enduring love affair | Teen Ink

enduring love affair

January 5, 2010
By alixandria hahn SILVER, North Lake, Wisconsin
alixandria hahn SILVER, North Lake, Wisconsin
6 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Patek Philippe created this ad because they want to advertise their new watch. The target audience looks to be women that are married or in a relationship that are white and in their late 20’s to early 30’s. Also from the looks of the watch it looks like you have to have money because the watch has diamonds and it’s all gold, also there is no price or a place where you can get the watch on the ad.
The ad for this watch is showing a rich woman wearing the watch being advertised staring right at you and in small text it says “Begin an enduring love affair.” The literal message of this ad is if you have the watch you will have an affair. The hidden message is all women who wear this watch cheat on their husbands. That doesn’t sound right.
The lifestyle portrayed in the ad is definitely glamorized. Just because you wear a watch doesn’t mean you’re going to be rich and beautiful. The values that seemed to be expressed here is only one thing, perfection. Everything from her hair all the way down to the watch on her wrist is perfect. Her hair is all done up and no fly away strands. Her face is the perfect tone, and no blemishes. Her makeup is flawless as well as her lips being the perfect shape and size. There are skin blemishes on neither her chest nor her arms. And the gold watch with real diamonds just tops off the whole perfectionist persona.
The techniques being used to persuade you are symbols, the big lie, card stacking, and beautiful people. The only symbol there is in this ad is cheating. The text in the bottom corner talking about beginning an enduring love affair over a watch, what is so special about a watch? This quote is also a big lie. I really hope people don’t think that this watch will help them start a love affair. This false context is also the card stacking technique. And of course the woman in the ad is the beautiful people persuasion used.
Healthy messages being used are slim to none. Unhealthy messages on the other hand, seem to jump right off the page. Love affairs are not healthy! And this watch does not make you any richer. So that leaves the reader to wonder… is she having a love affair, does the watch give you that kind of confidence that would make you want to do that? That part of the story remains untold.

The author's comments:
this shows how people are easily fooled by the ads they see. and how just simply looking at an ad you can read into it.

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on Jun. 21 2016 at 12:58 pm
I agree with you on almost every front here. That ad, and many of its kind, contain unhealthy messages. However, I do not agree that cheating is one of them.
Although I see how you interpreted the slogan in that way, I believe that what the ad maker meant was an affair with the watch. Like, you love the watch so much you could not live without it sort of thing. Here's why:
1. If the ad maker wanted to portray that message, it would have been much more efficient to not only have the woman there but some sort of male partner there. Would have made for much less confusion.
2. Do you really think an ad with that sort of message would have been able to be displayed in a public place like where you saw it? I interpreted that you saw this ad in a store somewhere, or a magazine that many people could have access to. Any store or magazine with any common sense wouldn't even think about putting an ad like that in their store or magazine.