Shelter essay

Social and cultural contexts can influence advertising in various ways. Figure 3 is an advertisement about a charity called Shelter which is a homeless charity. It’s purpose is to re home people who have lost their home for whatever reason. They produced three posters to promote their cause. The three posters all use a close up camera shot which makes the advert seem more personal and direct. You. Can also see the emotion on their faces more as the focus is on their faces rather than their bodies and the background of the shot. The posters also feature people of different genders and ethnicities. One poster features a middle aged white women who lost their job. Another poster has a late 20s early 30s white male who’s landlord evicted him. Another poster has a mid 20’s Middle Eastern women who was in a lot of debt. These different people show how it could be anyone of us no matter what race, ethnicity, sex or age you are. It makes the advert seem more real. Then font is also bright red, bold and in capital letters. It also takes up a significant amount of space on the poster.This puts the text more in the face of the viewer. The typography behind the text is that red is linked to pain and suffering and this text helps present that these people who have lost their home are in pain and are suffering and need your help. The red also goes into their eyes which makes them seem bloodshot. This again shows how they are in pain.  This makes the viewer of the poster feel sympathy and therefore are encourages to donate and support Shelter. The facial expressions on all the people make them appear exhausted and depressed. This shows how homeless people are unhappy and are not sleeping properly and that they need support to escape these emotions. The individuals are also unknown people which again presents to the viewer that it could be anyone.  The dark border around the advert also shows how they are by themselves and they are currently in a dark place in their lives and they need you to lighten their life up.

The social and cultural context of homeless people is that they are drug users and it is there fault that they have become homeless. The Shelter advert displays homeless people as regular citizens who look like the typical person. This is to show how most homeless people are normal people with no criminal history. The typography on the poster shows how it can be for a variety of reasons that can happen to anyone and homelessness is not only down to drug use. Shelter’s advertisement campaign is intended to change these stereotypes and make people view homeless people in a different way.