Rhetoric Class assignment about Visual Analysis about Ad. (College level, 1400-1600 word)

Smith 1

Sally Smith

Professor Riley

RHET 1302

Date

The Hidden Message

In April of 2013, the Aid to Children and Adolescents at Risk (ANAR) Foundation

publicized their powerful billboard advertisement regarding child abuse to the streets of Spain.

The intent of this Spanish advertisement is to spread awareness of child abuse, raise money for

their campaign, and to promote the use of their confidential hotline for children and adolescents.

There are two different target audiences for this ad and two appropriate messages. One audience

is anyone willing to donate to their charity, so particularly, adults, and the other, main targets, are

children who are abused but unaware of their hotline. Given that most child abuse victims will be

accompanied by their aggressors, ANAR sought to creatively use technology to deliver the

message of their hotline in secret to only the children. GREY Spain, the advertising agency that

formed this MUPI (standing for “informational street furniture” translated in English), or poster,

for ANAR, used lenticular technology to effectively display two messages. As the average height

for a ten-year-old is four feet five inches, they designed the MUPI so that a different message

will be viewed to those shorter than four feet five inches than those who are over said

measurement. So, in the eyes of an adult, the close-up image of a “normal” young boy and the

words “Sometimes, child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it” floating over his head are

the main components visible. For children though, they will see the same boy, but with a bruised

cheek and cut lip, and the white text “If somebody hurts you, phone us and we’ll help you” next

to the boy’s face along with their hotline number. By using text, lenticular technology, and

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simple visuals, through the proper use of ethos, logos, pathos, and Aristotelian argument style

aimed at children and Toulmin argument style directed at adults, this unique double-ad presented

by ANAR effectively raises awareness about child abuse and promotes its hotline for young

victims of abuse.

ANAR establishes their credibility the same ways in both child and adult view of the

MUPI. One way they build ethos is through their logo printed on the bottom right corner of the

billboard. Their logo consists of a child like stick figure drawing and the foundation’s name. By

including their logo, they showcase that they are an organization, and their name “Aid to

Children and Adolescents at Risk” clearly states what their organization is for. Since they are a

specialized foundation and their name correlates to the ad for spreading awareness about child

abuse, they gain credibility and viewers are able to trust the information they receive from the

MUPI. Also, right below the logo is ANAR’s website in a bold black font, “anar.og.” The

existence of a website for this organization indicates that ANAR is at least established at a basic

level, if not well established, thus boosting their ethos. At the very top of the poster, the text “25

of April is International Day of fight against child abuse” is written and according to GREY

Spain, they wanted to “turn April 25 ‘World Day Against Child Abuse’ into a day for ANAR to

speak and be news in all media” (Grey). The month of April was already coined “Child Abuse

Awareness Month,” but the fact that this advertisement was published in April and is also

prompting a specific day in the month for further spreading of awareness, shows ANAR’s

dedication for a fraction of their purpose which is to “collaborate with other institutions in order

to raise awareness of children’s needs” (SAS). Their credibility is also strengthened through the

use of lenticular print to display two messages. On their website, ANAR claims that one of their

missions is to help children and adolescents “through current technological means and new

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communication systems” (ANAR). Given the risk that a victim of child abuse may be

accompanied by their abuser and consequently be unable to explore a billboard that notably

displays tools that can help them, ANAR uses lenticular technology, a fairly new advancement in

advertising, to secretly inform children of their hotline. ANAR significantly reinforces their

ethos by maintaining their mission statement through the advertisement.

This entire advertisement is formed around logos since its main component is that it is

organized to display two posters. The two differing images of the boy in the ad, between the

view of a child and that of an adult, creates a powerful metaphor and proves the text “sometimes,

child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it” very literally in this case since, only from a

child’s height is the boy with bruises and cuts visible. Apart from the overarching metaphor, in

both the child and adult views, the poster has more elements of logos. In the child’s perspective,

the poster shows a young boy with a red bruise on his right cheek and a bleeding lip through a

few cuts. Since the rest of the poster is composed of neutral and bleak colors, the bruise and split

lips are the only bright details, so naturally, children’s attentions are drawn to that general area.

And, right beside the bruised cheek is ANAR’s “hidden message” to victims of child abuse,

encouraging them to contact ANAR through their hotline so kids will most likely notice it.

GREY Spain, confided that, in creating this MUPI, “the challenge was to maintain the perception

of invisibility and confidentiality perceived by the minors who use the ANAR telephone” into

the advertisement (Grey). They did overcome this task through the use of lenticular technology,

but since the children do not know they are viewing something different than the adults (no

invisibility) the poster also prints the “hidden message” in white print. Since the background of

the advertisement is a light color and the text meant for only kids is in white, hence making the

“hidden message” very faint, it simulates the invisibility GREY wanted to portray to the children

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and possibly also to ensure that adults are unable to view the message in case the lenticular

printing did not work entirely. In both the child and adult perspectives, while the rest of its

sentence is written in black text, the phrase “child abuse” at the top of the poster is highlighted in

black and written in white to draw attention to it and signify that that is the issue being addressed

in the ad. The black highlight could also symbolize the negative light surrounding child abuse

and thus discouraging it while spreading awareness to adults and children alike so adults know

that this is a problem people still face and children understand that being abused is not okay.

ANAR’s advertisement embeds pathos through the simple images presented to the adults

and children. In both views, the boy wears a shirt in the same color as the dull and gloomy

background making it seem as if he is camouflaging into it. This signifies how hard it may be to

differentiate an abused child from everyone else. Especially since the adults are unable to see the

boy in the ad as “abused,” they are left to contemplate what the purpose of the vague poster is,

hence connecting them to the ad since they do not see, just as the ad intended them to. Also in

the adult’s view, the young boy seems to have full round cheeks, so to them, they may interpret

the boy to be well fed and healthy, but, in the poster viewed by the children, it can be seen that

the puffiness in the boy’s cheeks are actually caused by a bruise. Due to this pattern, adults may

view the boy’s unkempt hair, which is cut jagged across the front, to be the determining source

of child abuse and sympathize to a small extent since they do not know what other physical

characteristic may categorize this boy as “abused.” This advertisement poses as a microcosm for

the misunderstanding that occurs in the real world regarding this topic while it also aims to

spread awareness of some of the signs (or lack of) pertaining to child abuse. For the purpose of

this poster, it is significant that the object of emotion is a young boy rather than a young girl. If a

young girl were used instead, the ad will provoke more sympathy from adults even if the girl did

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not seem to be injured. As opposed to young boys, young girls are generally thought to be more

fragile and delicate, therefore naturally posing a greater object of emotion than boys. So,

because, partly the motive of ANAR’s advertisement is to prove that sometimes child abuse is

not easily noticeable, it is purposeful a boy is portrayed in the ad since adults will not typically

see a boy to be fragile or think of him to be abused.

Directed at children, the MUPI follows an Aristotelian style argument to promote

ANAR’s hotline, but at adults, it follows the Toulmin style argument to spread awareness of the

misconceptions of child abuse. Compared to the adult view, the child perspective of the poster is

direct as it gets straight to the point without including a metaphorical idea for children to decode.

In the child view of the advertisement, the absolute language used in the text of “phone us,”

rather than “can phone us,” is revealed through the “hidden message,” thus displaying ANAR’s

assertiveness but with a gentle nudge since their intended audience consists of children with

history of abuse. It is important that this view of the poster does not harshly demand the children

of a task, as it can come off as more threatening rather than helpful. This is accomplished partly

through the soft white font used for the message. The softness of the color the message is written

in is reflected as the softness portrayed in the message so children feel comforted by the

advertisement’s motives, instead of frightened. In fact, no part of the child’s view of the

advertisement is meant to be frightening. One of ANAR’s objectives through their hotline is to

provide children “with a safe, confidential space in which they feel heard and respected” and

they showcase this in their advertisement by mimicking the confidentiality through the hidden

message directed only towards children (ANAR). The purpose of the bruise and cuts visible only

to the kids is not to scare them, but to indicate possible signs of abuse since child abuse victims

may have lived through so much mistreatment that they have grown accustomed to it. The

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purpose of ANAR’s use of Aristotelian argument for children is so they do not misinterpret the

foundation’s intentions to “empower them in a comprehensive way in all their needs, making

them part of the solution to their own problems” (ANAR). The billboard is direct, but gentle and

provides the children the tool of their hotline so they feel that they are in control of their steps to

escape child abuse as intended by a part of their mission statement. Opposed to the child

perspective of the MUPI, the adult view is far more vague as is utilizes the Toulmin argument

style to mainly spread awareness of their campaign along with child abuse and raise money. The

poster viewed by adults can be described to be detached and intellectual since the boy in the ad

seems disconnected from the world and above him is the ambiguous line regarding the visibility

of child abuse. Given the very little information, adults can presume that the ad is meant to

simply spread awareness of child abuse or the foundation-the interpretation is up to the

individual therefore is a Toulmin style argument. Either way, through the child’s poster view or

the adult’s, ANAR’s MUPI advertisement achieves its purpose in promoting its hotline to young

victims and raising awareness of child abuse.

Today, the ANAR Foundation continues to thrive and provide aide to numerous children

and adolescent victims of child abuse in Latin America. Similar to the ANAR Foundation, in

America, organizations were formed to prevent child abuse. Some of the big foundations include

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), National Children’s Advocacy Center (NCAC),

National Alliance of Children’s Trust and Prevention Funds, and Prevent Child Abuse America.

These organizations raise money and fund strategies to prevent child abuse, support community

networks meant to aid children, develop new programs, and promote services that improve the

lives of children. Each of these organizations reaches out to approximately hundred thousand

families each year and continues to strengthen their child abuse and neglect preventive strategies.

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Citations

ANAR “Información Institucional.” Fundación ANAR, ANAR, 2018,

www.anar.org/informacion-institucional/.

Grey Group. “Kids Only Case Study.” Grey, WPP Company, 2013,

grey.com/spain/work/key/anar/id/2749/.

SAS. “ANAR Foundation.” Semester At Sea, Colorado State University, 2012,

www.semesteratsea.org/field-programs/anar-foundation/.

Advertisement links:

http://cache.magicmaman.com/data/photo/w800_c18/3r/association-anar.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/esNoAKV.jpg