Exercises

I. PRE-VIEWING

A: Warm up
1. Brainstorm on the major differences between a newspaper and a TV ad.
2. Make a list of means of conveying the message on screen.
3. How does water industry try to promote their products?
a. What are the buzz-words in ads for drinking water?
b. What are the images?
c. Why?

II. WHILE-VIEWING

A: Study questions
1. Make a list of activists’ claims
2. Make a list of politicians’ claims
3. How do these two lists differ? Is there a difference in the choice of words and rhetoric devices?
4. Whose arguments sound most convincing to you? Why?

III. POST-VIEWING

A: Interpretation of the film
1. Comment on the means (pictures, sound, characters, and point of view) the film uses to convey its message?
2. Give examples to support your point.

B: Discussion
1. Debate the pros and cons of the “public-private partnerships”.
2. Is the film biased? Discuss.

C: Suggested writing
A big company producing beverages has approached you to write an ad for their new product, bottled drinking water. Before you write the ad, decide on your tactics / techniques of persuasion.

IV. VOCABULARY IN USE
These exercises can be used as part of homework or in class.
View exercise A and B as pdf

V. GRAMMAR POINTS
This exercise can be used as part of homework or in class.
View exercise A as pdf

VI. EXTENSION ACTIVITIES

A: Newspaper or Magazine Ad Analysis
Glance through some newspapers, magazines or websites and find an ad of your own choice featuring drinking water. Consider following points when analysing the ad:

1. Describe what you see on the picture?
a. Is it staged or is it a collage?
b. Is it a drawing or a painting?
c. What’s in the foreground? And background?
d. Which angle do we see it from? What effect does it have on the audience?

2. Determine whether it is the words or objects that grab your attention. Which trigger words does the ad use, if any?
a. Exaggerations: The greatest.
b. Overgeneralization: … all people who …
c. Opinions asserted as facts: it is well known that …
d. Inclusions/exclusions: the only view to consider.

3. Who is the sender (Company? A non-commercial organisation?)

4. Who is the receiver? (Age? Social class? Outlook?)

5. What is the message in the ad?
a. What does it say about the functionality of the product?
b. What does it say about its symbolic value?
c. Or is the ad purely about company branding?
6. What devices does the ad use to express the message? Consider;
a. The tone (Does it use humour, or threat?)
b. The atmosphere (Is it playing on our passions or perhaps our moral values?)

7. What in the ad would persuade you to buy/or not to buy the product? Why?

8. When was the ad made?

9. Where was it printed? (Is it a poster, or a newspaper ad; is it commercial or non-commercial?)

B: Video
Watch WTO’s promotional video and discuss the language, pictures, etc. You can use the questions above as prompts for you discussion. See WTO’s website here