Australian Red Cross Blood Service: Encourage Blood Donation Through Advertising

The visual text is an advertisement enticing the reader to donate blood. It was composed by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. The purpose of this advertisement is to inform and persuade the intended audience of healthy Australians over the age of 18 years to contribute to saving lives through a blood donation. This advertisement could be found in chemists, drinking establishments, medical centres, hospitals, blood donation centres and health magazines. This is because the advertisement is about donating blood while also contributing to the topic of drinking as it makes the advertisement less formal and more relatable to the intended audience. The visual and language features of this print advertisement aim to impact the reader personally and encourage them to donate blood.

The composer of this advertisement aimed to intrigue the reader with various visual features to persuade them to contemplate the impact they would have on others if they donated blood. In this advertisement, the composer has used layout, salience, logos, colours, vectors, a reading path and symbols. The advertisement is on a blank white background with a single image of a clear beer glass with text covering the glass. The layout and silence of the glass show that is the most important thing on the page. As the glass is in the middle and is so large, the readers' eyes are immediately drawn to it compared to the small text at the bottom of the ad. The text that wraps around the front of the glass starts with large red font in capital letters and continues down the glass with black text with important words highlighted in red. As the first few words of the text are so large and in a bold colour, the reader’s eyes are immediately captured and attracted to the advertisement and the text in the glass. In the bottom right-hand corner, the logo and name of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service stand out and informs the reader of who composed the advertisement.

Colour is very limited in this advertisement which makes the red text on the glass more noticeable. The logo of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service stands out at the bottom of the advertisement as it is in red as well. The colour red in this advertisement represents blood, power and strength. The colour also is intense, bright, bold and attracts attention. As most of the advertisement is black and white, it is clear that the intensity of the red text and logo is supposed to attract and gain our attention and show how important they are. The empty beer glass is used as a vector in this advertisement. The edges of the glass accentuate the text in the glass and allow our eyes to follow the text easily. The clear reading path also helps the reader view the information much simpler and allows the readers' eyes to flow naturally through the information. Symbols such as the small beer glass in the bottom left corner is to remind the reader how many lives one pint of blood can save.

The composer of the advertisement used various language features to play on the readers' emotions and convince them to donate blood. These language features include 2nd person's point of view, rhetorical questions, statistics, modal words, informative words, warnings, informal language and jargon. The composer of the advertisement uses 2nd person to engage the reader into feeling more personally connected to the advertisement and the situation. Using words such as “ you” and “ your”, the reader feels more emotional and they can easily imagine themselves taking time out of their day and saving people’s lives by donating a pint of blood. The advertisement also uses a rhetorical question “ After all, who doesn’t feel good after a pint?.” This language feature is used to engage the reader and persuade them to come to a conclusion by themselves. The reader will often come to a conclusion that is in favour of the advertisement and in this ad, they might feel more inclined to donate blood. The composer also placed statistics in the glass so when the reader is viewing the text, they have facts about how many Australians donate blood compared to how many people need it. This language feature can make the reader feel guilty about how many people need blood and encourage the reader to donate blood.

High modality is used throughout this advertisement. The words “ guarantee,” “ always” and “ don’t” are used by the composer to have a stronger impact on the reader. When high modal words are used, they encourage the reader as the words are more powerful and have a greater influence. Using the words “guarantee” and “always”, the reader feels more affected and that the information is more factual. Nearing the end of the text on the glass, informative language is used by the composer including information linking to their company and how to donate blood. They include how to contact and book an appointment to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service and also a number to call if the reader would like to communicate with the company. In the bottom left corner, it includes a warning about donating blood responsibly. The Australian Red Cross Blood Service wants to ensure that the blood donors are safe and are responsibly giving blood. The composer placed a box around it to make it stand out as it is an important reminder. The language used in this ad is informal. Informal language in print advertisements is rare but in this ad, they use words like “ Cheers”, “Mates”,“Don’t”, “ Shout a pint”, and “ There’s”. Words that are informal can appeal more to a certain audience. As the target audience of this ad is Australians over the age of 18, they are targeting stereotypical Australians who would understand this jargon and find the advertisement more personal.

In conclusion, this Australian Red Cross Blood Service advertisement uses various visual and language features to appeal to and encourage Australia to donate blood. This advertisement would entice a healthy Australia over the age of 18 to connect with their personal values and morals and donate a pint of blood to save 3 lives.