Print Advertisements“The most powerful messages are the ones we don’t know are being sent.”

Objective: not being influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudices; based on facts.

Subjective: existing in the mind; ideas belonging to the thinker.

Bias: a particular tendency or inclination, especially one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.

Censor: any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.

Review of terminology

Media Literacy: The process of making an informed and critical understanding of the nature of the media, the techniques used by them and the impact of these techniques.

Audience: The group of consumers for whom the media text was constructed as well as anyone else who is exposed to the text.

Purpose: The reasons in which the media text is constructed.

Construct: the process by which a media text is shaped and given meaning. This process is subject to a variety of decisions and is designed to keep the audience interested in the text.

Media Literacy Terms

Critical Thinking: the ability to view, question, analyze and understand issues presented overtly and covertly in movies, videos, television and other visual media.

Deconstruct: To take apart, analyze, or break down a media text into its component parts in order to understand how and why it was created.

Narrative: The telling of a plot or story. In a media text, narrative is the coherent sequencing of events across time and space.

Negotiate: The process by which members of the audience individually or collectively interpret, deconstruct and find meaning within a media text.

Representation: The process by which a constructed media text stands for, symbolizes, describes or represents people, places, events or ideas that are real and have an existence outside the text.

Text: The individual results of media production (ex. a movie, a TV episode, an issue of a magazine or newspaper, an album, an advertisement, etc.)

Source: mediasmarts.ca

Advertising Strategies

Image

Ads based on image try to convey the idea that we can change our image by buying something. They show someone who looks cool, or tough, or successful, or fun-loving, or whatever... and try to make us think that will become our image if we use that product.

Scale

Manipulating the product size to make it more appealing

Put Downs

A product is compared to the competition

Excitement

Showing that an object can be exciting

Sounds Good

Catchy jingles designed to make you think of the product

Sing it!

Social Issues

The language or imagery of social-change movements (environmentalism, civil rights, etc.) are applied to the product being sold — for example,a pristine wilderness scene being used to promote nuclear power.

In a related approach, the company selling a product offers to donate some of their profits to a special cause or nonprofit group.

Celebrity Endorsement

Famous musicians, actors, sports stars, and other celebrities get paid big bucks to promote a variety of products. The advertiser hopes that we’ll transfer positive feelings about the celebrity to the advertised product. The product often has no connection to the celebrity’s claim to fame (such as when a ballplayer promotes cars or cologne).

Borrowed Symbols

A symbol is something that represents something else,like the mascot that represents our school. Ads based on this technique “borrow” a symbol that we identify with or have positive feelings about. The intent is that we’ll transfer these feelings to the product in the ad.

Expert Opinion

In this technique, an expert or apparent expert promotes a product related to his or her supposed field of expertise. The speaker may be a real expert with real knowledge. Or the “expert” may not be an actual expert but is just playing the role of one — for example, an actor dressed as a doctor in a lab coat, promoting a drug.

Personal Testimonial

In an ad based on personal testimonial, someone who is not necessarily a celebrity or an expert speaks in a friendly tone. This actor or actress plays the role of someone we can relate to. They describe a product that they say has been valuable to them.

Status

Some ads present the message that their product is used by a select few. They imply that if we buy the product, we’ll share this special status. Status appeal is often used with luxury items, like expensive cars.

Bandwagon

The bandwagon technique relies on the fact that people generally don’t like to feel left out and do like to feel part of a group. These ads try to present the impression that large numbers of people are doing something or buying something, so we had better “jump on the bandwagon” with everyone else.

Humour

Everyone likes to laugh. A funny ad that makes us laugh is intended to get our attention, make us remember the product, and associate it with smiling, laughing,and having a good time.

Sexual Imagery

Many products are pitched with ads that use seductive poses, treat people as sex objects, encourage viewing the body as an object by displaying isolated body parts,or even incorporate sexual images bordering on pornography. Ads using sexual imagery to attract attention may use female models, male models, or both.

Self-image / esteem

Some ads try to make us unhappy with our physical appearance or our bodies. Then they suggest that we can improve our looks and feel better about ourselves by buying something. They promote the notion that only by using certain products will our appearance —skin, hair, teeth, body odor, etc. — be acceptable.

Shock Response

These ads use shocking images — often vivid, real-world photos — of war, disaster, and even death. In a world filled with advertising clutter, these images can demand our attention and stimulate a reaction.

Product quality or other product features

Here we’re referring to ads that emphasize a product’s actual features or benefits, such as a comfort or convenience it provides, its health benefits,quality and durability, or new and improved features. Whether or not such qualities actually exist in the product is often debatable.

Ads disguised as regular programming

It is not unusual for ads to be integrated into regular programming. This is sometimes done so smoothly that it can be easy to miss the fact that we’re watching an ad. It’s the deceptive nature of these disguised ads that makes them effective: We’re more likely to pay attention if the ad doesn’t seem to be an ad. Hidden advertising can be found in many forms…

Product Placement

This is the use of a specific product, name, or logo in a movie or TV show, or even in a book or play. Product placements can include something an actor eats, drinks, wears, or drives as well as signs or buildings in the background of an indoor or outdoor scene. The company that markets the product typically pays the movie maker.

Infomercials

These super-ads mimic the format of regular television programming or of standard features in other types of media including television talk shows, newscasts, movie reviews, radio talk shows, editorials, and newspaper or magazine “articles”.

Weasel Words – words that are telling the truth, but mislead (ex. “Part of a whole breakfast…”)

Omission – you don’t receive the full story about a product

Facts and Figures – when facts and numbers are used to convince you of a product’s value (9/10 dentists recommend…)