Discussing the advertising of the Peugeot 607

1. “The activity of attracting public attention to a product or business, as by paid announcements in the print, broadcast, or electronic media. 2. The business of designing and writing advertisements. 3. Advertisements considered as a group: This paper takes no advertising.” TAKEN FROM DICTIONARY.COM One of the many ideas behind advertising is to create awareness of a particular new product. To do this effectively the designers of the advert use various techniques. These include a varied selection of colours, images and text. Personally, I find that the most effective adverts are the ones that contain a deeper meaning. I am going to analyse various adverts to see how the designers employ these methods to advertise their products.

PEUGEOT 607: This is an advert taken out of the newspaper ” The Sunday mercury” and it is an effective advert that advertises the manufacturers new model Peugeot, the 607. If we look firstly at the newspaper this advert is printed in we can understand the type of audience the manufacturers are aiming the new car at. The Sunday Mercury is a newspaper written to appeal to the more business-like tabloid readers. So naturally an advert printed in a newspaper such as this will be aimed at the more sophisticated reader. Close analysis of the advert shows themes that support this idea.

The message of this advert involves the idea that this new model car is upgraded model, which is more suited to the sophisticated driver. The advert itself mainly comprises of a giant image. This suggests that the advert was designed to grab the attention of the reader of the newspaper. The advert shows the picture of the product, the car. But also there is a puzzling image of an attractive female. The idea is that the image of the female grabs the attention of the reader. This advert appears to be aimed at the male readers. This is evident in many ways. For example, the driver of the car is male, which implies that more males would prefer this car rather than females.

Also the advertising tactic is also male orientated. The female figure used is to attract the attention of the male readers. The impression given of by these little subtleties is that the advert is aimed at a higher percentage of male readers than female. The use of colour is interesting. As you can see refreshing tones are used. They signify the pleasure in driving the vehicle. The drive almost becomes magical as the colours used are mystical themselves. This creates the whole magical atmosphere in the readers mind. As the advert is aimed at males, the image of the female is used to grab the attention of the readers.

At this point the advert has successfully gained interest of the reader towards the advert. Notice how the image of the female is very puzzling. Again this is another tactic used by the designer of the advert. As a tactic it is successful as it forces the reader to look elsewhere in the advert in order to find solutions to why the image is puzzling and what is the message behind it. As the advert has been printed in a newspaper the reader has time to think about the advert and analyse in greater detail than if a driver-by saw the advert on a billboard. The advert is laid out with this fact in mind.

This is evident as the text is very small, only a person who looks at the advert for a long period of time would be able to read the text. The colours used for the text still follow the pattern of cool and refreshing tones. However, it doesn’t stand out. I feel that the advert was designed this way because the designer didn’t want the text to be the first noticeable thing in the advert. The reason behind this is because in order for the advert to be effective, the interest of the reader needs to remain on the advert. So a larger image is an effective way of grabbing the attention of the reader whilst a slightly puzzling image is effective in keeping the attention of the reader focused on the advert.

The message of the advert relieves he reader of the puzzle behind the image of the female. The female and the text refer to the manufacturers product, which is on the other side of the advert. At this point it becomes noticeable that there are no buildings, no animals or trees in the advert. It is just a plain road with a mysterious skyline. This is a visual metaphor. The idea is that driving this vehicle is like being in love. Time around you stops and it is just the car, which you love and the road. The female represents a figure similar to the character Cupid. She is holding a bow and her sheath contains arrows.

However she hasn’t fired an arrow at the driver in order for him to fall in love with the car. This is because the driver has fallen victim to the charms of the car. This is the idea behind the advert. Once the reader has understood these ideas the message has become clear. However, if the advert is analysed more carefully, the little techniques used by the designer become clear. For example, I noticed how there is clear film of smoke covering the road. I understand this to be an attempt to create a more heavenly atmosphere. Also the road doesn’t appear to be going to any particular direction, just back to its origin.

Again another tactic employed by the designer. It emphasises the fact that the driver, bound by his love of the car doesn’t care about his destination as long as he can just drive the car. This is a very effective advert in order to emphasise a new product, which is aimed at the male members of society. The intentions of the designers were to advertise this new model and also interest a more sophisticated market to the classy edition of the car.