Image Analysis

The image I choose to analyze is a print advertising from Economie Entreprises magazine. It has been published in January 2012, and it is the edition number 144. Economie Entreprises is a monthly Moroccan magazine written in French. It is famous for discussing major Moroccan economic issues and events. Since 2006, it has been known as the most influential communication support which targets opinion leaders in Morocco, mainly economic deciders and head of companies. The advertising is on page 65 of the magazine, which is approximately half of the magazine pages. The service being advertised is Alfa Air, which is a company of private jets. The sender is the company itself which is the first private jet company in Morocco. Since its creation in 2007, its turnover is in constant augmentation of 20%. The purpose of this ad is to inform about the service, and to ultimately sell it to a specific category of the Moroccan population: business men and influent personalities. The anticipated audience of this ad is clearly Moroccan business men whose age is between 25 and 50 years old, who look for luxury, rapidity, and high quality service. In order to analyze this image, four major aspects will be looked at: the client’s perspective, the photographer’s perspective, the composition of the image, and the receiver’s perspective.

For the client’s perspective to be understood, one has to look at the goal, the message, and the context. As briefly explained in the introduction, the goal of the client is to sell the service of private jet. The client wants the ad to accomplish an informative, illustrative and commercial aim. Since the target audience is composed of powerful Moroccan elite and rich business men who have specific needs: feel unique, secure, and travel in the most convenient and even luxurious way possible, the client had to find the most efficient support. Indeed, Economies Entreprises is the best choice for this client, since all the target audience will read the magazine , it will have all the chances to come across the ad. The message being conveyed is definitely a directive one. Indeed, both the sender and the message are visible. The logo of Alfa Air is clearly put next to the image of a private jet welcoming a small number of suited passengers. The image is also considered to be directive since the client obviously wants its target audience to be influenced by the image and to encourage it to have a specific opinion. In this case, the target audience will probably think that this private jet is the most appropriate travel solution. This image can be considered as a rhetorical one as well, since it has a persuasive function. Showing the functional aspect of the service, which is how it works in practice, has a very powerful convincing effect on the audience. Indeed, when looking at the image of those business men in their way to enter the private jet, any other business men will recognize himself and thus, will be tempted to do the same. A synecdoche is used in order to prove that the service being advertised is relevant. In this case, the landscape provides a dramatic impression of business men getting ready for a serious mission on the latest model of a private plane. The context used by the client plays an important role too. Indeed, the external context used for this image is a totally empty and clean space, which reinforces the sentiment of being a VIP. Hence, the context transforms the image in the sense that it adds to the image more value and persuasive input.

Now that the client’s perspective has been analyzed, the photographer’s perspective will be looked at closely. If this image has to be categorized, it would be probably categorized as mirrors. Indeed, when looking at the image, one can feel the directive approach of the photographer, who chooses a specific angle where the front of the plane looks at the receiver appealing to him directly, while business men and private jet staff seems to be too busy to look at the photographer. Also, by looking at the image, one can notice that the photographer choose to cut the image in a horizontal rectangular format. This specific format offers a panoramic view and seems to invite the receiver to discover the message being conveyed. Indeed, this landscape format allows the audience to see all the important elements: the plane, business men, the sky…

In order to fully analyze this image, its composition has to be carefully examined. To begin with, one has to look at the structure of the image. In this case, the photographer chooses an asymmetrical composition. Indeed, neither the plane nor the subjects are placed at the center. The plane is placed slightly to the left, while the subjects are slightly placed to the right. This organizing approach creates more dynamism and emphasizes a sort of contrast between large areas (occupied by the plane) and relatively small ones (human beings). The second element is contrast. The fact that there is contrast between the extremely white sky and the dark take-off runaway immediately attracts the eye. Indeed, one has the impression that these are two different worlds, as if the passengers were going to be transported into another world. The fact that the image is composed of two opposites, manages the tension between order and chaos. Indeed, the chaos which one might translate as the stressful daily life of companies’ big heads is opposed to an enlightened sky where these VIP passengers will enjoy a peaceful moment. The third element has to do with the balancing act achieved by the photographer. In this case, one might assume that the photographer imbalanced the lighting so that there is more emphasis on one part (the sky and the plane) and less on the other (the take-off runaway and the passengers). The fourth element concerns the different areas of the image space. When looking at this image, one can notice that dark elements create the image’s depth. That is to say, the photographer consciously darken the foreground of the image, while starting to lessen the darkness of the middle ground and totally put light in the background so that to reinforce the image’s depth. Another crucial aspect of the image’s composition is light. In this advertising, light conveys feelings of security and hope for a more comfortable life. It seems from the image, that the picture has been taken during the day, hence it is natural light coming from the sun. However, the photographer may also had combined with it artificial light so that a more effective atmosphere is created. The direction of the light in this particular image is closer to side lightening, since the light is clearly coming from the side and it is changing the volume of the plane making it look bigger. The analysis of the image’s composition makes one think about its orientation. This is a horizontally oriented image, reinforced even further thanks to the landscape format as discussed earlier. This orientation conveys positive and peaceful energy stressing the calm that the passengers will enjoy once within the private jet. Moreover, motion is suggested through the motion blur which probably happened naturally while business men were heading towards the private jet. While looking at the image, there is an appealing direction that suggests that the direction of the movement is from right to left. According to photographers, this specific motion direction is called ‘home side’, suggesting a movement towards home. The photographer has thus perfectly chosen the direction of the movement, since the impression that will be given for the target audience composed of influent elite will be that of finding the same security and comfort they have at home. Besides, the distance and angle from which the photographer took the image is a long shot which gives more space for the intended atmosphere to be created. As for the image processing, one can say that the technique of dramatizing has probably being used by the photographer. Indeed, the contrast has being clearly exploited. Also, the technique of removing some parts of the background has been used in order to create a clear focus on the private jet and the business men. The last aspect of the image’s composition being the meaning conveyed, reinforcement is the main technique used for this advertising. Indeed, in order to be sure of convincing the audience, the client has used a stronger language. This language being the textual material added at the top, in the middle, and at the bottom of the ad, as well as three other small photos of the private jet both from the inside and the outside. The pictorial matter is reinforced by textual one in order to emphasize that these are going to be unforgettable moments, by using metaphors which suggest that business men would become time masters, and by directly appealing to the target audience thanks to telephone, fax numbers, and e-mail address provided at the bottom of the advertising.

Finally, the receiver’s perspective is essential to understand the effectiveness of the ad. Indeed, since the image is a simple one, the receiver would probably have no problem identifying it, and making sense of the whole message conveyed by both the client and the photographer. Hence, one can speak here of good gestalts which are synonym of simplicity and continuity and which instantaneously catch the eye. While looking at the image, both laws of proximity and similarity are used. In one hand, the figures (the plane, human beings) are both very close from each other. On the other hand, the subjects all look the same since they are all wearing suits. Now that the perception has been identified, the experience is another important aspect of the receiver’s perspective. The space which helps the client conveys the message in the take-off runaway. Hence, this is what is experienced first by the receiver. The focal point for the audience consists of business men who are in their way to get on the plane. The last element while considering the receiver’s perspective is his or her interpretation of the image. In this ad, the interpretation is unambiguous since most people will interpret it in the same way. Thus, both the client and the photographers succeeded in their visual communication.

To conclude, I think that this advertising campaign has definitely reached its objectives since the message of Alfa Air private jet company is clear and straightforward and the target audience is easily reached through a specialized magazine: Economie Entreprises. Thus, the chances of success for such an advertising campaign are very high, especially if we acknowledge the fact that this private jet agency is already the most famous one in Morocco.