Ad Deconstruction

We have all seen many ads in our lifetime. These ads are for a variety of different products or things, but have you ever thought about what the ad is trying to get the viewer to do. Companies spend a lot of time and money creating ads, and they defiantly do this for some specific reason, but why? In this essay I will deconstruct an ad, and explain using three different categories what the purpose of the ad is. I will discuss the ad’s message, the composition of the ad, and summarize the information presented in the ad.

The ad’s Message

This ad is from the Transworld skateboard magazine website. Mike Mo Capaldi’s name in the ad is really big, but all the other text is very small. This ad’s target audience is skateboarders or people with a general knowledge about skateboarding, and this target audience is usually between the ages of middle school to young adulthood. The ad shows the girl skateboard logo (the girl bathroom sign in the o in Mikemo’s name) and the Crailtap website (in the bottom left corner). This suggests that the audience must have knowledge about skateboard companies and logos in order to understand the ad’s message. The picture sequence of Mike Mo’s skateboard trick grabs the target audience’s attention and brings them into the ad. The story that goes along with the add is the speech bubbles in the bottom left corner, explaining that Mike Mo is going pro for Girl skateboards. The ad is not designed for a specific product, but the logos in the ad associate it with products from Girl skateboards and their distributor Crailtap. However, since the ad states that Mike Mo is going pro, it is stating to its target audience that they can now buy Mike Mo’s pro skateboards from Girl skateboards.

Ad Composition

There are three characters in the ad the main character of course is Mike Mo Capaldi, and the two sub characters are pro skateboarders for Girl skateboards. The ad takes place on a sunny street ledge, and famous skate spot, presumably in California where Mike Mo lives. The text in the ad is very simple and easy to understand stating that Mike Mo is going pro. The caption MIKEMO attracts your attention because it is the biggest text on the page, and it would be impossible to miss the Girl skateboards logo in the O of Mike Mo’s name. (Explaining of course that Mike Mo skates for Girl) The ad is arranged to show Mike Mo’s photo sequence along with the new information that Mike Mo is going pro. The three pro skateboarders facial expressions show a sign of excitement while maintaining their image of being cool, and of course they are all wearing clothing from Crailtap distribution.

Summary of information from the ad

The ad is successful in getting its message out to its targeted viewer. However the ad does have one fatal weakness, only people that have knowledge about skateboarding will understand the message of the ad. Therefore the company is limiting its target audience. However, viewers of the ad will understand that Mike Mo is going pro and they may respond by looking up Mike Mo on Google, they might look at the Crailtap website, or they may just continue on with whatever they were previously doing.

            After reviewing the information I have provided from this ad, I hope that every viewer of an ad will take a second and think about, A) the purpose of the ad, B) What the ad is trying to convince the viewer to do, and C) why the ad was created. By doing this every viewer of an ad will become ad literate and the ad will be unable to trick the viewer.