Describing and analysis ads
Print ad :
Description
I will try to analyse two advertisings for Swatch, famous international brand of watch (Swiss
manufacturer), most precisely for a collection whose name is “scube collection”. I suppose (but I
have no piece of evidence) these ads promote watches which can go under the water.
On this two print ads, there is a marine animal : a fish on the first one, a turtle on the
second one, and nothing else. There is nothing on the background, just the deep of the sea.
Indeed, the colour of background is very dark, and the animals are without colours, just black and
white, so we can deduce we are in the deep of the ocean, where it is impossible to see the sunlight
or the moonlight, where we cannot see colours.
On these advertisings, next to the marine animal, there is a sentence which specify the
hour : “Quarter past ten” on the first one, and “Half past twelve” on the second one. Moreover, we
can notice the hour correspond to the direction of animal’s fins, as if there were watch needles, as
if they imitate a watch. In this way, the fish and the turtle give us the hour.
Analysis
The theme of the ad is not really obvious, it requires a few seconds of attention. Indeed, the
« call-to-action » message is absent, at least, suggest by all the symbols contained in the images.
The situation staged is very improbable.
These ads are targeted at all type of public because everybody needs to have precisely
reference point in time, especially in our city lives and under stress lives. So to have a watch is a
necessity nowadays.
Several symbols relative to notion of time are presents in these two ads.
The first thing we can feel when we see these two advertisings is an impression of empty
and silent space, because they dive us into darkness of the ocean deep. We can feel too an
impression of solitude or isolation surrounded by a marine desert. These impressions can be
assimilated to an eternity notion. A certain poetry is given off these images, a certain beauty,
reinforced by the black and white. Moreover, the use of black and white, convey a certain notion of
time. They recall the past, as if these photos were old. In the same idea, the turtle, on the second
advertising, give us too this notion of time, because they can live for a very long time, several years,
so they represent the time which pass. We find again these notions of time equally in the ocean’s
deep. Indeed, in water the movements are generally slower, and this slowness, in addition of
mystery which hang over this marine world, reinforce the impression of eternity evoked above. It is
reinforce equally by the lack of slogan apart from the hour.
In fact, the advertisers use an extreme situation, where neither light nor outside element
can give us some information about hour, day or month, in order to promote product benefits. They
use this situation in order to prove necessity to have their product. They use an unrealistic scene, a
beat absurd, where animals could give hour with their fins, assimilated to watch needles. The
obvious absurdity of this type of scene prove the impossibility to have any notion of time under
water, and that in such situation, their watches become really essential.