Advertising works Essay

For this assignment we are dealing with a type of media study, which involves the features of advertising. For this assignment, we have to write a detailed and comparative review comparing the two adverts for a student studying how advertising works. We have been given a copy of an advert, which is trying to sell Kellogg’s Special ‘k’. The assignment states that we must discuss the similarities and differences between the Kellogg’s advert and an advert of our own. During the lesson we discussed the features of the Kellogg’s assignment and how different parts of the advert such as colour and font size and use of images to coax the readers to buy the product. I have structured this project in a way that shows the features of the Kellogg’s advert, then my own advert and finally the identification of the differences and similarities between the two. Kellogg’s Advert  Here I will construct a detailed analysis of the advert and the uses of its features and effects on the viewer or reader.  At first glance we can see that the advert is situated in a magazine and is spread across two A4 sheets. We have two images on the left and another on the right, followed by a paragraph of text to the right of the advert. The first image is of a women of quite a young age say around 28-32 sitting in her morning clothes on a stool holding a bowl. This is the largest of the images on the page so it is the first thing that the eye will see as the reader turns the page and sees this advert. This may well point out the age group of the audience that the advert is aimed at, woman of age between 25 and 35 who tend nowadays to take their self-appearance very seriously and the advert will use this against them to sell the cereal. The image is in colour and the woman is good looking and has perfect bodily features for example her teeth are straight and brilliant white and she is slim and is dressed as an average person would look in the morning. The editor of this advert has set the image like this for quite a few reasons The image is in colour which adds a bright and happy feeling to the advert  The woman is good looking and slim this would make the reader envy the woman but also feel happy for her, and will push the reader to find the source of the woman’s perfect features.  She is the largest image of the advert this may show that the advert is mainly aimed at woman.  And finally the woman is wearing very casual clothes and looks like she has just woken up and is eating breakfast, which presumably is the cereal the advert intends to sell. This makes the reader feel accessible to the product in other words because the lady looks like an average person, the reader will not be put off and, maybe think that this product is only for â€Å"the beautiful people†. Next on the advert is an image of a man, considerably smaller than that of the woman but this man has a tough look on his face is very well built, the man is shown with no top on emphasising his toned physique. At first glance the image doest â€Å"say† to much to the reader in terms of what that stands for, but once again related to the above point these fairly mysterious features entice the reader to read on just a little further just to find out what the images relate to. The last two images are of a spoon full of special K flakes, which is situated to the right of the advert midst all the text. This is very revealing as once you see this picture you begin to understand what the advert is describing, and the final image is of the front cover of a box of special K this small but significant image sticks in the readers mind very cleverly, as it is the last thing the person will read on the advert it will hopefully stick in their mind so that the next time they go shopping lets say they walk through the cereal isle and then as they go past the box it will instantly remind them of that advert they saw in that magazine, then once their minds start thinking and reminiscing on what they read, they will remember the pretty woman and the good looking man and this will all add up to finally convincing the reader to buy it and this is the long term result the owners of Special K are looking for. Following on from the subject of images we then smoothly come into the part about â€Å"Text/Lexis†. Playing probably one of the most important roles of the entire advert, catchy one liners and titles and also thought provoking paragraphs assist the images in selling the product. We have four main sections of text on the entire page; we have one main heading a quote and two paragraphs of writing. First up is the title, which is situated bang in the middle of the page and reads â€Å"Stay Special†. Now there are quite a few analytical comments to make about this title, this particular title contains a considerable amount of potential which I am going to slowly explain. At first glance the reader will pick up on the size of the font and the colour, one word is black the other red, the text is big and bold and straight to the point just what is needed to get the message across quickly and efficiently, the word â€Å"stay† is printed in black and has been placed, on top of another background image of a fridge, but do not be fooled, that image is not there for no reason the handle of the fridge † coincidently runs underneath the word â€Å"stay† doubling as an underlining effect, very clever! The word â€Å"special† in red, this is a colour coordinating effect that makes the reader believe that by eating this cereal you will stay special. What it is referring to is the image of the woman, special is merely referring to the woman’s physical appearance, she is fit in good shape and has good looks, all the components needed for the specified audience of this advert, women who are on the search for a man, (this is where the picture of the man will kick in) also very cleverly constructed is the positioning of the title, although to the casual reader it may seem like a bad printing job, but the word special has been purposely positioned to lie across both sides of the advert, this very effective technique acts as a bridge for the readers eyes leading them onto the next page of the advert to read for more, the readers are oblivious to this but find themselves already reading the next page, the word special has been carefully selected, as it coincides with the name of the product â€Å"SPECIAL K†, which has been colour coordinated to match the colour of the name of the box. So on reading that title the reader is lead straight onto the next piece of text, the quote.