Print Advertising

Print advertising is a form of advertising, using physically printed media such as magazines and newspapers to reach out to businesses, prospects and consumers. The are usually used to enhance the image of the company, attracting in a visual way through colours, shapes and fonts. Not only this but they point out and create a need for products/services, announce new programs and services and convince customers that a companies services are the best. They were introduced in the 1920s, the first printed adverts being about tobacco, promoting it rather than express the dangers of it. Not only this but make up brands such as Maybelline also made printed advertisements to promote new products, old products and upcoming products, and also different food products were advertised, for instance Kellogg's, all shown above. The effects of these adverts led to them being carried on and are still being used to this day. Since then however, there have been massive changes to the adverts, with reduced text and more visual effects, leading them to be more aesthetically pleasing and eye catching.

What's included in printed advertisement?
*Model - direct contact.
*Colours - strong and bold.
*Font families.
*Logo of brand.
*Image of product.
*Slogans/straplines.

https://www.fedena.com/blog/2014/02/advantages-disadvantages-print-media.html - After using my own research, I found different advantages and disadvantages of print advertising. One way in which advertising is good is because magazines and newspapers are very common in our era, and so print adverts are noticed on a daily basis, therefore always allowing the advertisement to be seen by someone at some point of the day. Not only this but print media is an easy medium to spread awareness or advertise to any particular area geographically. Also, some forms of print media have a huge and trusted followers.

All printed advertisements come under one of the three: Pathos, Ethos or Logos.

Ethos: This is an appeal to ethics, and it's a meaning of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader.

An example of ethos is "Doctors all over the world recommend this treatment".

Pathos: This is an appeal to emotion, and is the way of convincing an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response.

An example of pathos is: "If we don't move soon we're all going to die! Do you not understand that?"

Logos: This is the appeal to logic, a way of persuading an audience by reason.

An example of logos is:  "History has shown time again that power corrupts absolutely"

These can all be used with print advertisements, explaining what a company's message is to many people.

The first print advert:

This is a Mac Cosmetics print advertisement, advertising their different products on different facial features. The purpose of this advert is to show that their products are for everyone, suiting every skin type.


They have added their logo to this advert, showing who it is selling this product. This is what people recognize about Mac Cosmetics, simplistic due to it being sans serif in white. With it being in white makes people feel as though MAC is pure and innocent.


The ad itself is creative, using layers of different facial features. This is trying to show how you can buy any of these products and have them work for anyone. This fits under Logos due to it persuading an audience by reason. Within the text it's using statistics too, informing the audience about the products, therefore making the products seem safe to use. By adding in facts and figures it makes the brand much more trustworthy, therefore leading people to buy it. The advertising model it would fit into is AIDA, attention being the advert drawing people in due to it being vibrant and bold, interest being people reading into the products on the advert and making people think about buying it. The desire would come from how it looks on the person in the ad, due to products matching certain faces people would want to look the exact same, and so would feel like buying the product just so they can look as good as the models do. Finally, the action would be to buy the products, and if they feel they're as good as they're made out to be then they may recommend to other people, leaving a bigger audience for MAC Cosmetics. Mac also follows the codes and conventions. This is because they use bright and bold colours to draw people's attention. They deliberately chose the colour red for her lips because red is a passionate colour, dominant and easily spotted. Not only this but they added in their logo to show that it's their brand and they're proud of it. They also include images of products, which run at the bottom of the advertisement, showing the different skin care they have. Also, you could say they use the continuity theory, looking from left to right, which, if so, the customer will look left to right at the products and see what order you apply these products on your face in.

However, they don't use a model, someone people recognize. By them not doing this, people aren't as willing to spend the price they ask to be paid on this product as they don't see anyone famous using it. For years people have used a model on their print advertisement because that way your brand is associated with that certain celebrity, so every time you saw them on the TV or heard their voice you'd instantly think of that brand, the bigger the celebrity, the more popular a brand will be, and so by MAC not using a celebrity on this print advert they haven't successfully got an advert which people will be trusting in. Not only this but MAC have also put quite a lot of text onto their print advert. In some cases this can be seen to be good because people like to know about a brand and what's good about it, however people aren't going to want to look at a paragraph of text, they just want to be given the message through a couple of words, persuaded to buy something just by looking at the advert.

However, MAC does still portray the message of their product suiting all skin types, and so they have been successful in creating a print advert that explains how everyone can shop at MAC Cosmetics.

The second print advert:

This advertisement for Moms Demand Action is extremely effective. The company has used this to create shock, leaving it to be Pathos. This is because it's striking emotions straight away, comparing something so innocent to something dangerous. 'Moms Demand Action' made this ad aimed towards children in schools to raise awareness. The reason this is so effective is purely because of the innocence and vulnerability of the two children on the advertisement. Kinder Eggs are a chocolate egg, a favourite treat of many children across the UK, and so by this being compared to such a dangerous thing it's showing how appalling and disrespectful it is.

Not only this but they're also in a school, which again reinforces how the ad is aimed towards children in schools, wanting to express how they shouldn't be using guns, putting themselves and others in danger. As well as this, it gets the readers involved by telling them to "guess which one". This places power into the reader's hands and therefore helps them to engage with the advert.

It follows certain codes and conventions, such as having the logo of the company in the corner so the reader knows who it is who is trying to put this strong message across. Not only this but the colours are also effective. The choice of colours the children are wearing was deliberate, using the purple and white striped top to represent a vulnerable girl, growing up in a world of danger rather than living the golden age. The boy is wearing a red top, symbolic in the way that red represents danger, showing how guns being legal in America should be banned for the safety of children, as well as other people. Having the colours contrast the logo also follows codes and conventions because it allows us to spot the logo in the corner straight away and helps us to see who it is who's wanting to spread awareness. The logo is recognisable and memorable, so every time someone sees the logo they will instantly think of what they represent and their purpose . 

However, this company isn't well known, and so people won't relate to it as much due to them simply not knowing who they are. Not only this but they don't use someone people know on the ad. However this may not necessarily be seen as a bad thing because it's using children which Mums can relate to them due to them having children themselves, so know what it feels like when they feel as though their child is in danger.

Yet this ad still successfully delivers the message they intended to put across, aiming it towards both children and adults in order to help them see the stupidity behind banning a Kinder Egg yet allowing children to carry guns. This advertisement effectively uses pathos to strike emotions in the readers and successfully does this.


The third print advert:

This is a campaign to stop smoking, making it illegal to do in order to save rather than take lives.

The campaign uses a monochromatic colour scheme, creating a dramatic effect, leaving the reader to see it to be a very serious issue that needs to be seen to. Not only this but it's very simple, having no over the top background, leaving it to just be black. This is effective because the main focus is therefore on the girl rather than what's happening around her. This advert is pathos because it's striking emotions to the reader as it's showing the effects of smoking near a little girl.

The advert itself is showing a ruined childhood. Childhood is shown by her blowing bubbles, a child's favourite when younger. Instead of it being bubbles of water, it's rings of smoke to show how even if you don't see it affecting your child physically, it's affecting them in ways you can't see.

They've used a sans serif style in order for the reader to be able to see this as well as the image. By having it in white can relate to the purity and vulnerability of a child, and also can show a contrast between the background and the text. Not only this but it can be a contrast between the good and the bad, the background of black representing darkness, and the white text representing the good of stopping in order to stop smoking affecting a young child.

As well as this to have the model being a little girl makes the reader feel sorry for her, having to be around people who smoke all the time. It shows how she can be affected in more ways than one.

It follows some of the codes and conventions such as it involving the slogan for the campaign, and also even though the colours may not seem bold and vibrant for a campaign, they're effective in showing a dark side to smoking. However to make this advert better they could've used a logo of the campaign as I don't know which campaign is trying to stop people from smoking. With it not having a logo brings the risk of it not being noticed as much as other campaigns so may not be taken as seriously as other ones. Not only this but it doesn't use a well known person on it, doesn't help when trying to make people more aware of the problems.

However this ad tries to make sure people can see the problems with smoking and so successfully shows that by using a little girl, keeping it simplistic and effective.