Heinz by Michelle Hsu

This is a Heinz ketchup advertisement. It seems like the whole picture is white and dull when I first looked at it. However, there’s little red, attention grabbing object in the bottom. It’s the Heinz’s logo that they use to represent themselves. The little red spot really grabs people’s attention, because it is the only object in the picture with color. I didn’t get what advertisement this picture was for at the first moment that I saw it, but then my eyes moved to the little red ketchup bottle in the bottom, and then I got what the advertisement is trying to say and why they used a media style like this. I laughed. I guess what the advertisement is trying to reach to its audience is that without using Heinz’s ketchup, every food will become black and white and there will be no more taste to it, or it will probably taste like cardboard if you will, and they will not seem as delicious as it should be with the ketchup. I think the person who created this used the cardboard instead of real egg is because s/he wanted to use the visual effects to make people feel disgusted by what’s being offered on the plate, then it gives a comment on the bottom that pretty much says this is how the food will look AND taste like without it. At this point in understanding the advertisement, you are probably already imagining it in your mouth. This is how they get to their audience, because we would like to have a colorful life, not a dull one like cardboard food. The use of coloring is effective and interesting as a whole because the red stands out above them all. We all know that the plate SHOULD look like, and not a big piece of cardboard and a few shredded ones. It is a straight forward and interesting advertisement that can easily get people into thinking the effectiveness of the product. -Michelle Hsu