Advertisements are used all the time, from leaflets to banners to blimps. In order to understand the art of advertising you must first grasp the concept of marketing which refers to the means of communication between a company and its target audience. This makes advertising the secondary form of marketing and consists of the actual with the target audience. To provide a further understanding behind the art of advertising I will be analysing a piece of print advertisement Levis delivered in order to promote their cloth collection.
Structure plays a massive role in the success of print advertisement due to to the fact audiences only have a short amount of time to digest the suggested, upon their short glance of the advertisement and there is clear evidence that Levis produced this piece of print advertisement around this point. Upon the first glance of this advertisement the viewer would normally question why a group of teenagers are enjoying a summer dip in the river in their outing-wear rather than swimwear. This taught process is the result of visual narrative which sole purpose is to grab the attention of the target audience by getting them intrigued. Next, looking at the upper right corner the viewer will see textual information, also referred to as the copy. The copy serves as the anchorage and delivers the explanation to what to what can be seen in the still image. Underneath the copy of this advert you will see the slogan which in this case is 'explore the collection' at ...' which gives information to the audience on what to do, to get a hold of their merchandise. In addition to this, the visual narrative and the copy may differ between advertisement, but the slogan always stays the same. An important structural device that is used often in a majority of print advertisements that that is not recognised enough is the rule of third. Upon cutting an advert into 9 equal parts the viewer would recognise that people/objects are hardly put into the middle of the image; an important technique in catching the viewers’ attention. Finally, another important structural technique acknowledged in all advertisements is the use of colour because of the fact it projects the copy, making it distinctive and plays a part in delivering the message to its audience and as you can see the Levis advertisement there is a lot of it.
The successful use of structural elements should enable the audience to fit everything together in order to gain the best understanding and also see the picture the producers had in mind when making it. In this print advert, the rule of thirds makes the advert rather intriguing and helps everything within it fall in place, while the bright colours provide its atmosphere. The copy suggests that Levis will provide customers with top quality, strong, durable clothes which provides protection under elemental conditions, so are great to wear in all seasons; anchoring the actions of the people in the advert and answers questions brought up through the viewers visual narrative. Again, the bright colours used in the used have connotations of peace and fun, in a way serving as an embodiment of their free spirit (teenagers). Finally, the slogan in this advert provides its viewers with their website link, if they are interested to invest in Levis products.
Therefore, we can conclude that a good print advert should question and answer its target audience in order to persuade them to take any further action or invest in the company’s products.
