Anti SUV
... Upon examining my ad of choice, the Ford 2005 Escape doesn’t sell itself by displaying itself in a setting that’s a natural environment and hoping consumers will be fooled into forgetting its environmental transgressions – it recreates the environment by focusing on the interior and thus redefining the SUV in an appealing light. But if the ad takes on a new angle to working the market, just how successful is it in challenging commonplace advertising techniques and rectifying the negative SUV image with environmentalists? ... It’s as if merely placing this ad within the vicinity of health tips, the Escape will allude to a healthier, happier lifestyle that – apparently - can be achieved with the SUV found in the middle of the magazine. ... Which, with a gas-guzzling SUV, becomes a distinct, but ironic, possibility. ... Furthermore, understanding that cancer is a natural, but fatal disease, the presentation of an artificial environment (that is not only man made, but also absolutely within man’s control) can actually make the SUV more appealing in contrast. ... Really, it wouldn’t be a definitive line between what is natural and artificial that may lead to reverse advertising for the SUV, but what is familiar and safe and what is displaced and unsettling. ... Ford is bringing our attention to the interior of the car, not only we are removed from typical landscape environment associated with SUV advertising, but Ford is seeking to redefine the “environment” in terms that it seeks to attract its consumer base to. ... Instead of posing in static scenes in the exceptionally large header margin space, that would bend the car’s identity in a certain direction, the consumer is left to fill in the blanks by imagining what they wish to see, whether it is a suburban neighborhood with front lawns and parking garages, urbanized apartment buildings and highway congestion, or camping sites and walking trails, thus demonstrating the versatility of the SUV and the ad’s success in portraying it. ... By offering this array of utilities and amenities, the SUV gives the consumer a small arena that is completely within their control within arms reach. ... It also exhibits what seem to be the allusions used to sell the Escape in the form of percentages; the breakdown of information seems is an attempt to appear honest by revealing the exact percentages of he SUV’s components. ... Both are possible places Ford implies the SUV can travel to, by transcending budget and time.