preview

What Ads Say Essay

Good Essays

Effective Writing
Muthyala

What Ads Say/What We Remember

“After all, advertisements are purely functional things, and therefore the criterion is their success as advertisements and not as works of art.”
- H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh

Well, yes. Although recognizable works of art are commonly used in advertisements, the ads themselves will most likely never end up in the louver. With both of those mediums, though, you will notice that an individual’s retention level will be remarkably similar. Most people could identify Whistler’s Mother, although they could not cite any gender inequality issues concerning the painting. Similarly, people could remember that people say …show more content…

This simple act of cooking, though, also carries with it the connotation of eating alone. The men she is with are doing other things, so the woman decides, again in Bordo’s words, to use “eating…as a substitute for human love” (162). With that in mind, the copy one would expect to read would be something like ‘They may not pay attention to me, but they can’t stop me from cooking!’ only cleverer. The copy actually reads: “Cut from a different cloth”, which is the only sort of indication the ad gives that it is promoting clothes. Without the copy, the ad does nothing but portray the separateness of the woman and men. According to Rosser Reeves’ book Reality in Advertising, “The consumer tends to remember just one thing from an
Lively 3

advertisement – one strong claim, or one strong concept.” (34). I have looked at that Ben Sherman ad hundreds of times now, and I still have to check it to remember the copy, but I could describe the scene – especially the woman – quite accurately. By setting her apart and having her ‘do her own thing’, the ad calls attention to the rift between the genders, and what they do to fill that rift.
The same sort of rift, stylistically instead of spatially, exists between the Ben Sherman ad and my second, a Better Sex advertisement. The latter is for a sexual instruction video, and uses it’s extremely

Get Access