ADVERTISING AWARENESS PART FOUR

Part Four of a five part language-social studies unit for years 5-8+ exploring the world and language of advertising including purposes, methods, targets and our reactions to advertising.

Teacher Hint: This is a great excuse to decorate your class with advertising posers and brochures to make a really colourful display and stimulate interest in the unit.

Click here for part five of - Advertising Awareness:

DIFFERENT MEDIA AND STEREOTYPES

Advantages and Disadvantages

Revise the many different types of advertising media available for an advertiser, eg

• radio
• television
• newspapers and magazines
• billboards
• flyers
• internet web banners

Introduce the idea of different senses being used in different media, eg TV appealing to both sight and sound, radio appealing to hearing and newspapers appealing to sight and touch.

Have groups make a list of all advantages and disadvantages they can see for advertisers in choosing a particular medium for their advertising dollars. Which do they consider to be the most effective? Why? Are their certain types of advertising that will suit certain products or services?

If the students were in advertising sales for a particular media, what claims would they make about their media to appeal to advertisers, eg the print media claim that their advertisements sat around for a much longer time and can be seen time and time again.

Have the students write letters/faxes/emails to advertising managers of tv, radio, newspapers, magazines to ask their views as to why advertisers should choose them over others. Also ask for the cost of advertising in each medium. What affects the price and how do they compare.

Have students write a brief statement about: They are launching a new toothpaste for children on the market. Which advertising media would they choose and why.

The Notion of Stereotypes

Groups search through a selection of magazines and brochures (travel brochures), fashion magazines, periodicals such as NEXT, North & South, Metro, New Idea etc. Ask them to look carefully at the people who appear in the advertisements. Do they notice anything about the people in most advertisements? What type of people do most of these advertisements show?

As groups, have students discuss the following statements …

• All women are young, slim and beautiful
• All men are slim and strong
• All houses are clean and tidy
• Dogs and cats think like humans
• All people smell very badly and need help
• Eating and drinking certain products can make you popular
• Owning certain things can make you a better person
• Your health is at risk unless you use certain products
• Our houses are under threat from pests and germs
• Buying certain equipment will make us strong and healthy

Search through magazines and have students try to identify any of the above situations in advertising. How true to life do they think these advertisements are, eg are most people like this? Are most houses like this? If not, why do they think advertisers use these methods?

Debate

Have students debate the following statement: 'Advertisements would be more effective if they showed real people in real situations'.

Activity

As a group, have students take one such advertisement that shows any of the above stereotypes and totally rewrite it to reflect life in the 'real world'. Compare the two. Does the rewritten advertisement make you want to purchase the product or service? Should advertisers be allowed to do this?

Click here for part five of - Advertising Awareness: