Advertisers on Stereotypes

Do advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people?

This would be a really difficult question for me to answer. If I were an advertiser, it would be heavily important to carefully select what is being expressed and presented to the media as people can be offended by it. Advertisements play a large role in our lives, therefore I think that advertisers should be more careful of what gets displayed on media as it could be negatively received by different perspectives and cultures. I think that they do have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping others, however they should carefully analyse how this could represent an individual in ads. Perhaps if advertizers looked at this from multiple perspectives, this may improve the advertising industry.

I feel as if, perhaps they do have a moral duty to avoid it, however the ads are being represented world wide, so the advertiser may have not realise that this may have affected another region of the world. The industry should express their intention of what they wanted to portray more instead of only the creative artistic qualities of that advert. This might make the advertisement industry consider how they represent different ideas more thoroughly.

Hour Choice- Never Follow

This ad Hour Choice is characterised by the main component of freedom. This ad is promoting a feminine watch and is associated with expressing the need to individualise yourself away from conformists. The only lines on the page “Never follow” also emphasize this main point in exhibiting to the viewer about the personality of the model and don’t follow the ways of the norm by buying the watch. This could be relatable to the basic appeals I’ve talked about in class as many figures such as the model herself being the main attraction could portray this as the need to escape for example or the need for autonomy for aesthetic components. I think that the slogan of the brand “Hour choice” is a clever way of representing their idea of freedom because it is supposed to be the representation of “Our Choice” which means our choice of freedom. 

The model in the poster is the main focal point. However in my opinion it would entice me and make me think twice about why she was represented in this way. The target audience would be young adult females like the model who feel strongly about being their own individual and finding their own identity, which could perhaps be why the company chose to emphasize the western idea of a wedding dress that is not suppose to match the converse she is wearing. Woman who get married at this age might preferably wear elegant high heels which could visually junta pose that the watch and shoes are how the company expresses the freedom of choice. This is of course related to Ethos, which I think is important to young adult females. 

Perhaps this could relate to how women are represented. The commercial might have represented the model in this way, to model the watch in such a way that it would seem as if they were trying to change the way of women in society, as women did not have as much freedom as the role of a male back then, so women in general would be emphasised in this way.

Pitch Reflection

My group used 3 main appeals, Fear, Rationale, and Bandwagon. We decided that these were the most effective appeals because firstly, fear is compromised mainly of not just attracting the viewer to buy the product, but to also think, "what might happen if I don't buy this product?" and most often it drives the viewer to be more aware or prominently self conscious of what the the advertisement is promoting. For, Rationale, our advertisement shows that the viewer will achieve many things by using the bike share program, because many people sometimes don't see how it might benefit them, whereas our advertisement consists of many factual reasons of why viewers will buy this product.

Some persuasive techniques that I used were Nostalgia, and the need to achieve. Nostalgia is mainly related to Pathos where it is emotionally driven, which is why it is persuasive. I think that emotion has a more powerful effect than reason. However, in this case, our audience were targeted for 40-60 year olds, so the nostalgia will work on these target audience as feel the need to ride the bikes, and especially the bike shares as it will make it easier for them. The need to achieve was something important also, because this is Logos, and is reasoning to why you might want to purchase the bike share programme. The reason is also something that reals in many viewers and they might want to feel the need to achieve being healthy again.

The target audience certainly made this project more easier approached for me, because I know what persuasive techniques to use towards this audience, however the context was a bit more challenging for me, as it was something I'm not familiar with, and it took a lot of thinking to put it in categories of basic appeals. My approach to this activity made me a little bit unconfident in myself, because the context was something that made me stuck for a while. However, after a while I understood it and I feel more better when given situations about this.

Some images that my group included were effective in our opinion because for example, the nostalgia effect, it helps a visual representation or aid of what was introduced in the beginning. Also, the pictures do not show any bad signs or representations, except for the first slides where fear was introduced.

This definitely prepared me to do my FOA. I am a really shy person, and it makes me nervous to do presentations. Especially when it is two classes combined. So, I feel that even though I know I didn't do as well as others, I feel that the FOA will be better prepared for, once I saw my other classmates prepare. It gave me a chance to talk persuasively towards the audience, which is something that I've never really done before as well.

The Festival of Lights.

This advertisement is a poster about the Festival of Lights, which is known as "Diwali." In Malaysia, Diwali is just around the corner and is celebrated widely.  This poster is  advertising "Digi" which is a popular cell phone brand in Malaysia, and the point of view is from the company. The viewer had grabbed the readers attention by using the colours of Diwali, to their advantage, because it shows a focal point which transitions to the children. 

This advetisement exhibits evidence of Ethos because the company has shown that the money that will be donated to The total Empowerment Camp, which is authentic and it is more believable as it is more referenced to where the money will go.  Also, there seems to be some credibility in the fine print at the bottom about Digi which shows that they are authentic and appeal to be convincing to the audience. There is a Digi logo on the bottom right hand corner, with they’re slogan of “Always the smarter choice” which might perceive to be credible, because it is a widely known cell phone company and the slogan might make the audience feel more attractive because of the wording that it IS the smarter choice head on. 

As mentioned in the first paragraph, the use of a colourful advertisment will attract the viewers, which will transition to the children. The children express happiness on their face because of the light being lit by the Digi mans hand (The digi man is a very popular character throughout Malaysia) which is symbolising to light up their life. This is important because this persuasively used for Pathos. The audience who use Digi will feel empathy for the children which is why the children with happy expressions are in the main focus, as it takes up the whole poster, instead of  Digi’s logo or slogan represented on the bottom half,  as they are trying to appeal and connect to the audience in an emotional way because it is ethical to help children in need. 

I feel that the last line is an excellent example of Logos. Throughout the paragraphs above, it has expressed emotional encouragement, and authencity. However, the last line shows that through these emotional connections and how credible and believable it is, the advertisment gives reason as to why you should help these children. This is a good way to wrap up the poster because some people might logically connect their reasoning to this. At the bottom, I feel that the words “Free” and “30% off” are in cap lock because it is contrasting to the emotional side of helping the children, and transitioning into what Digi could offer you as a deal.