Analyzing Advertisements

Outline

The paper will focus on two advertisements from United Airlines and Emirates Airlines, which are both well-known airline companies.
The paper will be divided into three sections, an introduction, a descriptive section and an analytical section.
Both advertisements will be described in detail separately. This will be done in order to provide the reader with an idea of the actual advertisement in the case that they do not have access to it.
Analysis will then take place in which case each advertisement will be analyzed differently.
Aspects that will be analyzed include the following:
a) The target audience of both advertisements and reasons to support this claim
b) The values that the advertisements are appealing to, and the methods they have used to achieve this
c) Three rhetorical appeals, ethos, logos and pathos and their usage in the advertisements
d) Examples to support each of the three rhetorical appeals in each of the advertisements
e) General opinion of the advertisements and recommendations to improve on them

Introduction

Advertising refers to a form of communication intended to persuade a particular group of people. The persuasion may be to encourage them to keep using a commodity or start using a new one, for example. For this reason, advertisements should appeal to the target audience in order to get their attention. Advertisements may also be used to raise awareness about issues like environmental conservation, for example. Creation of advertisements requires unusually high levels of expertise. This is because they need to devise approaches that will undoubtedly draw the attention of the customers. They achieve this by the inclusion of fine intricate details that influence the thinking of the audience. In this case, the analysis will be focused on two airline companies, Emirates and United airlines based in Dubai and U.S.A respectively. The analysis will seek to find out the target markets for the two companies and the rhetorical appeals that they have used in their advertisements.

Description of advertisement 1

This is the advertisement by the airlines company based in the United States, United Airlines. The advertisement was created to let their customers know of the new destinations to which the airline was planning to start flying. The advertisement is set in a blue background. Different shades of blue have been used bring out various effects in the target audience. The shades of blue used are light blue, pale blue and dark blue. The main background is light blue, but a picture of an airplane in the sky intercepts it. This picture is located roughly in the centre of the advertisement. However, it is essential to note that the picture of the plane is not straight but is tilted slightly anticlockwise amidst the light blue background of the advertisement. The plane is white with the title ‘UNITED’ in dark blue at the front on one side. It also has a mustard colored line that goes around the plane.

Mustard and dark blue are the official colors of the company. The tail of the plane has the logo of the company amidst a dark blue background. The logo is a portion of a globe, and it is situated at the lower end of the tail of the airplane. The airplane shown is flying over a dense cloud cover. At the bottom of the page, there is an illustration of various cities in a dark blue background. Only the very significant features of the cities in the advertisement are identifiable for instance tall buildings. Such tall buildings intercept the picture of the airplane in the advertisement. Atop the depiction of the cities, there is some writing in medium sized font and white. The words are situated at the bottom left corner of the advertisement. The wording explains the reasons why the airline is making the advertisement. The three main locations that they are traveling to be printed in mustard, which provides a contrast since the rest of the words, are printed in white.

The three new locations are New York, Chicago and Washington D.C. In addition to this, a captivating sentence has been placed in this region with the company name written in bold mustard color. The sentence placed is ‘get ready to experience unparalleled service…now UNITED’ with the last two words on mustard (United Airlines, 1). The name of the company, ‘UNITED’, has been placed in the bottom right corner of the advertisement. The font used is large, bold and in white. This section also has the picture of the globe amidst a white background, which is the company logo. At the very bottom of the advertisement, the website of the company has been placed in bold but with a similar medium sized font as in most of the writing in the advertisement. In addition, the terms and conditions have been placed in small font and white.

Description of advertisement 2

This is the advertisement by Emirates airlines that is based in Dubai. This advertisement is of a general nature unlike the former that advertises to let the customers now that they have introduced new services. The advertisement is an overview of the city of Dubai with the Burj Dubai as its focal point. Since it is an overhead photograph, it makes it more appealing because of the clear distinction between the foreground and background. It also has a young woman holding a phone towards her and smiling brightly as though fascinated by the beauty of the place. The advertisement is an overhead photograph of downtown Dubai, and it shows all the buildings and features in the actual region. The picture’s foreground is a clear depiction of buildings in Dubai while the background shows some buildings, which are not very clear because they are further. The advertisement also shows a bright day with minimal cloud cover, which highlights the presence of a beautiful blue sky. The advertisement is written in both English and Arabic.

Writings are located at the top of the advertisement on the left side. ‘Dubai re-imagines the world’ has been written in white and a large and fancy font. Below it, some more information has been given in a similar color, but with a much smaller font. The message given is “Say hello to the home of tomorrow. Over half the world’s population lives less than eight hours away from each other. Join them in Dubai.” (Taylor, 1) The same message is also illustrated in Arabic below the English version. On the right side, the emblem of the company is given with the words, ‘Hello Tomorrow’ written in large font, which is white in color in front of the logo. At the far bottom on the right side of the advertisement, the website of the airline has been provided in medium sized font. The general effect of the advertisement is an appealing view of one of the most beautiful and popular cities in the world.

Analysis of the advertisements

a) United Airlines

This advertisement seems to target an audience that is seeking a reliable means of transport to several areas. Business people may be a highly appropriate audience for this advertisement. This is because, through the advertisement, the company is letting the customers know of the availability if a nonstop service which will save a lot of time for them. The airline also offers ‘unparalleled service’ to their customers, which is what the business executives for instance need. The advertisement appeals to specific values like reliability and speed. This is evidenced by the fact that they are offering a faster method of travel. In addition to this, they provide high quality services to their customers, which they refer to as ‘unparalleled.’ The advertisement is constructed to appeal to the said values first because of the writing in it. They state that they are providing a new service in which the customers will be able to travel nonstop to either New York Chicago or Washington D.C. from Brussels.

This shows that the advertisement was engineered to appeal to the customers who need speed. In the case of reliability, they explain that the type of service that they offer is incomparable to any other airline in quality. This aspect shows that the advertisement was created to appeal to the value of reliability. Rhetorical appeals have been used in this advertisement. Ethos is apparent in this advertisement in the wording. The words used in this advertisement are persuasive and make the audience trust this brand more. Therefore, the use of convincing language is the evident use of ethos in this advertisement. Pathos comes into play in the use of ‘get ready to experience unparalleled service.’ Pathos seeks to tap into the emotions of the audience. In this case, the offer of high quality services enables the advertisement to appeal to its target audience.

That is, the advertisement makes the customers want to experience this type of service. Logos is shown in this advertisement through the words that they have used. The advertisement states that they have unveiled a new service, which enables their customer to travel nonstop to three of the busiest cities in the country. Logos always seeks to use persuasion based on reasoning. In this case, the availability of an option that will save a lot of time for the students is very reasonable and is evidence of the use of logos in the advertisement. Generally, the advertisement was effective in appealing to the audience that they intended as evidenced by their use of words mainly. However, they would have included a picture of a businessperson for instance to relay the message more effectively.

b) Emirates

The target audience of this advertisement seems to be the people who travel for leisure. This is because the advertisement’s focal point is a very popular hotel. In addition to this, the use of a young woman so happy as she is sight seeing proves emphasizes on the target audience. The advertisement is appealing to their target audience by the use of a distinguished hotel as its centre pint as well as the use of a young woman, presumably a tourist who is happy. Additionally, the good weather depicted in the advertisement intends to attract the audience even more. The advertisement is created to specifically appeal to the value of pleasure. This is evidenced by the use of the hotel and the young woman in the advertisement. The hotel is famous for offering high quality services and these appeals to the audience that is seeking pleasure and excitement.

The use of the happy young woman holding a phone also appeals to the appropriate audience because they are able to identify with her joy in being in that place. Ethos has been used in this advertisement by the inclusion of a person who is enjoying the view of the city. The target audience is able to relate to the happiness of the young woman and they believe the advertisement more because of her. Pathos is achieved in this advertisement by appealing to the audience’ emotions and in this case it is evidenced by the use of a young woman who looks very happy. The target audience will want to be as happy as the person in the advertisement is and they will resort to visiting Dubai in order to obtain the same level of happiness that she has in the advertisement (Egendorf, 98).

Logos in the advertisement is illustrated by the words in it. The advertisement states, “Over half of the world’s population lives less than eight hours away” (Taylor, 1). This statement appeals to the reason of the audience because it shows that over half of the population has already visited the place. In addition to this, the use of the happy young woman enables the target audience to understand that the only reason why the person is happy because they have genuinely enjoyed themselves. For this reason, they may decide to visit Dubai. This advertisement is very effective is appealing to their target audience since they have used appropriate methods to draw their attention, particularly the use of the young woman who is smiling happily in the advertisement.

Works Cited

Egendorf, Laura K. Advertising. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Print.

Taylor, Adam. Burj (2012), Dubai.

United Airlines. UnitedAd_ConceptArev520 (n.d), Brussels.