Billboard Analysis

Whilst I was looking for magazine billboard advertising to analyse to gain inspiration for my own products, I found it difficult to come across billboards for magazines themselves so I selected a variety of billboards that advertise differing things and have analysed them.

This billboard is advertising the up and coming launch of a new sports channel, BT sport and that they are broadcasting many live Premier League mes. The aim of this billboard is to try and get people to go and watch/subscribe to their channel. The billboard includes images of 3 well-established and popular football players that apply their trade within the Premier League. They have used these players because they are instantly recognisable by the target audience and this will hopefully make them want to sign up and watch these players every week. The background is a sky/space look, which connotes that the players in the picture/BT sport are out of this world.

In terms of layout and images, the layout of this billboard is very organised having the star vehicles taking up the majority of the billboard so that they can be seen from far and attract the target audience and other passers by to look at the advertisement. The fact that the star vehicles are on a backing of space/the sky makes them stand out and it connotes that they are out of this world. The lighting effect behind the player in the middle makes him stand out. This may be because he was the best player in the league at the time and he is very recognisable so they will notice him first and look closer at the billboard. “Consumer practice developed as a pre-eminently feminine province” Osgerby. This quote is saying that the reader has developed this idea of males being able to pose for photo shoots has been developed by all of the female heavy companies around. This billboard applies to this theory because the 3 star vehicles are all male. This is something that is becoming more popular within sport. The text at the bottom left of the billboard is well positioned as it doesn’t cover the star vehicles and is low so that once you’ve caught the main image you will look down at the text and see what it is advertising.

In terms of colours there is a colour pallet of about 4/5 colours which is a common convention of billboards. The main colour is colour of the background, which is a smokey-white colour, with some patches of black/blue. The white in the background is a good colour to use because it makes the 3 colours of the kits on the players stands out further. These colours are good colours to have been used because they are colours of famous teams in the Premier League, the league that this TV channel is looking to broadcast. These colours will draw the attention of the target audience because they will recognise these kit colours and be drawn into seeing what the advert it about.

In regards to lexis, the lexis in minimal and there isn’t much text used. This is a common convention of billboards because they look to keep the writing to a minimum and let the picture sell the product. The main lexis that is first noticed is, “Every Kick Free.” This will draw the attention of the readers because of the word, “Free.” This word draws reader’s attention as they see that they are able to gain something for free. This will work for this target audience because they are C1-E and if they can get a luxury for free like this, so this will draw then in. The word “Kick” carries a semantic field involved with football soothe target audience will assume, along with the pictures that this is about their favourite sport. Below this, the lexis used under that masthead is very simplistic, but gets the main information across, having short snappy terms and conditions works for this type of advertisement is a convention because they are designed to just briefly advertise the product.

The second billboard I looked at is advertising Sky’s sports channels. The aim of this billboard is to raise people’s awareness to the fact that sky sports show live football, regularly.

In terms of images, there is one large image in the centre with 5 smaller images around the sides. The main image consists of a Premier League football player celebrating a goal. This star vehicle is a well known football player from one of the biggest teams in England. This will attract the target audience as they will see the player and assume that the advert is about there favourite sport/team/player. The secondary images are other action shots of football matches, goals being scored and celebrating players specifically. These images will attract the audience to the billboard because they are players doing the most exciting part of football and will interest the target audience. “Consumer practice developed as a pre-eminently feminine province” Osgerby. This quote is saying that the reader has developed this idea of males being able to pose for photo shoots has been developed by all of the female heavy companies around. This billboard applies to this theory because the star vehicles are all male. This is something that is becoming more popular within sport. There is mix of ethnic origins within this billboard and this is good because it will allow the attraction of a wider target audience as well as showing that the game of football is worldwide, as well as the company Sky. 

 In regard to layout, the layout is very structured and simple. This is a convention of billboards because they need to be easy on the eye and get the point across quickly. The layout has a large ratio of images in comparison to text. This again follows the conventions of a billboard because they are visual advertisements where people gain a small amount of information through the text after being drawn in by large images.

The colour scheme there is a colour pallet of two main colours black and white with other colours that include the colours of the kits the players are wearing and the colours of the sky logo. The black and white background is very simplistic and allows the brighter colours of the kit and sky logo to stand out more so that they are noticed first. The colours of the kits will attract the target audience because they are bright colours. Not only this, but the target audience will recognise the kit colours and be drawn to the images.

 The lexis use don the billboard is limited due to the nature of the advertisements The main lexis used is “Every goal matters” This will draw in the readers because goals are exciting and they will read this and be drawn is as there is somewhere that they can watch all of the goals from the football from the matches that the fans may have missed/not been able to watch live. The other lexis used reads “The home of live goals” this again shows that sky sports will show all of the goals, so whatever team you support you will be able to find the highlights of your teams goals. The word “home” makes it seem like the best channel home is where you live and it will show that goals originate from sky sports, which will then draw in the target audience because they will feel safe and that sky sports is reliable at showing their favourite sport, as it is the “home of live goals.”