Terrie Locklear
ENG 1050, Section 012
Ms. Sara Oswald
21 August 2014
The Baby Washer
Our world today relies on advertisements. Without them how could companies persuade us to buy their products? Advertisements aren’t just objects on a page; they are way more than that. Certain colors, shapes, and placements appeal to us and catch our attention. Companies use these advertisements to manipulate us into wanting/buying their products. The real question here is how do they get us to want their products so badly? Molly Bang can give us the answer to this question, she explains to us in “Excerpts from Picture This: How Pictures Work” ten different principles that help an ad stand out, and to help us to better understand what exactly the company is wanting someone to get out of their ad. Several of Bang’s principles can be used to help us understand the ad above. Consider what the ad of the baby being washed with a Delta product (Better Homes and Gardens, 2014, p.9) is trying to give off. The baby in the bathtub has to be around the age of one and two. The baby has what appears to be mud all over it’s face and neck, and behind there is a dump truck that is also covered in mud. The tub is filled all the way to the top with water and bubbles over flowing on the side and floor. You can see two muddy handprints on the edge of the tub where the baby is standing. You can also see the arm and hand of a woman holding a water powered LED display with water coming out of it on to the baby’s back. As you can see the baby is getting ready to get a bath, and is very excited about it by the smile on its’ face. Pictures can tell us a thousand words without ever saying anything. Molly Bang uses ten principles to help describe the elements of a picture. She uses components to tell the emotions that a picture gives off. How, “being placed in the center of a photograph gives that certain object all of the attention on the page, or how being placed in the upper half of the photograph gives off a sense of happiness and peace” (Bang 231, 234). Molly Bang states, “The force of gravity affects our responses to the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal shapes, and it affects our responses to the placement of the shapes on the page” (Bang, 2011 p.227). The way we view an image all depends on how the shapes are placed in a photograph. Bang helps us to better understand how to tell what a certain image is truly giving off. If we put Molly Bang’s principles into effect we will be able to understand the meaning of the Delta ad. “The horizontal shape of the tub gives the consumer a sense of stability” (Bang, 2011, p.228). When people get this feeling from an ad it makes them feel safe and secure. We all know that being human is about feeling safe especially when it comes to babies or children. I mean who would want to buy something without feeling safe about it first? When it comes to buying a product movement plays a vital role. “The diagonal shape of the Delta water display being used to wash the baby gives off a sense of motion” (Bang, 2011, p.230) The ad company is wanting us to know that the product can be moved around, and not just a stiff piece of board. When viewing an ad don’t you want to be able to feel like you are free and happy? If you answered yes
