Print Ad Analysis

Hi,

In this post, I will be analysing the following print ad in order to see its cultural and social contexts as well as values considered important and who is empowered in the advertisement.

As it can be seen, the advertisement consists of two people, one male and one female being close to each other. In the bottom right corner we can notice the product that the ad is promoting. From the point of view of the text present in the ad it can be seen that it consists of few sentences that are meant to impact the audience and most importantly that are short and concise so that the audience could focus more on the image itself. Firstly, it can be stated that the ad is directed mainly towards the Indian culture and the reason would be the choice of the models. To be more precise, the female model has been identified as being Anushka Sharma, known as a famous Bollywood actress. Using a famous actress for such an ad can be considered as having a big impact since it could influence the society’s view of beauty and change its beauty standards. Knowing this brings us to the purpose of the ad. It can now be seen as valuing beauty and especially female beauty. It is noticeable that in the print ad, the female model is placed centrally and most important she is revealing most of her skin with the purpose of evidencing the smoothness that women can obtain by using the Nivea product. Therefore, this reveals not only the main purpose of selling the product but also another characteristic valued by the print ad, soft skin. Indian culture is as mentioned used for the ad’s context, where the empowerment is visibly owned by the female model, the male model only ‘filing the blanks’ of the picture. He is marginalized or ignored at some degree, revealing that, at least for this ad, the beauty and the skin’s aspect of the male is not as important. But what could be the reason? The reason could be the message that is trying to be sent. If we think about it, the ad could encourage young women to use the products in order to obtain a soft skin and therefore becoming attractive to men, this being the only aspect where the ad links to them. The way in which the advertisement is presented with the two models close to each other can reveal another valued aspect which is intimacy. The hint for this is being given by the relaxed and friendly tone of the print ad. Overall, all these elements of the ad can be considered as revealing potential views of the Indian culture towards beauty and differences between the beauty standards regarding men and women.