PERSUASIVE PROSE [ADVERTISEMENT] MODEL ANALYSIS

MODEL QUESTION

Please refer to the ‘Own a Modem? Try America Online FREE’

advertisement on page 161 of your prescribed text by Goatly.

Write an essay in which you critically analyse the advertisement provided.

Your analysis should focus on both the visual and written features of the text.
Provide relevant textual evidence to support your answer.

You may [be asked to] consider the following questions in your analysis:

- What type of text is this and what is it about?

- What kind of target reader does the advertiser have in mind? How do
you know?
- What does the advertisement set out to achieve and how does it do
that?
- What linguistic strategies are employed in this advertisement and how
do these strategies influence the message of the text?
- How does this text position the reader? What presuppositions or
assumptions are evident in the text?
- To which aspects of human psychology does this advertisement
appeal?
______________________________________________________________

MODEL ANSWER & EXPLANATION

The purpose of this essay serves to provide you with a model analysis for how
you might approach a question such as the above when analysing an
advertisement. The given text, ‘Own a Modem? Try America Online FREE’,
falls under the broad genre of non-fiction prose and is a persuasive text in the
form of an advertisement. The advertisement is for an online service and
software package by a company called America Online and has been taken
from Popular Science’s June 1996 edition [*Note: This is the ‘what’ question
essentially answered; i.e. I have stated ‘what’ the text is about at the outset of
the essay. Your preferred structure and wording for your introduction will differ
slightly from mine, your opening sentence will certainly not be the same as
mine. You also need to reword the set question to tell the reader of your
essay what you will be discussing—i.e. how you will be analysing the text you
have just introduced. Please refer to Tutorial Letter 301 and the ‘Essay
Writing Revision’ forum under ‘Discussions’ on this site for advice on how to
construct an introduction, which is of key importance when writing an
academic essay. If you have a question about or comment on this model
analysis, you can post it in the ‘Advertisement Model Analysis – Discussion’
topic in the ‘Exam Revision 1 – Persuasive Prose’ forum. Once you have read
through this model analysis, please proceed to this topic regardless of
whether you have a question or comment, as the topic contains important
notes on this analysis as well as further guidelines].

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At the outset you should notice that the advertiser tries to engage the reader
by asking the question “Own a Modem?” This question appears right at the
top of the advertisement and is printed in a much larger and bolder font than
rest of the text, thus we can deduce that the advertiser intends for the
question to grab the reader’s attention. Below the question, in a sort of
headline-lead format, the phrase “Try America Online FREE” appears. Note
the fact that the brand name of the product is immediately mentioned and that
the word “free” is capitalised. What is the effect of this capitalisation? In
simplest terms, emphasis is placed on the word “free”. As you may well know,
the word “free” is often utilised by advertisers to pique reader interest and to
draw potential customers in.

What about the layout and format of the advertisement? Note the clipart near
the top of the advertisement that declares America Online to be “AMERICA’S
#1 ONLINE SERVICE”. By the placement of the clipart, the advertiser clearly
wants the declaration to stand out, and perhaps have it appear to be a ‘stamp
of approval’ of sorts. What about the actual statement made? What may the
effect of this declaration be on the reader’s perception of America Online?
How true do you think the claim is?

Below the above-noted clipart and the ‘invitation’ that America Online extends
to the reader, we see a list elaborating on the features of the America Online
service. Note how, up until this point, the advertisement has been somewhat
vague about what exactly America Online is and what it can do for
consumers. This elaborative list is thus quite important and is supplemented
by ‘informative’ screenshots of the America Online service.

In addition to the America Online logo, the bottom third of the advertisement
contains the form that the reader is to fill out and return in order to try out
America Online. Again, as far visual features are concerned, a large arrow
clearly draws the reader’s attention to the form and instructs the reader to
“Detach & Mail today!”

With the structure of the advertisement more or less analysed, you need to
consider the language and grammar usage in the text and comment on the
effect that the linguistic devices utilised may have on the reader’s perception
of the product being advertised. In looking at the text, you should almost
immediately notice that the advertiser has made use of emotive language
through using words such as “exciting” and “risk-free”, which as you may
know is an age-old advertising technique used to attempt to create a sense of
anticipation on the one hand and trust of the product on the other.

In looking at the listed features of the service, and in keeping in mind the fact
that the advertisement was published in 1995 when computing and the
internet were a relatively new phenomena, you may note that (especially
through the use of words such as “computing forums”, “computing support”
and “online conferences”) an almost technical sense of professionalism is
created. The features listed, which are probably ‘old news’ to a 21st century
computer user, may have also been quite intriguing and exciting to a reader in
the 1990s. Certainly, a sense of exclusivity is created through the use of the

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“Own a Modem?” question, which may be quite laughable if posed to the 2016
American reader. In support of the technical professionalism of the listed
features, note the mention of “industry experts”, which further adds to this
effect.

Other textual features you might like to mention include the use of
exclamation marks and the word “today” to create a sense of urgency, the use
of “you” to create a sense of intimacy with the reader and the careful
manipulation of language that is employed at the top of the return-form to
reiterate to the reader that the free trial is risk and obligation-free.

[*Note: The above paragraphs concisely explore the ‘how’ element of

analysis. If you have any additional suggestions for how meaning is created in
the advertisement, I would love to hear these].

Who do you think the target audience for this advertisement might be? Given
that this advertisement does not present a clear-cut case for an intended
target reader, a number of assertions might be appropriate here, so long as
you clearly and thoroughly support your assertion. At its most basic, the
advertisement is arguably aimed at the individual computer user, as the
service does not appear to target businesses or companies. Other features of
the potential target reader you identify may include age (Do you think
computer users of the 1990s were younger or older?) and economic situation
(Do you think the poorer masses used computers in the 1990s or was
computer and internet use reserved more for the elite that could afford it?)
[*Note: As far as advertisements are concerned, exploring who the target
audience is touches on the ‘who’ element of analysis. If the advertisement
involves or mentions other parties, you may mention and comment on these
as well].

In order to determine how the advertisement positions the reader, we need to

consider the potential target audience we have identified and explore the
presuppositions or assumptions made by the advertiser about that audience.
In the advertisement under discussion, the advertiser presupposes and infers
that all computer users that own a modem would want to make use of the
America Online service. While the declaration that America Online is
“America’s #1 Online Service” is included and the features of the America
Online service are listed, the advertiser does not take great pains to point out
how the America Online service is different from and better than other similar
services that might be on the market. This could lead us to deduce that there
were not many such services available at the time and that the advertiser
assumes that the mere novelty of the America Online service should be
enough to convince any computer user with a modem to sign up for the free
trial.

As far as the aspect of human psychology the advertisement appeals to is

concerned, there are a number of aspects you could mention, but the most
prominent is probably the need for association, friendship or belonging. To
this point, note the use of words such as “exchange” and “support”, and the

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fact that the community aspect of the America Online service is quite strongly
emphasised.

In conclusion, we need to ask ourselves what this advertisement has set out
to achieve and then we need to comment on whether we think it has been
successful in achieving its intended purpose. While the purpose of most
advertisements is to attempt to sell a product or service to its target market,
you need to try to be more specific when commenting on what the intended
purpose for a given advertisement may be. In the America Online
advertisement, we can determine that the immediate purpose of the
advertisement is to get the reader to fill out and return the included signup
form. How successful do you think the advertisement may be in achieving this
purpose? Your answer here would depend on your judgment of the
advertisement. Be careful not to base your answer on whether you ‘like’ the
advertisement or not. Instead, summarise the findings of your analysis by
considering and ultimately commenting on if and how the layout, visual
features and linguistic strategies you identified combine to effectively achieve
what the advertiser had set out to achieve. Now, please head over to the
‘Advertisement Model Analysis – Discussion’ topic in the ‘Exam Revision 1 –
Persuasive Prose’ forum.