Lesson 7

Lesson 7 in Essentials of Graphic Design and another lesson about advertisements. This lesson however was different compared to lesson 5 when we were looking at good advertisements and bad advertisements. Instead, we looked at controversial advertisements. The interesting thing about controversial advertisements is that people will automatically think that it should fall under the bad advertisements category but that may not be the case. Advertisers may create this controversy on purpose to get people's attention and to make their product or advertisement be a topic of debate so more people talk about it.

How exactly do we classify an advertisement as controversial? We learnt to use 4 points to classify these type of advertisements, shock, disgusting, funny and buy.We did a worksheet to better understand these controversial advertisements.

Worksheet- Controversial Print Advertising

To be completed in class.

Question	Answer
What do we mean by ‘controversial’?	An advertisement that deliberately has certain themes or implications that are inappropriate which cause disputes or disagreements.
What is the purpose of a controversial advert for a product?	To get people’s attention and for them start talking about their product and spreading the advertisement.
Analysis of ‘Ariel”	·      Shock: 2 ·      Disgusting: 4 ·      Funny: 0 ·      Buy: 2 Perverted and does not really depict its product well.
Analysis of ‘Just’	·      Shock: 2 ·      Disgusting: 3 ·      Funny: 0 ·      Buy: 3 I do understand what the advertisement is trying to say, however the sight of cockroaches is very disgusting especially to those who are afraid of cockroaches
Analysis of ‘Seal’	·      Shock: 4 ·      Disgusting: 4 ·      Funny: 0 ·      Buy: 4 Very shocking, very disgusting, but has a strong message, do not treat others the way you do not want to be treated. It is never alright to use dead babies to prove a point in my opinion
Analysis of ‘The Dark Side of Sweetness’	·      Shock: 3 ·      Disgusting: 3 ·      Funny: 3 ·      Buy: 3 It shows the brand name but it has nothing to do with chocolate. The image is disturbing as well
The most controversial charity advert	Shock: 4 Disgusting: 1 Funny:0 Buy:4 The message sent across is clear that we have to take care of our children and look to their future. However the shocking method is too extreme in my opinion.

From this worksheet, we learnt to better understand controversial advertisements and the purpose of them, to create debates and conversations however the methods and images used are too extreme in my view