one individual’s power is small. Therefore the better solution is to donate the money directly to Friends of the Earth because it is a powerful pressure group in the world.
I think this advert is very successful because it first describes the rainforests are being damaged quickly and convinces the readers that they need to save the Earth now by using strong and emotive words to make us touched. It implies the idea that “we” can do something if we all work together.
The second advert I am going to analyse is for Hine cognac. The advertiser is also shown by a logo. It is situate at the top of the advert. The target audience of this advert is possibly the upper class people aged 30 or over. The whole advert shows a high-class image. Besides, people over the age of 30 begin to drink wine and spirits rather than beer to show a kind of respect and position in society.
The advert does not persuade the readers to buy the Hine cognac directly. On the other hand, it tries to suggest that the cognac has an ancient history. People often associate good cognac with a long production time. Therefore the advert implies that Hine is a high quality cognac and indirectly suggests the readers to buy it.
The selling technique used in this advert is product centred. The particular feature mentioned is the ancient tradition of Hine. If the readers enjoy drinking wine, they must want to find the one with a long history background.
There is a picture included in the advert showing a stag standing proudly in front of a hill. The stag is strong and large. It implies that the audience can become as confident as the stag if they drink Hine because the cognac is the best in the market and drinking it means the person deserves respect and admiration from the others. The reader can then be seen as an extraordinary person simply because he drinks Hine.
The brand name “Hine” and the French name for “stag” are both in big prints shown near the top and bottom of the stag picture. It is obvious for the readers to link the two words together. In other words, Hine is regarded as one of the best in the cognac industry and it owns a very strong image, just like the stag.
The shape of the print is arranged as a downward triangle with the picture of a bottle of wine situated at the vertex of the triangle. It suggests that the wine inside the bottle is gradually volatilizing into the air. Obviously, a good wine can volatile into a large area and the nearby surroundings will still contain the flavour of the wine. This is the implication of the advert which tells the readers Hine has a strong flavour of cognac and it is of excellent quality. Even though the people can not see the Hine bottle, they can still smell its rich cognac flavour.
The short passage in the advert tells readers the origin of the brand name “Hine”. The words used in the advert such as “deployed” and “majestic” are formal and good English. The reading level is above the normal English standard to imply that Hine has a noble position and it is different from other types of cognac. Words like “prime”, “mankind” and “graced” are complex English and it is not used in day-to-day English quite often. However, the word “ale-halls” describes where ordinary men went to drink centuries ago. It contrasts with other language used, which suggests class and sophistication. Apart from the sophisticated words being used, there is also a long sentence at the end: “It couches on … graceful majestic of spirits.” It makes use of good English structure which may cause reading difficulty for small part of uneducated old people. However, this can link to the grand style to Hine easily.
The suggestion of the tradition of Hine is shown throughout the whole advert. Words such as “Vikings”, “Gauls” and “Saxons” suggest that Hine has a long history. Moreover, “century-old” and “heritage” are also associated with age and tradition. If a cognac was made long time ago already, it should be considered as the origin and the best in the world.
The advert hopes to convince the reader that Hine is the original type of cognac and owns a long production history. It still exists today and this implies that Hine is of very good quality and people still enjoy drinking it very much. At the bottom part of the advert, the Hine’s bottle of cognac is shown together with the sentence ‘Cognac is our heritage’. That suggests Hine is inherited even in the future because it is such a wonderful cognac.
I think this Hine advert is successful because the picture and passage suggest that Hine is valuable and has a powerful position. The use of the French words shown at the top of the advert is also associated with a high quality lifestyle because French drink wine as a type of entertainment in their daily lives.
