21st Century Advertisement Tactics

At first glance you see an incredibly handsome man embracing an enchanting young lady. The two appear to in love. They are all alone, kissing in a dark gloomy subway station. How can this be an advertisement for men¡¦s shoes? Most advertisements use appealing visuals like these to sell their products. Many of those techniques are illogical, deceptive, and some may even be considered too erotic. The attached advertisement for shoes employs many of these techniques in campaigning their product to customers. It promotes shallow values (sex appeal), it was illogical, and even deceptive.
This advertisement was geared more for men. It is an ad for men¡¦s shoes and was found in a magazine geared for men. The magazine Maximum is geared generally toward the male crowd. The most prominent figure in the advertisement is what appears to be a couple, dressed in dark dull colors, standing in a subway kissing. However, at the bottom of the advertisement a bright tan colored shoe appears to jump out at you from the dismal dark back round. This advertisement is a prime example of using color to promote a product. The tan shoe is bright in contrast to the dismal bland appearance of the background. It seems to jump off the page and grab your attention. Clearly in this advertisement color was used to help elaborate on the product.
The use of color is only one of the many techniques advertising companies can use to embellish their product. Sometimes they may use tactics that upon closer inspection show a lack of logic. For example, in this particular advertisement I noticed a couple kissing. Then as I began to ponder to myself I wondered, ¡§How could that particular shoe help a man get a beautiful women like that?¡¨ It was illogical that because he wore a certain type of shoe he was more attractive to the opposite sex. The sex is supposed to cover up or distract the viewer from the lack of logic in the advertisement.
Not only was this advertisement illogical, but also it was using one of the oldest tactics in advertisement, sex appeal. The advertisement depicted two very attractive people kissing. They are holding each other close and every touch appears to be soft and gentle. From their kiss to the gentle touch of his hand across her lower back, the picture suggests soft sensual movements. All these visuals imply the same thing, sex. Shoes cannot increase the chance that a man will have sex. However, it is implied by the advertising companies to increase the likelihood that the customer will by the product.
Advertising companies to promote a product also use slogans. The slogan used by this advertisement is ¡§GXB no regrets.¡¨ The \"GXB\" is written in large, bold, white letters, and the \"no regrets\" was written in slightly bold, red letters, in an unusual font. At first I noticed that color was once again used to promote the product, but then I found that the slogan was somewhat illogical. What did ¡§no regrets¡¨ mean? No regrets for buying the shoe or possibly no regrets cause I¡¦m with a beautiful girl. It¡¦s not clear as to what the ¡§no regrets¡¨ means in the slogan. The slogan probably is supposed to mean that there are no regrets for buy this shoe because now you are with a beautiful woman. This makes no sense at all.
Advertisements around the world use tactics such as these to lure in potential customers. Techniques such as sex appeal are often deceptive and shallow. Many advertisements are made to present the product in a pleasing fashion and do not always make sense to the customer. An ad that would make more sense would tell the customer how much the product it, what the product is, and where the customer can buy the product. Although not all advertisements use these techniques of deception, sex appeal, or color, many do. This tactics are not just used in magazines, but in advertisements of all kinds. From television, to radio, to product placement in movies, these are employed everywhere. I agree that many advertisements today are deceptive, but there are ways of detecting them. As Susan Douglas once wrote in her essay Remote Control: How to Raise a Media Skeptic about skepticism of advertisements, ¡§¡K I¡¦ve tried to teach my daughter basic bullshit-detecting techniques.¡¨ No matter what technique advertisements use, a person can always stop and analyze it for themselves.