Magazine ad analysis 1-1.5 page - Essay Example

Magazine Ad Analysis The magazine ad for Garnier Nutritioniste Ultra-Lift Deep Wrinkle Treatment is targeted toward older women who are just beginning to show the signs of aging. This is made clear both because of the use of a female face to help sell the product as well as in the social understanding that it is mostly women who are concerned about showing their age. On one half of the ad is a picture of Sarah Jessica Parker with her hair pulled back in a white headband and looking straight out at the audience.

Her lips are slightly parted and her eyes are clearly focused on the camera. The other half of the ad features a large picture of the product and three small close-ups of portions of Parker’s face on a black background and explained with a good deal of text. As a result, the ad is presented in a split vertical panel allowing one side to ‘speak’ to the consumer on an emotional level while the other side ‘speaks’ on a more scientific level to try to convince customers to purchase this product.

This presentation makes it clear that the Elaboration Likelihood Model is being used to persuade customers to purchase the product. The Elaboration Likelihood Model consists of two routes of thinking. The first of these is the central route. The central route uses high elaboration to encourage extensive issue-relevant thinking. This route is taken on the right side of the advertisement in the black panel. Here, the consumer is shown close-up specific areas of the face that the product is intended to improve.

While the text promises that with use of the product “skin looks dramatically younger”, the close-up pictures illustrate where it improves appearance by plumping the skin such as around the mouth area, how it improves appearance by filling in lines such as those usually found on the forehead and how it smoothes skin with a close-up of Parker smoothing the product over her cheek with a carefully manicured hand. The final piece of information provided in this panel is a circle divided into three equal parts, each of which is filled with a symbol or segment of a main ingredient used in the product.

This suggests that the product is all-natural and thus presumably healthier than other products that are built with more chemicals. This high degree of information forces the intended consumer to consider the various issues involved in her choices for skin care products, promising desired results in a healthy, all-natural material. The second route of thinking used in the Elaboration Likelihood Model is the peripheral route. This route uses low elaboration allowing consumers to make simple decisions based more upon emotional reaction formed through cues other than explicit information.

This is the approach used on the left side of the advertisement through the close-up of Sarah Jessica Parker’s face. Cacioppo’s Influence Principles are employed here offering social proof and liking. Parker is widely considered to be a very attractive women with an ageless quality about her primarily because she is older than her mid-20s, but no one knows how much older because she doesn’t show it. The close-ups of her face don’t seem to reveal a great number of wrinkles or other signs of age.

At the same time, Parker is a celebrity and is well-liked by the demographic the advertisers are attempting to sell on the product. Although there is a series of progressive shots demonstrating the improvements in Parker’s appearance over time, supposedly as a result of using the product, the end result is simply that she is a beautiful woman. This association causes many women in the target group to desire results like Parker has experienced and thus persuades them to at least give the product a try.