Advertisement Analysis – Vaseline

The ad that will be analyzed shows a picture of a Vaseline can that is placed at the bottom right part of the page, with a blue background, and down the Vaseline can where is the text “A leaf threatened with Vaseline Jelly stays moisturized and vibrant over time, versus an unthreatened leaf. If it can do this for a leaf, imagine what it could do for your skin.” Also at the center of the advertisement the reader can see 2 leafs, one is grey and dry, and the other one is green and healthy. On top of the grey leaf there is a label that says, “Untreated” and on top of the green leaf it says, “ treated with Vaseline jelly”. The purpose of this advertisement is to convince the audience of purchasing the Vaseline jelly, and the intended audience is public in general that has the power to purchase the magazine, for example adults and young people. Definitely we can discard as an intended audience little kids.

We as an audience the first thing we perceive in the advertisement is the blue color that is attractive to the eye. The use of this color reinforces the purpose of getting people to see the ad. Also it creates this sensation of calm and peace, making the audience feel more confortable while watching the printed advertisement. In this advertisement we can see how the advertiser decided to use the ad technique of identifying a problem and immediately give a solution. We can see how the problem of dryness can be solved with Vaseline as the comparison of the leafs suggests. This technique is really appropriate to the purpose of this advertisement because it creates this sense of “effectiveness” of the product.

By using such imagery like the comparison of the leafs and combining it with the “state problem/give solution” technique gives even more power to the ad. Also something that is noticeable on this ad are the words “The healing power of Vaseline” which are the last words the advertisement gives. This sentence also make the audience feel like this product is also a “healing agent” which it also may be used not only as a way of getting rid of the dryness but also to heal wounds or burns. We can see how this also reinforces the purpose of the advertisement because it gives to the audience more reasons to purchase the product and therefore they become more at ease with the product. Also something that is noticeable on this ad is the use of the white color of the font, which also creates this sense of peace and calm, and makes the audience feel more confortable while reading it, also the font used is really consistent with the purpose of the ad, because it’s a really pleasant font for the eye, it is not aggressive, and instead it makes the audience read the words easily because of the good contrast between the blue and white.

Also something that is noticeable on this ad is how the advertiser in the label of the green leaf “treated with Vaseline jelly” is used a kind of bold font on the words “Vaseline jelly” to make an emphasis on what is trying to be sold to the audience. This technique of using a different style of font on specific words helps also to reinforce the purpose, because more than comparing results and creating pleasant imagery on the reader the advertiser also wants to make the most emphasis possible to the product itself. Also another word that is changed of font strategically is the word “original” on the Vaseline can.

This also creates somehow this sense of the product being the best, because its not a copy of previous products, and instead it is the “original” one, this also gives more power to the advertisement because now the audience thinks that the Vaseline from Unilever is the original product and therefore it needs to be the best one of all, and if they eventually want to purchase Vaseline someday they will probably get the one from Unilever because of what this ad was intending to transmit. Also something that is noticeable on this ad is how they put the “Unilever” logo on the right top corner of the page away from other words and images. What the advertiser was trying to do by doing this, was to somehow make an emphasis on the brand of the Vaseline, and this also makes the audience not to miss the brand, because of where is placed it is really difficult that someone reads the ad but does not notice the brand. This technique of putting the brand in a strategic place to make the audience not to miss it, also gives more power to the ad because now the reader knows that the Vaseline of the advertisement is from Unilever, and not from any other brand, which is really important to the company if they want to sell their products.