May7

Montana MayMarch 30, 2015Ashley HumphriesENC 1101Lady and the BieberFor many reasons Mercedes-Benz is a well-respected car dealership, it has been in business for 125 years and has done very well given select rough times. But based on some distinct advertisements Mercedes has begun to damage their name. They promote their Brake Assist PLUS by targeting certain people to use in their advertisements.While deciphering this advertisement I discovered clichs and insults to women, but more specifically older women. This is not tolerable, and could be influencing people to buy their cars for the wrong reasons. But does it actually appeal to the older audience it seems to be demeaning? In a way yes, because it promotes their safety, which is a lot of peoples number one priority. But, they could have advertised in a better way and still sent the same message across.Why did Mercedes ultimately bother with assuring that the older woman had grey hair, or prominently show her aged skin? These are all circumstances that point to the exact claim that she is older and therefore now needs assistance with her driving. But is that necessarily true? Or is it just a shrewd way for the car company to show that their Brake Assist can help anyone at any age? This plays on the prominent feature of sexism and age discrimination towards the older citizens.By the Mercedes company deliberately choosing a woman to be portrayed with their Brake Assist PLUS program, they are relying on the fact that women have a reputation for being worse drivers than men and therefore they are exploiting sexism by saying, look we finally invented a car that even women can have a fast reflex time in, even though its not really theirs and its just the car doing it for them! As for the age discrimination they are suggesting that more specifically older women need the help more than anyone else otherwise they would have put that group of people on their instead.Even apart from her physical appearance, what she is wearing also suggests something. Her shoe is a main focus. The heel looks sophisticated and classy suggesting she does take care of herself and has money. This message alters the audience as well because it suggests that if you dress and present yourself a certain way and then you are able to drive the car. Its almost as if your class will earn it for you. In addition the heel is open toed which shows off her femininity rather than being in a closed toed shoe that conceal her toes like mens wear. As for the font, it appears to be straight forward and no frills to support the feminine aspect of the picture, but the white color does suggest innocence which women often represent compared to men. But, the simplicity of the message is also quite shocking, because it seems to be a great invention that should require a little more explaining. But, since there is a woman on it maybe not so much. The advertisers want to put a basic sentence, on a basic ad, with a basic lesson, that anyone can be helped with this car. For this reason, you could easily relate the simplicity of the message to the simplicity of a woman and driving a car. Furthermore, the color scheme of the ad was very limited to grey hues, and off whites, except for her scarf which is draped around her neck as an accessory, this is the only color present. The rest simply blend together such as the crme colored shoe, grey background, and the womans grey hair. Seeing the matching throughout the ad this can also relay back to women as a whole as well because of fashion.The fashion industry is predominantly women organized and operated, so with the accent of the scarf and close matching of the background colors one gets a strong sense of style and a particular eye for the scheme. Suggesting a womens touch with the matching and color layout.Throughout the feminizing layers the ad is ultimately successful. It shows how the Brake Assist program can lower your reaction time with a figure, and shows that it can provide safety for those that cannot always provide it to themselves all the time. In this case it would be the older woman. And the advertisers know this, and they think that if they can show an older person being safe who would ultimately want it? Their children. Because the children of the parents want them to be safe and well taken care of when theyre not around, just as they were to them when they were younger. So the marketers know this and show it to the next generation as a way of saying thank you to their parents for everything they have done. Then when they see that their parents are safe in it, they too may want it for themselves or if they have children old enough to drive, one for them to keep them safe on the road as well. Basically allowing the Brake Assist to become a safety trend, which allows success to the program and persuades people to buy their cars because thats where they know that they can find that feature, rather than try to go and find it somewhere else.But what happens when the sensors fade, or the reaction is too delayed? They give us no information on that. And how accurate is the reaction time for the vehicle compared to an alert human being? Though they suggest it is very fast by the diagram of the altered body they never say an exact number, nor do they say how it can be repaired when it breaks, or if it has ever not worked in an emergency. And because they give no hint to doubt about their product people fail to question it, and continue to purchase it without a second thought. This is how their advertisement works for them but fails the audience all at once.To contradict what they are saying I went to the complete opposite end of the human spectrum and countered an older woman with a young and very naive teenage boy. This is clearly my main spoofing point for the basic fact that the boy is Justin Bieber. But it is not the image that is the focus for my anti-advertisement, it is instead the words next to it. Shorten your reaction time to less than his attention span. Brake Assist PLUS. And I promise there is a joke in there.As the main part of the ad I focused on the irony and true stereotype that has been proven multiple times, which is that teenage boys have the highest insurance and are most likely to be involved in car crashes. So to enhance these aspects further I left the background color as grey and kept the main features, such as the placement of the text and the type of picture it was (the head to the foot) so when people read it now they can focus on the differences because they can easily see how they are similar. For this I feel it is an effective way to get my message out clearer and more efficiently, than if I was to change a lot about the ad then people would be stuck wondering how they related to each other.

For this advertisement I feel as though I am allowing the audience to focus on the real reason they want this car, its not to protect someone from themselves but to protect their loved ones from other people around them. This audience seems to have merged from older people or people who have older relatives to younger people and parents with teenagers. Although the car company had a good idea with shortening the reaction time but not because the people who were driving were old or a woman, its because there are a lot of inexperienced drivers around them such as Bieber who was racing, dinking, and driving. Which also describes a lot of teens in America unfortunately, and some who arent teen-like anymore, and for this reason my audience has slightly shifted from just grown adults with older parents and or younger children, to those who just care about their families in general no matter who they are to them, but instead because they want them to be safe. This emphasizes the reason I choose Justin Bieber, because to show a true safety feature it should be able to protect you against anything.The reasoning incorporated into my anti-advertisement was to enhance the parody of the situation by having a well-known celebrity who had a rough driving record and who was reasonably younger to contradict the older woman in the original. To further emphasize the contradiction between the original and anti-advertisement I chose to redo the slogan from Shorten you reaction time. Brake Assist PLUS. To, Shorten your reaction time to less than his attention span. Brake Assist PLUS. This plays on the humor view of the advertisement because just as the older woman has a clich, so do teenage boys with their notoriously minimal attention span.

For the subtext I left the number of years allowing the audience to give Mercedes-Benz the respect it deserves for surviving that long, however by altering the next part of the accomplishment I brought back the humor and connected to the picture yet again. The background and font are still the same though, because I wanted to change the message, not the advertisement itself nor the origination of it.To achieve the most relatable message as possible the sentence was generic and most can identify its origination from the clich. As a whole the advertisement was successful at reaching a wide audience and kept exemptions to a minimum, to allow as many connections as possible. As for Mercedes, they introduced many technological and safety innovations over the years. However, they have introduced innovations that have gone on to be replicated by other brands, (Bhasin). Because people are interested in cars with more to offer than just a drive this is why they attempted to sell their audience the idea of the Brake Assist, but the company went about it an offensive way. Then when they mentioned that they have been established for over 125 years the company wanted to show the potential buyers that they were buying a car with a history for which it has implemented over the years to establish itself as a leader in the fiercely competitive automobile industry.With the background knowledge of the advertisement it does not seem as offensive, but when most people glance at it momentarily they do not understand the full value for what it is worth. For this reason Mercedes needs to alter their campaign for the Brake Assist PLUS and incorporate every clich or none at all.

Citations:

1. Kutzler, Hannes. GRETA. Advertolog Advertising and Commercials. Switzerland. June 2011. Web. 30 March 2015.2. Bhasin, Hitesh. Marketing mix of Mercedes-Benz. Marketing91. N.p, n.d. Web 3 April 2015.