The ad that I am analyzing on this post is an ad for recycling. The first thing to catch my eyes when I look at the ad is the words in large, bold font that say “Protect his habitat. And yours.” Separating the two sentences makes the phrase more effective. To me, the period in between the two, makes a bolder statement then if it were to read ‘Protect his habitat, and yours.’ It’s kind of making the phrase two different thoughts. ‘I can be an environmentalist and protect wildlife by recycling my batteries. That’s a good thing.’ ‘Oh and I can protect my own home. That’s an even better thing.’ The same phrase by having ‘And yours.’ Added to the end, hits the soft side of humans. People are always looking for ways to protect their homes from anything and everything. This makes people more consciously aware that old batteries can be toxic to their families. If the ad just said ‘Protect his habitat’, the ad would be less effective because the demographic area that it would target would be smaller.
The writers of this ad repeat the phrase once again at the beginning of the paragraph. “When you recycle your rechargeable batteries, you preserve his environment – and ours.” Once again, the sentence is split up into two different thought processes. “You can preserve his environment,” and the second “and ours.” This time though, its saying “and ours” instead of “and yours.” So the ad adds a second thought. A person reading this can now save the environment, their individual home as well as the world as a whole. The phrases aim towards environmentalists and also to adults who are more focused on keep their homes safe.
The picture also makes the demographic of the ad more towards men. The power tool is convincing to a man because it would make them think that keeping his home and family protected is up to him. Just like he would fix something that is broken to protect his home from further damage, he should do the same to keep his family safe from old batteries. I also think that the use of HIS in the initial phrase may keep this ad leaning more towards men. It could make the man reading the article feel important because he is the keeper of his home just like the bird is the keeper of his nest. It may not be the most effective piece of the ad, but I defiantly think it has a small part in convincing the reader to recycle.
The other thing that I noticed is that the paragraph at the bottom of the ad is not just explaining the ad but it is proposing an argument. The conclusion would be “When you recycle your rechargeable batteries, you preserve his environment- and ours.” The other sentences following are small claims to back the conclusion. It’s saying if you don’t check the batteries in your cordless power tools, cordless phones, camcorders etc., then his home and yours will be in danger. The paragraph is effective because it doesn’t flat out say ‘if you don’t recycle your batteries your home is in danger’ but it does it in a more effective, almost sly way where the reader will go ‘hey maybe I should this.’
I think the components of this ad make it very effective. It is telling the readers that old batteries are toxic, and recycling can help the environment and yours. It appeals to the reader to recycle but without being to pushy on the environmental part. It appeals to men, or adults, homeowners, as well as environmentalists so the ad is not aiming towards one demographic. Putting all the components together, make the ad very effective.
I am analyzing the same advertisement too. I basically agree with what Christine mention above. She has done a great work breaking the ad into few points to look into.
ReplyDeleteSomething to add to is the word "His" in the ad. As Christine mention the ad primary target is the men due to their responsible of protecting the family as the keeper of the home. From the past, men are portrayed to protect not only the home, but also the country or world. In this ad, it is extended to the nature same as the bird; supposed to be male bird, protect the environment. Other than that, I think it is because of the fact that men generally use more electronic gadgets than women. From phones, computer, house tools, and many other more, men are more likely to use all these devices. Thus, the ad is designed to advice men to recycle batteries they used.
I think the slogan “Protect his habitat. And yours.” is brilliantly written as it not only creates sympathy to the nature, but also connects human’s action will affect the nature. Putting into two sentences has further emphasized the impact of protecting the bird’s habitat to the audience own homes. And Christine has further analyzed the phrase.
Another thing to notice is the background color. The ad uses a brown and yellow color. I have looked out meaning of color online. Of course different cultures interpret meaning of color differently. To my best understanding and information I gathered from the Internet, yellow means nature and warmth, which fit into the content of this advertisement advising the audience to help protect the nature by kindly recycle. Interestingly, yellow also help people memorize a message. I think in some sense that is true as our attention normally drawn to something bright as yellow or gold color of what people wear on the street.
The ad also blur out the background drilling tool to put on more focus on the battery cell and the bird. I am also guessing this ad comes from a man magazine because bird watching and drilling tool are both more related to men’s hobby and duty. Probably if targeting women audience, the ad should use a cute animal and a slick camera. Using an extinct bird rather than other kind of animals, I think is because of the nature that bird is small size and beautiful enough that people will fell pity loosing them. And bird appears in daily life and helps relate the direct impact of recycling battery. The audience might think that they are not capable enough to help other big or too tiny size animals that normally need the help of organization.
Lastly, all the word in the advertisement is very simplified. It also repeatedly stress the relationship between the nature and human's environment with the words combination of his, our, and yours, rather than using the word animals or human mankind. These have made the suggested step sounds easy to the audience rather than a complicated action.
After reading the blog posts on the environmental ad, I saw a lot of similarities between the post made by chongYih and my view on the ad.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I thought it was very clever that the post caught the idea that the ad was primarily geared to males. This is a very important thing to note, because as was stated in the above post, men are looked at as the movers and shakers in today’s society, given their profound effect on politics and leadership in general. Also, it was mentioned that men are the main users of electric gadgets, which was also good because it is indeed the case.
One thing that I thought was quite interesting that the above blog notes has to do with the impact that color has in the environmental ad. I myself probably would not have thought about looking into this aspect, but looking back on what was said it was indeed a good idea. In ads like the one analyzed, nearly every aspect is used constructively in some way, including the color. The notes made about yellow and its use in the ad makes a lot of sense. The fact that this color relates to nature and warmth, while also subconsciencely reinforcing the memory of the reader lends credence to the publishers of the ad. It takes an astute eye to catch the effect of this, but it’s clever nonetheless.
Finally, chongYih states the fact that the environmental ad seeks to keep it’s message and words that get this message across very simple. Indeed, considering the simple idea that is suggested in the ad, it makes sense that the means used to achieve its ends would be as simple as possible. All of these methods employed go a long way towards convincing the reader of the argument made in the ad, and chongYih does a good job of noting each one of them.