An advertisement is something that is trying to be made known through appealing or being persuasive to the viewer. On the opposite side of the ad, whoever makes it must put in a lot of effort to really draw the viewers’ attention.  In my specific Coca-Cola ad, it is trying to appeal to the national pride of the viewer as well as their common-sense. Many different things are attributed to this, including the images, the text, and the time period that it was released. They are put together in one advertisement to create a perfect and uncoincidental masterpiece. 

Coca-Cola is one of the world’s strongest running company, and that has also effected their quality and efficiency of their advertisements. The advertisement presented is one with a solider on the front cover smiling and making eye contact with the camera or viewer (even though it’s a painting). Right in the center of the ad it states, “Thirst asks nothing more,” while at the bottom it says, “Yes sir, everybody knows ice-cold Coca-Cola is delicious and refreshing.”  There are many things within that that may seem like simple advertisement qualities, but these are use specifically for this ad without fault. 

This advertisement was created in 1951, which changes the way you look at it. That means the directed audience for this ad is not the present-day man, but instead someone from the 1950’s. More specifically, the advertisement was meant for the average family at the time; A mom, dad, son, and daughter. Knowing that would also require you to know that 1951 was right in the center of the Korean War. This appeals to the average American family because it targets everyone in the family. This targets the father that is soldiers drink Coca-Cola then its good enough for him, or if he is a soldier then he should be drinking Coca-Cola just like everyone else. This targets the mom by not only pulling out at her national pride and drinking Coca-Cola for the fighting soldiers, but also pulling at her emotions of missing her husband who may be in the war. Finally, this targets the kids sort of indirectly through the mother. If the family has a family member in the war at the time, they might subconsciously realize how happy the solider is when he gets to drink the Coca-Cola, and they will want to send him care package of Coca-Cola or maybe just have a lot ready for him when he returns home. 

This advertisement uses a lot of different ways to appeal to the average man. Using things such as national pride in their favor, as well as bandwagon, Coca-Cola put together an advertisement that had a few really good elements to it. The man in the center of the ad is a United States military soldier. He is smiling and really looks like he is enjoying himself while drinking a Coca-Cola. Even if you did not know that he was a U.S. soldier, this would still be appealing because if someone is enjoying something that much, you are going to want that same enjoyment of what is going on. Now if you add the soldier aspect, this is going to make American’s feeling of national pride rise, and want to help to military even more. In the middle of the page, right around to soldier’s mouth, the text says “Thirst asks nothing more.” This is in a way appealing to your subconscious saying that your taste buds would never ask for anything else or the fact that they could not have anything better than Coca-Cola. The bandwagon function of this advertisement is a little bit more obvious than the other parts of the advertisement. The bottom line says “Yes sir, everybody knows ice-cold Coca-Cola is delicious and refreshing.” This statement is just saying that everybody knows and thinks that Coca-Cola is the best satisfying drink.  

At the time that is ad was released, the author had to assume that the viewer knew that the Korean war was going on. If the viewer had no clue about the war, which would not be the case, then they would not really understand the significance the ad. They advertisement would still be effective to people even if the war was not going on but because of the timing the advertisement worked way more efficiently, as it appeals to more citizen’s national pride.

This Coca-Cola advertisement is very effective in the fact that it draws out the inner national pride of someone, and as an American citizen, National pride is something that means a lot to this country. That is why using an advertisement with a military service man in the cover was no coincidence.  The purpose of an advertisement is to attract or persuade a viewer so they will now have similar views as you. Coca-Cola has and will be great at doing this as long as they keep that high standard for their products and their advertisements.
