Skills I Analysing an advertisement
Structure
1. Introduction
a Advertised issue/service/product,
• brand, organisation
• type of advertising
2. Purpose of the advert
•
•
•
inform about new products/services
persuade the target group to buy something, to change habits
Influence people’s behaviour or thought patterns
3. Target group
a Description of the audience and its preferences by onsidering place/type of publication
and the advertised product/service/issue
4. Layout/artwork
a
Arrangement/composition of design elements
• Visual: content, type of visual (line drawing, a painting, or a photograph)
• Typography
• Text (slogan, headline+ subline, body copy)
• Logo
5. Analysis of the ad’s effectiveness
a
Apply the AIDA model
• How does the ad attract attention?
• How does the ad gain interest?
• Which desire does the ad evoke
• Which action should be triggered by the ad?
Consider/Analyse the following aspects
• Advertising Strategy/Technique (rational vs. emotional)
• Visual content (atmosphere, associations, content)
• Language (word & sentence level of slogan, head-/subline, body copy)
• Relation text-visual (complementary, congruent, elaborative)
6. Own opinion
•
•
•
•
•
•
What do you think about the ad, its advertising technique, and its artwork?
Will it reach its aims / the target group?
What intertextual references can you discern (to other ads, to other genres, to other people
etc.)?
What does the ad seem to suggest about gender roles, class/status, age, ethnicity or
self-identity?
What cultural assumptions and values seem to be involved?
...
Advertising I Analysing an advertisment
a
1