Excited to find my monthly subscription of Seventeen Magazine sitting on the table with all the other mail from that day, I snatched it up and ran to my room to get the scoop on the latest fashions and beauty secrets. As I flipped through the magazine, I noticed for the first time how many advertisements for various products and such were actually in there. Previous times I would just skim past them and turn to the next page, but after learning a new way of analyzing an advertisers' clever methods to persuade one to buy their product, I brought my attention to their smart word choice and catchy sayings. In this advertisement above for the brand Tampax Radiant tampons, it instantly caught my eye because of all the vibrant colors and a girl with a smile on her face wearing awesome hot pink rain boots and holding a bright colored umbrella in her hand. Me being a visual person, many times if there is an intriguing picture on the page that catches my attention, more than likely I am already sold on the product without even knowing what it is they are selling. In this ad, although this picture was pretty cool to look at, it was the description of what their product can do that truly sold me. "New Tampax Radiant helps keep your period invisible. How you choose to stand out is up to you." This is filled with weasel words that romance the product and make it seem a hundred times better than it really is. The word invisible is extremely vague, and is also somewhat of a lie, because last time I checked a girl's period isn't exactly "invisible." Even in the name of their product they used the "bigger, better, faster" effect and added the word radiant to seem as if their tampons were glamorous and enchanting. It is also trying to go into a personal level to relate to the common girl by using you and your. Overall, I thought this advertisement was kind of cheesy, but I give them props for the clever choice of words they used. If I were oblivious to the way an advertiser thinks to trick people with words, I would have been completely sold with this product, but thanks to critical thinking I have come to learn of their deceiving trickery and conniving persuasion.
What caught my eye about the math equation at the bottom. I find it funny because they include pictures in the addends of the equation. Its amusing to me that they the equation in their ad is supposed to show how simple their product is to achieve invisible protection. But who really knows what invisible protection is? They use glittering generalities to try to convince people it is a wonderful product. Tampax even tries to enhance the look of the box their product comes in to get people buy their tampons. They use a wave of purple and pink to show sophistication. I can't get over their slogan they used to try to sell their product, "How you choose to stand out is up to you." One reason is that they saying has nothing to do with the picutre and the other reason is that it is so open-ended and doesn't have much to do with the product.
ReplyDelete