Choose two magazine advertisements - Analyse both the language and imagery - What techniques do they use to convey their message?

During the 1800's and the early 1900's the development of cinema, public transport and sport all gave advertising important new outlets. The Introduction of commercial television (1955) and official commercial radio (1973) allowed broadcast advertising to reach people inside their own homes for the first time.

Advertising is everywhere there is no-way that you can miss it, there are many different outlets of advertising around here is a list of a the main outlets:

--Television

--Radio

--Billboards

--Revolving Billboards

--Posters in public areas

--Posters in books and magazines

--Posters that move by the entrance of a shop i.e. Sainsburys

There are many more like: Buses, Taxis, Trains (on the), Subways, Advertising stands outside corner shops i.e. "play the national Lottery here." You can even find adverts on stickers! The most powerful, but most expensive, are T.V and Radio.

There is two types of advertising: Promotional and Campaign. A promotional advert is when something is on offer, for example: At the moment at Iceland they are doing a buy 1 get 1 free deal on over half there stock. Another thing that you may get a promotional advert is on is a new product i.e. games, aftershave where if you pay the full price you can get another item of the same brand half-price.

A Campaign is trying to put a point across as well as trying to sell or raise funds for the project, for example: Cafod may publish an advertisement in a supplement magazine protesting about the poor children in Africa and will tell you if you send just two pound a month you can help bring these children clean water and happiness. Another example is the very emotive NSPCC advert on T.V at the moment, which shows a child being beaten by his father, however this is not trying to sell you something but is simply putting a point across.

Companies use adverts usually to sell a new product i.e. a new model of car, a new aftershave/perfume or the new "Blue Parrott" range at Sainsburys. A multibillion company like Glaxo-SmithCline would have separate budget just for advertising, because every time they produce a cosmetic they will want to adverise it on television and radio, which will cost millions. Even though the cost of advertising will cost millions it may vary depending on the time of the day like Prime-Time T.V.

Advertising works in two main ways: One way is that the company use eye-catching images, slogans, fonts etc. these are all devises to capture the attention of the target audience for example: one2one has just become T-Mobile, the imagery that has been used on the leaflet that came through my door is eye-catching as it is big and the two colours stand out amongst each other (blue and white.) In the middle of the front cover of the small is a picture of a man jumping and the words "It's time to Get more" The words Get More are in purple to stand out. The downside to this type of advertising is that it is no use on the radio as the listeners cannot see the imagery.

The second way that advertising can work is more complex and involves psychological influence--advertising manipulates, influencing people to but a product by playing on their feelings of guilt, need and insecurity. They produce perfect ideal worlds, which are illusions--using beauty, sex, love, and "happy families." For example the sandals all-inclusive resorts, this advert starts off with a man and a women petting each other and then goes on to a pictures sea and hotel resort, it then shows the emotions on the faces of people at the sandals resort, the emotions on their faces are all happy and enjoying themselves. This makes us want to be there and want to book the holiday straight away.

Mark Colgan Page 1 English Coursework