Close To Home Ad Analysis Essay

AT&T came out with a commercial in 2015 called “Close to Home”, which is fitting for what the ads about. The ad is tough and troubling to watch, it helps set the tone for how important the message that they are sending is. It leaves the viewers wanting to know what happens next. By looking in depth at this ad, we can see how AT&T cares about your life, they use pathos to help you imagine yourself into becoming the characters in the ad, so you could get the full effect of the commercial. The ad starts off a as quiet day with slow music, with six diverse people going about their days. The ad starts with a boy counting cars in his head on an over look of the highway, the view of the cars are from his perspective and are out of focus and it gives it a more natural feel. Also,
the camera is wobbly which also helps with the natural feel. The boy then rides his bike around the neighborhood. At a gas station, there is a father getting gas for his work truck (which has wood and other construction items in the back of the truck), he pours a cup of coffee and buys a lottery ticket hoping to win. The clerk has a blue cast on his left hand as he tells the father how much the total of everything is and you can see the cleaning supplies and cleaning gloves behind the counter. He calls his wife from the Bluetooth in his truck on his way home. He leaves early from work. so, he can go watch some of his son Danny’s baseball game. He is still on his phone while driving but he is using it a safer way. A middle-class mother and daughter leave their home to go out to run an errand. Grace askes to bring her doll Elizabeth along. A daughter starts setting up her elderly father’s favorite show he watches everyday around two but realized it’s not time yet, then she goes out to water the lawn. Grace tells her mom that Elizabeth wants ice cream and her mom says we will on the way home if Elizabeth is good. Then she tells her mom that she forgot her crystal bracelet at home. There is the song wheels on the bus playing in the background. AT&T wants you to feel like it is a normal car ride. Everything is uneventful, until the mother glances down at her phone while driving to see who liked her daughter’s photo on social media, with her five-year-old in the back seat. She turns the wheel and goes into the next lane and hits the father in the truck. The accident happens so fast. The music and the pace changed compared to the slow pace and music of the start of the ad. All the people in the ad will be affected by witnessing such a horrific event in different ways hopefully making them not want to text and drive. Also, the ad shows that it can happen to anyone and it affects more than the people involved in the accident. To show how just a glance at your phone can cause a fast change in your life. You hear metal crushing, glass breaking, and hitting the road, then a humming sound like you were the ones in the car. Then the ad goes in slow motion to show the spectators who had a shocked and frightened look on their faces. Then the car accident is played backwards to add to the drama. Then resets like it never happened to empathize the accident and what happens when you don’t look at your phone while driving.
It also makes you rethink the choice of looking at your phone while on the road. This ad is part of a “It Can Wait” Campaign that has been going on for over five years now. It shows how serious AT&T is about not using a cell phone while driving. AT&T wants everyone to know that they care about your safety. The ad is disturbing but it gets the message across. The ad shows how something so simple can change the course of your life.
There is another commercial that start out the same but what her phone is going off for the reason of an email from work and that she needs to respond to. It shows that no matter what the reason or even if it’s important or not it’s not worth risking your life.
In this ad, AT&T makes the characters relatable to the people watching it. AT&T doesn’t focus their ad on selling their product, but they want you to feel they care about you. Which it helps the choice of what cell phone company you will choose. The ad uses pathos to pull you into the ad, to make you feel that you are a part of what’s going on. We all have family, they wanted to make it feel relatable, so that you would
think twice about distracted driving. Whether we are an experienced driver or not, just a quick look at your phone could change your life. They use emotion to make the commercial very convincing, by making it relatable, to everyone that has a cell phone or that is a parent or that has a family.
This ad paints a very clear image of what could happen if you glimpse at your phone.