Comparing Teen Vogue Ads

Cigarettes are everywhere. These tiny objects that are held between the cusps of ones fingers hold unknown danger. They hold addictive substances and can lead to both immediate and long-term damage. Cigarettes used to be romanticized and glamourized by the media, but modern day campaigns have begun to reveal the truth about their dangerous effects. Through graphic imagery and audio choices, The Real Cost Campaign reaches out to young adults in order to demonstrate these consequences and render an emotional response of fear as well vanity by revealing an ugly side effect of smoking; distortion of skin.

One of the ways that photography limits our understanding of the world is through the manipulation of images to trick us. In cigarette advertisements, the picture of the cigarettes is edited with vibrant colors and little details to the point that it starts to persuade the viewer to think that smoking is good. This is how companies manipulate their images to fool us. Others claim that it does not matter because the point that the advertisement is trying to make is that cigarettes are harmful, but this does not go through the viewers heads because

Approximately twenty percent of adults in the United States smoke cigarettes, it is this habit which is the number one cause of death that is easily preventable. Anti-smoking advertisements are seen throughout our society, usually showing the harmful effects of tobacco through graphic pictures or other shocking images. The advertisement I chose is a black and white image, showing a young man smoking a cigarette, with the smoke from it forming a gun pointed at his head. Off to the side appear the words, “Kill a cigarette, save a life. Yours.” The advertisement makes use of the three rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos through its image and implied meanings. Through this, the image is able to convey a strong sense of danger and bring awareness to the deadliness of smoking.

Do you ever watch the Super Bowl for its commercials? Have you ever bought a more expensive product because you had seen its advertisement? If the answer is yes, then you might have been a victim of today’s marketers. Jean Kilbourne, the author of “Killing us Softly” stated in one of her lectures, “The influence of advertising is quick, cumulative and for the most part, subconscious, ads sell more products.” “Advertising has become much more widespread, powerful, and sophisticated.” According to Jean Kilbourne, “babies at six months can recognize corporate logos, and that is the age at which marketers are now starting to target our children.” Jean Kilbourne is a woman who grew up in the 1950s and worked in the media field in the 1960s. This paper will explain the methods used by marketers in today’s advertising. An advertisement contains one or more elements of aesthetics, humor, and sexual nature.

Did you know that according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that about 15% of adults in the U.S. use some variation of tobacco? Tobacco use is the number one cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, causing more than 480,000 deaths every year, which is approximately 1 of every 5 deaths.1 Award-winning youth tobacco prevention campaign launched by the Food and Drug Administration, The Real Cost, in their television advertisement, “Little Lungs in a Great Big World: Birthday”, describes the effect of tobacco on one's lungs through the use of satire, animation, and facts. The Real Cost’s purpose is to prevent youth from trying tobacco and to reduce tobacco use among youth already experimenting with tobacco. They use a satirical tone in order to start a conversation among youth about tobacco use and to capture their audience's attention to educate American youth on the health consequences of using tobacco.

Another woman brings up to a little girl how smoking can increase your risk of aging. This advertisement shows logos into play. Logos is shown when it is stating the reasoning on why children should not start smoking. Pathos is also shown when the adults state the reason why one should not pick up a cigarette. The different kind of effects creates a sense of fear and avoidance of the product.

Advertisements are all over the place. Whether they are on the Internet, billboards, or in a magazine, there is no way of escaping them. They all have their target audience who the specifically created the ad for. In this ad, it targets mainly non-smokers and even smokers. The advertisement we are looking at is a woman’s mouth. Her mouth is slightly open and the inside is swallowed by a black hole. Her bright red lipstick grabs your attention. What disgusts you is her teeth. Her teeth have been replaced with vulgar. Cigarette buds. The advertisement utilizes the three rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos through its image and implied meanings. Through this, the image is able to convey a vividsense of disgust and promote awareness.

Following in Our Footsteps Our children learn from watching everything we do, from being studious to smoking. At least, this is what ClearWay Minnesota is presenting to us. To elaborate, ClearWay’s We All Pay the Price for Tobacco ad uses a not-so subtle combination of narration, causation, and pathos as rhetorical devices to assure us of the risks of smoking. To start, they present to the viewer with a short thirty second video where they show a loving mother helping her young daughter study multiplication for school. As they finish working through a problem, the mother asks her daughter to keep working while she steps away for a moment.

Smoking continues to be an increasing problem in both the United States and around the world. Advertisements of many types continue to aid in lowering the use of cigarettes by teenagers. In this advertisement, published by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), many rhetorical devices are used to help appeal to the audience’s senses, understanding, and perception on smoking cigarettes. Using a young woman in the advertisement shifts the focus towards teenagers that smoke cigarettes, have thought about smoking, or have been around others that do smoke. With the incorporation of the FDA’s “The Real Cost” campaign logo, facts about the outcome of smoking, and the photograph of the young girl's face, this advertisement serves the purpose of grabbing the attention of teenagers that use cigarettes and warns them of the negative outcomes of smoking by using certain appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos.

In the commercial created by the CDC “Terrie’s ad” a woman is in a hospital bed speaking against smoking cigarettes. Her voice is very difficult to understand, her skin has detrimentally changed, and the imagery portrayed is very disturbing to the audience. Terrie claims she started smoking as a teenager, and it is eventually released that she dies at the age of fifty-three from cancer. The purpose of this commercial is to stop people from smoking, ideally before they start. To reach this goal the creators of the video utilize multiple rhetorical appeals in an attempt to get across to the audience.

Smoking is something that can really affect you internally and externally. Many people know this for a fact yet they can’t seem to quit smoking. This is because of the nicotine in the cigarette itself. Nicotine is absorbed into your bloodstream as you smoke, then it travels to your brain. It causes your brain to release adrenaline, which is a chemical in your brain that gives you pleasure. The Real Cost’s anti-smoking PSA “Straw City” is effective because it creates a clear cause and effect, a moral that is easily understood, and a good visual that teens, who are the audience, are familiar with.

Several changes occurring during this stage and the growing needs alter. It is common during this time for boys to feel masculine and for girls to be concerned about their appearance. Some teenagers become rebellious and may want to defy the mainstream (Eccles, Jacquelynne). Disclosed documents from the tobacco industry’s advertising agencies reveal discussions about how psychosocial drivers are the best way to reach underage youth. Young people’s lifestyles, motivations, and aspirations are the subject of detailed and continuous market research. Everything possible is done to attract and retain their interest. Specifically, the conclusion is drawn repeatedly in these documents that young people smoke for emotional reasons and cigarettes can meet these needs by being aspirational and acting as “a badge” and a “sign of maturity, discernment and independence.” (Teague, Claude). The job of advertising, therefore, is to help build and reinforce these qualities in the

For many years, cigarettes manufacturers had used deceitful and untrue adverts about smoking. Rather than highlight the dangers associated with this practice, they presented smoking as fun, a sigh of maturity, rebelliousness, and even independence. These ads were aimed at

Advertisement has made children want to grow up much faster than what they are capable of mentally and physically. In “Teen Smoking Is a Serious Problem” by James D. Torr, he states, “Advertising, along with television and movies, has glamorized smoking, making it seem like a sophisticated ‘adult’ activity.” Each one of these companies know how to attract teenagers with logos and

     The appearance of these models is the primary concern of the ads and entails many different elements. Every model portrays a different characteristic through the pose they are in and the clothes that they wear. One ad depicts a sexy young woman who shows confidence by extending her arms out and exposing her flat stomach. Her hips are thrust to the left side, her long beautiful hair is gently blown back, and her facial expression and eye contact hint at sexual desire or acceptance of the viewer. Another female model also has her hips out to the left, but her hands express a different idea. While one hand is used to play with her hair, the other is up to her face with her pointer finger right below her bottom lip. Her hair partly covers her eyes and with her head slightly down, she comes off as shy but confidant. The confidence comes from her exposed stomach and direct eye contact that she makes with the viewer. These two women are somewhat opposite in how they come off which shows that Calvin Klein is trying to appeal to what different guys look for and appreciate in a woman.