Persuasive Print Ad

          

The Candies Foundation is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2001 to prevent teen pregnancies. This print ad was featured in teen magazines such as Teen Vogue, J14, Seventeen, and Cosmopolitan. It also appeared on online ads and network television.

            This ad’s audience is obviously targeted at teenage girls. They do a great job by catching the audience’s attention quickly by always using celebrities that most teenagers know and idolize. In this case, hip-hop singer Ciara, is on the ad. Symmetric to the picture of Ciara is the print, “NOT REALLY THE WAY YOU PICTURED YOUR FIRST CRIB, HUH?” in bold and all in caps. They use color to their advantage here. They have “not really the way you pictured” in pink, while changing “your first crib, huh?” to white. The color change puts more emphasis on what they are they are trying to persuade.

            They also use fear to persuade teens to stay abstinent. Having a celebrity on the ad makes the teens think that if someone as popular as a celebrity is staying abstinent they should as well. Also the use of the quote.  This daring quote is listed above to “not really the way you pictured your first crib, huh?” is a picture of a baby’s crib. Sometimes “crib” is used as a slang term meaning a house. In small print below the quote is another fear tactic; “Get pregnant and you won’t be moving out of your parents house anytime soon”. Again, they use an almost harsh tone throughout this print ad, trying to scare and persuade their audience.

            I think this print ad does a good job with key visual elements. The symmetric picture versus text is effective. Also their use of different colors and clear font makes it easy to read and interpret. I think having a put together ad is more effective, thus will do a better job persuading the audience.

            Critiquing this ad using “AIDA”, attention, interest, desire, and action; I think the ad grabs the attention of the audience by placing a well-known celebrity in the picture. I think it’s interest is targeted directly at a certain audience-teenage girls. Desire, I believe it is appealing being simple, yet bold. Finally, I think the fear tactic will take action on some of the targeted audience. I know seeing the picture of the crib kind of freaked me out and grabbed my attention!