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This advertisement for
a family vacation in Colorado appeared in the April 2008 issue of Woman's
Day magazine. It interpellates the mom who has a family that likes the
outdoors and is in the mood for a high-energy vacation. The main photo in the
ad is a picture of a family white water rafting, while smaller images feature
the same family hiking in the mountains and at a hot air balloon festival. Each
one of these activities is outdoors, requires quite a bit of energy, and as the
ad states, is an "adventure." The slogan for the ad is "Not every adventure
takes place in a storybook"--quite clever and persuasive for the mother of
young children who long for adventures like those found in films and children's
books. The ad is careful not to portray only one kind of adventure, but
includes several diverse ones--involving different degrees of skill, interest,
and willingness to participate--suiting all types of personalities (as long as
they are adventure-oriented personalities).
In this ad, the state
of Colorado is portrayed as a place where families can go who are looking for
something more exciting than simply lying on the beach. Unlike the Alabama advertisement, the mortise, or an image of the product itself--in this case, Colorado--is clearly shown (Rose 88). But it is not the focus of the advertisement; the
relationships between the family members and the adventure they are
experiencing are the focus. The images portray this, through their active
nature, as does the slogan. Udeajah would assert that the slogan (or
appellation) of this advertisement should accurately represent what the product
offers, and according to the images, the slogan in this advertisement does this
(76). Unlike the Alabama advertisement found in Southern Living, this
ad portrays the vacation locale as unfamiliar, rather than local. Woman's
Day is not directed toward women in a particular geographical region, as Southern
Living is. Although there are surely readers of the magazine who live in Colorado, this ad is directed at those who want to discover Colorado. Perhaps Colorado residents who have not experienced the types of adventures presented in the ad
would be interested, but the ad interpellates visitors from out of state in the
way that it portrays Colorado as novel, through both text and images. In this
ad, the truth claims are made not only through the words, which was the main
source of truth claims in the Alabama advertisement, but more so through the
images – which reinforce the truth claims made by the words, implying renewed
relationships and a family adventure (Rose 144). Images are important in
claiming truth, perhaps even more trusted than words. Rose suggests that
photographs are "evidence of what was really there" (144). Pajnik and
Lesjak-Tusek also suggest that photographs are "producing seemingly natural
images whose truth is guaranteed" (285). Thus, photos are believable and
persuasive.
The contact in
this ad is also an offer – the family does not look at the subject, rather at one
another and the scenery that they are viewing, making an offer to the subject to enter
into their adventure (Jewitt and Oyama 145-146). At the bottom of the ad, the
text encourages readers to visit Colorado.com in order to "discover hundreds of
ways to create family memories."  Not only will a vacation in Colorado be an
adventure, it will also be memorable and apparently enjoyable by all, as the
images portray. Again, Colorado is a supposedly affordable vacation locale,
but based on the activities shown, an adventurous Colorado vacation may or may
not be economical. While hiking is not expensive, white water rafting and hot
air balloons are. So, the affordability of this vacation is debatable. But,
this is not a truth claim made by this ad – rather one that I incorporated
based on discourse about Colorado vacations and my experiences with them.
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