Promoting a proper healthcare routine is vital for reducing the cases of public health issues in the target demographic and ensuring that people are isolated from the key health threats. Therefore, advertisements and announcements are vital for keeping both the prevalence and incidence of the specified health issue low. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, promoting health literacy and proper healthcare routine is of paramount importance, which is why the advertisement titled “Stop the Spread of Germs” and showing how the rate of infectious diseases can be curbed bears particular weight. By providing key data concisely, highlighting the essential information, and offering clear, clean, and easily discernable images, the advertisement serves its purpose perfectly and helps to promote proper behaviors and habits related to stopping the spread of germs.
Aimed at general audiences, primarily, adults, and seeking to improve their healthcare routine, as well as their health literacy in general, the advertisement in question seeks to prevent the aggravation of the current health crisis. The wording of the advertisement, or its logos, can be considered a prime example of how essential information must be conveyed to the target population. Offering concise and accurate descriptions of the actions that citizens must take in order to reduce the threat of the virus, the advertisement delivers the message effectively (Bax 164). Specifically, the amount of information incorporated into the seemingly short guidelines is worth mentioning as an excellent use of logos.
If a disadvantage had to be selected specifically, one could point to the fact that some of the pictures do not fully reflect the instructions that they are expected to portray. For example, the image of a house with a tiny bed inside and a person lying in the bed do not suggest staying at home immediately as the only possible interpretation of the specified sign. Similarly, the sign-in which a woman is covering her mouth with a hand to prevent her sneezing from infecting everyone in the vicinity. The lack of clarity could be attributed to the overly simplistic outlines and the absence of facial details on the characters. However, adding the facial features would have removed the sense of simplicity that the images were expected to convey, creating a more busy picture and reducing the immediate e impact that the picture produces (Bax 165). Therefore, keeping the simplicity of the current imagery is vital for helping the target audience to develop an immediate perception of the provided information.
Nevertheless, the specified minor problem with the use of images does not distract from the overall message and, most importantly, does not make it any less significant or noticeable. Instead, the visuals support the key information represented in the textual form, providing guidelines for taking the suggested actions and implementing the procedures needed to ensure the safety of the target demographic. Overall, the logos used in the advertisement can be considered highly effective and impressive.
In turn, the ethos of the advertisement is represented quite strongly. Without making an overly strong emphasis on the ethical aspect of the message, the advertisement conveys the urgency and importance of taking personal responsibility. Although the problem with the absence of facial features in the illustrations, as mentioned above, makes it difficult to encourage empathy in the reader, it still evokes the feeling of responsibility need to accept the proposed changes in behaviors and habits.
Finally, one should give the authors of the advertisement credit for not making its pathos stand in the way of delivering the main message, namely, the urgency and significance of changing behaviors and habits to contain the spread of the disease. The advertisement avoids being excessively dramatic in order not to stir panic. Similarly, the increased emotionality of the message might have made it difficult to perceive it with de seriousness; instead, the audience could have viewed the accentuated appeal to their motions as an attempt at manipulation. Thus, if the message was more dramatic, fewer people would have accepted it as a call to action, which would have had truly deplorable outcomes on the levels of public health. However, the absence of an appeal to the audience’s emotions in the advertisement and the use of calm and confident presentation of key guidelines and information instead has served its purpose perfectly, creating a coherent and palatable text (Bax 166). Therefore, the advertisement in question works perfectly as a means of encouraging action in the target population and changing their behaviors.
Due to a combination of clear and easily understandable images, accurate and concise instructions, and the key information being highlighted to incite immediate action, the advertisement works perfectly and performs its main function of educating the population directly. The poster communicates key ideas directly and accurately, using the Imperative Mood, which adds urgency and insistence to the announcement while keeping it polite and unobtrusive. Moreover, the use of visuals supports the key data and helps to understand the recommendations and guidelines properly, which is particularly helpful for those who speak English as a second language and may have difficulties understanding it.
Reference
Bax, Stephen. Discourse and Genre: Using Language in Context. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.