I chose a Reebok advertisement from FHM magazine, "the worlds fastest growing mens magazine," to analyze. The demographic of this magazine is men from the ages of about eighteen to thirty. This advertisement's color scheme only consists of two colors black and white. These two colors used together should give the appearance of a classic and elegant look. According to the Center for Interactive Advertising, white often stands for purity, union, truth and innocence while black stands for power, sexuality, mystery, sin, and style. Reebok is using this color scheme to create a dramatic image, and to bring to the forefront controversial racial and sexual issues in the United States because controversy catches people's eyes. .
It seems they do this by exploiting races. They are exploiting blacks because there is a black male being the "aggressor" and white females by showing her in submission. The fact that Reebok chose a black male to perform that role proves this statement. The history the United States has with racial tension is so great that I think the advertisers purposely did things this way to say, "Look how far we've come.".
In the advertisement, there is a black man and a white man who are both wearing only the two colors black and white. From what the viewer can see of him, they can conclude that he is a young, good looking, fit, heterosexual male. And from what the viewer can see of her she is a very sexy, young, good looking, heterosexual female. His style of clothing is entirely different from hers. He is wearing a black-stripped shirt with very dark colored baggy jeans and a chain hangs down from his back pocket and attaches somewhere on the front of his pants. This gives him a hip-hop or gang type of look. Looking down at his feet, the viewer can see his Reebok classic shoes, which are white with black stripes. His being dressed in all dark colors, except for his shoes, puts focus on the product and symbolizes his mysterious dominant role in the ad.
