ACTIVITIES WITH ADVERTS

Here you have some commercials to do different activities taken from http://eflclassroom.com/. Hope you enjoy them!

COMMERCIAL 1: Honda Car Parts

• Activity: Identify all the car parts you can.

COMMERCIAL 2: The Force Be With You

• Activity: Watch the video and then put the following sentences in order:

The boy used “the force” on the car.

He tried to make the doll come to life

The mother and father smiled.

His mother gave him a sandwich.

The boy tried to start the treadmill.

The car started on its own. The force worked!

The boy’s father arrived home.

The boy walked down the hallway.

The boy went to the laundry room.

The boy was in the livingroom with the dog.

    

COMMERCIAL 3: Learn languages (I)

• Activity: Can you explain the pun used in the advert to create humour? 

COMMERCIAL 4: Learn languages (II)

• Activity: Name the reasons why learning English is important.

COMMERCIAL 5: Cast Away Commercial

• Activity: Let's practice some conditional sentences and answer this question "What would you take to a desert island?". Start your sentences saying I would take...

COMMERCIAL 6: If I Had a Million Dollars

Activity: More conditionals! Here is a useful song to practice conditional sentences (type II)

TITLE: If I Had a Million Dollars

ARTIST: Barenaked Ladies

If I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars

Well, I'd buy you a _______________ - I would buy you a __________________.

And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars

I'd buy you furniture for your house - maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman

And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars

Well, I'd buy you a K-Car - a nice Reliant automobile

And if I had a million dollars I'd buy your __________________.

If I had a million dollars

I'd build a tree fort in our yard

If I had a million dollars

You could help, it wouldn't be that hard

If I had a million dollars 

Maybe we could put like a little tiny fridge in there ________________________.

You know, we could just go up there and hang out. Like open the fridge and stuff. There would already be foods laid out for us, like little pre-wrapped sausages and things, mmm. They have pre-wrapped sausages but they don't have pre-wrapped bacon. Well, can you blame 'em? Uh, yeah!

If I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars

Well, I'd buy you a ____________ coat - but not a real fur coat, that's cruel

And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars

Well, I'd buy you an exotic ____________- yep, like a llama or an emu

And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars

Well, I'd buy you John Merrick's remains - ooh, all them crazy elephant bones

And if I had a million dollars I'd buy your love

If I had a million dollars

We wouldn't have to walk to the _________________

If I had a million dollars

We'd take a limousine 'cause it costs more

If I had a million dollars

We wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner

But we would eat Kraft Dinner. Of course we would, we'd just eat more. And buy really expensive ketchups with it. That's right, all the fanciest Dijon ketchups! Mmm. Mmm-hmm.

If I had a million dollars - If I had a million dollars

Well, I'd buy you a _____________ dress - but not a real green dress, that's cruel

And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars

Well, I'd buy you some ________________- a Picasso or a Garfunkel

If I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars

Well, I'd buy you a monkey - haven't you always wanted a monkey

If I had a million dollars I'd buy your love

If I had a million dollars, if I had a million dollars

If I had a million dollars, if I had a million dollars

If I had a million dollars, I'd be ___________________.

COMMERCIAL 7: Olympic Relay 

• Activity: This commercial shows Canada, as the guy makes his way across the wide country. Pause the video and say which activity he is doing. Use the Present Continuous.

COMMERCIAL 8: I Would Run to You

• Activity: Let's sing!

"I Would Run to You" Lyrics:

Woman: You're so far away.
Man: You're so far away.
W: Ain't got too much pride.
M: Want you back by my side.
W: Well baby I want that too.
M: And baby I would run, run to you.

W: I would run to you.
M: I would run to you.

W: The first time you talked to me.
M: I knew we were meant to be.
W: And when we finally embraced.
M: Baby, I can't keep this pace.
W: I love you. There I said it.
M: I think I'm gonna need a medic.
W: You filled the hall with flower petals.
M: Why does my mouth taste like metal?
W: Baby I might die without you.
M: Baby, I might die.

W: I would run to you.
M: I'm not as strong as you.
W: I would run to you.
M: I (unintelligible heavy breathing) to you.

W: Love is a speeding comet.
M: I'm in a pool of my own vomit.
W: Love is a perfect vision.
M: This was such a bad decision.
W: Love makes everything serene.
M: Give me all of your morphine.

M: (Spoken)
Baby, I know we said we'd run across the country to be together, but I thought we were being symbolic. Why can't we fly, and meet somewhere in the middle? Like Kansas City? It's the Paris of the Plains...

W: Baby I love you so much that I would run to you.
M: You would run to me? You would run to me!
W: Baby I love you so much that I would run to you.

Together: I (you) would run to you (me).

THE TRUTH IN ADVERTISING: NIKE

Here are the two videos we watched and compared in class. Which conclusions can be drawn?

VIDEO 1: Nike's commercial

VIDEO 2: The truth about Nike

And talking about working in harsh conditions, in 2008, Radiohead partnered with MTV EXIT to produce a music video for the track "All I Need" to raise awareness of human trafficking and exploitation. Here it is.

ADVERT ANALYSIS

This is the advert you have to analyse. You can download the picture so that you can see the details better. Remember: you must hand in the analysis on or before Tuesday 26th March.

LOGOS

A logo (or logotype) is a design symbolizing an organization or company. It is used for their letterhead, advertising material and signs as an emblem by which the organization can easily be recognized.

There are many logos that you can identify very quickly, but did you know that some of the most famous logos were created with hidden messages in them? Here you have some examples that Marisa brought for her class about Logos.

Amazing, isn't it? As you can see, designing a logo is more complicated than it seems. Here follows a very interesting video about the creation of the logo for the 2016 Olympic Games, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).

AN EFFECTIVE ADVERT (SUMMARY)

What makes an effective advertisement?

Persuading and convincing someone to buy something is not as easy as it sounds. Apart from the images, to produce an effective advert you have to choose the language carefully.

In the following presentation you have a summary of the different persuasive techniques we have seen in class.

PERSUASIVE LANGUAGE

The goal of most media messages is to persuade the audience to believe or do something. Commercial advertising tries to persuade us to buy a product or service. These "persuaders" use a variety of techniques to grab our attention, to establish credibility and trust, to stimulate desire for the product or policy, and to motivate us to act (buy, vote, give money, etc.) We call these techniques the "language of persuasion".

AFOREST

This useful little acronym will help you to analyse the reading assessment texts and to identify the techniques mentioned. Here’s a little reminder of what the letters stand for:

Apart from these techniques, we can find some others:

Now it's time to practice. Can you identify the different persuasive techniques used in the following adverts?

TEXT 1

TEXT 2

Answers:

And more examples:

ADVERTISING QUESTIONNAIRE

Here you have a questionnaire to test how much  you know about adverts. Then ask the questions to your partner and write a report with your answers.

IMAGES (III): READING IMAGES

Let's do some practice analyzing some images:

IMAGES (II): COLOUR

IMAGES (I): TYPES OF SHOT

TARGET AUDIENCE

A very important thing to take into account when we talk about an advert is the group of people to which it is addressed. This is what we call "TARGET AUDIENCE". 

SLOGANS

A slogan is a catchy phrase that is used to help people remember a product and make them want to but it.

Let's know more about slogans with this presentation. How many slogans can you recognize?

AN INTRODUCTION TO ADVERTISING

Every day when we watch TV or read the newspaper, we come across advertisements. Advertising is mass media content intended to persuade audiences of readers, viewers or listeners to take action on products, services and ideas. In short, the main reason for advertising is to PERSUADE the public to BUY a certain product.

Here is an introduction about the different aspects we are going to explore later in this unit.

01. intro advertising from aszar