1. Who advertises and why?

Learning Objective:

Consider who advertises and the reasons why. Consider where advertisers try to reach audiences. Key terms: Consumable products: These are the products we use regularly and need to replace. Toothpaste, breakfast cereal, trainers. A successful ad may persuade us to buy something different than usual. Constructed to appeal to an audience. Deconstruction by an audience. Quick Task 1:  Work in pairs and list five ways you may come across an advertisement in your normal day. We tend to think of advertising as being the selling of consumable products like shampoo, clothes and household products, but advertising is very broad and lots of organisations and people use advertising to communicate in formation. Quick task 2: Create a list of advertisers other than makers of consumable products Charities - to raise awareness about an issue and persuade us to donate. Government departments- the health service for example, to give us information about health issues like diet. Organisers of events - for example sporting competitions, concerts. To let us know they are happening and persuade us to buy tickets. The media - to promote new films, TV programmes, games etc. Schools, colleges and universities - to give information about courses and persuade us to enrol. Ordinary people - to sell items, find work make announcements. Task 3: Use the Internet to source examples of print based ads from each of the above. Create a Power Point presentation and e-mail to aealey@de-la-salle.co.uk Plenary: Where??? Discuss your answers to the first task. Did you identify these places for adverts? TV and radio Cinema Mobile phones The Internet Sides of buses and shelters Billboards Magazines and newspapers Leaflets and flyers. ______________________________________________________________________ Deconstructing adverts Each media text you study will have been constructed to appeal to an audience. What is meant by the terms construction and deconstruction? Construction is the process of creating a media text – such as an advert – using images, colour, text and framing devices. Audiences (and media students) deconstruct texts in order to understand how meanings have been created. Print adverts need to gain attention and make readers understand what the advert is for, even before the brand name is seen. The following adverts have all gained awards for creativity and their ability to capture the audience’s attention. In pairs or groups consider: How do these adverts work? What is the underlying idea (concept)? What messages are being communicated? How is audience appeal created? Who might be the target audience?