LO1: Understand Contextual Awareness
Languages used in advertising
task 1
Pathos |
Appeals to emotion. Used in adverts to evoke a feeling which causes the consumer to be convinced by they argument the advert is creating. The feeling can be positive or negative, for example, seeing a child suffering from a car accident would cause the consumer to drive their car more carefully.
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Ethos |
This is when the advert tries to convince the consumer to buy their product over others using statistics or expert reviews. This tells the customer that legitimate statistics prove the product is better than its competitors so why buy another brands product? Another way Ethos can be used is by including a celebrity endorsement so the consumer thinks 'if a certain celebrity uses this product, it must be good'.
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Task 2
Loaded language is a form of verbal/written communication that is intended to inspire emotion in the audience. This is a persuasive technique that is intended to gain support, sway opinions, gain a political foothold and push an agenda. Certain words trigger memories and emotional attachments; this can encourage your audience to buy your product. Loaded language features in the Barnardo's advert that focuses on the life story of a man who's upbringing was effected by abuse. The first actor uses words such as job and girlfriend which triggered thoughts close to the heart of the audience while the third actor uses words like drugs, foster parents which can triggered thoughts and feelings that may not be so positive, so the audience can relate.
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Emotional appeal is refereed to by the Greek name Pathos, a quality that evokes pity or sadness. It is used in adverts to get an emotional reaction out of the audience. An example of emotional appeal can be identified in this road safety advert. The audiences emotions are triggered because the character who has been killed in the road accident is a young child. With the added narration of a young girls voice, the audience find the advert almost disturbing as children are precious and have the rest of their lives ahead of them.
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Bandwagon is when the company try to convince their audience to buy the product because everyone else is using it. This causes the audience to develop a trust in the product as they are going to buy it purely because they are the only one without it. There is a clear use of bandwagon in this Vanish advert; the audience are encouraged to buy the product because lots of people are using it and showing how they use it on Vanish's website. This is a clever technique as stats and figures are not used and Vanish give their customer base the chance to share why they use the product as well as show it in action.
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Weasel Words are used in adverts to suggest a positive meaning without making a guarantee. This advert talks about their product being flawless and perfect when in reality, it's not going to work for everyone. An advert is supposed to convince the customer why their product is better than competitors. When they say its 12x thinner, we would then expect that to be against other leading brands when really in small print it's against Maybelines leading product. This is another way weasel words are used in the advert.
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Snob appeal convinces the audience that they are a part of a luxurious group that no one else can join unless they buy the product. Elite singles use this in their adverts as they set their company aside from generic dating sites as make out that they are superior. 'For single professionals' tells us that their product is not for everyone but for people with a professional style of living. This is snob appeal.
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semi0tics
Semiotics are how visual communications create meaning. A message can be sent through signs, symbols and colour that give the audience an image with substance that can easily be identified. American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce categorised signs into 3 main types: an icon, which resembles its referent (such as a road sign for falling rocks), an index, which is associated with its referent (as smoke is a sign of fire), and a symbol, which is related to its referent only by convention (as with words or traffic signals). For example, semiotics can be identified through colours.
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signifiers and signified
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) was a Swiss professor of linguistics who changed the way language is understood. His theory of sign is defined as being made up by the matched pair of signifier and signified. The signifier is what we see before a meaning can be interpreted. This can an image, a jumble of letters that make a word, a sound image. etc. The signified is the concept drawn from the signifier. Whilst the signifier is more stable, the signified varies between people and contexts. An example of signifiers working with signified can be when a shop door says 'open'; 'open' is the signifier while our thought that the shop is open for business is the signified. Signification always uses a signifier and signified to develop concepts of the signs we see. The McDonald's logo can be identified in this image even though the entire logo is not showing.
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Semiotics are useful in adverts because the creator can control all elements within the advert which define the consumers reaction. This can range from the expression on someones face to colour of the background. If all these elements are considered, the creator can essentially guarantee how their consumer will react, and ensure their advert will send the correct message. If these are not revised before the production of the advert, the consumer may react in a way the company did not expect and the advert may influence a bad response.
case study 1
The advertisement is a Brake road safety campaign to stop texting and driving. The main sign in this advert is the pale girl lying on the metal bed covered in a white sheet. This signifies to the audience she is dead. Brake have been able to use the image of a dead child in their advert because of the image laid over the girls face. The sign is just a colon, a hyphen and an opening bracket but because of modern technology, the audience understands these punctuation marks as a sad face. This is highly effective because it is the type of language used in text messaging and has then been applied to a real life scenario. An emotional attachment is then created for the audience as it is likely they have used this technique to convey emotion when text messaging before. Now that the :-( has been superimposed onto the face of a dead child the power behind a text message is blown up.
The large text reads 'WAS THAT TXT WORTH IT?'. Brake have shorthanded 'text' to 'TXT' which creates an emotional response because such a small action can cause a huge effect. The audience then understand that it doesn't matter if you make your text time shorter by using an acronym; it only takes a second for someone to lose their life. The font used is the type we would see when text messaging first became popular. The audience then instantly associate this font with texting and the message within the advert emerges. The text is also a thick black that contrasts with the light background. The background of the image is a hazy grey which can be associated with detachment or loneliness. This is very effective because death can influence the feeling detachment and loneliness in us and the advert creates that feeling. |
:-) :-( :'-(
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case Study 2
The 'Think Biker' adverts signifies to the audience that motorcyclists should stand out to drivers and should be looked out for as if they were another car on the road. Motorcycles have been covered in lights and signs to accentuate their presence on the road. In this frame, the sign is the glowing object moving through the traffic. The audience thinks this odd because no vehicle is usually that brightly lit. This encourages the audience to question whether motorcycles should be that lit for drivers to notice or they just haven't been paying enough attention.
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The audience then discover the signs on each bike are different depending on the person which emphasises individuality of each cyclist and how precious life is. 'New Dad' gives a positive image in the audiences head because 'Dave' has just had a baby. This positive feeling influences the safety measures the audience will take when driving because the are reminded how large the impact a loss of life is - in case a child could lose their father.
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The pace of the advert is quite fast which is essential when keeping the audiences attention; if there is a slow pace that the audience has to follow they won't watch the advert for long. Quick cutting also draws the attention to the lit up motor cycles as we don' get a clear view of one until 13 seconds in, at which point the advert has the viewers full attention.
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The sign on the back of this motorbike in this shot is easily identified as a heart. Hearts are associated with love so we can confirm the two on the bike are a couple. This is another example that shows that there is way more than just a bike in the road. The vehicle is carrying a relationship which is particularly clear when we see 'met online'. This adds more personality than we have already established by their names and the heart which again influences the precautions we take on the road.
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Pathos is included in the advert as an emotional appeal is made from the 'new dad', 'met online' and 'shy retiring type'. This is because personality is added to the motorcyclists and the audience can identify emotional connections that ordinary people make. This influences the audience to take precautions when driving because they don't want to be responsible for ending a life that is very much like theirs .