Ad Analysis Essay

Analyzing Advertising A recent Australian Gold sunscreen advertisement from Seventeen Magazine displays an ideal state where a tan, fit, attractive, young woman is carried by an equally tan, fit, and handsome man at the beach. The text states that the sunscreen will give you “the color you crave [and] the protection you need.” This ad builds a convincing claim by appealing to the target audience through highlighting the consumer’s desire for an attractive appearance, its ad layout, and gender representation. Australian Gold successfully draws customers to its product and conveys its message effectively through color coordination and romantic imagery. Although the ad takes up only half a page, its consistent golden hue pops to the reader’s eye. The color yellow connotes warmth, which associated directly with the sun. The sun combined with the waves in the background of the ad gives the beach. The beach leads to thinking about swimsuits, and looking good in them. This process of association ends with the comprehension that being tanned constitutes attractiveness at the beach. Australian Gold’s bronzer sunscreen comes into play in helping the consumer reach that tan. The caption on the page uses “crave” and “need,” building the product up to seem like a necessity in this process. Readers of Seventeen Magazine are teenage girls and young ladies in their early twenties. Australian Gold’s sunscreen products are clearly meant for this audience, as it can be assumed that young women enjoy having tanned skin. The producer of this ad has encoded its intended message into the visual, hoping that the target audience decodes it. This “transfer of meaning” only works if the encoder and decoder have “compatible” understandings within their lives (Ramamurthy 608). Regarding this ad, Australian Gold assumes that there is a mutual understanding of being tan as a social norm. In society, tanned individuals often appear healthier and more attractive. Australian Gold offers consumers that golden glow with this sunscreen-and-bronzer combined product. The models of the imagery play to this assumption. Often, advertisers represent women as both “passive and objects of sexual desire”

Show More