Advertisement is a type of media that relies heavily on visual material and strategies of meaning encoding. A good advertisement, however, has to incorporating various visual codes in such a way, they can be easily and quickly decoded by those who will see them. Ideally, the codes have to be familiar to people on subconscious level. The details have to be harmoniously combined into one clear message. Nevertheless, can the images from one ad work as successfully if put in a different context?
For the assignment I have chosen two contemporary printed advertisements and, by combining them together, will try to create new message. I have decided at the beginning that one of the advertisements of my choice have to be textual. I started my search from picking up the one with bare text. I have several options for that. The text had to be either quite general or just not very specific (without telling exactly what is advertised). Visually, there are a bunch of textual ads that use messenger stylistics, as if you are peeking in somebodies chat. I liked the idea of creating this kind of more personal approach in a new ad. Such openness can subconsciously make people to make associative bond with the message. After a while my choice stopped on this one :
This is an advertisement by Volkswagen, which has social coloring: warns about the danger of texting while at the wheel. I found the text quite sensitive. The authors tried to create a parallel between words trauma and the act of driving by implementing another signifier of driving - a word 'traffic'. The phrase 'Please don't drive' make the picture a whole one. However, while the text is separated from the rest of the elements, it becomes more neutral. So, the next step was to find a suitable image that can alter the meaning of the text. Needless to say, that the word 'trauma' by itself connotes something negative. According to the dictionary, trauma has two possible meanings:
1. (Psychol) a powerful shock that may have long-lasting effects
2. (Pathol) any bodily injury or wound
Consequently, in order to detach the word from it's meaning in Volkswagen ad, I decided it'll be more useful to treat 'trauma' according to it's first dictionary meaning. I started to search for a suitable combination. And found this Starbucks ad:
And found this Starbucks ad: It;s interesting that this one has also some word that carries negative connotation 'painful'. The eye actually looks as it's owner is shocked or suffering a bit. After removing the eye part from the rest, it could be detached from the concept of waking up and be interpreted like 'open your eyes' in a metaphorical sense. Thus, I had to combine the idea of traumatic experience with the concept of blindness to something. That is how the idea about another social advertisement appeared. After combining the two images in Photoshop, I got this one:
The new advertisement connotes such issues as depression and any other traumatic experience that people are ashamed to uncover. This issues are spread around people of various ages and can lead to suicidal behavior. The new ad stresses out the word trauma and implied that the person who writes the text will probably pick up the word 'traffic'. I have added the red-line element in order to stress out the importance of the issue, draw more attention by adding some more dramatic impression. It is aimed to raise awareness of people to take care and be attentive to others, open their eyes in case of some signals occur and offer help.
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