Advertisement: Losing Limbs, Texting while Driving - Essay Example

Advertisement One – Loosing Limbs Advertisement: Losing Limbs, Texting while Driving The first advertisement under consideration comes through as apublic service message to donators around the world to deal with the loss of limbs through the course of warfare and violence. Amnesty International has placed this advertisement in its drive to ban various incendiaries that are actively used around the world in combat zones. Most of these incendiaries affect common people’s lives through their active use as mines. The results of these mines are loss of limbs, which has been actively captured and portrayed in this advertisement. In this sense, the visual facet of this advertisement can be seen as relying on pathos in order to invoke the emotions of the audience. The loss of a limb is a serious disability considering that it becomes hard to cope with the physical removal as well as the psychological conditioning required to deal with a removed limb. The audience’s soft side is invoked as soon as the advertisement is viewed (Skaggs, 2011). This technique has been used in order to prepare the audience for the transition from the visual facet of this advertisement to the textual facet of this advertisement. The next major facet of this advertisement is the element of logos that the audience has been prepared for beforehand. The loss of a limb means that the affected person’s life is at a disadvantage of one kind or the other. It is simple enough to realise that the loss of a limb tends to remove the functions of that limb from a person’s life but other functions that are somehow dependent on that limb are also affected negatively. This advertisement relies on the social side of a person’s life in order to bring about the loss of a limb and its repercussions (Sloan, 1991). The headline statement in the textual form states: “When you lose a leg you don’t just lose a leg.” This statement provides the textual headline that is further justified in the advertisement by relating other pieces of social living that people tend to take for granted. For example, the advertisement’s textual side relies heavily on relating that people who lose a leg cannot be part of sports such as football, tennis, basketball, cricket and “playing tag with a friend” etc. This belief is highly logical as the loss of a limb tends to remove a person’s social functions to a large degree. The combination of visual and textual means in this advertisement is exceptionally logically structured as the textual part flows out of the visual part. It is as if the textual portion is an extension of the visual portion such that it represents the shortcomings of the visual portion. In addition the textual portion’s elements are sized according to their representation of human desire for such actions (Petty & Cacioppo, 1996). For example, more common and intimate actions like jumping fences and climbing trees have been portrayed with large font while smaller functions such as hoping have been represented in smaller fonts. This provides the audience with an overall impression of how these functions make up life and how in turn their stoppage leads to a hampered life that varies in degrees. Another aspect is the use of ethos in order to support the overall advertisement’s appeal (Sivulka, 1998). The lower right corner of the advertisement contains a statement detailing that this advertisement is part of the campaign to ban incendiaries globally. This statement is followed immediately by the logo for Amnesty International which in turn tends to enhance the overall standing as Amnesty International is considered an authority in these affairs. Advertisement Two – Texting while Driving The second advertisement is a public service message by a leading cellular services operator Orange. The advertisement is a clever adaptation of the challenge of sending text-based messages while driving. Sending text messages while driving can have fatal consequences especially on roads that have higher speed limits such as freeways or motorways. Even though the consequences of sending text messages while driving are well understood but the practice still persists amongst people. This trend is all the more pronounced in the younger sections of population especially young adults. Road safety requires that a person should be fully attentive to the road when driving especially at high speeds. The use of a cellular phone promotes the risk of accidents by diverting the driver’s attention. In a similar manner, the use of a cellular phone to send text messages requires that the phone be looked at while texting which provides an active diversion from the road. This advertisement is geared to make people realise how texting could be dangerous to their lives. The basic elements composing the advertisement are simple and few which in turn make the advertisement easier to understand. Essentially the major visual elements are the car dashboard and steering, the road in the front and the foliage on either side of the road. The continued presence of trees on either side of the road builds the impression that the road is a non-urban transport link such as a motorway. Roads such as motorways invite the driver to drive at high speeds as the allowed speeds are well above urban speed limits. This in turn enhances the chances of having an accident especially if the driver’s attention is not fully available to driving alone. The impression that the road in question is a motorway or similar road is bolstered by the fact that the speedometer represented in the car has a speed indication of 60. This most probably represents the fact that the road being portrayed has a speed limit of 60 miles per hour which represents the allowable maximum speed limit for a number of larger roads in Great Britain. When put together with other elements, this provides the impression that the driver is driving at the allowable speed limit but is still in danger because of the use of text messaging services. These elements combined constitute the logos present in the advertisement (Berg, 2001). Therefore, the visual aspects of this advertisement augment the logos perspective on delivering a message to the audience. The use of logos has also been enhanced using textual elements that have been logically arranged on the windscreen of the vehicle only. The more commonly used symbols such as “OK”, “good4u” and the like are shown larger to indicate their frequent use (Avery, 2002). Most people believe that sending small text messages while driving provides no danger although this is a falsely held belief. Similarly smaller textual elements represent text messages that are not delivered as frequently. In addition, the main contention behind showing textual symbols on screen is to indicate that due to text messaging the driver does not concentrate on the road but instead is more occupied with the phone. More simply, this advertisement emphasises that using text messaging services while driving forces the driver to see things that are not as important as the road upfront. Comparison When both advertisements are compared it becomes obvious that they rely on a mixture of visual and textual elements to deliver public service messages. The first advertisement has a simple layout because the background is simple white so that the attention of the audience is focused on the central element which is the removed and the normal leg. In contrast, the second advertisement uses far more visual elements to deliver its message. These visual elements include the car dashboard, the speedometer, the road in front as well as the trees on either side of the road. The use of a large number of visual elements in the second advertisement tends to make it more complicated and requires the audience to scan the entire visual facade before taking onto any impression. This tends to lower the focus of the audience on the central theme under discussion. In addition, the visual elements used by either advertisement differ in their overall appeal because of the very nature of the elements themselves. A removed limb and thus a disabled person tend to evoke greater emotional response than a lifeless car dashboard that is seen drifting across some random road somewhere. Consequently, the first advertisement tends to evoke a stronger interest from the audience although it tends to use a lower number of visual elements when compared to the second advertisement. Furthermore, the textual elements of the advertisements tend to evoke different responses altogether as well again largely because of the emotional appeal of the included elements. Common text messages are not as strong an emotional appeal as the social disadvantages of being disabled are. Bibliography Avery, D.R., 2002. Mass Communication Techniques. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Berg, B.L., 2001. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Needham Heights, Masachusstes: Allyn & Bacon. Petty, R.E. & Cacioppo, J.T., 1996. Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Sivulka, J., 1998. Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of Advertising. Belmont, California: Wadsworth. Skaggs, S., 2011. A Visual Design Semiotic Primer. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://stevenskaggs.net/SemioticPrimerContents.htm" http://stevenskaggs.net/SemioticPrimerContents.htm [Accessed 12 March 2012]. Sloan, D.W., 1991. Perspectives on Mass Communication History. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Read More