Book Review - "Tomorrow, When the War Began" by John Marsden

Ellie and her friends leave home one quiet morning, wave goodbye to their parents, and head up into the hills to camp out for a while; seven teenagers, filling in time during school holidays. Little do they know, their world is about to change forever, their lives will never be the same again. They will be forced to make life changing decisions, whether or not to fight or give up everything, maybe even giving up life itself.

“Tomorrow, When the War Began” opened my eyes to a whole new world and made me question everything I thought I knew. Each page is jam-packed with action, adventure and drama and left me desperate for more, I couldn’t wait to turn over to find out what would happen next. It’s crazy! Everything that Ellie and her friends have to go through, they have to stay strong, stick together and face their biggest fears. It’s them against the world, with no adults to help them and tell them what to do. Running around on their own, blowing things up and falling in love, it’s so unpredictable and kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through. It’s based in Australia too, so it’s really easy to relate to. The only thing I didn’t like was the fact that I reached the end. I wished it could go on forever, but that’s the great thing, it’s the first book of a seven book series, so there is loads more fun to have.

If you like lots of adventure, loads of drama, tonnes of action and love a book filled with suspense that leaves you desperate for more, this is definitely the book for you.

Ad for 12 Year Old - Bonne Belle Vita Gloss Moisture Stick Lip Gloss

The purpose of this advertisement is to sell Vita Gloss Moisture Stick lip gloss. How do they do it? Well, it’s quite clever.

STRUCTURE, FORM AND LAYOUT

The structure of this advertisement seems quite simple. But the advertisers have really put a lot of thought into it, and it’s a really effective marketing tool.

The first thing the audience’s eyes are drawn to is the female model’s face situated on the left of the ad, which takes up the majority of the space. Just take one look at that beautiful shiny smile and automatically, you want it, she’s happy, she’s attractive and the advertisement makes you want to be like her too. So how can we do that? Well, see how her face is angled slightly down to the left of the page, but all her features point towards the opposite direction? These are known as vectors, angles that direct your eyes around the page. So where do our eyes go? Well, they follow the model’s, straight to the picture of the product in the top right corner of the ad.  So what do we know so far? Well we know that this girl is happy, and has shiny lips, and that we want to be like her. And how might we achieve that? Well, we could use this “NEW!” product, Vita Gloss Moisture Stick. If we follow the column on the right down the page, we can see other ‘versions’ of the product, different flavours, and different colours. Well that’s nice, now we know we have options.

Notice how very few colours are used in this advertisement? That’s another effective marketing tool. The three colours in the words “Beautiful. Colourful. You.” in the bottom, left of the ad are in three different colours: a light pink, a yellow, and a pale turquoise colour. These three colours have been repeated over the rest of the page, becoming focal points that attract the eye, and move your attention around the ad.  So where do they go? Well the light pink also leads you to the product in the top right corner of the ad, and further down to the other images of the product, and then across to the Bonne Bell logo. The yellow leads your eye to the images of the product in the bottom right corner of the ad. And the pale turquoise colour leads your eye to the whole column of the right side of the ad.

TEXT AND WRITTEN TECHNIQUES

So, in reality you would have only been looking at this advertisement for a matter of seconds, and already, just because of the structure, form and layout, your eyes have crawled all over it, and wherever they went, were lead back to this column on the right. Let’s take a closer look at why.

Notice how most of the text in the ad is situated in the column on the right? Yep, you guessed it, another effective marketing tool.

At the top of the column, where our eyes go first, we see the product. It’s “NEW!”, it’s a “spa in a stick”, it’s “Vita Gloss moisture stick lip gloss”. Follow the text further down and we get to know the product a little more. Notice how there is lots of descriptive verbs, adjectives and adverbs used? “Ultra-smooth”, “enriched”, “all-day”, “hydration”, “healthy-looking” and “refreshing”, not only does the advertisement use all these descriptive words they also throw in some scientific references that make the product seem extra special, and good for us. For example, the ad says that the product is “enriched with Vitamins A and E” well, not many people know what those vitamins are or what they’re used for, but they’re “vitamins” and they’re in the product, so it must be good for us. Also, notice how the name of the product is “Vita Gloss 20” the ‘20’ being in the same format as the numbers 2 and 0 are in the chemical equation for water (H20)? This is a play on words, and a play on our knowledge, we know that H20 is water, and that water is good for us, and hydrates us. Because the name of this product plays with our knowledge of that, we automatically associate the product with water, and hydration.

The text in this advertisement also consists of a lot of alliteration and assonance such as “spa in a stick” and even the names of the different types of the product “simply strawberry”, “peaceful pineapple”, “mindful mango” and “refreshing raspberry”.

If we go back to the words “Beautiful. Colourful. You.” They really sum up the advertisement and the product. They’re “beautiful”, they’re “colourful”, and “you” can have it all if you buy the product.

WHO SELLS IT? WHERE CAN YOU GET IT? WHO ARE THEY SELLING IT TO?

So still, we have only really been looking at the advertisement for a few seconds and already we know what the product is and that we want it. Now we want more information, and where we can get it is all there in writing.

The largest text on the page is the company’s name and logo “Bonne Bell” well, now we know who sells it.

Where can we get it? Well we can “discover beautiful colour at bonnebell.com”.

Who are they selling the product to? Who is their target audience? Well, this product is definitely for females. But it could be for such a wide range of females, young and old, with all sorts of different demographics. However, because this particular ad uses a teenage model, and is advertised in ‘DOLLY’ magazine, the target audience for this particular ad is young teenage girls, including 12 year olds.

So, even though in reality you would have only been looking at this advertisement for a few seconds, it has grabbed your attention, it has enticed you, it has made you want to buy the product being advertised, and that really goes to show that these advertisers really know how to use their marketing tools effectively to sell their product.