Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Skechers Ad Deconstruction

 In this advertisement Skechers shoes are being marketed. They use the familiar sex sales technique to hook its audience. This ad shows a man who is with a beautiful woman which represents both success and happiness in our culture. This ad symbolizes that what you have determines what you get. They are showing you that this young man's pair of Skechers shoes has helped him attract this lovely woman. This ads message is that if you're cool, if you like action, and if you want a woman like this one that you should buy a pair of Skechers shoes. 


   The ad is effective in drawing your attention with the cliche sex sales hook, but to me this ad is unsuccessful overall. I'm a young man, which whom they are targeting in this ad,  and my opinion on this ad reflects their success to make sell their product. After the hook draws my attention the ad fails to retain my attention for three significant reasons. The first one is their slogan, "We put the  S in action!" I don't understand it because it's like a joke without a pun, no one laughs and there's that odd moment of silence. My second reason is that it doesn't make sense why they're in the snow, it doesn't connect with any of the other elements of the ad. The slogan doesn't connect with the environment and neither does the product nor it's hook. It leaves me with the impression that they are suppose to seem "cool," but I feel like it only complicates the message of the ad. The last element of this ad that sticks out to me is the whip, what does it represent? It has nothing to do with the background, but it is action like the slogan. Still there's no s in whip or action so it just really disconnects me from the ad. 

This ad would be better if she didn't have the whip, if she had Skechers shoes too, and lastly if the slogan had to do with being cool. If they wanted to make it better with the action theme, they should take away the glacier element and replace is with fire. I think this Skechers ad is a lot more successful than this one.

    
    This ad is so more effective to me for several reasons. One reason is because it's simple to understand and the message's delivery is very effective. They are using a celebrity, Karl Malone a.k.a. The Mailman because he always delivers the goods. Karl Malone is one of the most famous basketball players, this Hall of Famer has the second most amount of career moments. This ad attracts basketball fans and it especially targets older/middle aged men because Malone is retired and the ad says "Get back in the Game," which implies that whoever they are targeting has left the game. This to me really connects with it's target audience and has a simple effective delivery compared to the unsuccessful sex sales hook that failed to connect with it's target audience.

2 comments:

  1. I like how you compared two Sketchers advertisements side by side. This allows the reader to get a sense of an effective ad versus a non effective one. I liked your explanation for the second advertisement because you added in some cool facts about the player which is helpful for those who don't know who the mailman is. All in all, you analyzed these ads well.

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  2. I appreciate that you included an alternate ad that you think was more effective. The images really capture the attention, and to me, both tend to work. However, I like the way your basically ripped apart the glacier ad and gave solid reasons why. Thoughtful deconstruction.

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