ADVERTISING

Analyzing Advertising

Essay - “Advertising - A Deceiving Consent”

[Name of the Course]

[Reg. no. of the Writer]

[Submission Date]Analyzing Advertising

Introduction

This essay, for analyzing an advertisement, is fundamentally an academic practice to critically evaluate advertisements, which got bombarded by different brands on the targeted audience. The advertisement that I have chosen belongs to the personal care industry, and its defined brand is “Gillette”. This advertisement of Gillette is not a product oriented ad, but a corporate ad, defining the revolutionary foundation of Gillette, since 1901. I came across this ad online while browsing “Ads of the World”. This ad has high ratings on the internet. The creative agency of this ad is “BBDO”, located in New York, USA. This advertisement got published in 2012.

Thesis Statement

This paper got designed to argue critical aspects of an advertisement. It will discuss the role of advertising with different aspects including economy, culture and society. Furthermore, this paper will also evaluate the ideological perspective behind the chosen ad, its denotative and connotative analysis and to which class this ad is targeting. Other than this statement, the paper will argue the following points.

1.The Economic Role of Advertisement

2.Denotative and Connotative Analyses

3.Advertisement with respect to culture and society

4.Target Audience

5.Critiques of Advertisement

Discussion

The Economic Role of the Advertisement

This advertisement got created by BBDO, New York, U.S.A. for Gillette. This ad serves a great economic deal for the company. As Stuart Ewen described advertising as a process to furnish mass sales required for mass production, possible by the massed dollars. This advertisement is primarily making an illusion for its target audience while associating the product with the desired achievement of the target audience. Companies made such illusion merely to boast their sales, increase profitability and gain market share. Gillette wants more men to consume its products, which primarily fulfills the future goals of the company.

Denotative Analysis

In this advertisement, there are 10 portraits of men placed in a series at the center of the canvas, horizontally. The pictorial effect of those portraits is black and white, showing that these pictures must be from a period when there were no colored images. Underneath every portrait, there is a rectangular box in which the name and life span of the portrayed person has given. There is also a continuous horizontal line under all portraits, whereas, small vertical lines are connecting the portraits with the horizontal line, showing as if they are on a timeline. All portraits got aligned in a sequential order, start with the earliest and end at the most latest. All men are wearing military suits. An intriguing observation is that the first men are beard, and the last four are clean shaved. On the top left side, above the portrait timeline, there is an illustration of a military badge, in which “U.S. Major Generals” got written. At the bottom of portrait timeline, slightly on the right side, there is a black rhombus in which Gillette got written. Under that rhombus, there is a phrase written, “Changing the face of History” and under this phrase these ...