Advertising is all around us almost every second of the day, from T. V, radio and magazines to T-shirts and even the product itself. Also if you look back through the ages you will see that we’ve always had advertising like stall owners at markets and town criers. So advertising has always been around but what is it and why is it used? Well the ‘Oxford English dictionary’ says, Advertise: proclaim merits of; to encourage sales; make generally or publicly known; ask for by notice. To put that generally it means to tell warn or inform.
Advertising is a way of companies to get out on the market and to show what they have, without prior advertisement we wouldn’t know what we could buy or where we could buy it. Every where you look you see advertisements, on buses, trains, toilet walls anywhere, but it takes something pretty impressive to make us think ” God I need that now! ” or “I can’t live without that! ” That’s where the big stunts or events come in, Like the sponsored chicken run by “Kellogg” or the make your own wings day by “Red Bull”.
Both of these have been used and worked. Why do companies advertise in the way they do? They are all cleverly placed so their target audience have the best possible chance of seeing them, I mean you wouldn’t advertise a stair-lift or pension plan in a teens magazine. Movies are advertised on school buses because they know that their biggest audience is mates hanging out so it gets to the teens and some other possible people that might go see the film will see the advert as the bus makes its journey.
The advert that I’m going to analyse has been taken out of ‘Best’ magazine and is for ‘Ribena original blackcurrant juice drink’ this is shown by the whole of the printed advert having a purple tinge to represent the blackcurrant. This advert appears to be targeted towards adults firstly because of it being found in an adults magazine and secondly because of the character used. In the centre of the advert a small child is seen wearing a jumper which completely covers him with just the top of his head and the bottom of his legs and feet visible.
This is used to give the ‘feel good factor’ and ‘memory factor’ to make a powerful combination of not just making the audience think that used to be me but also to the parents of thinking that’s my child as well. Possibly, after then, subconsciously, using this image as a catalyst to start almost a domino effect of all good memories of family members dressing up or getting a Christmas present that was to big for them. If my last statements are true this could be considered a ‘Hyperbole’. Which brings me neatly round to my next point.
