Stage 2 English as an Additional Language

Persuasive Text
Advertising
Oral Response Transcript

Hello everyone,

Today, my presentation is about my two chosen advertisements, which are both about battery. They
are in the form of a video and a printed advertisement, produced by Duracell. I will talk about the
target audience, the purpose, the persuasive and visual techniques, the perspectives and attitudes
and how both advertisements are effective.

This video advertisement aims at the parents, especially those who are always away from their
children. In the video, since the father had to serve in the military, he could only spend a small
amount of time video-calling his girl. So, he decided to record his voice in a teddy bear, which was
run by the Duracell battery. The teddy bear had been with the girl for a really long time until her dad
came home and that was the video. Through the video, the audience can see how strong and
durable a Duracell battery is, and this was target of the advertisement. However, a message about
the importance of parents to the kids was also sent through the advertisement.

Next, I will describe the persuasive techniques used by the producers of the video advertisement.
These techniques include emotional appeals, music, camera angle and slogan.

Pathos or Emotional appeals in the advertisement was demonstrated using the teddy bear. The
teddy bear was used to comfort the girl whose father was on service in the military, and it had a
recorded message of her father: “I love you, my baby girl”. Parents will always do what is best for
their kids no matter what, even if they are far away and cannot see them, they will always find a way
to send their love and tell them how much they miss them. This teddy bear had done its job as a
deliver, and what did it deliver? It was the love and the feeling of missing from the father to his child.
This also engages the audience in the advertisement, as we all need and love a family whether
you’re are a child or the father.

The music that is being played at the start of the advertisement flowed slowly and smoothly within
the advertisement, and it played such an important role in creating the overall mood of the
advertisement. The repeated phrase “I want you more than I need you” indirectly depicted the
feeling of the girl, and when she said, “I need you so bad…are you coming back?”, the music
immediately went down a tone to show how disappointed the girl was. However, in the end of a clip
when the dad finally gets home and the little girl runs up to him and gives him a tight hug, the music
raised back again to show how much they missed each other and how cheerful they were when
meeting.

The visual technique, close-up shot was a prominent technique used in the advertisement, and it
was the best way to record the girl’s emotion. The audience could see the change in her emotion
from sadness to happy when she heard her dad voice, and to on cloud nine when she saw her dad.
Also, this shot was used to show the importance of the teddy bear to the child. Another technique
was slogan, “The one you trust are always there”. This represented the batteries and the family all
together by bridging that connection between trusting something as simple as batteries to help keep
the family together.

Moving onto the next advertisement, it is a print ad for a portable power bank from the same brand.
However, it brings about a totally different emotion when customers look at it.

Instead of targeting the parents, this advertisement focuses on the most common issue of people
using mobile devices, especially cellphone like Blackberry or iPods. The issue was that their devices
running out of battery, and this product will be a solution.

This advertisement employs different persuasive techniques including slogan, color effects,
figurative and descriptive languages.

Talking about the color effect in the advertisement, the prominent color was black, and it can bring
about a sense of strong, mysterious, and mighty. And this is exactly what the advertiser wants the
customers to feel when reading this advertisement. The product is promoted to so strong and
durable because it can store up 35 hours of backup power, and it can be recharged hundreds of
times. Also, the color black can knock a sense of elegance in the advertisement, which is suitable
for the design of the product.

Regarding to the figurative language used in the advertisement, the advertiser uses different strong
and positive emotive words such as instant, smart, or trusted. This is a great way of advertising as
the potential customers need to feel positive when reading about our products, and this will create a
physiological impact on the consumers. Moreover, these words are effectively used on electronic
devices because this is the standard which the consumers expected in these devices in the
contemporary society. Another language technique is using inclusive word, specifically “your”. This
is a method to engage the customers in your advertisement, and in this case, the product will make
the users feel like they can control everything just on their fingertips. Finally, the first thing that
caught the consumers’ attention must be the heading, “Today, there’s no reason to run out of
power”. This is a partially a suggest statement, partly an affirmative statement, which is used to trick
the customers to think about their issues of using mobile phones. Consequently, the customers will
start wondering how to solve this problem, and this product will be the answer.

In conclusion, I would say that both advertisements were extremely effective and successful in
promoting the customers, despite having different approaches. One the one hand, the video ad fully
utilized the power of video to engage the customers in the advertisement by telling a story. As a
result, the consumers could sympathize with the characters, and understand how important thing,
the teddy bear in this case, must be supported with the Duracell battery. On the other hand, the print
ad focused on the catching the customers’ attention by having a good heading, then slowly
describing their products positively in order to making the customer purchasing the products.