Needs of Reality || Wants of Desire

             From dazzling new make-up lines to sleek new clothing styles, many magazines for young women present the glamour of being young and beautiful. Each page flaunts life as a pursuit of pleasure and happiness. However, reality suggests that life is not solely based on beauty and bliss. So how would an advertiser introduce an aspect of reality that conflicts with the beauty of life? Published in Lucky magazine, an advertisement supporting no smoking by the American Legacy Foundation uses the stark, black and white photo and farewell messages of a devastated, aging woman suffering from emphysema to connect with the audience and to alter the conception that young women may have of smoking.
             Lucky magazine is targeted to young women between the ages of eighteen and twenty- five. It includes tips for fashion and make-up, and the highlights of clothes shopping, but also includes an ad about not smoking. This advertisement appears in a magazine for this age group because smoking under the age of eighteen is illegal and smoking over the age of twenty-five is too late to fix the damage done to the body caused by smoking. Rather than placing the advertisement in a magazine about problems in society, it is in a magazine about shopping. Therefore, the contrast of the problem of smoking and the idea of shopping gives the advertisement a distinguished position among the articles of the outer appeal.
             Most pages of Lucky are filled with bright smiles and vivacious colors; however, this ad is dominated by the face of an older adult woman. All eyes first focus on this image of an aging woman with gray hairs and wrinkles expressing extreme tension on her face to hold in tears. The advertiser chooses a black and white photograph so that it is different from the rest of the colorful pages. Monochrome images are more stark, and tend to focus on the image and not the extra distractions of colors from clothes or jewelry. In addition, the effect that...

More Essays:

APA     MLA     Chicago
Needs of Reality || Wants of Desire. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 11:59, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/79935.html