SPE 370 Blog Post 5

The original ad is from an Indonesian website for non-smoking but was found on an American non-smoking ads campaign website. At first when one reads the text “how long can you live?” but may not take much notice at the numbers on the left side of the ad. After looking more in depth at the cigarette the numbers popped out more. It may only take a few seconds to realize what this ad is trying to say. The cigarette being lit and burning down represents one’s life expectancy is also burning and becoming lower and lower. The quote is also asking the audience a question. This open ended question “how long can you live?” really makes one think.  Most healthy people want to live a full prosperous life and this ad makes one view cigarette smoking in a negative light.  

The color used in this ad is very plain. Black, white, and brown are the only colors used. Using only a few basic colors makes it easy to understand what the ad is trying to get across to their audience. If there were lots of colors and designs going on it would be more difficult for the viewer of the ad to grasp the concept. The text size goes from small to large which makes the viewer see how important and meaningful the message is as you read it. “Live” is the last word and since it is the biggest it shows the significant meaning in the word and how it relates to cigarettes.

The repetition in the numbers on the left side are extremely important because it shows how easy is to die at a young age depending on if you smoke a lot or in this case if you smoke the whole cigarette. In the ad the balance is on point. It is easy to look at because of the balance that is taking place. For instance, on the right side it is the text and on the left is the image which is the cigarette. Having two key points in the picture both on different sides makes the picture look evenly proportioned and balanced correctly. The emphasis is directed towards the cigarette because there is black text on both sides of the cigarette. When viewing the ad one looks directly at the image because it is the only thing that isn’t the color black. There is similarity in the advertisement with the numbers. Having similarities and number patterns make it easy for the audience to understand the concept that the ad is trying to convey.

Kenneth Burke is a rhetorical scholar who drew from psychology and religion. Burke is known for being self-taught which something very rare. Burke created the “four masters tropes”. This includes metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, irony. The metaphor in this ad is seeing the cigarette as a time line of your life in years if you smoke, instead of just a cigarette. The metaphor makes this ad have so much meaning that it wouldn’t have without it. If this image was metaphor free it would just simply be a cigarette, which wouldn’t be a very cleaver ad. The metonymy in the advertisement is showing that if one smokes cigarettes they will die faster, which ultimately shortens one’s life. The Metonymy shows this because the text and the image add up to enforce this fact. The synecdoche in the ad refers the cigarette killing people. Obviously, not one cigarette can kill but the synecdoche is making the ad viewer see that cigarettes can do harm. Being able to view one cigarette and relate that to people dying because of smoking shows the synecdoche is present in this ad. Lastly, irony is extremely viewable in this ad. Without the one line question and the numbers on the left side this ad would not be used as a non-smoking campaign image. The image needs text to go along with the picture. It would be representing smoking and could possibly give people the wrong image without text. If there wasn’t irony in this ad one wouldn’t know this was for non-smoking advocates. Having text go along with an image is extremely important. They rely on each other and are better together then separate when relaying a message to the public. This ad shows just that.

Using Burkes tropes and many other design elements and principles one views this image in a new way. If one looks at this image quickly they will not see nearly as much in-depth meaning, as if one analyzes and understands knowledge, artistic, media literate information. This ad shows people every day the negative side effects associated with cigarette smoking. After a few seconds of looking at this image one knows smoking is bad, this is exactly what the creators wanted to get across to their audience. It is safe to say this non-smoking campaign image is successful and shows the truth about cigarettes and did a good job showing that using many different tactics.