Picture of a hand in front of a grey wall holding a lit cigarette between pointer and middle fingers. Thumb is extended and ring and pinkie fingers are curled.
There is a spotlight focused on the hand.
The hand is making a shadow shaped like a gun.
The smoke from the lit cigarette is just visible above the shadow.
Below the shadow, in large letters are the words, "Smoking kills."
Beneath that, in a smaller font, the words, "About 106,000 people in the UK die each year due to smoking".
The number "106,000" is larger than the words around it.
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A woman is sitting in front of a dark background. There is a low wall and a plant behind her.
In front of her there is a tabletop. On the tabletop is a pink-frosted birthday cake with two lit candles that say "42."
The woman is wearing a dark blue jacket, light blue collared shirt, large pearl earrings, and glasses. She has white hair, wrinkles, and black spots on her skin. She appears to be much older than 42.
The woman appears to be either sitting in front of the cake smoking a cigarette, or, as Karen mentioned, lighting her cigarette from one of the candles. Her eyes are looking down at the cigarette, not at us.
In the lower right-hand corner of the page is a picture of a product to help people quit smoking.
To the left of the product, in large letters and all caps, are the words, "Smoking causes premature ageing."
Below, in smaller letters, no longer all caps, are the words, "Lose the smoke, keep the fire this World No Tobacco Day, 31st May."
Common Elements
Dark backgrounds. (except for the Joe Chemo ad)
A single declarative sentence at the bottom of the ad that summarizes the message of the ad.
Images of death (guns, nooses), old age, or disease (hospital bed).
I picked these ads specifically because they communicated a similar message in different ways, so there are not many common elements between the ads.
I found it interesting that in the second advertisement, although it is easy to see what they are saying about smoking and premature aging, it is hard to make out the product and it's name. It's obvious that It's a quit smoking product, but to really find out what it is you have to look close.
ReplyDeleteAnd last week when looking at these I didn't even see the writing under "Smoking causes premature aging." I only noticed it this week when you pointed it out. And the words "Lose the smoke, keep the fire this World No Tobacco Day, 31st May." I found to be a bit weird to be first of all because it rhymed. And also because it is so small it's hard to notice when looking at it. I personally think it is so small because obviously they're trying to promote quitting since they make money by people quitting, but they still need smokers to exist so they can continue to sell to those wanting to quit. I just found it interesting that the public help message is so very small in this ad.
I find these images quite disturbing especially the one with the child and a plastic bag over his head. I know that what they are trying to portray is that second hand smoking is bad so a way to effectively convey this message where emotions would be stirred is to do exactly this. An innocent child crying because he doesn't have oxygen. This relates to another article we read about how horrible images are interesting to us and makes us want to keep looking at them. Though we know it's horrible, it still draws us to it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with golyyang... we are drawn to the images, even though we know they are horrible. I think that the most interesting ads are the ones in which they use the smoke from their cigarettes directly to affect the smoker of their loved ones. It shows how common it is to see smoke, yet how costly the smoke can really be, and proves this point in an interesting way via contorting the smoke images to cause various types of death to the people in the ads.
ReplyDeleteThese are very intense advertisements which make them a good subject of analysis. I have a few friends that smoke and i am curious to see what their reaction would be to these ads. They are pretty shock and aw but they communicate well the dangers of smoking.
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