Print Ad - Sony Ericsson

As promised, here is the first ad I will be evaluating:

1. Communication Objectives: The ad’s primary communication objective is to grab the consumer’s attention to raise awareness about Sony Ericsson’s new mobile phone and its ability to take exceptionally high quality pictures. Secondary objectives are to spread knowledge of the phone’s other major advantages, create a positive attitude, and encourage trial. When creating this ad, Sony Ericsson probably also knew or hoped that the ad would go semi-viral, which it did.

2. Message Strategy:

The ad primarily targets low involvement consumers through an emotional appeal, but also caters to above-low involvement consumers / central-route processors with more rational feature appeals, by providing clear evidence of the phone’s ability to take good pictures, as well as information about the phone’s most important technical information in the copy (the main body of text).

This approach works well in context of the magazine. The ad was placed in FHM (For Him Magazine), whose reader base is predominantly men and who are mostly low-involvement / peripheral route processors.

The ad also works well in context of the product category. Consumers interested in a camera phone want a phone that can take good pictures. The ad shows that the phone is capable of doing this through a rational appeal by physically demonstrating the phone’s ability to take good pictures, but also uses an emotional appeal by using sex in the actual content of the ad.

3. Evaluation of Creative Execution:
The ad does a very good job getting the attention of low involvement consumers and appealing to the consumer emotionally by using sex: it uses an attractive model displayed very prominently on the page. Sex appeals increase attention to the ad, and emotionally appeal to the consumer through attraction. Sex appeals can have a polarized response, but given the context of the ad - a men’s magazine which displays women similarly - this is not much of an issue. At first glance, the reader may actually think that the ad is part of the magazine’s spread or editorial. As with many ads that use sex appeal, the sex appeal in the ad can be distracting so it’s easy to walk away from this ad without remembering what it is advertising. This ad minimizes this by strategically placing the headline and phone very close to the focal point of the ad: the woman’s chest.

Overall, the ads tactics are very appropriate for its involvement level and emotional vs. rational appeal strategy. It uses sexy visuals to emotionally appeal to low involvement consumers (its biggest audience) as well as a 1-sided argument, and lots of examples in the copy to appeal to its peripheral route processors. To cover its bases and also appeal to its above-low involvement and more rational consumers who may want to find out more, the ad uses demonstration, evidence, and important information in the copy to create a very effective ad that is also smart.

4. Source & Appeal: The source used in the ad is an attractive model meant to capture attention and increase likeability for the source and product through appearance. The appeals used are mostly emotional but slightly rational too as discussed earlier. Both are appropriate for the message strategy (to capture attention, raise awareness, etc). Both are also generally appropriate for the mobile phone product category; consumers who want a camera phone typically want a phone that is capable of taking attractive pictures, is attractive itself, and would not mind having additional features. Actually buying a phone is a much higher involvement/effort decision, but the purpose of the ad is not to induce a buying decision. At most, the ad encourages the reader to find out more about the product or to try one out as stated at the end of the copy.

5. Layout: The headline, “Picture Perfect” is on the bottom left, followed by the subhead below it and the copy to the right. The caption is an extension of the headline and is in the upper right. Product and brand logos are present (ie. on the product itself) but are small. Overall, there is a good sense of movement and composition that went into the design of the ad.