5.

Discussing
Advertisements

• INT RODUCTIO N :

Fancy eating a mouth-watering Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate? The said

advertisement surely invites you to take a bite at, at least, one choc-bar. This is one
instance only. There are thousands of such instances being experienced by us in the
electronic and print media on a daily basis, making ads nearly omnipresent in
human life.
Advertisements are as akin to our existence as is our own skin to our bodies; and
without them, the media world would remain bleak and bland. Advertisements in
electronic and print media enable their prospective customers to have requisite
information of various products and to exercise their choices in favour of the
products advertised. This information is sometimes comically exaggerative as in
the case of Tata Tea ad that used to be telecasted a few years ago [after drinking
hot Tata tea, the smiling female model suddenly starts flying_ perhaps the
symbolic representation of the resultant ecstasy or hilarity] or in the Glucose-D ad
showing a boy getting instant energy soon after drinking glassful glucose water.
Now-a-days, ads are more sophisticated, catchy and strident: Shah Rukh Khan’s
‘Thanda Thanda, Cool Cool’ Dermi Cool ad or Pepsi or Coca Cola blares featured
by the Indian players like Sachin Tendular are notable examples. Significant to
notice is the fact that some ads are simply misleading, promising so many things
but the products, they show, actually offer far too little to the prospective
customers. That’s why, we, the customers, need to seek adequate information about
the authenticity of the claims made by various product ads as well as verify their
veracity by means of logical enquiry. Sometimes, you’d not get certain vital and
authentic information about the claims from even the internet due to its various
limitations. It is possible to get it only when you come across some people who
know quite well about the products, since they have used them and come across
their benefits and disadvantages, the services they offer and certain losses or
shortcomings they bring with them.
Do you think that it’s fair and useful to brush aside the information some people
give about the products, they use, on the pretext of the ‘colouring’, you sometimes
notice, in their talk?You need to understand that most of the talk you get is
coloured by opinions, view-points, prejudices, emotional states of the speaker’s
mind during the talk and so on. But it’s equally necessary to remember that hearing
the talk forms the baseline of your enquiry of the true state of the affairs related to
the information you’ve got. This certainly paves way to your interactions with
different people and getting some secondhand information of their experiences
about various products they’ve used. The ‘picture’ of the reality associated with
your enquiry becomes almost clear when you ask information-seeking questions in
a sensible fashion, take into consideration multiple perspectives emanating from
them and, at last, compare these perspectives in your deliberate and objective
contemplation about the information you’ve got.

• Watc hing and Listening :>

Watch and listen carefully the audio-visual file of a
group discussion on one advertisement. It will give you
an idea about how to discuss in groups. While
listening, observe carefully the following things:

1. The content,
2. The language used,

3. Certain unknown or difficult-to-understand words,

4. Body language_ facial gestures, hand movements

and postures.

5. The style of content delivery.

6. Coordination among the participants,

7. Faults or drawbacks in the overall discussion (if any)

REMEMBER:
It’s necessary listen to what others say since
• P EER D IS CUS SIO N OF A DS :

DISCUSSION SESSION:

Make
a group of 4 or 5 members and discuss the following advertisement. This
activity includes:
1. Observation of the ad,
2. Reading the information carefully,
3. Making a note of vital points,
4. Make a tree-diagram or table or number series of those
points.
5. Discuss each point elaborately with the help of the
questions following the ad picture.
6. You can form additional questions as the part of your
enquiry about the given advertisement.
[Note: The advertisement includes a picture and certain product
information which to read is very important. Reading such information
while buying products makes you a sensible customer_ the one who is
aware of the benefits of reading it carefully and verifying it later in
different ways.]

1. What is the ad about?

2. Which information does the script give to you?
3. Discuss about the information.
4. Discuss the script style and colours [as well as colour designs] used.
5. The left hand side upper rectangle contains multiple black bars of same
height and different width with the number written above. What’s it?
Discuss.
[If all the participants know nothing about the bars, they should seek the
information about it from the retail market they visit for shopping.]
6. Exercise:
The ad picture also has one toll free phone number and one e-mail id. Two of
the participants can dial the given phone number to seek additional
information and the rest can e-mail for the same. You can do so the similar
activity_ but the participants, now, changing their tasks_ by reading the label
information of the products you’ve bought.
7. Also make a list of and discuss about various ads_ the information they give,
the entertainment they provide, the characters in them and their style of
presentation, the backgrounds used in them and the effects these ads produce
on each of you.
8. Make a small project of your activity and discuss it with your friend as well
as your teacher.
9. Cross check your project before submitting to your teacher or mentor or
guide for feedback and guidance.
10.You can do the similar activities by observing the wrappers of other products
you buy in the nearby market.