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Question 15
Advertising images function in particular ways to make us
desire the product. Compare and contrast two advertisements
that use photography, highlighting the ways they are intended
to communicate with their intended audience.
Dan Foy
BA Hons Photography
Despite the formal similarities between the two images, the context in which
they would originally have been viewed is significantly different, which is an
important consideration whilst viewing these images out of context. The
Coca-Cola image was intended to be used in print, both in reading material
and on small billboards such as those on the sides of bus stops, and was a
small element in a much larger campaign, which also featured video adverts
on television and before movies at the cinema. It is an invasive type of
advertisement that is forced upon a viewer during a separate activity – i.e.
reading, watching a movie, or waiting for a bus. This contrasts the Apple
image, which appeared on Apple’s website in the guise of an informational
image, and required several mouse clicks to purposefully access, and is not
something that a viewer would have been likely to stumble upon in its original
context if he or she was not already researching into the product. These
differences mean that the images have to function in different ways: the Coca-
Cola advert is viewed incidentally, and must draw the attention of the viewer
through novel imagery – a new type of image for the prospective viewer to
consume. Conversely, the Apple image is something that a potential viewer
must purposefully seek out (despite its potential as a viral image by brand-
loyal Apple consumers reproduced on forums, blogs, and other Internet-based
social channels), and therefore can afford to concentrate less on branding and
brand recognition and more on the benefits of its product.
“What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition
where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the
poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know
that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think,
you can drink Coke, too”
Whilst the inclusion of Dell’s logo in Apple’s advertising image has already
been discussed in relation to how it arouses negativity to the competition
through Apple’s suggestion of alternative consumer choice, the conspicuous
absence of Apple’s own logo is a statement of Apple’s confidence in the
recognition and reputation of its own products. Other companies in the
technology sector, such as Microsoft, Intel, and nVidia – and also in other
markets, such as with Coca-Cola - will often plaster their comparative
advertisements with branding that weight the advertisements in their own
favour. In contrast, in terms of the lack of branding in the Apple image in
Apple presents two products, both with the same colour palette: one machine
barely 3 inches thick with just two small and immaculately coiled cables
protruding from it, which are white and fade into the background; the other,
magnitudes larger and consisting of more twice as many components
connected messily via a tangle of unruly black cables. The photographer for
the Apple image has purposefully chosen a competitors product whose design
appears to echo the iMac in choice of finish, but which is presented in a way
that is clearly inferior in terms of elegance and practicality. The Dell XPS is
packaged with a wired mouse and keyboard, same as the iMac, but is also
shown with modular, optional elements to provide functionality equal to that
which the iMac has built into its main chassis; namely: a display, speakers
(mounted under the monitor in the XPS image), a webcam, and an external
WiFi adapter. The aluminium exteriors of these machines suggests sterility
and fine precision engineering – something that is clearly undermined by the
mess behind the Dell, suggesting that the back-end and ‘under the hood’ have
been neglected, placing the iMac as the more considered product.
The message that Apple wishes to convey is that personal computing doesn’t
have to be about complicated setups, bulky hardware, and additional optional
components to provide missing functionality – Apple’s alternative solution
offers everything the user needs as standard, in a standalone package, as
part of the premium products it provides. This is epitomised by the company’s
old slogan, retired by 2007 yet still strongly associated with the company
ethos: ‘Think Different’. The choice of showing the products in profile is also
an unusual decision (although the product was shown front-on in other
images in the series), but showcases the iMac’s sleek aesthetic curves and
This final point highlights a significant difference between Apple and Coca-
Cola. Coca-Cola is the market leader, ubiquitous to the point of owning the
generic product name ‘Coke’, whose primary focus is retaining customers and
reminding them that consumption of their product is directly linked to their
happiness; whereas Apple, despite inventing the ‘personal computer’ with
their Lisa and early Macintosh products, command a tiny percentage of the
overall personal computing market, and seek to differentiate themselves
through innovation and the creation of aesthetically pleasing, user friendly
products. Despite the formal similarities between these two advertising
images – both product shots, featuring isolated products taken out of context
and shot against a seamless background - these opposing aims are clearly
evident in the marketing campaigns of both brands.