Lei 1
LiFang Lei
Elisa Parrett
English 101
10/25/2017
Lei 2
Sitting is the new smoking
Nowadays, everyone wants a decent desk job instead of doing some kind of manual labor
or working outdoors. Most of us go to a college or a university so we can learn some kind of
trade skill, getting a good education.... right? It turns out that sitting all day on a chair is just as
bad as being on your feet all day working as well. Sitting is more dangerous than smoking,
because it kills more people than the HIV virus. We are literally sitting ourselves to death.
Almost all desk jobs today require seven or more hours a day of sitting down. Many people are
unaware of the fact on how too much sitting is affecting our bodies in the ways we cannot even
imagine. The ad appeals to the chair as skull and represents that inactivity is putting your bones
at risk. Sitting too much is far more lethal than smoking. The ad is in two colors (black and
white), has an image of a skull that also, looks like a chair, and the text is written in scare the
reader and encourage them to take action.
Colors used in this advertisement are very significant. This ad uses an achromatic color to
build the terrifying atmosphere that pervades the entire picture. The white skull is sitting
prominently in the middle of the ad with the black and gray background and white text.
Additionally, the chair color is the color of human bone. The colors used, are to represent
darkness and light. The technique this ad is using is the opposite of the association technique.
People are afraid of death; nobody wants to sit to death. The often the colors of black and white
Lei 3
have been used to describe opposites, particularly truth and ignorance, and in good and evil. In
the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries, it was frequently
associated with death, evil, witches, and magic. According to surveys in Europe and North
America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force,
violence, and evil. Black is the color of mourning; people often wear black clothes to attend a
funeral. White is the color of light; promoting good things can happen with change. This ad
builds upon people's fears by using the achromatic coloring to the intended audience to promote
a "solution"----by not sitting too much each day and being active.
The chair as the human's skull is a big symbol in this ad and works effectively in reaching
audience. The skull is symbolic; it is the attachment of a symbolic meaning to the human skull.
The most common symbolic use of the skull is a representation of death and mortality. For this
ad, a strong message is being communicated to the intended readers without the use of words.
The skull chair implies a lot of questions to the consumers:" What is happing, why is it so scary,
will I die if I sit in this chair? ..... " Moreover, the back of the chair has the especially large
skull eyes! According to scientific research, a human skull with huge eye sockets displays a
degree of neoteric, which humans often find visually appealing—yet a skull is also obviously
representing death. As such, human skulls often have a greater visual appeal than the other bones
of the human skeleton, and can fascinate even as they repel. The large eye grabs the customer's
attention; in spite of it implying death and fear. It fascinates the viewer's curiosity and intended
audience to find the answers. This ad uses the power and intensity of the human's skull to catch
the customer’s attention and represent the ad’s main ideal. It is used symbolically and
figuratively to represent death and darkness.
Lei 4
The textual on the ad is straightforward "Sitting is the new smoking" and “Inactivity is
putting your bones at risk". They are direct, fully and clearly expressing the cause and
consequence. These are immediately understood, and placed in the middle of the ad. The ad is
using eye-catching headlines, which contain a few words that create a strong impression on the
viewer. On the bottom of the picture, the decryption with white small texts in a very simple font
showing the consequence, and it contains the word "bones," which clearly alludes to physical
health. It is an ingenious design by shaping a strong contrast to clarify information on cause and
correlation. This means that your bones will be the weak and fragile if you sit too much, just like
smoking does. The textual gives the viewer a strong impression to understand the veritable
causes and actual effects by sitting too much is dangerous.
To sum up, the design of this ad is perfect. It convinces viewers to follow their purpose,
and visually showing their persuasion. The ad using achromatic color and logo of the human’s
skull attracts audience’s attention. Meanwhile, it builds pathos symbolically and figuratively,
which is a way of convincing an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response.
The textual on the ad is direct, fully and clearly expressed the key ideal. As well as the informed
headline incites viewer’s choice a healthy lifestyle, sitting too much is just like smoking, it will
be putting your bones at risk! Finally, the ad calls the reader to action, “Stand up and be
active!”