Analyse how social and cultural contexts can influence advertising?
Use figure 3 to support your answer.
In your answer:
- analyse how social and cultural influence advertising
- make judgements and reach a conclusion on why they are advertised in this way
Social Context
Social Anxieties - Inequalities (gender, race, sexuality, class) - Conflicting Social Values
Cultural Context
Consumerism - Celebrity Culture - Feminism - Postmodernism
These posters each emphasise what the campaign tries to
achieve in helping the homeless. By advertising the Shelter campaign, it is targeting
tough topics that relate to people’s everyday life. This proximity targets the
emotions of people that see the campaign so that they feel inclined to do
something about homelessness. Homelessness is a fairly sensitive subject as it
negatively affects a lot of people in the world. There are so many people who
are homeless and so by the Shelter campaign creating the type of posters shown
in figure three, they are emphasising the need for help and donations to the
campaign.
On each of these posters, the people behind the text have
similar expressions on their faces. Their emotions seem relatable to those who
are homeless (as the campaign represents homelessness and aims to tackle it). All
the posters show normal, white people who are losing or have lost their home
due to things like jobs etc. Even though these posters don’t show diversity
between races, there is diversity shown in gender. This allows everyone to be
able to relate to them and it shows togetherness/a community. By using men and women as the face of the
campaign poster, it shows how homelessness could happen to anyone.
The camera shot is a close up so that you can clearly see
their facial expressions (showing sadness/depression etc.). The contrast
between the light pigmentation of their skin and a very dark shade of hair
links with sadness (which is what many homeless people feel).
Furthermore, the text used (lying on top of the actor’s
faces) illustrates the fact that homeless people need help. The rhetorical
question “But where will we live?” is an open question that anyone can have an
opinion to answer. The idea is for people to automatically think about how
serious the situation is and what they can do to help. Also, the use of the
word “can’t” emphasises the negativity that the situation of homelessness
brings to people’s lives. Meaning that when someone is being threatened of
losing their home, it is very common to become depressed or having negative thoughts.
In conclusion, Shelter uses many social and cultural contexts in order to promote what they aim to do - help the homeless. They do this by targeting people by showing normality in the ads to make people feel included and a community that should help each other out.
