This document contains summaries of several French advertisements from magazines and newspapers: 1) An advertisement for a cellphone uses bright colors and features French athletes to promote the phone and mobile subscription. 2) An ad promotes an AIDS benefit concert happening over 2 days with 80 performances. 3) A brief ad promotes price reductions and reservations for an unspecified event. 4) Contact information is provided for three students analyzing French advertisements.

1. Some French ads

2. The purpose of this ad is to sell a
cellphone and a mobile subscription.
The title could be translated like this :
« This is Florent, a golden boy »
They used bright colors and famous French
athlete (Florent and Laure Manaudou).
There also a reference to the relatively new
great performance with golden to refer to
the golden medal won at the Olympics
game and, in the upper right-hand corner
of the phone, there is a photo of Florent
Manaudou and the caption L’Equipe.fr*.
« L’Equipe » is a famous sport magazine and website.

3. This is to advertise a event : 80
concerts during 2 days.
The purpose is to fight against AIDS
(that’s the meaning of the small black
square, abose the ‘o’ of Solidays).
This ad was found in a newspaper called
20 minutes*.
Île de France (at the bottom) stand for
the French region (it’s where Paris is).
A lot of people read 20 minutes but it’s not a very good
newspaper, it’s just free and distributed in the metro and
some other public places.

4. This is an ad founded in a magazine.
There isn’t much to say about it.
The small paragraph at the end is to
promote some price reduction and some
reservations.
The slogan
« Profiter, changer, économiser » (at the
bottom of the ad) could be translated like
this : « Profiting, changing, saving.

5. This ad promote a magic show, we just can read the place and dates were the show will
take place.
TF1 (bottom left-hand corner) is one of the first TV channel in France.
RFM (bottom right-hand corner) is a big radio station.
The other logos are not well known.

6. This ad is for a tour in France.
In the bottom right-hand corner, the red logo stand for RTL2, a famous radio station
(rock and pop-rock music) in France,

7. « At this price, I’m back in France »
In this ad, Virgin Mobile uses the actuality to promote their low-price offer. In
fact, it clearly refers to Gerard Depardieu’s recent tax exile in Belgium and
Russia, which has been particularly mediatized…

8. « For Christmas, the best gift is to come back home alive »
Road safety has a huge importance in France – many shocking ads are made to
prevent road accidents, like this damaged car in Paris, last December. Even a
website (rentreenvie.fr) has been created to give advice about how to deal with
parties.

9. « THERE IS NO DANGER - Concerning GMOs we can not stand back enough yet»
This ad has around 5 years old. GMOs were very contested at this time in
France, which explains such striking ads against them, comparing transgenic corn
with a gun. (GMOs are still contested, but we don’t hear about it any more…)

10. Ads for condoms or other sex products
are sometimes quite rude, like this ad
for a « very effective lubricant » by
Manix.
When we see this picture for the first
time, we don’t realize what it
represents. But soon, we understand
where (how?) this women is sitting…

11. But sex in ads is much more surprising
when what is advertised has nothing to
do with sex.
For exemple, this coffee machine clearly
has the shape of a male genital organ.
The associated text is not less strange-
quite perverse indeed :
« Black Senseo. To bewitch mum, there
is nothing like black magic »

12. This is an old commercial (1998 with prices in francs) from a magazine. Here, the commercial
indicates that a sentence can be applied to two entities: a car and a woman wearing a helmet. The text
reads: “To have a [dreamy body] and to feel [indestructible]. The text below clearly describes the car’s
features but some words are also clearly used to refer to a female body (for example: “great curves” when
referring to the body or “inflatable cushion” when referring to the airbag). The purpose here is to make
the car attractive while emphasizing on the safety features of the car (hence the helmet). Though the
comparison between the woman wearing a helmet and the car is questionable in terms of “safety”.

13. This car commercial is very
different from what we would usually
find in modern advertisement. The car
is neither shown in motion nor in a
favorably attractive location. The car,
being illegally parked, got its four tires
immobilized, proving that it needs
that much to be pinned down. Hence
the simple and only sentence of this
ad: “Toyota RAV 4 four-wheel drive”.
Indeed, usually, one of these is enough
to unable motion so it’s clearly overkill
to use four. This is just to prove a point.
Also, doing something
illegal right in front of the prohibiting
sign is typically French… Commercials
usually don’t condone committing
infractions, even if it’s in order to make
a point.

14. On the left: “I dream that one day, cars will
leave a mark on the Earth as big as a ship
leaves a mark on the ocean” by Ellen
MacArthur.
On the right: “To reduce our impact on the
planet, this is the Renault eco-
commitment”
This commercial is very
interesting in that they made a very clear
parallel between the two pictures: the
catamaran leaves the exact same pattern
(road included) as on the picture on the
right. Notice that even the road behind the
car disappears to the point it is not
noticeable at the bottom of the picture so
as to respect the symmetry. Finally, the
colors have also been carefully chose: the
big blue for the ocean and the bountiful
green for the Earth (->green energies…)
Last but not least, the “eco²”
logo is found on both pictures showing that
no matter where, Renault’s “eco-
commitment” may be found…

15. This is yet another ad from a 1998
magazine. This ad is also rather unusual as the
character depicted is rather sleep deprived, which
makes him unattractive. This does not seem to
correspond to the commercial’s goal, which is to offer
price reductions on some of their product. In truth, it
seems that the picture is in accordance with the text
in white “Am I dreaming or is it my eyes?” While it is
true that the picture is focusing on the eyes (the
business man is trying really hard to keep them
open), depicting a sleep deprived person is, in my
opinion, not necessarily a good way to show that the
offer is genuine…
On another note, the big red Q (which
represents the brand) might actually add to the
sentence in white to make “Am I dreaming or is it
just my eyes?” This could alter slightly the meaning
and my interpretation but I think it is a bit far
fetched for an ad that is supposed to catch the
reader’s attention in an instant…

16. This commercial is about Duracell
batteries. The text in black reads: “New Duracell
Ultra that make lamps, toys and rabbits last even
longer.” This is the type of ad that doesn’t work if
left alone because we don’t really understand
what the rabbit is all about. In fact, this
commercial was accompanied by TV ads
depicting the same rabbit doing all sorts of sports
activity while being powered by a battery (a link
to such videos is probably given in the internet
link given at the top of the ad…). In this
commercial, the best way to make the reader
understand “sports activity” is to stop the motion.
Finally, to emphasize the “Ultra”, why not make
the rabbit jump above city buildings like it was
flying? Only one thing doesn’t seem to work well:
how do you convey “battery duration”, which is
the main point of the ad? By adding “no alkaline
battery lasts longer” (text in white) at the bottom
of course!
Note that in France, it is illegal to
name other brands to compare with, which is why
ads usually say they are “the best”, instead of
“better than‘”.

17. Contact information
 From SFR ad to Mark Knopfler ad:
romain.fleurisson@etu.emse.fr
 From Virgin mobile ad to Senseo ad
damien.heriveaux@etu.emse.fr
 From Honda ad to Duracell ad:
mathieu.snollaerts@etu.emse.fr