Zero Fatalities
Don’t Drink And Drive
Name: Keana Robinson
Date: 1/29/2016
Zero Fatalities Don’t Drink and Drive
Advertisements are meant for business purposes. They are made to market a product thus improve on the profits accrued by the producer. Such is a business. However, advertisements can have an entirely different purpose; send an important message to the masses, perhaps a warning or better still enlightening information. Also, so people won’t get easily bored. To come up with an advert for such an individual, one has to make it really flashy. It has to be eye-catching so that it can be read by as many people possible.
The Teen Task Force came up with an advert targeting the youth. Mostly, research and statistics show that the teenagers and college students are the ones involved in accidents at the highest level. The Teen Task Force came up with a photo, entitled Zero Fatalities, one of the many found in a brochure. The aim was to educate the teenagers on the driving laws and the painful repercussions of not sticking to the driving laws. It is a simple photo which surely sends an emotional message to the reader.
The photo shows a young and beautiful lady that is so full of life. Her skin is smooth and flawless, which seems to speak of her great health conditions. Evidently, she seems to enjoy life as she is not sulking. The girl, however, has a scar on her face more of a cut indicating she must have been involved in some type of accident. She has another mark on her lip. The mark is red and raw, looking like more of a zit. It the kind of mark you get when you hit your mouth accidentally against something hard a painful experience obviously. Her left eye is red, implying that something impacted her right in the eye. For an individual who has been punched in the eye, he can confirm that it is an unbearable torment. Tears flow freely and involuntarily out of it and you cannot see anything. You have to constantly rub the afflicted part with the hopeless hope that the pain will lessen, but of course, it is a struggle in futility. The girl wears a serious face. The advert aimed at portraying the harmful and painful effect of being involved in a road accident. It can be confidently argued that the effect has been brought out clearly. The wounds on the girl's face are still fresh, which implies that the accident took place just a few moments before the photo was taken. The repercussions of a road accident include the immense pain experienced, shown by the girl's face. The wounds do take the time to heal, leaving behind probably permanent scars that will be visible on the girl's face many years to come. As a teen, the girl most probably cares about her looks, therefore, the scars may really bother her for a long time.
Next to the picture are words. The words pronounce the warning. They send a clear and understandable message. ‘DRIVING STUPID CAN REALLY MAKE YOU LOOK BAD.’ This is probably to reinforce the picture. This is written in red and in uppercase. Writing in red is aimed at showing the seriousness of the message: driving stupid may even lead to a death of a friend. It is aimed at discouraging the youth reckless driving which is described in this case as the “driving stupid.” These are rather crude words. The creator of this advert could have said, “reckless driving” to appear a bit courteous. The ad creator however intentionally chooses to describe reckless driving as stupid. This is to show that it is pointless to ignore the traffic rules yet one knows that it might cost one's life. Another message wrote vertically downwards serves as the final warning. It is also written in red ‘DON'T DRIVE STUPID.' Below it is the aim of the advert creator, "Zero fatalities." The ad creator aims at informing the teens to drive carefully and wisely so as to reduce the number of deaths due to road accident to zero. Writing such a statement which appears impossible here is to make it possible. The ad creator aims at changing the mindset of the teenage, to make the teenager believe it is possible to have no loss of lives due to reckless road driving. The ad creator goes ahead and provides the site where one can obtain more information on the proper way of driving on the road in case the teen reading the advert needs more.
The advert is arguably moving for teenager and college audiences. It does not contain any negatively explicit content which would be unfit for the college student. By the fact that a photo of a youngster is used makes the advert relate more to the college student as they would identify the girl as ‘one of them.’ The ad is not too wordy as wordy adverts discourage the reader. The ad creator has a strong choice of words which bring about the heartfelt effect to the audience again. The vibe the ad gives is very informal and positively influential. The information that is being presented in the ad is not only true but also information that will save a person life.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/08nov/01.cfm 