Marlboro Advertisement Analysis

What did you want to be when you were a kid? Maybe your answer was a doctor, or a singer, or a professional athlete? My idea was a little different. I wanted nothing more than to be a cowboy. Growing up, my idea of a cowboy was a man in wrangler jeans, a pistol on his hip, and a cigarette in his mouth. Maybe people had this image of a cowboy and it can be attributed to advertisements involving cowboys. I remember seeing an Marlboro ad from the nineteen sixties hanging up in my grandpa’s basement. This Marlboro advertisement had a western theme that appealed to the rural, rustic community to make them think buying their product will aid them in mirroring the image in the magazine. When looking at this ad, we see very structured, gritty, and rustic graphics. First, the background is an older, weathered wood that is very discolored and mismatched. The nails to hold it all together are rusted and crooked. The colors are very bland and non-aggressive. The focal point is a cowboy with rope and a cigarette in his mouth.
He is wearing leather champs and vest that appears to be wore out. Underneath is a salmon colored pear snap shirt. His outfit isn’t very flashy, so it presents the opportunity to see a more visible color

The ad had a very western theme that had subtle colors. The contrast of the cowboy and the white accents made the product very visible and memorable for each audience. The language used was short and to the point allowing the reader to perceive it however he/she saw fit. Its beneficial because it made the audience broader. The ad count appeal to so many different people that it made for a great selling point. Back in the seventies, smoking wasn’t near the hot topic as it is now. It was seen as more of “the cool thing to do” and therefore the ad got to play off the tough, big cowboy theme. Overall, the ad was very relevant for the time period and the audience that was