Surfrider Foundation Advertisement Analysis Essay Example
Fish eat a variety of different things including shrimp, plants, and of course fish. These species make up a normal fish’s diet. The other thing that makes up a fish’s diet is plastic. This is the message that is presented in the advertisement produced by the Surfrider Foundation. The Surfrider Foundation works to protect the world’s oceans, waves, and beaches through activist work (“Mission”). In this advertisement, the foundation argues that the plastic pollution that ends up in the ocean ends up coming back into the human in food. The foundation persuades its audience in an effective manner by using examples of pathos, logos, and other visual design elements.
The main purpose of this advertisement is to stop plastic pollution in the ocean. As the audience views this advertisement the first thing that catches the human eye is the pieces of sushi. Sushi is commonly made up of seaweed paper on the outside, rice and raw fish or vegetables in the middle. The sushi in this advertisement is made of plastic bags instead of seaweed paper and raw fish. The foundation replaced the ingredients that come from the ocean with plastic to show the negative effects of plastic on the ocean’s sea life. Next to the two pieces of sushi are a set of chopsticks. Chopsticks are often associated with sushi. The audience’s eye is then drawn to the statement that is written underneath the sushi in all caps and in blue. The statement reads “WHAT GOES IN THE OCEAN GOES IN YOU”. This statement gets the audience to think about what they are putting into the ocean. At the bottom of the advertisement, the Surfrider Foundation provides a statistic and a website the audience can go to. The Surfrider Foundation’s logo is also present in the bottom right corner.
The main appeal that is used in this advertisement is pathos. The foundation uses pathos to get the audience to feel emotions while viewing the advertisement. The first emotion presented is pity “Recent studies estimate that fish off the West Coast ingest over twelve thousand tons of plastic every year” (Spencer). After reading that statement the audience begins to feel pity for the fish that have been eating plastic instead of other sea creatures or plants. Another emotion that the audience will feel after reading that statement is shame. The audience will feel shameful when they think back to a time where they didn’t recycle or litter anything made of plastic. The audience makes a connection that the plastic they littered was possibly eaten by a fish. The final emotion that is presented is fear “What goes in the ocean goes in you” (Spencer). This statement along with the picture of the sushi makes the audience fearful of eating plastic the next time they eat fish. Sushi is the example of a food that contains fish that the foundation used but the audience will be fearful to eat any food that contains food due to the possibility of it containing plastic. The use of emotions in pity, shame and fear all help strengthen the use of the pathos appeal. Another strong appeal presented in this advertisement is logos.
The logos appeal is found only once in this advertisement. The way it is presented is very effective with the statistic “Recent studies estimate that fish off the West Coast ingest over twelve thousand tons of plastic every year” (Spencer). The foundation used this statistic to show the audience that fish consume more plastic than people realize. The statistic that is used in this advertisement fits the logos appeal and also helps get the point across to the audience. Along with the use of pathos and logos the image contains other visual design elements that appeal to the audience.
The first of many different visual design elements that is used in this advertisement are the use of various colors. The advertisement contains three main colors, blue, white, and brown. The use of white in the background is very effective. It makes the font stand out. White also represents cleanliness, which is what the Surfrider Foundation wants the world’s ocean to be (Cherry). The advertisement contains the color blue in multiple places. Blue is often associated with the ocean. The use of the color blue in the font against the white background makes the sentence easier to read. The Surfrider Foundation’s logo is blue and can be seen in the bottom right corner. The last way blue is used is in the picture of the sushi. In the middle of the sushi there are blue plastic vomit bags. The vomit bags are made from plastic and stand out when inside the rice layer. The foundation did this to show that vomit bags make up some of the plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. The final color used is brown. Brown is found in the image as the outside layer of the sushi. This outside layer is made up of brown plastic bags. The foundation did this to show that plastic bags are another example of plastic pollution. The foundation’s use of colors catches the audience’s eye. Another thing that catches the audience’s eye is the composition of the advertisement.
Another visual design element is the composition in the image. The sushi pulls the audience into viewing the advertisement because of its size. The two pieces of sushi take up half of the advertisement. The image is clean and can be recognized from far away. Directly below the sushi, is the main message the foundation wants the audience to read. The composition of the advertisement is very effective. It pulls the audience in with the large sushi and then gets them to read the main message.
The advertisement is very effective in getting the message across to the audience but doesn’t do a great job of getting the audience’s trust or getting them to act on the cause. The ethos appeal is not found in this advertisement. The foundation never tells the audience what they do to help stop plastic pollution and why they should trust them. The foundation provides a website for the audience to visit but it is hard to read because it is written in gray text on a white background. If the foundation would have used the ethos appeal and given the audience multiple ways to act on the cause this advertisement would have been more effective.
The effectiveness of the use of logos, pathos, and other visual design elements helps the foundation persuade the audience. The pathos appeal contains many emotions, the statistic in the logos appeal is relevant, the colors all mean something, and composition makes the image readable. The advertisement could have been more effective if they would have used the ethos appeal. The foundation created a very effective advertisement that makes the audience think about how plastic pollution does affect them. The audience ultimately has to do their part in stopping plastic pollution.
Works Cited
Cherry, Kendra. “How White Impact Moods, Feelings, and Behaviors.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 24 Apr. 2021, www.verywellmind.com/color-psychology-white-2795822#:~:text=White%20represents%20purity%20or%20innocence.&text=Some%20of%20the%20positive%20 meanings,stark%2C%20cold%2C%20and%20isolated.
“Mission.” Surfrider Foundation, https://www.surfrider.org/mission.
What Goes In The Ocean Goes In You. Stevie Spencer, 2011, https://steviespencer.com/surfrider-ban-the-bag.
