The man on the left- advertisement textual analysis The advertisement poster made by the American Civil Liberties Union depicts a sad truth that has, and still does, affect our society: racial bias.

rights in the USA. Thanks to who the two men actually are, the ad is much more successful in conveying the message: if the two men shown in the ad were to be an unknown back men, and an unknown white men, the ad would have made a point, but it would not have had the impact it has by showing a ‘good’ black men and a ‘bad’ white men.

        The analyzed text adopts a conventional structural layout which has shown to be most successful: the Ogilvy method. Such method is very simple, but very effective; the basic Ogilvy ad layout consists in five main items:

“-a very strong visual, either a photo or an illustration

-a caption for the visual, if needed

-a headline

-well-written copy

-a "signature" — logo and contact information for the product/company”

We can perhaps find nearly all of these items in the ACLU advertisement against the violation of civil rights, moving from the top of the page to the bottom we find a headline stating that “The man on the left is 75 times more likely to be stopped by the police while driving than the man on the right", such headline written at the very top of the poster in large and bold characters not only attracts the audience’s attention, but causes a very strong impact and interest in the reader which becomes even stronger once the reader sees the “very strong visual” (as required by the Olgivy method). One aspect in the Olgivy method which we do not find, instead, is the “caption for the visual”, which, apparently, was judged as not needed by the author. The ad relies perhaps on a contextual knowledge of the audience: it relies on the people to be aware of the identity of the two individuals depicted in the pictures. However, as I explained above, the ad would make it’s point despite the contextual knowledge being present or not, however, given the contextual knowledge, the ad would be more successful and cause a greater emotional

response. The “well- written copy” is written in small characters, it however reports interesting statistics proving that “in Florida 80% of those stopped and searched were black and Hispanic, while they constituted only 5% on all drivers. Such reference improves the credibility of the ad and makes the audience think even further, allowing the reader to realize and be convinced that the issue presented is real and presents a threat to modern society. At the very end of the page we find the name of the organization written in a very elegant and clear way, accompanied by the address and website of the organization in smaller character size underneath.

                I found the advertisement to be very successful in accomplishing it’s aim of convincing members of western society that racism is an issue of great importance, and despite the common belief it is still a pressing issue which affects the life of people who get discriminated with no good reason everyday of their lives. Thanks to the use of conventional but effective structural conventions and relying on events known to have a strong impact on people, the advertisement has convinced me that the ACLU should be helped in it’s attempt to fight the violation of civil rights.