Technological platform
If we look back at our daily living, it is harder to find any technological platform that does not have advertisements. For instance, if you watch youtube, you will always find commercial turning on before the actual video starts. By understanding advertisements’ function, it is easy to find what their ideology, experiences, or goods those companies are willing to sell. This general understanding of advertisement may also refer to the University advertisement. In the modern world, the process of attending college has become a part of their career rather than fulfilling academic strives, and thus, College and Universities themselves have started to operate as business models. Therefore, if we watch Institutional advertisements, we can find their strength and what they want to “sell.” To clarify, elaborating on vast advantages does not define those institutions as attractive: giving too much may only confuse prospective students on what that institution wants to say. If the details themselves exist, but the claim is not found, the advertisement has failed to give their institutions identity. By looking at the two University and College advertisement, one will identify how the success and failure occur on prevailing prospective students to join them.
ImperialCollege of London is one of the most famous colleges in the UK or the whole world. By following its motto, “Scientia imperiidecus et tutamen,” Imperial College has extremely high academic approval among the world. Even in the advertisement video, it puts on vivid imagery of their success and tries to convey their ideology to the prospective students. On the other hand, Albright University is a small liberal art College located in Pennsylvania. Since they are less known compared to the top schools, its advertisement video tries to elaborate on their history, school features, and facilities to introduce them to the prospective students. Looking at them individually does not vividly show if their videos are successful or need further development. However, by comparing those two institutions’ video advertisements, one can identify why Imperial has successfully developed its claim, while Albright failed to do so.
Advertisements at Imperial College start with closed eyes open, they start with the usual images of people in the streets. Then zoom suddenly crosses over and reflects the various global issues that occur in the world: the glacier embodies the melting of the iceberg due to global warming, the grey smoke coming out of the factory embodies the polluted sky, and the zoomed image of mosquitoes embodies a deadly disease. The narrator immediately recounts the danger of global warming and ought for dedicated people to solve worldwide issues. Axiomatically, Imperial gears towards informing their ideology and addresses the question “why they should apply imperial.” The ad continues, and the scene moves forward to short sight on imperial students setting the scientific works. Suddenly, the light line is formed from their hand and exerts out towards the whole campus and soon the whole city. Imperial implicitly embodies their ambitions in this light; the world is making a difference through Imperials’ knowledge. Then, the scene flicts to the climax as news anchors’ voices overlap along with numerous news articles. This metaphorically expresses that Imperial has changed the world and proceeded with their prospective students.
Again, closed eyes open, and this time it shows Imperial with narration recounts “where everything begins.” This conveys that Imperial University is a leading university with enough scale and achievements to start the world’s transformation and that the prospective students will also become universal central figures if they open their eyes and join Imperial, which will change the world.
Throughout the video, Imperial uses all their details to represent its last narration: “We are looking for the best mind to join us. Where it all begins Imperial College. ”(Imperial 2:03~2:08). Through a soothing voice and grand music, the narrator evidently exclaims College’s As the video dexterously uses visual impact to sway prospective students. Through visualizing the 2d light full of color stretching out from the department of Imperial to the whole town and hence the whole world with a narration informing us of Imperial’s past changes they made. The stark contrast of the color of light and town embodies the Imperial and the world. By understanding Birren’s color theory that color evokes people’s emotions and even effects on how they inspect things, it is clear that the stark contrast of the red and yellow color of light and grey city embodies the changes given by Imperial and the world. The red color displays the passion, confidence, desire and adventurousness, which are values that are tied with Imperials philosophy. On the other hand, grey color displays sad, boring, and depressing, symbolizing global issues. This visual image portrays a feeling towards the audience that they will have a chance to change the world under Imperial College. This will exhilarate prospective students who are passionate about global issues. The light not only identifies the Imperial College. In fact, it also symbolizes the students themselves. This will give the impression that Imperial’s respect towards their student body and claims that Imperial College will support their student body to thrive with their talent with full support from the world’s best College. Another feature of Visual Image is the numerous articles about the achievements of Imperial students and alumni. Giving facts of huge footprints made in the science field, Imperial simultaneously resolves possible queries on “how” Imperial will make its student as “next generation of global solvers.” This will enhance the institution’s trustworthiness towards the prospective students and thus boost its claim that Imperial is looking for a new generation to change the world: they already have done it in the past. From this, Imperial creates a strong academic atmosphere that corroborates its main claim, “ be with us and change the world.”
On the other hand, Albright University takes a different stance on introducing their University. Advertisement of Albright starts with introducing two narrators, or tour guide, from their student body. By taking this style, prospective students feel an affable atmosphere; hence, they find that Albright has a closely tied community. The narration starts with the male narrator arguing, “when you are looking for the right college, you need to visit and see what it is all about.”(Misha)This statement hints that this advertisement will foreground on its facility, living, or possibly community. As he continues, he stops us at Selwyn Hall, which has been over 144 years. This hints to us that Albright has a long history, and it has been well preserved. Again, the subject changes, and this time it suggests 50 different clubs, cafes, and so on. The screen goes over again, and this time the female Narrator begins to explain. She proudly says that 30 percent of the students exercise and that the football stadium called Shrink Stadium accommodates 5,000 people. She went on to stress, once again, the school’s facility by introducing a building with the latest device called Roessner Hall. Then, the focus changes again, and this time presents the diverse art features noting them to be listed in top 25 schools in the US. Further notice, This pattern continues throughout the advertisement by presenting historical structures to trendy technologies in libraries, dorms, sports fields. By exchangeably presenting old history and new technology given at Albright, it introduces students to the harmony of the past and future.
It is such an Ironic failure the Albright’s advertisement has made. Because they focus too much on elaborating the school’s detailed features, they forgot to answer, “why should students come to their school. As analyzed, Albright’s advertisement is taken as if the viewers are getting a school tour. They explain the diverse history and new technologies, various sports clubs, and artistic strength. Unlike Imperial’s advertisement, all those features they present aim at different targets: shot clip on history, a short explanation on sports, short evidence on strength in the art department. They summarize what strengths they have but never explains how those benefits
When the video has started with saying, “ to find a fitting university, we must see them,” one would expect the video to be introducing their school facilities and living and explain why they are different from others. However, Albright’s video just walks through the places and gives information. They lack on why they are presenting those. This is a similar problem we might see from the “evidence sandwich.” The video definitely was great to watching: energetic background music, friendly narrators, and nice warm color tone. However, they have failed to elaborate further with those great pieces of evidence to make a claim out of it. If they wanted to display the relationship of history and the future, they should have conveyed a portrayal of history and the future to prove their point. For instance, they may have used the lion statue from the Selwyn Hall and created some wall graphy on new buildings to stress their vision. If they had 30% of the students as attendees, they could have focused more on their new sports facility to render appealing for sports enthusiasts. Maybe, they could have focused more on its diversity by introducing its high scholarship rate for international students. Due to lack of vision, Albright fails to elaborate on their given evidence. They show similar traits of risk from taking 1 on 10 analysis. Even with its vivid images of the school facilities, the advertisements fail to accompany deeper to answer “why we should visit and see what it is all about.”