Analyzing Ads

I came across this first advertisement while skimming through my fiance’s magazine titled The Economist. This ad is for Singapore Airlines, and depicts an attractive couple being sitting in very oversized luxury airplane seats that look more like a sofa, and has the ability to stretch out more like a recliner. This couple looks to be working on a project that stretches across the two of them, and the woman has out her laptop sitting on the seat with her. A well-dressed Asian lady is serving them, and they all look happy and are smiling. The text above the picture reads, “The First All-Business Class Service Between The USA & Asia.” There is text below the picture that says Daily Non-stop Service. Experience The Most Spacious Business Class Seat The World Has Ever Seen.” This advertisement depicts the people who would fly business class as white, well-dressed people, and the airline attendants as Asian women. Because of the magazine that this ad is in, the intended audience they are trying to reach out to are wealthy business people who travel a lot between Asia and the US. Even though the man and the woman appear to be equal, the advertiser still idealizes their genders by having the woman dressed very feminine-like, and she is slender and showing off a fair amount of skin. The man has lots of hair and is also dressed well. Neither one is overweight or has any noticeable flaws.



The second advertisement that I would like to analyze has been found frequently within the last year amongst the pages of the popular men’s magazine titled Maxim. The ad is for Trojan condoms and can be viewed to the left of this text (or at http://amysrobot.com/files/trojan_ad.JPG). This ad is somewhat striking because of how is compares men who do not use condoms to protect themselves and their partners from sexually transmitted infections to dirty pigs. The line at the bottom of the ad reads, “evolve. Choose the one who uses a condom every time.” While this is ad is mainly seen in men’s magazines, there is a message to the women who may page through Maxim and run across this ad, because it is asking women if they would want to sleep with a dirty pig who does not use protection, or would they rather have sex with the handsome man who does use Trojan brand condoms every time. This ad also tells the men that if they have a condom with them (or at least use one), they would have a chance at getting with any of the three beautiful women who are surrounded by swine-like men. Like the Singapore Airlines ad that I mentioned above, the genders of men and women area idealized because all they show in the Trojan advertisement are attractive people.



Lastly, I just wanted to quickly comment/rant on/about the new (Starbucks)Red campaign. The ad makes you think about others as not being so different from yourself, and why wouldn't you want to help out by buying a cup of coffee? While the ad is very much pushing the idea of helping others, it falls back on telling their audience that when you help others, you help yourself. I guess this is probably one of the better ways to advertise this in this very egocentric country, because many people will not do things if they don't somehow benefit from it as well. The following ad gets it's audience to think that if he or she goes into Starbucks through the holidays, Starbucks will donate 5 cents from everyone's drink to Africa. I am just a little upset/sickened by this campaign because when I went into Starbucks the other day, I found out that the cup of coffee that I had purchased did not count towards the drinks that 5 cents are being donated from. In actuality, there are only 3 drinks on the menu that actually count, and they are the three most expensive drinks on the menu! I'm just going to leave it at that, or else this could turn into a very lengthy post... but feel free to view the (Starbucks)Red ad below!