Instructions
Analyze four separate advertisements that you encounter while you engage in media consumption. These four advertisements may be a combination of television or streaming video commercials (for YouTube, Hulu, etc.), print/newspaper ads (paper or online), radio or streaming audio ads, or ads you come across on your social media feeds. Quite typically, you may encounter the same set of ads multiple times throughout the week given most people’s consistent media consumption patterns, so this may give you the opportunity to view the advertisement several times (advertisements may also be available for viewing on YouTube).
For each ad, fill out the following template:
Target audience
Who do you imagine is the target audience for this ad? In doing so, look through the demographic categories in Part One and answer engage with three of the following categories:
Age
Education
Race/ethnicity
Marital status
Geographic region
Community type
Income (not listed in Part One)
Religious preference
Employment
Political preference
Home ownership
Psychographics
Interests/hobbies
Who might be excluded from the target audience in the categories you selected? (For example, this Dr. Pepper commercial probably targets men, probably adult age, whose hobbies are physical activities. It doesn’t include women and people whom aren’t interested in physical activity in their target audience, and probably excludes senior citizens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Dcoer2oxA). This Lincoln commercial probably targets people with high income, probably educated people since education and income are closely related, luxury lovers, and folks probably living in upper middle class suburbs. It does not include people of low income, less educated, bargain shoppers, and those who live in rural areas in their target audience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu2chJBbrj0).
2. Describe the ad. In doing so, engage with at least two of the following elements for each ad and describe in detail:
Voiceover (male or female)
Demographics of person/people in advertisement
Activity in advertisement
Slogan or message (audio or text if print ad)
Physical setting of the advertisement (if audio setting may still be ascertainable)
Answer the following questions for each ad:
Where did you see this ad?
To what degree do you think that you are part of the target demographic for the ad?
Have the advertisers chosen the appropriate media venue/content to showcase their products/services? In other words, did the advertisers choose the right platform (YouTube, Twitter, webpages, etc.)? If you were in charge of showing the same ad, where else would you exhibit it, and why?
Your analysis/reflection on each ad should be about 1 to 1.5 pages double spaced, meaning your total analysis/reflection for all ads should be between 4 to 6 pages. I suggest you organize this project by ad, number each of your answers to that question (1., 2., 3.), and then do the same for the next ad, and so on. You should be responding in paragraph form with fully written, developed responses. You must also include the ad in some way, such as through a link, picture, screenshot, etc.
(MLO: 6-9 [of week 4])
