Commercial and print advertisements are used to send a message to a variety of people. The purpose of an advertisement is to encourage emotions onto the audience that influences them to act by those emotions in favor of the product or idea being advertised. The outcome of ads vary for many, some are used for corporal profit but others are to influence the audience to vote, donate, or share the ad on a social media site. Unfortunately, advertisements sometimes do not provide what someone expected from it. The Singapore Crisis ad profoundly demonstrates how the content of an advertisement causes audiences to believe something when in fact it is misleading, untruthful, and damaging.

The ad picture is a real photograph with actual people. It is not a painting because if it was it would not be as impacting as it is, with it being a photograph. The realism of the ad makes it seem more important and to not be taken lightly. If it was a drawing of a child in the mother's hands, it would be brushed off because we are not essentially seeing what is actually happening in the world. It needs to be realistic to get the point across to the people. A picture of a hurt dog would get people to do more than a drawing of a hurt dog. There is something about real pictures that get through to people more, and to make it have a much more impacting message to it. 

The ad is not colorful. It is done in a grey scale. Had it been colorful, it would have made it seem more casual than and not as distraught of an image as the ad sends as the message. The grey scale adds a sort of gloomy sad tone to it. The grey scale in the ad shows that what the picture shows is tragic and wretched. The color choice makes Singapore look like a horrible place to live in and gives it a dirtier or poorer look to it. It makes someone want to go out and make a change and donate money or try to help in every way that they can. Also grey scales are usually used for more serious matters such as this one. When people do drawings of 9/11 most are done in a grey scale because it signifies a gloomy sad day for many and it is something the audience should recognize based off of the color choice of an artist.

The hands doing the thumbs up in the print ad symbolizes a "like" on Facebook. The ad clearly shows the hands carry nothing that could help the mother in distress of the kid that has passed (he seems to be dead). They carry no money, no shelter, no actual support needed. They are obviously useless to the people over at Singapore that are facing these tragedies. Whilst observing the picture it essentially seems horribly cruel and inhumane to have a thumbs up around what is happening. It is as if the people are liking what is happening, literally. The people in Singapore undergoing conditions such as these would hate to see that on Facebook a picture as horrible as the one the ad shows, gets thousands of likes. It could pass for disrespect for them, while the people here think they are helping. 

The perspective in the ad has great effect on how the audience could possibly interpret the meaning. Show this ad to someone that has no clue what Facebook is, or what internet is and what would they think? They would probably think that it is human cruelty considering the people giving the thumbs up are not helping and thumbs up signifies something good; like a job well done. "Good job" is not the message people would want to send to the mother of that child. But it could easily be interpreted that way to someone who has no clue what Facebook is and what the thumbs up actually is trying to signify. 

The Singapore Crisis print ad embodies a false Facebook belief that fools many users looking through their newsfeed. When someone is scrolling down their newsfeed on Facebook they constantly see images of children with rare medical diseases, malnourished people, destroyed villages, or children dying in their mother's arms; and all of these images are shared along with statements like, "Share or Like to show your support, Like to donate a dollar to this village, Like to bring prayers to these people." These statements are potentially powerful but they lack any truth. It would be incredible if certain amount of likes collected on an image could bring help to villages, children in hospitals, or people caught in catastrophic events. 

Unfortunately, these virtual likes only help the people who uploaded them feel accomplished. Accomplished to the extent of having influenced many people to like and share a random image that they uploaded; never does it in reality provide aid to people who need it as the people who like it think it is doing. 

The elements of a print ad or commercial ad has great effect on the meaning interpreted from it. Color, symbols, realism, shadows, and many more play a role in how the audience gives meaning to the ad. Facebook likes are useless to everyone. The ad wants to show the audience that if you actually want to make a difference, liking a picture on Facebook is not the way to do it. 

