Advertising is all around us, we cannot avoid it, in the car on the street the train and the Internet, even in aeroplanes. Advertisements are around us in every type of media: television, radio and the written word, it is everywhere. It is one of the most influential factors in our lives and effects the way we think about companies and their products. For example the new Jaguar X-Type television adverts are aimed at the younger ‘X Generation’ so to interest high earning young men and women.
Display advertising comprises of images and text and would be found on billboards, magazines and in shop windows among other places.
The images and text are purposefully arranged to persuade us to associate the product with a certain lifestyle. Obviously not all types of advertising appeal to everyone, so target audience is essential in portraying the image of the product and quality. I will be comparing two display advertisements, both of which are from the January 2002 issue of the new technologies magazine T3. Both advertisements are for new electronic devices, a flat screen television from Samsung and the digital camcorder made by Sony.
In the following comparison, you will be able to see the way these advertisements effect our lives and the products we buy. In the Samsung advertisement, there is a blurred image of a businessman standing alone on a tropical beach. His trousers are rolled up and he has a jacket slung casually over his shoulder. This man is obviously an executive businessman with a high paying job, the reason for this, I believe, is that you would have to earn a lot of money to have enough disposable income to afford the product. The man is relaxing on the beach looking out towards the sea to give an impression of freedom.
He is standing casually portraying an image of complete relaxation, carelessness and mellowness. There are no props in the image to add to the felling of simplicity. All this is very much in contrast with the Sony camcorder advertisement. The Sony advertisement there is an image of a man skydiving with another person filming him with the product, the digital camcorder. The man skydiving has a look of exhilaration and elation upon his face, all of this adds to the image of the product giving you a fast paced and exciting lifestyle.
This advertisement is a bit of a lie though; it would be practically impossible to shoot the man skydiving and would cost far too much. So Sony have employed another company that sell images and bought an image of a man skydiving and then the graphic designers would have superimposed the image of a hand holding the product. This gives the image of the man actually being recorded while skydiving. In the Sony advertisement the image on the LCD screen of the product is a big close up of the skydiver.
This type of camera angle was used to create an intimate relationship with the target audience, also it creates an image of an ‘in your face’ and raw, ‘full on’ lifestyle. Outside of the image of the man’s face it is a long shot because you can see the skydiver’s whole body, however apart from the skydiver and the other person’s hand, which is a close up, there is a lot of ‘white space’, in this example the sky. The person holding the camcorder is in full focus but the rest of the advertisement is slightly blurred, this makes the product stand out.
There are two slogans Shoot it, Send it, Pull Ripcord’ which is a three part list and an imperative and ‘go create’, which is an imperative. The first slogan is solely for the camcorder and is positioned in the top left which is the first thing you would look at, secondly the universal Sony slogan in the bottom right, the last thing you would look at. The slogans are in very understated fonts very similar to Arial, Times New Roman or Tahoma; this plays down the slogans and putting emphasis on the skydiver.
In the Samsung television advertisement we find that the camera angle is a long shot of the businessman and the beach, this adds to the impression of ease a complete lack of cares in the world this product could create. The only clear and crisp part of the advertisement is the image of the product: the flat screen television, this helps to promote the product as you look at the advertisement. The product slogan ‘mix business with pleasure’ is positioned in the top right but is in a larger font than the Sony advertisement so that it occupies a much larger area of the advertisement.
It is in a very rounded font similar to Square 721 Cn BT to add to the relaxed feel of the advertisement. ‘Mix business with pleasure’ is a play on words and a two part contrast. Also in the Samsung Electronics advertisement there is the universal Samsung slogan: ‘Samsung Digitall, everyone’s invited’ this is a two part contrast and an imperative. This advertisement is not as interestingly arranged and the universal Samsung Electronics slogan is not linked in with the product whereas the Sony advertisement has a series of circles showing what the product can do and in the final circle is the slogan.
Because we in class only had black and white photocopies of the advertisements I cannot comment on the use of colour. In the Sony advertisement the whole feel of the image is one of a fast paced and action packed lifestyle, this however is in complete contrast with the Samsung television advertisement which is laid back and relaxed. The use of connecting the product to a certain type of lifestyle is used in almost all display advertisements and changes the passer by’s perception of the product and company. Peter Atkin Sunday 31st March 2002 A Comparison of Two Types of Display Advertisements.