Visual Advertisement
Introduction
Visual advertisement is a technique of advertisement in which portraits and picture are used to transmit information or persuade audience about a product or an idea. Sometimes, visual advertisements are supplemented with writings therefore, making it possible for audience to easily grasp and interpret the intention of the portraits. The portraits are usually eye catching and they are usually required to be simple to interpret so as to pass the information contradiction. However, visual advertisement is easily misinterpreted and the information intended therefore becomes distorted and becomes useless to the advertising firm and the audience (Faigley 45).
The advertisement of choice is one by World Wildlife Fund which campaigns against poaching and ruthless killing of animals. The advertisement is intended to create awareness of the importance of the fauna and it advocates for peaceful co-existence between human and animals. The visual advertisement was developed by BBDO. This is an advertising firm located in Spain and has vast experience in advertising audio, visual and audio visual. In a glance the advert is a portrait of a bear in a garage, the bear appears dormant and harmless. In the garage is a mechanic as portrayed by his dress code that seems confused and cannot trace a tool to use to fix the bears problem. The advert is intended to pass the message; “There are no tools that can fix extinction.” the portrait is show below.
Logos Appeals, Ethos Appeals and Pathos Appeals
These are the various techniques of persuading audience to accept or agree with an idea that is being conveyed. Each of the techniques is applicable to different audience and information being relayed; a combination of the different persuasion techniques can usually be applied in order to cover all the audiences.
Ethos appeal is the kind of persuasion whereby the advertising personality uses his reputation or that of the company to win the support of the audience. The advertising person exploits his trustworthiness and credibility that has already been built to sell an idea or a product. In the visual advertisement above, the portrait has the logo and name of the institution that is passing the information. World Wildlife Federation is a well-known organization that has been entrusted with protecting wildlife. Therefore, putting their identity at the top right corner of the advert is a technique of using logos appeal to convince audience to protect wildlife. Many audiences will have interest in the advert since the information is from a credible source that directly deals with wildlife, therefore, it implies that the information is creditable and it is not worth doubting. The advert too will be easily accepted by audience sine it is the company that knows all the right and wrong information about wildlife protection.
Pathos appeal is a persuasive technique that employs the use emotional touch to pass the information. In most cases the advertising company or personnel intends to win sympathy and empathy of the audience and therefore in the process sell his idea or product. This persuasive technique is effective since it remains in the mind of the audience even after the advertising is over; further the event recurs every time the audience meets the product and therefore is a good strategy for long term advertising. In the advertisement above, BBDO advertising company employs the use of pathos appeal to pass the information on wildlife protection. In the portrait it is simple to empathize with the bear bearing the situation that it has undergone before it would resort to visit a workshop to have its body fixed, on the other hand, the workshop attendant is frustrated and is displayed sitting down desperately after all his tools seems to be in a position to fix up bears problem. Further, the workshop attendant is pictured sited, this can be interpreted to mean the bear has waited for a lengthy period of time of its problem to be fixed. The level of patience coupled with frustrating from the workshop attendant match perfectly in conveying the information on animal cruelty.
Logos appeal, on the other hand, is a type of apple that the person advertising uses logic to convince the audience about an idea or a product. It seeks to appeal to logical or rational capability of the targeted customers. In this type of persuasion the advertisement is intended to step wise convince the audience about the logic and argument of the idea and why it applicability is of importance. This form of advertisement requires the use reasoning while it also applies the use of evidence and facts to convince the audience and pass out an argument. This kind of advertisement is very effective where facts and evidence are available and therefore the audience has the opportunity to make personal judgment about the presentation and therefore make an informed decision. However, this type of persuasion is challenging since in some instances, audience may not believe in what is being said or they may disapprove the facts and evidence presented and therefore, end up disputing the information. In the above portrait, the advert has some writing ‘EXTINTION CANT BE FIXED’, these writings present an argument that is of very great magnitude and is left for the audience to sentimentalize and reflect. This is a fact that the advertising company uses to pass out its argument, although the argument is a four word sentence it passes out an argument of intense magnitude. In proving the fact from the writing it can be evident from the portrait due to the frustration exhibited by the workshop attendant. This is an implication that the statement is true and therefore, the information surrounding the advertisement is true and undisputable.
This advertisement is an example of employing all the three rhetoric in order to cover all the audiences who are targets of the advert. Employing of the rhetoric in advertisement makes the information clearer and more convincing, in the above advert it is easy to tell that majority of audience if not all of the are likely to be convinced by the advert,
Conclusion
The aim of advertisement is to convince and persuade audience about the use of a product or a field of thought. Visual advertisement is a powerful form of advertisement that is able to employ different rhetoric of advertisement on one portrait. This helps to cover the needs of all the audience intended to be reached since each group of audiences has specific characteristic that are unique to that particular group of audience. The advert developed by BBDO is a successful advert in applying these rhetoric therefore making the information being passed easily accepted by different groups of audiences.