Sociology 100 Course Project - Media Advertisement
"SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy." Yes, I'm sure everyone is familiar with these types of warnings, mainly on tobacco products and ads. Yet, even with these warnings, some people don't seem to care; it just seems as if they are ignoring them. Nevermind the fact that smoking is addictive. Nevermind the fact that smoking sheds 13 years of life from a man or over 14 years from a woman. Nevermind the fact that lung cancer is the leading cause of death among smokers (Heart Disease Weekly 2002). It just doesn't matter. Millions of people brush aside the warnings and decide to smoke a cigarette for the very first time every year.
Tobacco advertisements have been a very controversial issue for the past years. Anti-smoking ad campaigns, such as those TRUTH ads, have been made in an attempt to reveal lies or facts tobacco companies don't reveal in their ads.
Advertising
101 016 (DB class 101) with UNICEF ads at Ingolsta...
Advertisement for "Egyptian Deities" cigarettes, 1...I will attempt to deconstruct a few ads from the many tobacco/cigarette advertising campaigns we see daily through magazines, television, and other media.
One cigarette advertisement I'll first look at is one by Doral Lights. In this advertisement, the slogan used is "Imagine Getting More." The main image is a fortune cookie containing a twenty-dollar bill. Next to the image is supposedly the fortune, "I see 'Cha-Ching' in your future." This ad is one big irony.
First of all, the twenty-dollar bill as a visual image is, in itself, an "attention-getter" - everyone wants and loves money. Although possibly a metaphor of some sort, the slogan "Imagine Getting More" with the fortune "I see 'Cha-Ching' in your future," uses power words and distortions of facts for persuasion. Cha-Ching, or money, are definitely "power words"...