SWA #4 - Ads - 01/29/12

 Front of Geico Ad from Newsweek

 Back of Geico Ad from Newsweek

Geico Ad from Sports Illustrated

1.     The types of ads I am analyzing are Geico Insurance advertisements. One of them is from Newsweek and the other from Sports Illustrated.

2.     The audiences for these magazines are obviously different. Newsweek’s audience primarily consists of business people, and it is mostly men. Furthermore, those who read this publication are likely to be sophisticated and intelligent. Sports Illustrated’s audience is also for most part entirely men. However, their readers' interests are focused more on sports and are likely more laid back while flipping through the publication's pages.

3.     Newsweek Ad

·      Wood background

·      Entirely red and black

·      Textbook looking book entitled “Geckonomics 301”

·      Gecko not present

·      Simple front

·      Back page goes into great detail on company itself

·      Geico and the company’s signature slogan on bottom in simple black font

Sports Illustrated Ad

·      Plain white background

·      Big, bright basketball is prominent thing on page

·      Reads “college games take 40 minutes. Fortunately it only takes 15 minutes to see how much you could save with Geico”

·      First part of text is in green and the Geico part fads into blue with further explanation and more in depth of an analogy

·      Font is larger where it says “get a free quote”

·      Famous Geico sits looking on in the bottom right

·      List of all the different things the company insures on the bottom

4.     I chose these two ads because Geico and their commercials and messages are something almost everyone is familiar with. Also, it is very clear that these two ads are directed towards very different demographics. One is focused on simplicity and sports while another relates to sophistication and the need to know a lot about something before one invests. These details allude to the values that Geico assumes the readers of each publication hold. For example, men interested in sports need simplicity and relation to sports to hold their attention when looking at an ad. Those interested in reading through news magazines are sophisticated, intelligent, and need to know about a company before working with it.