The Importance of Advertisement Literacy
In the 🙂 class, students were tasked with designing an advertisement. However, first, they needed to learn what makes advertisements compelling. The teacher presented a series of advertisements and asked students what emotions it made them feel, and whether it related to the product or not. Some of the advertisements depicted people using the product, like a Coke ad depicting someone drinking Coke and being happy about it, or a Ford ad depicting someone driving a Ford and looking cool. The lesson got progressively deeper when the teacher moved on to more sophisticated advertisements that played on emotions without direct product placement. Below is a video she showed, and it happens to be one of my favourite examples of corporations manipulating viewers’ emotions.
This video really riled up some of the students. They were so invested that they were cheering loudly at the end. Amusingly, the students were confused when the teacher asked what product the ad was advertising. This prompted rich discussion on whether this was an effective ad. On one hand, students acknowledged that they were emotionally invested in the ad, but the students did not see how it effectively related to the product. The lesson continued to show other advertisements that seemed to knowingly misrepresent the product, like unhealthy food products implying that they were healthier, like Diet Coke, and two competing vehicle ads that both claimed their vehicles were “best in class”. The primary takeaways of these videos were to recognize what makes a compelling advertisement and to recognize that advertisements are always focused on selling a product.
Curricular Connections
One of the Big Ideas for the ELA BC curriculum listed is “Questioning what we hear, read, and view contributes to our ability to be educated and engaged citizens.” It is very important to keep in mind that our students are young and impressionable. It is imperative to arm them with the critical faculties necessary to make informed decisions as they mature into educated and engaged citizens. Advertisements are becoming progressively more sophisticated and manipulative, especially internet ads that tailor their advertisements according to the viewers’ digital footprint. This lesson is a great introduction to the unnerving topic.
As for Content, the curriculum lists “Story/text: literary devices – sensory detail (e.g., imagery) and figurative language (e.g., metaphor, simile).” While analyzing the example advertisements and creating their own, students were able to develop a familiarity with literary devices such as sensory detail and figurative language. They were able to pick out metaphors and similes in the example videos and they were able to apply their own in the advertisement papers that they later wrote.
The lesson also applied to the BC curriculum Curricular Competency: “Recognize how literary elements, techniques, and devices enhance meaning in texts.” Students were able to display their familiarity with sensory detail and figurative language and how it impacts the perspective of the reader. Incorporating positive and flavourful language while advertising your product helped contribute to a positive perception of the product for the audience.
Reflection
After watching the lesson on advertisements, I’ve been considering the importance of our students learning about these sorts of things. Since they’re still young and can be easily influenced, it’s important that we teach them how to think critically about what they see, especially ads. Advertisements are getting really smart and can be tricky, using information about what we do online to show us ads they think we’ll like. It’s all about helping them understand that just because they see an ad online that seems interesting or cool, it doesn’t mean it’s something they need or that it’s even true. We need to make sure they grow up knowing how to look at ads with a questioning eye, so they can make smart choices for themselves. This lesson was a step in the right direction of media literacy, showing them that it’s okay to question and think about what ads are really saying.