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Advertisement Analysis – How to Write & Ad Analysis Essay Examples

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In this day and age, advertising is everywhere, from billboards and TV commercials to social media feeds and mobile apps. It’s an essential tool many companies use to draw customers’ attention and showcase their products and services. However, creating a compelling and distinctive advertisement is more challenging than it seems, and professionals often rely on ad analysis to achieve this goal. Advertisement analysis is a form of research that examines advertisements’ effectiveness and impact on society. Below, we will discuss how advertisement analysis can help businesses develop successful ad campaigns while ensuring their ads are ethical and socially responsible.

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Ad analysis is a type of research that experts use to develop compelling and eye-catching advertisements . It addresses each step of the ad’s creation process. Such an approach has become increasingly common because it shows marketing techniques’ impact on human consciousness. Experts evaluate the effectiveness of an ad using qualitative and quantitative methods , which help them create better advertisements. Language, imagery, and music used in a successful marketing campaign are just a few examples of what makes up effective ad messaging.

How to analyze the advertisement? While every company and its marketing team may have their own approach to ad analysis, the framework usually includes these 5 major steps:

Gather information. Before starting a project, looking up information about the product is vital. Make a SWOT analysis of the company for which you are conducting an ad analysis. This method will help you identify potential market opportunities and internal weaknesses.

Find target-audience preferences. To choose the perfect media tools for your marketing campaign, you must know your ad’s target audience . Knowing your audience will also assist you in learning how to convince the customers to get interested and purchase the product you are advertising.

Start questioning. You have to create a list of detailed inquiries regarding the advertisement. These questions will aid in finding information about the message or context of the ad . Also, it will help you understand which areas require more research and improvement.

Examine the strategic and tactical components. During this step, you first need to identify the objective. Make sure the message is conveyed clearly so the advertisement can serve its intended purpose. Then, you need to identify the target message. It’ll help to create a brief messaging framework.

Onlook the results. You have to watch whether your advertisement analysis works or not. Analyze how many new customers you receive after publication and your product’s popularity level. That way, you will both improve your research and gain experience for your next project.

Here you can find 2 incredible examples of advertisement analysis essays! The primary focus of each report is to examine how the created advertisement will affect potential customers.

Essay sample #1 – Pepsi advertisement

Target Audience: Pepsi targets consumers in their teens, early 20s, and early middle age. Pepsi print is of bright color , and that instantly attracts customers’ attention. In the commercial, many young people with happy smiles enjoy life, skating on the board and drinking Pepsi.

Implicit messages: The appearance of joyful teens in the Pepsi ad makes you want to buy this drink. The advertisement suggests that after consuming the product, you’ll feel like you’re living your best life.

Essay sample #2 – YSL perfume advertisement

Target Audience: YSL perfume advertisement targets women of early middle age. In the ad, the women are confident, independent, and successful. The advertisement connects the sensation of freedom and high status in society to the perfume itself.

Implicit messages: The advertisement appeals to those who want to make their own rules. YSL customers are women, so the company creates an image of powerful yet feminine females. The commercial suggests that after buying the perfume, you will embrace freedom and will be able to set old bridges on fire.

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16 Drafting Your Ad Analysis

Dr. Karen Palmer

Now that you have a solid outline, it’s time to start writing your ad analysis paper! Here we will work through fleshing out each part of your outline–turning your outline into a full draft.

Introduction

The first part of your paper is your introduction. You may remember from the Writing Formula chapter that an introduction consists of three main parts: the hook, the introduction to the topic, and the thesis. Let’s begin with the hook. A hook does two jobs–it connects the topic of your paper to your readers, and it attempts to capture their attention.

This video highlights some of the most common techniques for writing a good hook:

Now that you have a general idea of what a hook does, let’s focus in on the kind of hook that would be most useful for your ad analysis essay. Let’s say you are doing an analysis on that milk ad we discussed earlier in the text.

Strategy 1: Connect to the topic of the ad: milk. You could say something like, “Do you drink milk?” But…would that really draw in readers? Surely, there is a better way to grab the attention of our audience.

Strategy 2: Connect to the broader topic of advertising. Here you might say something like, “Advertisers are always trying to get our attention.” Sure, this is a broad opening to the paper, but is it really going to make anyone interested in the topic?

A good idea is to brainstorm some current events or topics that link to your ad. A brainstorming list for this milk ad could include lactose intolerance, the concept of looking at TV sitcom characters as role models, the changing role of mothers, and even the pressure placed on moms (and women in general)  to be perfect. Choose something that appeals to you and that illustrates a theme that runs through the ad. When brainstorming with my classes, we often land on the idea of perfection with this particular milk ad. It makes a compelling frame for the paper.

Introducing the topic is just that–letting readers know what the paper will be about. ie An ad for ________ located in _________ magazine illustrates this concept. Note that you need to include the specific product advertised in the ad, the name of the magazine in which the ad is located, and include a connection/transition to your hook.

Finally, the last sentence of your introduction is your thesis. Here you make your argument. While you already wrote a thesis for your outline, you want to double check that the thesis connects in some way to your hook. Our example thesis is: “The advertisers successfully persuade the consumer that milk will make them a great mom by using nostalgia, milk branding, and the image of ideal motherhood.” We might make a slight adjustment here to make the connection a bit more explicit: “The advertisers play on the desire of moms to fulfill an image of perfection by using nostalgia, milk branding, and the image of ideal motherhood.”

In the ad analysis, our background consists of two different sections: the description and the discussion of context.

Description

Remember that your audience cannot see the ad you are discussing. If you were in a room presenting to your audience, you might project an image of the ad up on a screen. Since we can’t do that in an essay, we need to describe the ad for our readers. Essentially, you want your readers to be able to draw a basic picture of your ad–or at least visualize it accurately in their minds.

This video from James Rath discussing how people with visual impairments see images on social media gives an important life reason for learning how to write solid image descriptions:

Here are some good tips for writing a description of an image:

1. Start by giving readers a one sentence overview of the ad. For our milk ad, that might be, “In this ad, three mothers from iconic sitcoms sit side by side in a beauty parlor under old-fashioned hair dryers.”

2. Determine in advance how you want readers to see the image–do you want them to look at the image left to right? Foreground to background? Clockwise? Bottom line here–don’t make readers minds jump around from place to place as they try to visualize the image.

3. Choose the key elements. You don’t have to describe every single thing in this paragraph. Tell readers who the three moms are and what show they are from. Give enough basic details so that readers know the setting is old-fashioned. Remember, you’ll be able to bring forward more detail as you analyze the ad in the body of your paper. Readers don’t need to know what color a person’s eyes are unless it’s a key part of the ad.

4. Don’t forget the text! While you should not write every word in the ad in your description, especially if there are lengthy paragraphs, you should include a brief overview of the text. ie placement, basic overview Again, you’ll be able to give specific quotes that are relevant to your analysis in the body of your paper.

5. Write in present tense!

The context of an ad really focuses on the audience of the ad. Remember that advertisers very carefully consider the audience for their product and create their advertisements to best reach that target audience. Let’s look at this from the perspective of a company looking to place an ad:

So, if an advertiser goes to this much trouble to determine the demographics of their target audience, it’s obviously important! The ad (unless perhaps it was published by an inexperienced advertiser) is not “for everyone.” An ad in Newsweek , no matter how childlike it appears, was not created for children. It was created for the audience who will purchase and read this magazine. When we do an ad analysis, we want to share similar information with our readers. What magazine is the ad placed in? What is the general focus of that publication? What kinds of articles appear in the publication? What general types of ads appear? In short, who is the audience? Of course, you can look at a magazine and get some of this information. You can also do a quick online search for the demographics of the magazine or for their media kit, which is what advertisers look at prior to purchasing advertising space to ensure the magazine is a good fit for their ad.

Now that you have the background out of the way and your audiences thoroughly understand the topic, it’s time to begin your analysis. Your thesis should have given at least three advertising strategies used in the ad. Your paper should include a paragraph for each one of those strategies.

Topic Sentence

The topic sentence should echo the wording of the thesis and clearly introduce the topic. For example, “One way the advertisers use the concept of the perfect mother to convince readers to purchase milk is by using iconic mothers from television shows.” For your next paragraph, you’d want to be sure to include a transition. For example, “Another way” or “In addition to” are both phrases that can be used to show that you are building onto your previous paragraph.

In this part of the paragraph, you want to give specific examples from the ad to support your point.

First, you should introduce the example. “The three moms from iconic tv shows are the focus of this ad.”

Next, you should give specific examples from the ad–this could be pointing out particular details about the images in the ad or quoting from the text–or both! For example, for the milk ad, you might give the specific names of the characters and the shows they are from. You might point out that every detail of their outfits are perfect. That they are wearing makeup and jewelry. That they have their wedding rings prominently focused in the image. You might also quote text, like the line from the ad that says, “Another all-time great mom line.”

Finally, wrap up your examples with a clear explanation of how the example proves your point. For example, you might say that, especially in modern times, it is very difficult for mothers to live up to the standard of perfection set by these three television moms. You might explain how causing readers to feel “less than” sets the stage for them to accept the premise that giving their children milk will make them more like these TV moms.

The wrap up for your paragraph is similar to the wrap up for the evidence provided. Here you want to reiterate your thesis in a simple sentence. For example, you might say, “Using the images of these iconic moms convinces moms that, in order to be a good mom, they must buy milk for their children.”

The conclusion of your paper is essentially a mirror image of your introduction. Think of your paper as an Oreo cookie. The introduction and the conclusion are the cookies that surround the best part–the body of the paper. Like the cookie outsides of the Oreo, the introduction and conclusion should be mirror images of each other.

1. Start with re-stating the thesis.

2. Reiterate the topic.

3. Return to your hook and elaborate.

Unlike an Oreo, the conclusion should not simply copy your introduction word for word in a different order. Try to restate your sentences in a different way. Elaborate on your hook so that you leave readers with something to think about!

 Content written by Dr. Karen Palmer and is licensed CC BY NC.

The Worry Free Writer Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Karen Palmer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Analysis Essay On An Advertisement (Writing Guide)

How to write good analysis essay on an advertisement.

Outline example

How to start, introduction example.

• How to write the thesis statement

Thesis example

How to write body paragraphs, example of body paragraphs.

• How to conclude

Conclusion example

• Revision tips

Advertising plays a major role in our society today; everywhere you go you will find products being advertised on television, online pages, billboards. Advertisement analysis is a common assignment students are required to undertake. Writing an analysis of an advertisement is more about writing a review of the advertisement using a specific format. There are several strategies to go about this type of assignment. So, below is a step-by-step approach to writing an analysis of an advertisement.

Introduction :

• What is the advertisement for
• Summary of the context of the advertisement
• Background information about the company
• The thesis statement
• The effect of the advertisement and the target audience

Body Paragraphs :

• Present evidence of the effectiveness of the ad on the target audience
• Give examples
• Show various components of the advertisement
• Explain some of the outstanding strategies used to persuade the target audience
• Describe the values and emotion the ad provokes in the readers
• Describe the visual strategies
• Describe the ethos, pathos, and logos
• Describe the textual strategies, including the diction and the tone.

Conclusion :

• Present the most important points justify why the advertisement is successful
• The present technique used that makes the product outstanding
• Review the intention of the advertisement
• Provide your opinion.

In the introduction, it is important to state what the analysis will focus on. The ideas to get to the point as early as possible. The essay writer should not assume that the readers are familiar with the product. That is why the first step is to analyze if the advertisement presents a brief history and a detailed description of what the product is about. A good advertisement needs to show how the product is superior to other products in the market.

For example, when a company produces a commercial the aim is to increase sales.

• Here are also points you should consider when writing your essay:
• Some people prefer to write the introduction after they have written the essay itself – you should try both ways to see which one works better for you.
• The introduction must always contain the thesis statement.
• Any information which is needed for the essay, but doesn’t necessarily fit into any of the body paragraphs, should go into the introduction.
• Don’t make any arguments in the introduction itself; save it for the body paragraphs.
• The introduction should summarise the main arguments you intend to make.

Now, you know the main rules of writing an introduction. Next, please find an example of the introduction.

Old Spice’s advertisement “How Your Man Could Smell Like” is an attractive phrase used to lure the audience to purchase the product. The advertisement meant to capture men’s attention through women. It presents an ideal image of how a man should smell. The advertisement used sexually themed strategy to grab the reader’s attention.

How to write a thesis statement

To write a thesis statement, make sure that you have done all the research you want to do, and that you know everything you want to when it comes to your essay. Try and boil down the ultimate point of the essay into a small amount of space – at the most two sentences. It should be clear enough that every part of your essay will be able to relate to it without much trouble.

The advertisement conveys a strong message about a strong personality where a man needs not only to be attractive but also to be confident by smelling like a real man. The advertisement uses emotional appeal to influence young women who value strong qualities in a man.

Any advertisement is meant for a specific audience, therefore, a good analysis should present the target audience. The body paragraphs should clearly present, which groups of people are being targeted, discusses how the intention presented work together to create a good impression. When writing an advertisement analysis essay, it is important to explain how popular and effective the advertisement is. Describe the rhetorical appeals, including pathos, ethos, and logo, these are concepts that provoke emotion among the target audience in an attempt to convince them to like the product.

Tips on body paragraph writing:

• Each paragraph should only deal with one argument, to keep from being cluttered.
• Each paragraph should have a topic sentence to introduce it, and a summary sentence at the end of both wind things up, and lead into the next sentence.
• Each paragraph should reference the thesis statement in some way.
• Each paragraph should fit into the essay in a way which makes it flow properly, leading readers through the essay to a similar conclusion.
• Each paragraph should contain just the right amount of research – not so much as to confuse the issue, but not so little that it seems like there is nothing to say.

Below is an example of the body paragraphs for advertising analysis.

1st paragraph

The commercial appeals to women more than men. This is important because it does not rely on the attractiveness of the model and the setting, but on sensational, emotional responses presenting how perfect men should translate into the reality the ideal image of who a man should be and what he should smell like to attract a wider audience.

2nd paragraph

The advertisement uses an attractive man who seems to be physically fit, giving the product an image that men are appealing to women’s tastes. The advertisement also presents the notion that a man’s’ emotional needs to smell like a real man to attract a woman. The advertisement uses a reliable strategy of sexuality. Sexually themed advertisements appeal to not only men and women but to a wider audience. Using such themes is the surest way to attract more people to use the product.

3rd paragraph

Normally, these advertisements focus on men who are physically attractive to try and sell their products, with the implication that the product will give an entire lifestyle, not simply a way to smell good. This is one way in which the advertisements appeal to people – making it seem as though they too can aspire to be as ‘cool’ as the man presents, simply by purchasing the aforementioned product.

How to write a conclusion

After review, the advertisement giving appropriate evidence to support the claim the next step of the analysis is to wrap up by reviewing the key points of the analysis. The conclusion of the analysis should be a brief summary justifying if the advertisement has achieved its objectives.

Tips to remember when writing your conclusion

• Remember to restate the thesis statement.
• Round up the arguments made in the essay – do not make any original arguments in the conclusion.
• The conclusion is your last chance to bring people round to your point of view, so make it count.
• Remember that you can bring in the history or additional information which is used in the introduction, to remind people of anything that might be useful.
• Your conclusion should mention every argument made in the essay.

Example of a conclusion is shown below.

The Old Spice ad is successful because it makes a good impression on people and makes the audience believe that smelling good can be attractive. The advertisement carefully uses sex appeal, making it attractive for both men and women. Mixing the right amount of humor makes it stand out because of its no offensive. Old Spice’s appeal to women makes men want to look and smells like a real man. The advertisement presents an ideal man as good looking, masculine and romantic. Any advertisement that arouses people’s emotions and people want to watch and remember their products can be termed as a successful advertisement.

Research paper revision

Revision is important since it gives you the opportunity to create the best essay you are capable of. Revision lets you check whether or not your essay flows correctly, whether it makes sense, as well as the smaller things like grammar and punctuation.

• Do two revisions – one for spelling and grammar, and one for structure.
• Check to make sure that the argument through the paper flows correctly.
• Try and come to revision with fresh eyes, since this will help you see problems more easily.
• If you can, ask someone else to read your essay, to point out any errors.
• Make sure to specifically check things like thesis statements, topic sentences, etc.

Need a custom essay?

1.How to write an analysis essay on an advertisement? To analyze an advertisement, one needs first to figure out the objectives behind the Ad film. Then, the analysis will deal with weighting the theme of the Ad and how well it conveyed the message. However, several other aspects are also mentioned in an ad analysis. Discuss the brand’s values and beliefs? Elaborate on the Ad appeal, emotional or rational? Discuss the storyline, the big idea, overall execution of the Ad film.

2.Who can write an analysis essay on an advertisement? Advertisement analysis is best written by field experts available on customessayorder.com. The platform provides wiring help to students who face difficulty in completing their college assignments. The writing company is good with deadlines, free revisions, professional proofreading, and guaranteed high-quality paper delivered on time written by native English speakers.

3.How to conclude an analysis essay on an advertisement? The conclusion simply summarizes the objectives the ad aimed at and how well it conveyed the message to the audience. Mention both the wins and losses. Also, give a sneak preview of how well the persuasion appeal worked for the brand in the ad.

4.What should an analysis essay on an advertisement include? Ad Analysis should identify the rhetorical appeals—logos, pathos, and ethos in the ad. Analyze the ad’s target demography. Moreover, several points to be included in an advertisement analysis are: · The big idea · Type of advertisement campaign – thematic or tactical · Persuasion appeal – emotional or rational · Core brand values · Subliminal message · Testimonial · Production value · budgets · Cast · Locations

Unlocking the Masterpiece Within: The Art of Pro

How To Analyze An Advertisement

How to analyze an advertisement.

In the fast-paced world of marketing and advertising, understanding how to analyze an advertisement is a crucial skill. Whether you’re a marketing professional, a business owner, or simply a curious consumer, dissecting ads can provide valuable insights into their effectiveness, messaging, and target audience. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll delve into the strategies and techniques that will empower you to decode advertisements like a pro.

The Importance of Advertisement Analysis

Understanding the basics.

Before diving into the intricacies of ad analysis, let’s establish a solid foundation. Ads come in various forms, including print, digital, television, and social media. They are designed with a specific purpose: to convey a message and persuade the audience. Your ability to dissect an ad hinges on grasping these fundamental concepts.

Deconstructing Visual Elements

Ads are a visual medium, and their design elements are carefully crafted to capture attention. Look for eye-catching colors, images, and typography. Ask yourself how these elements contribute to the ad’s overall message. Visual analysis can provide insights into the emotions and associations the ad aims to evoke.

Deciphering the Message

Every ad has a core message or theme. Analyze the ad’s copy (text) and imagery to identify this message. Consider the tone, language, and symbolism used. What emotions does the ad try to evoke? Does it address a problem and offer a solution? Understanding the central message is key to evaluating an ad’s effectiveness.

Digging Deeper into Advertisement Analysis

Target audience analysis.

Ads are tailored to specific demographics. To analyze an ad effectively, you must identify the intended audience. Consider age, gender, interests, and values. The more you can pinpoint the target audience, the better you can evaluate whether the ad resonates with them.

Evaluating Persuasion Techniques

Ads often employ various persuasion techniques to influence consumers. These can include appeals to emotion, logic, or authority. Analyze which methods the ad uses and how effectively they are executed. Does the ad create a compelling argument or emotional connection?

Assessing Call to Action (CTA)

A successful ad should prompt action. Analyze the ad’s call to action, such as “buy now,” “subscribe,” or “learn more.” Is the CTA clear and compelling? Does it create a sense of urgency? Assessing the CTA can help determine the ad’s ability to drive desired behaviors.

Measuring Impact and Effectiveness

Tracking results.

After an ad campaign, it’s essential to measure its impact. Look at metrics like website traffic, conversion rates, and sales figures. Did the ad achieve its intended goals? By evaluating real-world results, you can gauge an ad’s effectiveness.

Comparing to Competitors

To gain a competitive edge, compare the analyzed ad to those of competitors. How does it stack up in terms of creativity, messaging, and audience engagement? Analyzing the competition can inspire improvements in future campaigns.

Evolving Your Analytical Skills

Advertisement analysis is an ongoing process. Continuously hone your skills by studying a variety of ads, staying updated on industry trends, and seeking feedback from peers or mentors. Over time, you’ll become a seasoned ad analyst, capable of deciphering the most complex advertising strategies.

In conclusion, the ability to analyze an advertisement is a valuable skill in today’s advertising-saturated world. By understanding the basics, deconstructing visual elements, deciphering the message, and delving into deeper analysis, you can assess the effectiveness of advertisements with precision. Remember that practice makes perfect, so keep analyzing ads to refine your skills and stay ahead in the ever-evolving field of advertising.

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Table of Contents

Ai, ethics & human agency, collaboration, information literacy, writing process, textual analysis – how to analyze ads.

• © 2023 by Jennifer Janechek - IBM Quantum

Advertising executives and marketing experts more than likely hope that we remain oblivious to the underlying messages that ads contain and that we perceive their work purely from entertainment and consumerist perspectives rather than for the purpose of critical assessment.

But to critically examine the techniques and appeals advertisers use to lure us into supporting certain products, services, claims, or even individuals is an opportunity to hone our analytical skills—skills that enable us to be informed readers of texts and knowledgeable consumers of persuasion. To begin, let’s consider specific words and phrases that can be used in ad analysis:

• Nostalgia: Advertisements for Coca-Cola, summer vacation destinations, or even political candidates can stir up sentiments or memories of “the good old days.” In a commercial, for example, the use of black and white film and/or flashbacks—illustrated by clothes, music, and/or historical events—can invite a specific audience to reflect on the past and evoke a sense of nostalgia.
• Merchants of “cool”: According to PBS, merchants of “cool” are “creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America.”[1]  Such merchants may include Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, Hot Topic, and Aéropostale. Each relies on the tween and teen markets to keep its empire in business and markets its definition of “cool” as the coolest when it comes to youth culture.
• The myth of the “ideal you”: Today, in many cases, advertisers still sell their products in a way that invites us to be the “best” versions of ourselves. Cultural stereotypes substantiate this idea of the “best” self, which exists only in the shared imagination of the advertiser and audience.

Analyzing Ads: Socioeconomic Status

To what social class do you belong? How do you know? Can others tell by how you talk, dress, and act? By how much money you have? By your level of education? By your occupation? Despite the presumed cultural ideal of social equality in America, key markers such as income and education are often used for social classification.

Advertisers for many goods and services often frame their rhetorical appeals—their strategies of persuasion—in terms of audiences who are presumed to belong to a particular, often loosely defined, social class. Frequently, these appeals rely on stereotypical qualities associated with various socioeconomic classes. For example, an advertisement for an expensive women’s pant suit may appear in a magazine like Vogue (generally regarded as appealing to an upper-middle-class or upper-class audience) and may feature a svelte, glamorous model unlikely to grace the pages of a flyer for Walmart (generally regarded as appealing to a lower-middle-class or working-class audience). Rhetorical appeals can work on many socioeconomic levels. A relatively expensive perfume like Chanel N° 5 may appeal to members of the lower-middle or working class as a symbol of upward mobility. When analyzing an ad, you might pay close attention to how the ad appeals to you based upon assumptions regarding your socioeconomic status: What rhetorical moves (e.g., tone, composition, dialogue) enact those appeals?

Take, for example, Honda’s “Impossible Dream” commercial:

What might you say about the movement in this commercial? The music? The changes in the model? How does these factors reflect certain assumptions about socioeconomic status, and what do they make you think buying a Honda-brand vehicle will do for a consumer?

Blue Collar versus White Collar

If we are analyzing an advertisement in which a model is working in a construction area digging a ditch, we might discuss the concept of blue-collar work.

Take, for example, this Cheetos ad:

Who is the audience of this commercial? What is the advertiser trying to say about Cheetos: i.e., what will the consumer get from eating Cheetos? What might you say about the ad’s incorporation of construction workers—their movement, their attitudes, etc.? How does the voice of the Cheetos tiger affect the commercial’s message?

On the other hand, if we are analyzing an advertisement in which a professional is depicted in what looks to be a high-powered office, we might discuss the concept of white-collar work. Advertising executives may have chosen those models and work settings in order to speak to a specific audience. That is, issues of socioeconomic status—including income, education, technical skill, dress, race, and gender—may be at play in creating images and scenarios that specific audiences will believe to be realistic in representing a version of reality. Keep in mind that socioeconomic status is a somewhat complex and controversial issue in American society today, particularly with regard to definitions of class levels. If you feel that an advertisement is capitalizing upon socioeconomic stereotypes, why do you think the advertiser has done this? Contrariwise, if an advertisement is resisting stereotypes, what do you think the advertiser is trying to accomplish?

A Checklist for Analyzing Socioeconomic Status in Print Advertisements

• Who appears to be the target audience for the advertisement?
• What seems to be the general tone of the advertisement? Serious? Playful? Satiric?
• Do you notice any other appeals to stereotypes regarding education or income levels (e.g., the “corporate elite,” the “nouveau riche,” or the “literary elite,” who may or may not earn high incomes but wield “power” by virtue of educational or literary achievements)?
• How would you characterize the overall appearance of the models in the ad? If applicable, how would you characterize their clothing? To what social class would you connect each model’s attire? Are brand names evident (e.g., Ralph Lauren, Ecco)? Are the models well-groomed or scruffy? Healthy or unhealthy? Thin and fit or heavy and out of shape? Do the models’ qualities suggest they are from a particular social class? If so, how? Is the advertiser relying on stereotypical characterizations, then? Why do you think the advertiser chose to portray them in these ways?
• What would you guess the average income is of the individuals featured in the ad and/or of the audience to which the ad appeals?
• Do you notice any particular political appeals that may be related to class? With what social class would you associate these appeals and why?
• Does the ad appeal to any stereotypes based on gender or race?  On what evidence do you ground your assumption?  (Refer to the checklists in “Analyzing Ads: Gender” and “Analyzing Ads: Race” for more specific questions on analyzing gender and race in advertisements.)
• If possible, what do you infer to be the highest degree of education that the individuals featured in the ad hold? Also in terms of level of education, who do you believe is the intended audience?
• What is the setting for the advertisement? An elegant spa? A pizza parlor?
• If text appears in the ad, what level of language is used, and for what purpose? Slang? Other informal language? Technical jargon? Standard American English? Dialect? With what class do you associate the use of this level of language? What is the effect of language use in this advertisement?
• Are symbols, metaphors, hyperbole, allusions, and/or other forms of figurative language used? If so, what is the effect? Does the use of figurative language evoke appeals to class in any way?
• What appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos do you find? Are these appeals related to class issues? Do you notice the use of any logical fallacies related to class issues (e.g., ad hominem, the slippery slope)? How effective are they?
• In what ways does the advertisement appeal to class? Is the goal of the ad to encourage consumers to spend for the purpose of obtaining, or acquiring the appearance of, a higher socioeconomic status? (Examples of such strategy might be ads for a BMW or a Porsche that suggest the consumer would be more likely to attract members of the opposite sex if he or she were to purchase the advertised car.) Or, does the ad urge individuals to pursue an elite status (e.g., an American Express credit card) that will provide the illusion of upward class mobility.

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How to Analyze an Advertisement

Last Updated: August 10, 2022 References

This article was co-authored by Christine Michel Carter . Christine Michel Carter is a Global Marketing Expert, Best-Selling Author, and Strategy Consultant for Minority Woman Marketing, LLC. With over 13 years of experience, Christine specializes in strategic business and marketing consulting services including market analysis, organizational alignment, portfolio review, cultural accuracy, and brand and marketing review. She is also a speaker on millennial moms and black consumers. Christine holds a BS in Business Administration and Art History from Stevenson University. She is a leader in multicultural marketing strategy and has written over 100 articles views for several publications, including TIME and Forbes Women. Christine has worked with Fortune 500 clients such as Google, Walmart, and McDonald’s. She has been featured in The New York Times, BBC News, NBC, ABC, Fox, The Washington Post, Business Insider, and Today. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 171,348 times.

Breaking Down a Television Commercial

• For example, if the commercial appears on a TV channel that mainly shows children’s programming, then you can deduce that the advertisers are trying to appeal to children or maybe the parents of young children.
• If you see a commercial in a movie theater, you may be able to determine its target audience based on the nature of the movie. For example, commercials that appear before R-rated movies are probably intended for adult audiences.

• How a commercial seeks to grab your attention can also say a lot about its target audience. For example, a commercial that uses explosive special effects may be aimed at teenagers and young adults.
• Advertisers don’t just want their commercial to grab your attention; they also want you to remember it. Consider how their attention-grabbing techniques are meant to stick in your mind and influence your view of a product over the long term. [4] X Research source

• For example, a commercial might prominently feature upbeat music, smiling faces, and sunny weather to create a generally happy feeling that you then direct towards the product the commercial is advertising.
• Advertisers will usually try to make commercials that put their product in a positive light. Determining how they go about doing this will also reveal what unspoken beliefs or values the commercial is attempting to appeal to.

• For instance, may accompany depictions of a generic product with sad music to make you feel that products other than the one being advertised are not as good.
• Ask yourself if your feeling towards the commercial would change if it used a particular genre of music versus another, then think about why different music styles elicit different responses from you.

• For example, if a commercial pairs a particular beer brand with women in bikinis, the advertisers may be trying to appeal to teenage and adult men through sex appeal.
• Think about why an actor or actors of a certain race or gender were selected, and ask yourself if the perception of the product would change if different actors were used in the commercial. This may indicate certain biases or subconscious motives at work in the ad.

• If you’re analyzing one or more commercials for a marketing class, you may find that certain words are used more frequently than others. For example, words like “tasty” and “sensational” are commonly used in ads because they tend to make products seem more desirable.
• Pay particular attention to words that aren’t used to directly describe the product, and think about why those words have been included in the commercial. If words aren’t overtly being used to inform the audience, they’re being used to covertly influence viewers.

Evaluating Advertisements in Print Media

• For example, an ad that appears in Cosmopolitan magazine is probably meant to appeal to women, while an ad featured in the newspaper is probably aimed at a wider general audience.
• Think about how a person from a particular demographic might respond to an ad targeted at a different demographic, and why they might have a different reaction. This will help you to determine some of the hidden social meanings that the ad is incorporating.

• For example, if an ad for a watch features a man wearing it while on a cruise with his family, you may come to associate the watch with the excitement of going on a cruise and the positive feelings of having a family.
• Note that the ad’s plot may not seem relevant to the product itself. This is an example of an advertisement intentionally manipulating their audience’s feelings.

• Think as well about how the language in the ad describes the benefits of buying the product. For example, does the ad say the product will make you happier, cooler, or sexier?
• The typeface used is also an intentional design choice. Ask yourself how you might react to the ad if the words were printed in a different typeface and why that might be. [15] X Research source

• For example, ask yourself what sort of images of people or objects are included in the advertisement and how these images influence your reaction to the product. Consider whether your reaction would change if different people or objects were used.
• If you’re analyzing the ad from an artistic perspective, you should also note which colors are used and where in the ad those colors are placed. You may find there are certain colors that are matched with particular emotional responses.
• The ad may feature images that reflect a certain lifestyle (e.g., a two-story home in a wealthy neighborhood) and use these images to associate the product with particular values and beliefs in your mind.

• For example, a background of a sunny beach and palm tree might be trying to elicit feelings of calm and relaxation, while a busy city street might bring to mind feelings of activity or people in motion.

• For example, an advertisement that seeks to leave its audience excited and energized about its product might feature a large amount of overlapping words and images and leave very little blank space in the ad.
• An ad with lots of empty space might want to make people think of feelings like “quiet” or “understated.” [19] X Research source

Expert Q&A

• Advertisements can be analyzed in much the same way that books can (i.e., interpreting symbols, determining the motives of the creator, examining the use of particular themes, etc.). Thanks Helpful 5 Not Helpful 2

You Might Also Like

• ↑ Christine Michel Carter. Global Marketing Expert. Expert Interview. 30 September 2020.
• ↑ http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/ml_lit_gr12/resources/pdfs/media_analysis/HS_15_Ad_Techniques2.pdf
• ↑ http://www.understandmedia.com/topics/media-theory/110-how-to-analyze-a-television-commercial
• ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/10/19/what-makes-a-tv-commercial-memorable-and-effective/#4dc553633079
• ↑ http://www.understandmedia.com/topics/media-theory/108-how-to-analyze-a-print-advertisement
• ↑ http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/how-analyze-advertisement
• ↑ http://www5.csudh.edu/ccauthen/350S12/ad-questions3.htm

About This Article

Advertisements are all around you, and once you know what to look for, you can analyze them to see how they work. Every ad is designed for a specific target audience, like children, young professionals, or women. An ad for children might use bright colors and big text, while an ad for young adults might feature twenty-something models. The goal of an ad is to grab its target audience's attention and make them feel or want something. Some ads might use flashy visual effects to draw people in, while others will rely on happy or sad music to play on people's emotions. If an ad has a famous person in it, the company that made the ad is probably trying to influence that celebrity's fan base to buy their products. The main thing to consider when looking at any ad is how all of the different elements are being used to sell you something. For more tips, including how to analyze TV commercials, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay–Examples & Template

What is a Rhetorical Analysis Essay?

A rhetorical analysis essay is, as the name suggests, an analysis of someone else’s writing (or speech, or advert, or even cartoon) and how they use not only words but also rhetorical techniques to influence their audience in a certain way. A rhetorical analysis is less interested in what the author is saying and more in how they present it, what effect this has on their readers, whether they achieve their goals, and what approach they use to get there. 

Its structure is similar to that of most essays: An Introduction presents your thesis, a Body analyzes the text you have chosen, breaks it down into sections and explains how arguments have been constructed and how each part persuades, informs, or entertains the reader, and a Conclusion section sums up your evaluation. 

Note that your personal opinion on the matter is not relevant for your analysis and that you don’t state anywhere in your essay whether you agree or disagree with the stance the author takes.

In the following, we will define the key rhetorical concepts you need to write a good rhetorical analysis and give you some practical tips on where to start.

Key Rhetorical Concepts

Your goal when writing a rhetorical analysis is to think about and then carefully describe how the author has designed their text so that it has the intended effect on their audience. To do that, you need to consider a number of key rhetorical strategies: Rhetorical appeals (“Ethos”, “Logos”, and “Pathos”), context, as well as claims, supports, and warrants.

Ethos, Logos, and Pathos were introduced by Aristotle, way back in the 4th century BC, as the main ways in which language can be used to persuade an audience. They still represent the basis of any rhetorical analysis and are often referred to as the “rhetorical triangle”. 

These and other rhetorical techniques can all be combined to create the intended effect, and your job as the one analyzing a text is to break the writer’s arguments down and identify the concepts they are based on.

Rhetorical Appeals

Rhetorical appeal #1: ethos.

Ethos refers to the reputation or authority of the writer regarding the topic of their essay or speech and to how they use this to appeal to their audience. Just like we are more likely to buy a product from a brand or vendor we have confidence in than one we don’t know or have reason to distrust, Ethos-driven texts or speeches rely on the reputation of the author to persuade the reader or listener. When you analyze an essay, you should therefore look at how the writer establishes Ethos through rhetorical devices.

Does the author present themselves as an authority on their subject? If so, how? 

Do they highlight how impeccable their own behavior is to make a moral argument? 

Do they present themselves as an expert by listing their qualifications or experience to convince the reader of their opinion on something?

Rhetorical appeal #2: Pathos

The purpose of Pathos-driven rhetoric is to appeal to the reader’s emotions. A common example of pathos as a rhetorical means is adverts by charities that try to make you donate money to a “good cause”. To evoke the intended emotions in the reader, an author may use passionate language, tell personal stories, and employ vivid imagery so that the reader can imagine themselves in a certain situation and feel empathy with or anger towards others.

Rhetorical appeal #3: Logos

Logos, the “logical” appeal, uses reason to persuade. Reason and logic, supported by data, evidence, clearly defined methodology, and well-constructed arguments, are what most academic writing is based on. Emotions, those of the researcher/writer as well as those of the reader, should stay out of such academic texts, as should anyone’s reputation, beliefs, or personal opinions. 

Text and Context

To analyze a piece of writing, a speech, an advertisement, or even a satirical drawing, you need to look beyond the piece of communication and take the context in which it was created and/or published into account. 

Who is the person who wrote the text/drew the cartoon/designed the ad..? What audience are they trying to reach? Where was the piece published and what was happening there around that time? 

A political speech, for example, can be powerful even when read decades later, but the historical context surrounding it is an important aspect of the effect it was intended to have. 

Claims, Supports, and Warrants

To make any kind of argument, a writer needs to put forward specific claims, support them with data or evidence or even a moral or emotional appeal, and connect the dots logically so that the reader can follow along and agree with the points made.

The connections between statements, so-called “warrants”, follow logical reasoning but are not always clearly stated—the author simply assumes the reader understands the underlying logic, whether they present it “explicitly” or “implicitly”. Implicit warrants are commonly used in advertisements where seemingly happy people use certain products, wear certain clothes, accessories, or perfumes, or live certain lifestyles – with the connotation that, first, the product/perfume/lifestyle is what makes that person happy and, second, the reader wants to be as happy as the person in the ad. Some warrants are never clearly stated, and your job when writing a rhetorical analysis essay is therefore to identify them and bring them to light, to evaluate their validity, their effect on the reader, and the use of such means by the writer/creator. 

What are the Five Rhetorical Situations?

A “rhetorical situation” refers to the circumstance behind a text or other piece of communication that arises from a given context. It explains why a rhetorical piece was created, what its purpose is, and how it was constructed to achieve its aims.

Rhetorical situations can be classified into the following five categories:

Asking such questions when you analyze a text will help you identify all the aspects that play a role in the effect it has on its audience, and will allow you to evaluate whether it achieved its aims or where it may have failed to do so.

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Outline

Analyzing someone else’s work can seem like a big task, but as with every assignment or writing endeavor, you can break it down into smaller, well-defined steps that give you a practical structure to follow. 

To give you an example of how the different parts of your text may look when it’s finished, we will provide you with some excerpts from this rhetorical analysis essay example (which even includes helpful comments) published on the Online Writing Lab website of Excelsior University in Albany, NY. The text that this essay analyzes is this article on why one should or shouldn’t buy an Ipad. If you want more examples so that you can build your own rhetorical analysis template, have a look at this essay on Nabokov’s Lolita and the one provided here about the “Shitty First Drafts” chapter of Anne Lamott’s writing instruction book “Bird by Bird”.

Analyzing the Text

When writing a rhetorical analysis, you don’t choose the concepts or key points you think are relevant or want to address. Rather, you carefully read the text several times asking yourself questions like those listed in the last section on rhetorical situations to identify how the text “works” and how it was written to achieve that effect.

Start with focusing on the author : What do you think was their purpose for writing the text? Do they make one principal claim and then elaborate on that? Or do they discuss different topics? 

Then look at what audience they are talking to: Do they want to make a group of people take some action? Vote for someone? Donate money to a good cause? Who are these people? Is the text reaching this specific audience? Why or why not?

What tone is the author using to address their audience? Are they trying to evoke sympathy? Stir up anger? Are they writing from a personal perspective? Are they painting themselves as an authority on the topic? Are they using academic or informal language?

How does the author support their claims ? What kind of evidence are they presenting? Are they providing explicit or implicit warrants? Are these warrants valid or problematic? Is the provided evidence convincing?  

Asking yourself such questions will help you identify what rhetorical devices a text uses and how well they are put together to achieve a certain aim. Remember, your own opinion and whether you agree with the author are not the point of a rhetorical analysis essay – your task is simply to take the text apart and evaluate it.

If you are still confused about how to write a rhetorical analysis essay, just follow the steps outlined below to write the different parts of your rhetorical analysis: As every other essay, it consists of an Introduction , a Body (the actual analysis), and a Conclusion .

Rhetorical Analysis Introduction

The Introduction section briefly presents the topic of the essay you are analyzing, the author, their main claims, a short summary of the work by you, and your thesis statement . 

Tell the reader what the text you are going to analyze represents (e.g., historically) or why it is relevant (e.g., because it has become some kind of reference for how something is done). Describe what the author claims, asserts, or implies and what techniques they use to make their argument and persuade their audience. Finish off with your thesis statement that prepares the reader for what you are going to present in the next section – do you think that the author’s assumptions/claims/arguments were presented in a logical/appealing/powerful way and reached their audience as intended?

Have a look at an excerpt from the sample essay linked above to see what a rhetorical analysis introduction can look like. See how it introduces the author and article , the context in which it originally appeared , the main claims the author makes , and how this first paragraph ends in a clear thesis statement that the essay will then elaborate on in the following Body section:

Cory Doctorow ’s article on BoingBoing is an older review of the iPad , one of Apple’s most famous products. At the time of this article, however, the iPad was simply the latest Apple product to hit the market and was not yet so popular. Doctorow’s entire career has been entrenched in and around technology. He got his start as a CD-ROM programmer and is now a successful blogger and author. He is currently the co-editor of the BoingBoing blog on which this article was posted. One of his main points in this article comes from Doctorow’s passionate advocacy of free digital media sharing. He argues that the iPad is just another way for established technology companies to control our technological freedom and creativity . In “ Why I Won’t Buy an iPad (and Think You Shouldn’t, Either) ” published on Boing Boing in April of 2010, Cory Doctorow successfully uses his experience with technology, facts about the company Apple, and appeals to consumer needs to convince potential iPad buyers that Apple and its products, specifically the iPad, limit the digital rights of those who use them by controlling and mainstreaming the content that can be used and created on the device . 

Doing the Rhetorical Analysis

The main part of your analysis is the Body , where you dissect the text in detail. Explain what methods the author uses to inform, entertain, and/or persuade the audience. Use Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle and the other key concepts we introduced above. Use quotations from the essay to demonstrate what you mean. Work out why the writer used a certain approach and evaluate (and again, demonstrate using the text itself) how successful they were. Evaluate the effect of each rhetorical technique you identify on the audience and judge whether the effect is in line with the author’s intentions.

To make it easy for the reader to follow your thought process, divide this part of your essay into paragraphs that each focus on one strategy or one concept , and make sure they are all necessary and contribute to the development of your argument(s).

One paragraph of this section of your essay could, for example, look like this:

One example of Doctorow’s position is his comparison of Apple’s iStore to Wal-Mart. This is an appeal to the consumer’s logic—or an appeal to logos. Doctorow wants the reader to take his comparison and consider how an all-powerful corporation like the iStore will affect them. An iPad will only allow for apps and programs purchased through the iStore to be run on it; therefore, a customer must not only purchase an iPad but also any programs he or she wishes to use. Customers cannot create their own programs or modify the hardware in any way. 

As you can see, the author of this sample essay identifies and then explains to the reader how Doctorow uses the concept of Logos to appeal to his readers – not just by pointing out that he does it but by dissecting how it is done.

Rhetorical Analysis Conclusion

The conclusion section of your analysis should restate your main arguments and emphasize once more whether you think the author achieved their goal. Note that this is not the place to introduce new information—only rely on the points you have discussed in the body of your essay. End with a statement that sums up the impact the text has on its audience and maybe society as a whole:

Overall, Doctorow makes a good argument about why there are potentially many better things to drop a great deal of money on instead of the iPad. He gives some valuable information and facts that consumers should take into consideration before going out to purchase the new device. He clearly uses rhetorical tools to help make his case, and, overall, he is effective as a writer, even if, ultimately, he was ineffective in convincing the world not to buy an iPad . 

Frequently Asked Questions about Rhetorical Analysis Essays 

What is a rhetorical analysis essay.

A rhetorical analysis dissects a text or another piece of communication to work out and explain how it impacts its audience, how successfully it achieves its aims, and what rhetorical devices it uses to do that. 

While argumentative essays usually take a stance on a certain topic and argue for it, a rhetorical analysis identifies how someone else constructs their arguments and supports their claims.

What is the correct rhetorical analysis essay format?

Like most other essays, a rhetorical analysis contains an Introduction that presents the thesis statement, a Body that analyzes the piece of communication, explains how arguments have been constructed, and illustrates how each part persuades, informs, or entertains the reader, and a Conclusion section that summarizes the results of the analysis. 

What is the “rhetorical triangle”?

The rhetorical triangle was introduced by Aristotle as the main ways in which language can be used to persuade an audience: Logos appeals to the audience’s reason, Ethos to the writer’s status or authority, and Pathos to the reader’s emotions. Logos, Ethos, and Pathos can all be combined to create the intended effect, and your job as the one analyzing a text is to break the writer’s arguments down and identify what specific concepts each is based on.

Let Wordvice help you write a flawless rhetorical analysis essay! 

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Advertisement Analysis Essay: Writing Tips

Let's first define the analysis essay to understand what it is. Analysis essays imply examination and evaluation of a particular work like books, newspapers, journals, articles or advertisements. No matter what you analyze, your purpose is going to be the same:

• break your subject into components;
• examine each part separately;
• find the connection between those parts.

For instance, if you are assigned to analyze a poem, you will have to find a relation between the content of the poem and its form. If you have to interpret a play, you might need to find a link between the plots and subplots, and follow the character development by discussing their acting during the performance. There might be different goals when it comes to analysis. It's always important to understand clearly what your professor wants you to highlight.

Ad analysis essay is aimed to study a particular advertisement, provide its main points and give your opinion on its impact on the audience. Advertising has played and continues to play a tremendous role in our lives. We face it everywhere: television, the Internet, roads, shops etc. It doesn't matter whether the advertisement is aimed to sell the product or raise the awareness of the audience about something - it's still has a powerful influence. Therefore, it's imperative to analyze advertisements and understand how they work. If you are wondering how to write an ad analysis essay which can impress the readers, then you came to the right place! Check out the guideline below and write an eye-catching ad analysis essay or get custom online essays from professional writers.

Ad analysis essay guidelines for students

Just as every kind of academic writing, an ad analysis essay has a standard structure which should be strictly followed. Before we start discussing this basic structure and its component, we want to give a list of questions related to the advertisement, which you should work on before writing the essay.

• First of all, make an introduction to the subject which is advertised. Your readers might not be familiar with the service or the product advertised in your case. The earlier you introduce the advertisement, the easier it is to comprehend. No matter what your ad discusses or how popular it is - give a small description for everyone to have a clear understanding of what they are going to read in your essay.
• You should also try to understand what "the audience" is. You should realize who you are going to work with because this will help you focus on the right things and highlight those aspects which are interesting for your readers.
• It's also critical to understand the purpose of the advertisement and why you write the essay on this ad. Why are you telling your readers about the mechanism of this particular advertisement? A clear understanding of the purpose will let you write a well-structured paper.
• Another thing you should pay attention to is the thesis. It's an overall point which you discuss in the rest of the essay.
• Take some time to organize your task. There should be a certain order of the things you want to present in your analysis, and you should come up with this sequence before writing.

Your analysis essay should be simple and challenging at same time. Of course, it tries to show what the creator of the advertisement wanted to convey to everyone but you should also help the reader realize all the positive and negative influences of this advertisement. In most cases, the executives try to sell their products to as many people as possible. They might spend fortunes on commercials. The psychological techniques used to convince people are very intricate because they influence our way of thinking subliminally. They alter our preferences and make us buy things we would have never bought. Your readers should get a broader picture of the advertisement and be aware of all the pitfalls it poses. In short, you should describe how effective the ad is or was.

Every essay writing dilemma can be solved right now!

Useful structure tips, and topic examples

We offer a basic structure you can apply while writing an analysis essay. If you want to write a high-quality advertising analysis essay - just follow these simple steps:

• Come up with the title and thesis statement.
• Write the introduction. The introduction aims to capture your readers' attention. As it has been stated before, you should give some background information relevant to your advertisement and indicate your opinion on it to show the position you are taking. In this part of the essay, you should include your thesis statement and description of the topic.
• The body part of the essay. In this section, you lay out the main paragraphs (at least 3 paragraphs for a 500-700-words essay) which support your thesis. Provide the evidence, facts and examples. This will assure the reader that your viewpoint is backed by solid proof. You can use textual evidence which includes a summary, paraphrasing, specific details and quotations. Try to take as much information from the advertisement as you can. Don't miss any details and discuss every single aspect of the ad.
• Conclusion for an advertisement analysis essay. It is the culmination of your whole work. You should summarize all main points and give your final comment about the ad.

Create an advertisement analysis essay outline. Many people skip this part despite the fact that it helps the author organize all their ideas and thoughts. When it comes to outline writing, you should mention what your topic is, why it caught your attention and what your opinion is. What is more, you should include short names for all paragraphs of the essay and a brief description of what you are going to write in each of them.

Take your time to choose the most suitable topic for your advertisement analysis essay. Select what is interesting for both you and the audience. Here are some examples of ad analysis essay topics:

• What is the message behind the Burger King's advertisement "BK Super Seven Incher"?
• Does the new Coca-Cola commercial convince people that they are going to "Open Happiness"?
• Does Bud Light's "drinkability" have "viability"?
• How the military commercials influence our mind

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How to write an Advertisement Analysis for MBA

• March 7, 2023
• Study Guides

Understanding Advertisement Analysis

Advertisement analysis is critically examining and evaluating advertisements better to understand their content, meaning, and impact. This process involves analyzing an advertisement’s text, visuals, and overall design and considering the target audience and the context in which the ad appears. By conducting an advertisement analysis , businesses can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and make informed decisions about how to improve them.

Here's What You'll Learn

Techniques for Advertisement Analysis

Several techniques can be used to conduct a practical advertisement analysis:

1. Text Analysis

Text analysis involves examining the language and messaging used in an advertisement to understand its intended meaning and impact on the audience . This includes analyzing the ad’s headline, tagline, copy, and other written content.

a. Headline Analysis

The headline is often the first thing a viewer sees in an advertisement, and it plays a crucial role in capturing their attention and interest. Analyzing the headline can reveal necessary information about the ad’s purpose and target audience.

b. Language Analysis

The language used in an advertisement can convey various messages and emotions and can be analyzed to determine how the ad is trying to influence the audience. This includes examining the ad’s written content’s tone, style, and vocabulary.

c. Persuasive Techniques Analysis

Many advertisements use persuasive techniques to influence the audience’s beliefs or behaviors. These techniques include appeals to emotion, authority, and social proof, and they can be analyzed to understand how the ad is trying to persuade the viewer.

2. Visual Analysis

The visual analysis involves examining an advertisement’s design, layout, and overall visual elements to understand how they contribute to its message and impact on the audience.

a. Layout Analysis

The layout of an advertisement can be analyzed to understand how it guides the viewer’s attention and emphasizes some aspects of the ad. This includes examining the placement and size of visual elements and text.

b. Design Analysis

The design elements of an advertisement, such as color, font, and imagery, can be analyzed to understand how they contribute to the ad’s overall message and impact on the viewer.

c. Color Analysis

The colors used in an advertisement can convey various emotions and messages, and they can be analyzed to understand how the ad is trying to influence the viewer.

Importance of Advertisement Analysis

Advertisement analysis is an essential process for businesses for several reasons:

1. Understanding Consumer Behavior

By analyzing advertisements, businesses can gain a deeper understanding of consumer behavior, including motivations, needs, and decision-making processes . This information can be used to develop more effective marketing campaigns and better meet the needs of their target audience.

a. Analyzing Motivations

Analyzing consumer behavior motivations can help businesses better understand what drives their target audience to purchase.

b. Identifying Consumer Needs

By understanding the needs of their target audience, businesses can develop more effective advertising campaigns that address those needs and solve their problems.

c. Understanding the Decision-Making Process

Understanding their target audience’s decision-making process can help businesses create more persuasive advertising campaigns that appeal to their interests and preferences.

2. Competitive Advantage

By analyzing advertisements, businesses can gain valuable insights into their competitors’ marketing strategies and identify gaps in the market that they can exploit. This information can be used to develop unique selling propositions that differentiate their products or services from their competitors.

Examples of Advertisement Analysis

1. coca-cola’s “share a coke” campaign.

Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign was hugely successful in multiple countries worldwide. The campaign’s main concept was to personalize Coke bottles with popular names, encouraging customers to share their Coke bottles with friends and family. Here’s an analysis of the campaign:

 a. Text Analysis

The campaign’s “Share a Coke” tagline is short, memorable, and easy to understand. The use of personalized names on the Coke bottles made the campaign feel more personal, and the tagline encouraged people to share their Coke bottles, thus creating a sense of community.

b. Visual Analysis

The visual elements of the campaign were simple yet effective. The personalized Coke bottles with different names were eye-catching, and the images of people sharing their bottles were relatable and emotional.

c. Audience Analysis

The campaign’s target audience was young people aged 18-34 who were active on social media platforms . The campaign encouraged customers to share their personalized Coke bottles on social media using a specific hashtag, which helped to spread the campaign’s message.

 2. Nike’s “Just Do It” Campaign

Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign is one of the most iconic and successful ad campaigns ever. The campaign’s tagline has become synonymous with Nike and its brand message. Here’s an analysis of the campaign:

The campaign’s “Just Do It” tagline is short, memorable, and inspiring. It’s a powerful call to action, encouraging people to push themselves to achieve their goals .

The campaign’s visual elements were also powerful. Using black and white images with the Nike logo and tagline in bold letters was simple yet effective.

c. Brand Analysis

The “Just Do It” campaign helped position Nike as a brand about pushing boundaries and challenging oneself. The campaign’s message resonated with customers who wanted to feel empowered and motivated.

 Best Advertisement Analysis Tools

 1. google adwords.

Google AdWords is a powerful tool businesses can use to create and manage online advertising campaigns . Here are some of the features that make Google AdWords a great tool for advertisement analysis:

a. Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner helps businesses to find the right keywords for their advertising campaigns. It provides keyword search volume, competition, and cost-per-click data.

b. Display Planner

Display Planner helps businesses to create effective display ads by providing data on audience demographics, interests, and behaviors.

c. Ad Preview and Diagnosis

Ad Preview and Diagnosis help businesses preview their ads and diagnose any issues that might prevent them from appearing on Google search results.

SEMrush is an all-in-one marketing tool that provides businesses with valuable insights into their competitors’ advertising strategies . Here are some of the features that make SEMrush a great tool for advertisement analysis:

a. Advertising Research

Advertising Research provides data on competitors’ advertising strategies, including their ad copy, targeting, and display networks.

 b. Ad Builder

Ad Builder helps businesses to create effective display ads by providing templates, design tools, and targeting options.

AdSense helps businesses to monetize their websites by displaying targeted ads. It provides data on ad performance, revenue, and ad networks.

How to Conduct Effective Advertisement Analysis

Effective advertisement analysis involves several key steps:

1. Establishing the Purpose

To conduct an effective advertisement analysis, it is important first to establish the purpose . This involves identifying the ad’s objective, determining the target audience, and identifying the ad’s call to action.

a. Identifying the Ad’s Objective

This involves understanding what the ad is trying to achieve, such as increasing sales or building brand awareness .

b. Determining the Target Audience

It is essential to identify the intended audience for the ad to tailor the analysis accordingly.

c. Identifying the Ad’s Call to Action

The analysis should consider the ad’s call to action and evaluate its effectiveness in prompting the desired response from the audience.

 2. Gathering Information

The second step involves gathering information about the ad, including analyzing its text and visuals, researching its background, and understanding its context.

a. Analyzing the Ad’s Text and Visuals

This involves examining the ad’s language, images, and other visual elements to determine how effectively they convey the intended message.

b. Researching the Ad’s Background

Researching the ad’s background can provide insights into the target audience , the brand’s messaging, and placement.

c. Understanding the Ad’s Context

Understanding the ad’s context involves considering the cultural, social, and political factors that may impact the ad’s effectiveness.

3. Evaluation and Conclusion

The final step is to evaluate the ad’s effectiveness, provide recommendations, and summarize the analysis.

a. Assessing the Ad’s Effectiveness

This involves measuring the ad’s success in achieving its objectives and determining its impact on the target audience.

b. Providing Recommendations

Based on the analysis, recommendations can be made to improve the ad’s effectiveness or to inform future ad campaigns .

c. Summarizing the Analysis

The analysis should clearly and concisely summarize key insights and findings.

How do you analyze an advertisement?

To analyze an advertisement, you need to identify the ad’s objective , determine the target audience, analyze the ad’s text and visuals, research the ad’s background and context, and evaluate the ad’s effectiveness.

What are the five parts of an advertisement?

The five parts of an advertisement are the headline, subheadline, body copy, visual, and call to action.

What are the four elements of a successful advertisement?

The four elements of a successful advertisement are attention, interest, desire, and action. A successful ad captures the audience’s attention, generates interest, creates a desire for the product or service, and includes a clear call to action.

How do you write a good analysis?

To write a good analysis, you should understand the purpose of the analysis and the audience for which it is intended. You should then gather relevant information, organize your thoughts, and provide clear, concise, and logical explanations. Your analysis should be supported by evidence and examples and include improvement recommendations.

What are the eight advertising techniques?

The eight advertising techniques are emotional appeals, testimonials, endorsements, bandwagon, fear appeals, humor, sex appeals, and plain folks. These techniques persuade the audience to buy a product or service by appealing to their emotions, desires, fears, or values.

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The Adidas Break Free Ad Analysis Essay

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Adidas Break Free Ad Analysis: Essay Introduction

Adidas break free ad analysis: essay main body, adidas break free ad analysis: essay conclusion.

Adidas “Break Free” advertisement tells a story about an elderly man trying to escape from a retirement home. The phrase “Break Free” at the end of the video is the only words in the clip, and the commercial uses the slogan to capture the attention of the audience and draw a parallel between the spirit of struggle for freedom and the product. The story is told by showing short silent scenes that are aimed to appeal to people’s feelings and create a strong emotional reaction.

The main character is an elderly man who used to be a runner when he was young. The man is being kept in a retirement home but is craving for freedom (Merher 00.00.00 – 00.01.00). The advertisement is effective because it successfully uses symbols and visual images to provoke emotions in viewers to attach a positive cultural value to the product.

The main character is believable, and his story creates a strong emotional response, making the audience sympathize with the man. It is achieved through the usage of scenes that uncover the personality of the man and his emotions. The clip shows that despite the age and limitations, the man has retained his spirit and the will to keep going forward. Not having access to any equipment, the man utilizes some things that can be found in a nursing home to exercises his body and makes multiple unsuccessful attempts to run away from the institution. Other characters only appear on the screen for just a few seconds, but they also successfully pass the desired message.

The retirement home personnel represents the oppression and the outside forces that want to stop a person from being free. It is shown by the way nurses act, trying to prevent the character from escape and indifferent emotionless looks on their faces. It culminates in the scene where a nurse metaphorically deprives the man from hope by taking away his old shoes (Merher 00.00.53 – 00.00.58). The capturing emotional story and believable characters make the advertisement stand out and increase the chance the audience will remember it.

The advertisement uses symbols and images that appeal to people’s emotions as a persuasive technique. The retirement home is shown as captivity that is created to stop a person from happiness. On the other hand, a pair of old shoes is an embodiment of hope for freedom and a chance to break away from the unwanted and unsatisfying situation, despite all the limitations and boundaries. By contrasting the opposite ideas, the video emphasizes the symbolic value that it is trying to attach to the product.

The ad associates the product with an active lifestyle, but does not express any components of social class, thus targeting a wider audience. The universality of the message makes it personally relevant for most people and provokes emotional reaction and response in a wide range of people, which is very beneficial for the promotion of the product.

The commercial is effective because it appeals to universal values that resonate with the audience. The authors successfully use images to make the viewers feel in a certain way. The believable characters make the story credible and make the audience empathize, pay attention, and remember what they see. By showing personal importance and history of the shoes for the main character, the commercial presents the product as a symbol of the struggle for freedom, success, and self-improvement. Thus, the ad achieves its primary goal of promoting the brand and the product, making it memorable and recognizable.

Merher, Eugen. “Adidas – Break Free”, YouTube, uploaded by Eugen Merher. 2016. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2021, May 30). The Adidas Break Free Ad Analysis Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-adidas-break-free-advertisement-analysis/

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How to Write Good Essays on Advertisement

Writing essays is a sincere opportunity for writers to expose their prowess. While in college, the greatest worry for communication students is how to write good essays on advertisement. If you are among those wondering how to write good advertisement analysis essays, we have your back.

Now, essay writing is a gradual process. Mastery of excellent writing skills come with practice. An essay writing website like Gradecrest.com has writers who are masters in essay typing. To become one, you must possess excellent essay writing techniques.

Reading about how to write good essays on advertisements can mold you into a Jedi essay writer. You actually don’t need an advertisement analysis essay example. Instead, knowing what to put where really matters.  With our skills, you can handle both complex and simple essays on TV advertisements.

These insights are from our best writers . Yes, the ones we task with writing rhetorical analysis essays on commercials.  We are sure that in the end, you will become the best essay writer there is in your class. Basically, it is all about ad analysis essays. From how to criticize an advertisement to handling argumentative advertisement essays, we have you.

Let us begin with the outline.

Example of an Advertising Analysis Essay Outline

Before writing an essay on an advertisement, it is always important to draft an outline. Here is a sample:

Introduction

• The name of the advertisement and its purpose. Include the authors and the brand.
• Summary of the context of the ad.
• Background information about the company in the advertisement.
• Your thesis statement.
• The impact of the ad on the intended audience.

Body Paragraph

• Evidence on the effectiveness of the advertisement on the target audience
• Use examples, where applicable.
• Describe the components of the advertisement
• Explore the strategies employed by the advertisers
• The impact of the ad on the audience
• Ethos, pathos, and logos of the ad.
• Textual and visual strategies in the advertisement.
• If it is a comparison, explore the differences and similarities.
• Reinvent the thesis of the essay on advertisement
• Address what makes the advertisement tick
• What was the intention of the ad?
• Reflect on the ad and give your opinion.

Common Topics for Essays on Advertising

• Analysis of Shampoo advertisement
• Pater Philippe advertisement analysis
• Old spice ad analysis essay
• Marketing ad analysis
• Sports marketing ad analysis
• Print ad analysis
• Critical evaluation of an ad
• Automotive ad analysis
• Pepsi advertisement analysis
• McDonalds ad analysis essay
• Victoria Secret ad analysis essay
• Analyzing the strategies used by Victoria Secret advertisements
• Dove ad analysis essay
• Pepsi Halloween Ad analysis
• Coca-Cola ad analysis essay
• Cover girl ad analysis essay
• Nike ad analysis essay
• Power of advertising in today’s world
• History of advertising essay
• Advertisement campaign analysis
• The evolution of advertisement

These are just but a few ad analysis topic ideas. The advertisement analysis essay prompt always has instructions. Sometimes, it is possible to come up with a list of argumentative advertisement analysis essay topics. Be sure to choose what fits the context and instructions.

Advertising Essay Introduction

When writing an introduction about advertising in essays, it is important to figure out what the ad is about. An essay writer always uses a hook and a good thesis statement to spice up their advertisement essay introduction.

Your introduction should also feature some history of the brand, the author of the ad, and where it was aired. Sometimes, it is good to go as deep as the media where it was first aired and at what time. Explore the audience of the advertisement as well, in the introduction.

Here is an example of an advertising essay introduction.

The old spice advertisement uses persuasion strategies such as emotional appeal and logical appeal to convince the audience to buy the product. The advertisement targets the attention of men through women. To grab the attention of the audience, it spices up the message and wraps it in a sexually themed strategy. As such, the old spice advert is one of its kind.

When writing the introduction ensure that you have a thesis statement. Besides, you should avoid deviating into matters, not in the essay.

Still, summarize the major arguments. The example above shows how to start an advertisement analysis essay.

Advertising Essay Conclusion

When writing an argumentative essay on advertising or just an advertisement analysis essay, how you write the conclusion matters.

If you do not get the paragraphs right, you will be asking how to add more to an ad analysis essay. Let us see how it is done.

When writing the essay conclusion, restate the thesis , not as it is in the introduction but in a reinvented format.

Sum up the arguments in the body paragraphs and use the words that denote a closing sentence. Your conclusion should make clear what your argument in the paper is. Reflect on how the advertisement was successful or how it failed.

Choosing Proper Words for the Essay

When writing, a good choice of words exposes your intelligence. As such, always ensure that your essay flows, is coherent, and is relevant to the topic.

Using language effectively can help build sound arguments and capture the main ideas in the ad.

We advise students to make it simple. If you must use a synonym, maybe to avoid plagiarism when paraphrasing, ensure it fits the context.

For logical flow, use some of the transition words and phrases.

Words such as moreover, besides, for example, furthermore, and however, to mention a few, should feature in often in your essay.

Quoting from other Sources

If there is one thing that makes writing sweet, it is using the right referencing skills. An essay is a chance for you to showcase your essay writing skills.

Thus, you should ensure that you are quoting opinions from other people or even copyrighted material to support ideas.

While using quotes from other people show the extent to which you did your research, be sure to use in-text citation and a reference list.

When writing about the history of the United States of America, you should borrow ideas from relevant materials written by authors on the same theme.

The same applies to when analyzing an advertisement about McDonald’s. You must find materials that talk about persuasive strategies in an advertisement, impacts of McDonald’s advertisements, and any relevant literature. if you master this, there is no need to worry about how to write good essays on advertisements.

Using Proper Vocabulary in an Essay on Advertisement

If there are one place writers err, it is the use of vocabulary. An essay written with the right vocabulary flows. It takes quite some patience and practice to master the use of vocabulary.

When you use rambling words in your essay, make sure you use lower cases to capture the attention of the readers.

You can also achieve modest clarity in your essay by using the right vocabulary. However, to avoid the trap of just throwing in words, always do proper research.

You can only express your ideas with clarity when you understand how the vocabularies fit.

The internet is fraught of learning avenues for one to master vocabulary. Use Online dictionaries such as Merriam Webster or Oxford Dictionary.

Also, you can use the thesaurus to master how to place and use vocabulary in your text.

Essay Tone and Good Grammar Equals Good Grades

A good essay writer maintains a good essay tone from start to finish. Talk about sentence structures; they count here.

A good tone makes it easy for readers. When writing advertising essays always arrange the points in a logical manner.

Avoid grammar errors at all cost when writing the essay. As soon as you are down, proofread the paper to correct any grammatical errors present.

Also, ensure that the punctuation use in your essay is excellent. Submit an essay on an advertisement that you are sure will bring great grades.

Get Help if you wish to

It takes time to develop good essay writing. With this article on how to write good essays on an advertisement, we explore every detail you need to know when writing ad analysis essays.

To recap, your introductory sentence has to present the concepts of the advertisement you are analyzing in the essay.

The body paragraphs should have the best sentence structures, exhibit good vocabulary use, be devoid of grammar errors, and develop the thesis in the introduction of your advertisement essay.

Your conclusion should summarize and restate the thesis statement.

Well, it is also possible that writing an advertising essay is not your thing! In this case, you need to hire essay writers to act on your paper. Gradecrest.com has the best essay writers to help with your essays. We can handle essays as urgent as the 3-hour deadline .

When you order from us, you get a paper that factors in all the parameters discussed in the article.

Gradecrest is a professional writing service that provides original model papers. We offer personalized services along with research materials for assistance purposes only. All the materials from our website should be used with proper references. See our Terms of Use Page for proper details.

Nike Advertisement Analysis Essay Sample

Nike is an international company that has been around for almost 50 years. Get ready for a journey through the world of marketing mastery with a compelling analysis of a Nike advertisement. This essay delves into the art behind Nike’s campaign, offering students a captivating example of advertising brilliance. Beyond the swoosh and catchy slogans lies a blueprint for effective communication, inspiring students to decode the language of impactful marketing.

Join me in exploring the nuances that transform a mere advertisement into a powerful narrative. This analysis is not just about shoes; it’s a concise lesson for students navigating academia and beyond – a stepping stone to your own marketing triumphs.

Essay Example On Nike Advertisement Analysis

• Introduction of Nike Advertisement Analysis Essay
• Analysis of Nike Advertisement’s Visual Impact
• Analysis on Emotional Resonance of Nike Advertisement
• Slogans and Taglines of Nike Advertisement
• Analysis of Celebrity Endorsements
• Cultural Relevance of Nike Advertisement to do Analysis

Introduction of Nike Advertisement Analysis Essay Nike, a marketing powerhouse, wields the iconic swoosh symbol and creates compelling campaigns that transcend simple product promotion, establishing dominance. In this essay, we’ll analyze a Nike ad, exploring visual and textual elements to reveal persuasive techniques employed in its creation. Embark on a Nike advertising odyssey, where every frame and word holds a purpose, weaving a narrative beyond the surface. Body of Essay Sample on Nike Advertisement Analysis Analysis of  Nike Advertisement’s Visual Impact   Nike advertisements are synonymous with visually striking imagery. From empowering shots of athletes in action to emotionally charged scenes, each frame is meticulously crafted to evoke a response. Our analysis will explore how these visuals contribute to the overall narrative, leaving an indelible mark on the viewer’s psyche. Get Non-Plagiarized Custom Essay on Nike Advertisement Analysis in USA Order Now Analysis on Emotional Resonance of Nike Advertisement Beyond the glossy visuals, Nike advertisements often tap into the realm of human emotion. Whether it’s the triumph of overcoming adversity or the joy of personal achievement, we’ll explore how these emotional triggers are strategically integrated to establish a connection with the audience. Slogans and Taglines of Nike Advertisement  Nike’s taglines are short yet impactful, leaving a lasting impression on consumers. From the iconic “Just Do It” to newer campaigns, our analysis will dissect the linguistic choices made in these slogans and unveil the psychological impact they have on the audience. Read more:- Argumentative Essay Topics About Animals Analysis of Celebrity Endorsements  Nike frequently collaborates with high-profile athletes, turning them into brand ambassadors. We’ll examine the symbiotic relationship between the brand and these influencers, exploring how their association adds credibility and authenticity to Nike’s messaging. Buy Customized Essay on Nike Advertisement Analysis At Cheapest Price Order Now Cultural Relevance of Nike Advertisement to do Analysis  Nike has a knack for staying culturally relevant, addressing societal issues and movements. Our essay will discuss how these strategic moves not only reflect the brand’s social responsibility but also position Nike as a leader in cultural conversations. Conclusion In the final segment of our analysis, we will tie together the various elements explored in the Nike advertisement. From visual impact to emotional resonance, slogans to celebrity endorsements, we’ll paint a comprehensive picture of how Nike’s advertising strategies captivate and engage audiences worldwide. As we dissect the intricacies of a Nike advertisement, it becomes evident that every element is a calculated step towards brand supremacy. Marketers and enthusiasts can glean insights on impactful campaigns by understanding persuasive techniques, enhancing the creation of memorable content. Hire USA Experts for Nike Advertisement Analysis Essay Order Now

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Human Aspects of Gerontechnology: Comprehensive Analysis of 2015–2023 ITAP Conference Papers

• Conference paper
• First Online: 01 June 2024
• Cite this conference paper

• Shixin Fan 26 ,
• Yunshan Jiang 26 ,
• Wei Hu 26 &
• Jia Zhou 26  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14725))

Included in the following conference series:

• International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

As the world’s population ages, designing technologies specifically tailored for older adults has become increasingly important. The International Conference on Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population (ITAP), which focuses on the human aspects of gerontechnology, has had a profound impact on the field. This study aims to outline the development and evolution of ITAP research, providing references and inspiration for researchers exploring or preparing to study this domain. A total of 771 ITAP conference papers were retrieved from SpringerLink. Citation analysis was conducted using the HistCite application, and visualizations were created with CiteSpace software. Through visual analysis of the authors, institutions, and keywords of ITAP conference papers over the past nine years, this study reveals the research trends and characteristics of human aspects of gerontechnology within the ITAP conferences. The findings indicate that virtual reality and augmented reality have been highly researched topics since 2020. The latest burst keywords include “smartphone” and “COVID-19”, highlighting some of the hottest topics over the last three years. Papers in ITAP are predominantly published by countries with ageing populations, representing over 85% of the total contributing countries. By summarizing ITAP in stages on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, this study aims to provide scholars interested in the conference with a detailed understanding of the conference and the development of human aspects of gerontechnology.

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Fan, S., Jiang, Y., Hu, W., Zhou, J. (2024). Human Aspects of Gerontechnology: Comprehensive Analysis of 2015–2023 ITAP Conference Papers. In: Gao, Q., Zhou, J. (eds) Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. HCII 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14725. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61543-6_3

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Guest Essay

A Federal Judge Wonders: How Could Alito Have Been So Foolish?

By Michael Ponsor

Judge Ponsor is a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 after serving 10 years as a federal magistrate judge.

The controversy about the decision to fly an upside-down American flag outside the home of Justice Samuel Alito recalls St. Paul’s admonition that while some things may be lawful, “not all things are helpful.”

I can offer no opinion as to whether the flag display at the justice’s house was unlawful. I won’t even opine whether my flying the flag upside-down at my house would have constituted a violation of the code of ethics that binds me and all federal judges — except the justices.

To me, the flag issue is much simpler. The fact is that, regardless of its legality, displaying the flag in that way, at that time, shouldn’t have happened. To put it bluntly, any judge with reasonable ethical instincts would have realized immediately that flying the flag then and in that way was improper. And dumb.

The same goes for the flying of an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at Justice Alito’s vacation house along the New Jersey shore. Like the upside-down flag, this flag is viewed by a great many people as a banner of allegiance on partisan issues that are or could be before the court.

Courts work because people trust judges. Taking sides in this way erodes that trust.

In four decades as a federal judge, I have known scores, possibly hundreds, of federal trial and appellate judges pretty well. I can’t think of a single one, no matter who appointed her or him, who has engaged or would engage in conduct like that. You just don’t do that sort of thing, whether it may be considered over the line, or just edging up to the margin. Flying those flags was tantamount to sticking a “Stop the steal” bumper sticker on your car. You just don’t do it.

Assuming it is true that it was Justice Alito’s wife who raised the inverted American flag, apparently in response to some provocative behavior from a neighbor, I do sympathize. (How the “Appeal to Heaven” flag came to be flown at his house is not known.) Being a judge’s spouse is not easy. On the one hand, a person should not have to forfeit the right to free expression at the marriage altar. On the other hand, it is not unreasonable to expect a spouse to avoid embarrassing a loved one or complicating his or her professional life. This is true not only for Supreme Court justices but also for people in many walks of life.

Let me offer an example. About 25 years ago, I presided over a death penalty case involving a nurse charged with murdering several of her patients at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Western Massachusetts. It was a tough case, regularly on the front pages of our local papers. Let’s say my wife was strongly opposed to the death penalty and wished to speak out publicly against it. I’m not saying this is true, but let’s imagine it. The primary emotional current in our marriage is, of course, deep and passionate love, but right next to that is equally deep and passionate respect. We would have had a problem, and we would have needed to talk.

In this hypothetical situation, I hope that my wife would have held off making any public statements about capital punishment, and restrained herself from talking about the issue with me, while the trial unfolded. On the other hand, if my wife had felt strongly that she needed to espouse her viewpoint publicly, I would have had to recuse myself from presiding over the case, based on the appearance of partiality.

However this issue came out, by the way, I certainly would not have had the temerity to claim that my wife and I never discussed the problem. Any protestation of this sort would have provoked raucous laughter from our circle of friends. They know very well that we talk about everything.

Did Justice Alito and his wife discuss the issue of the upside-down flag before it went up? I don’t know, of course. But I do know they should have. And I know that some other method should have been found to express the couple’s unhappiness with their neighbor’s possibly crummy conduct.

The court recently adopted an ethics code to “guide the conduct” of the justices. One of its canons states that a justice should “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” That’s all very well. But basic ethical behavior should not rely on laws or regulations. It should be folded into a judge’s DNA. That didn’t happen here. The flag display may or may not have been unlawful, but as far as the public’s perception of the court’s integrity, it certainly was not helpful.

Michael Ponsor is a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 after serving 10 years as a federal magistrate judge.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Integrating phylogenies into single-cell RNA sequencing analysis allows comparisons across species, genes, and cells

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

• Samuel H. Church, 
• Jasmine L. Mah, 
• Casey W. Dunn

Published: May 24, 2024

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002633
• Reader Comments

Comparisons of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data across species can reveal links between cellular gene expression and the evolution of cell functions, features, and phenotypes. These comparisons evoke evolutionary histories, as depicted by phylogenetic trees, that define relationships between species, genes, and cells. This Essay considers each of these in turn, laying out challenges and solutions derived from a phylogenetic comparative approach and relating these solutions to previously proposed methods for the pairwise alignment of cellular dimensional maps. This Essay contends that species trees, gene trees, cell phylogenies, and cell lineages can all be reconciled as descriptions of the same concept—the tree of cellular life. By integrating phylogenetic approaches into scRNA-seq analyses, challenges for building informed comparisons across species can be overcome, and hypotheses about gene and cell evolution can be robustly tested.

Citation: Church SH, Mah JL, Dunn CW (2024) Integrating phylogenies into single-cell RNA sequencing analysis allows comparisons across species, genes, and cells. PLoS Biol 22(5): e3002633. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002633

Copyright: © 2024 Church et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: SHC was funded in part by National Science Foundation, https://nsf.org , grant 2109502 and by the Yale Institute of Biospheric Studies, https://yibs.yale.edu . The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) generates high-dimensional gene expression data from thousands of cells from an organ, tissue, or body [ 1 ]. Single-cell expression data are increasingly common, with new animal cell atlases being released every year [ 2 – 6 ]. The next steps will be to compare such atlases across species [ 2 ], identifying the dimensions in which these results differ and associating these differences with other features of interest [ 7 ]. Because all cross-species comparisons are inherently evolutionary comparisons, such analyses present an opportunity to integrate approaches from the field of evolutionary biology, and especially phylogenetic biology [ 8 ]. Drawing concepts, models, and methods from these fields will help to overcome central challenges with comparative scRNA-seq analysis, especially in how to draw coherent comparisons over thousands of genes and cells across species. In addition, this synthesis of concepts will help avoid the unnecessary reinvention of analytical methods that have already been rigorously tested in evolutionary biology for other types of data, such as morphological and molecular data.

Comparative gene expression analysis has been used for decades to answer evolutionary questions such as how changes in gene expression are associated with the evolution of novel functions and phenotypes [ 9 ]. The introduction of scRNA-seq technology has led to a massive increase in the scale of these experiments [ 1 ], from working with a few genes or a few tissues, to assays that cover the entire transcriptome, across thousands of cells in a dissociation experiment. Comparative scRNA-seq analysis therefore enables evolutionary questions to be scaled up, for example: how has the genetic basis of differentiation evolved across cell populations and over time; what kinds of cells and gene expression patterns were likely present in the most recent common ancestor; what changes in cell transcriptomes are associated with the evolution of new ecologies, life-histories, or other features; how much variation in cellular gene expression do we observe over evolutionary time; which changes in gene expression are significant (i.e., larger or smaller than we expect by chance); which genes show patterns of correlated expression evolution; and can evolutionary screens detect novel interactions between genes?

In comparative scRNA-seq studies, the results of individual experiments are analyzed across species. These scRNA-seq experiments usually generate matrices of count data with measurements along 2 axes: cells and genes ( Fig 1 ). Comparative scRNA-seq analysis adds a third axis: species. At first glance, it might make sense to try and align scRNA-seq matrices across species, thereby creating a 3D tensor of cellular gene expression. But neither genes nor cells are expected to share a one-to-one correspondence across species. In the case of genes, gene duplication (leading to paralogous relationships) and gene loss are rampant [ 10 ]. In the case of cells, there is rarely justification for equating 2 individual cells across species; instead, populations of cells (“cell types”) are typically compared [ 11 ]. Therefore to align matrices, an appropriate system of grouping both dimensions must first be found. This is essentially a question of homology [ 12 ]: which genes and cell types are homologous, based on their relationship to predicted genes and cell types in the common ancestor.

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scRNA-seq experiments generate count matrices, shown here with columns as cells and rows as genes. Higher expression counts for a given gene in a given cell are depicted with darker shading. In an idealized comparison, count matrices across species would be aligned to form a 3D tensor of expression across cells, genes, and species. In reality, there is no expectation of one-to-one correspondence or independence for any of the 3 axes. Instead, relationships between species, genes, and cells are described by their respective evolutionary histories, as depicted with phylogenies.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002633.g001

Questions about homology can be answered using phylogenies [ 12 ]. Species relationships are defined by their shared ancestry, as depicted using a phylogeny of speciation events ( Fig 2 ). Gene homology is also defined by shared ancestry, depicted using gene trees that contain nodes corresponding to either speciation and gene duplication events. Cell homology inference requires assessing the evolutionary relationships between cell types [ 12 , 13 ], defined here as populations of cells related via the process of cellular differentiation and distinguishable from one another (e.g., by using molecular markers) [ 14 ]. Relationships between cell types can be represented with cell phylogenies that, like gene trees, contain both speciation and duplication nodes [ 13 ]. As with genes, the evolutionary relationships between cell types may be complex, as differentiation trajectories drift, split, or are lost over evolutionary time [ 7 , 13 , 15 ].

Species phylogenies contain speciation events as nodes in a bifurcating tree. Gene phylogenies contain both gene duplication events (black hexagons) and speciation events (unmarked) at nodes. Cell phylogenies also include both speciation and duplication events; here, duplication events represent a split in the program of cellular development that leads to differentiated cell types [ 13 ]. Branches from the species phylogeny (numbered branches) can be found within gene and cell phylogenies. Note that gene families are strictly defined by ancestry, but cell types have historically been defined by form, function, or patterns of gene expression [ 15 ]. This means that groups of cells identified as the same “type” across species may reflect paraphyletic groups [ 11 ], as depicted in the second cell type in this tree.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002633.g002

In this Essay, we illustrate a tree-based framework for comparing scRNA-seq data and contrast this framework with existing methods. We describe how we can use trees to identify homologous and comparable groups of genes and cells, based on their predicted relationship to genes and cells present in the common ancestor. We advocate for mapping data to branches of phylogenetic trees to test hypotheses about the evolution of cellular gene expression, describing the kinds of data that can be compared and the types of questions that each comparison has the potential to address. Finally, we reconcile species phylogenies, gene phylogenies, cell phylogenies, and cell lineages as different representations of the same concept—the tree of cellular life.

Comparisons across species

Shared ancestry between species will impact the results of all cross-species analyses and should therefore influence expectations and interpretations [ 16 ]. For scRNA-seq data, this has several implications. First, species are expected to be different from one another, given that they have continued evolving since diverging from their common ancestor. Therefore, by default, many differences in cellular gene expression are expected across the thousands of measurements in an scRNA-seq dataset. Second, the degree of difference is expected to correlate with time since the last common ancestor. The null expectation is that closely related species will have more cell types in common, and that those cells will have more similar patterns of gene expression than more distantly related species. The structure of this similarity can be approximated with a species phylogeny calibrated to time.

Methods for the evolutionary comparison of scRNA-seq data have already been proposed in packages such as SAMap [ 7 ]. These packages have overcome significant challenges, such as how to account for non-orthologous genes (see the section Comparisons across genes). However, up to now these methods have relied on pairwise comparisons of species, rather than phylogenetic relationships. The problems with pairwise comparisons have been well-described elsewhere [ 17 ]; briefly, they result in pseudo-replication of evolutionary events. This pseudo-replication is of increasing concern as comparisons are drawn across a greater number of taxa and across more closely related species. By contrast, an evolutionary comparative approach maps evolutionary changes to branches in the phylogeny [ 8 , 10 ]. With this approach, data are assigned to the tips of a tree, and ancestral states are reconstructed using an evolutionary model. Evolutionary changes are then calculated as differences between ancestral and descendant states, and the distribution of evolutionary changes along branches are analyzed and compared [ 18 ].

Shifting toward a phylogenetic approach to comparative scRNA-seq analysis unlocks new avenues of discovery, including tests of coevolution of cellular gene expression and other features of interest [ 9 ], as well as evolutionary screens for signatures of correlated gene and cell modules [ 19 ]. In phylogenetic analyses, statistical power depends on the number of independent evolutionary events rather than on the absolute number of taxa [ 8 ]. Therefore, the choice of which species to compare is critical, especially when comparisons can be constructed to capture potential convergence.

One consideration when comparing species is the degree to which the history of scientific study has favored certain organisms (e.g., model organisms) [ 20 ]. This is especially relevant to single-cell comparisons, as more information about cell and gene function is available for some species (e.g., mice and humans) than for others. This creates a risk of bias toward observing described biological phenomena, while missing the hidden biology in less well-studied organisms [ 20 ]. Consider the identification of “novel” cell types based on the absence of canonical marker genes: because most canonical marker genes were originally described in well-studied species, cell type definitions that rely on these will necessarily be less useful in the context of other species [ 2 ].

Technologies such as scRNA-seq have great potential to democratize the types of data collected [ 2 ]. For example, scRNA-seq allows all genes and thousands of cells to be assayed, rather than a curated list of candidates. To leverage this to full effect, researchers need to acknowledge the filtering steps in their analyses, including how orthologous gene sequences are identified and how cell types are labeled.

Comparisons across genes

Due to gene duplication and loss, there is usually not a one-to-one correspondence between genes across species [ 21 ]. Instead, evolutionary histories of genes are depicted using gene trees ( Fig 2 ). Pairs of tips in gene trees may be labeled as “orthologs” or “paralogs,” based on whether they descend from a node corresponding to a speciation or gene duplication event [ 22 ]. Gene duplication happens both at the individual gene level and in bulk, via whole or partial genome duplication [ 21 ]. Gene loss means that comparative scRNA-seq matrices may be sparse, not only due to a failure to detect a gene, but also because genes in one species often do not exist in another.

The authors of many cross-species comparisons have confronted the challenge of finding equivalent genes across species [ 23 ], and often start by restricting analyses to sets of one-to-one orthologs [ 24 ]. However, there are several problems with this approach [ 22 ]: one-to-one orthologs are only well-described for a small set of very well-annotated genomes [ 23 ]; the number of one-to-one orthologs decreases rapidly as species are added to the comparison, and as comparisons are made across deeper evolutionary distances [ 7 ]; and the subset of genes that can be described by one-to-one orthologs is not randomly drawn from across the genome, they are enriched for indispensable genes under single-copy control [ 25 ]. New tools like SAMap are expanding the analytical approach beyond one-to-one orthologs to the set of all homologs across species [ 7 ]. Homolog groups are identified with a clustering algorithm, by which genes are separated into groups with strong sequence or expression similarity. These may include more than 1 representative gene per species. Gene trees can then be inferred for these gene families, and duplication events mapped to individual nodes in the gene tree.

But how can cellular expression measures be compared across groups of homologous genes? One option is to use summary statistics, such as the sum or average expression per species for genes within a homology group [ 26 ]. However, these statistics might obscure or average over real biological variation in expression that arose subsequent to a duplication event (among paralogs) [ 19 ]. An alternative approach is to connect genes via a similarity matrix, and then make all-by-all comparisons that are weighted on the basis of putative homology [ 7 ]. A third approach is to reconstruct changes in cellular expression along gene trees, rather than along the species tree [ 10 , 27 ]. Here, evolutionary changes are associated with branches descending from either speciation or duplication events. Such an approach has been demonstrated for bulk RNA sequencing, in which gene trees were inferred from gene sequence data and cellular expression data were assigned to tips of a gene tree. In this approach, ancestral states and evolutionary changes are calculated and equivalent branches between trees are identified using “species branch filtering” [ 27 ]. Branches between speciation events can be unambiguously equated across trees based on the composition of their descendant tips (see numbered branches in Fig 2 ) and changes across equivalent branches of a cell tree analyzed (e.g., to identify significant changes, signatures of correlation).

Mapping cellular gene expression data to branches of a gene tree sidesteps the problem of finding sets of orthologs by incorporating the history of gene duplication and loss into the analytical framework. One technical limitation is that the ability to accurately reconstruct gene trees depends on the phylogenetic signal of gene sequences, which in turn depends on the length of the gene, the mutation rate, and the evolutionary distance in question [ 28 ]. These dynamics are such that, for some genes, it may not be possible to robustly reconstruct the topology, although targeted taxon sampling can improve gene tree inference across a wider range of histories.

Comparisons across cells

As with genes, there is usually not an expectation of a one-to-one correspondence between cells across species. Individual cells can rarely be equated, with notable exceptions such as the zygote or the cells of certain eutelic species (which have a fixed number of cells). Instead, the homology of groups of cells (cell types) are usually considered, with the hypothesis being that the cell developmental programs that give rise to these groups are derived from a program present in the shared ancestor [ 11 ].

Similarly, a one-to-one correspondence between cell types across species is also not expected, as cell types may be gained or lost over evolutionary time. The relationships between cell types across species can be described using phylogenetic trees. These cell phylogenies are distinct from cell lineages (the bifurcating trees that describe cellular divisions within an individual developmental history). Nodes in cell lineages represent cell divisions, whereas nodes in cell phylogenies represent either speciation events or splits in differentiation programs that lead to novel cell types ( Fig 2 ). The evolutionary histories of cell types may not follow a strict bifurcating pattern of evolution, as elements of differentiation programs are mixed and combined. However, evidence from inference on sequence data shows that the majority of relationships between cell types can be represented as trees [ 15 ].

The term “cell type” has been used for several distinct concepts [ 15 ], including cells that are defined and distinguished by their position in a tissue, their form, function, or in the case of scRNA-seq data, their relative expression profiles, which fall into distinct clusters [ 14 ]. Homology of structures across species is often inferred using many of the same criteria: position, form, function, and gene expression patterns [ 29 ]. The fact that the same principles are used for inferring cell types and cell homologies presents both an opportunity and obstacles for comparative scRNA-seq analysis. The same methods that are used for identifying clusters of cells within species can potentially be leveraged to identify clusters of cells across species. This could be done simultaneously, inferring a joint cell atlas in a shared expression space [ 7 ], or it could be done individually for each species and subsequently merged [ 2 , 23 ]. In either case, this inference requires contending with the evolutionary histories between genes and species, described above.

One obstacle is that, because cell types are not typically defined according to evolutionary relationships [ 15 ], cells labeled as the same type across species may constitute paraphyletic groups [ 11 ]. A solution to this problem is to use methods for reconstructing evolutionary relationships to infer the cell tree [ 15 , 30 ] ( Fig 2 ). This method is distinct from an approach in which cell types are organized into a taxonomy on the basis of morphological or functional similarity [ 14 ]; instead, this approach uses an evolutionary model to infer the evolutionary history, including potential duplication and loss. It has the additional advantage of generating a tree, comparable to a species or gene tree, onto which cellular characters can be mapped and their evolution described [ 15 ]. Methods for inferring cell trees from expression data have been described in detail elsewhere [ 31 – 33 ]. Using this approach, cell trees are inferred (e.g., using expression of orthologous genes as characters in an evolutionary model) and gene expression data are assigned to the tips of the cell tree. Ancestral states and evolutionary changes are then calculated and changes along branches are analyzed (e.g., to identify changes in gene expression associated with the evolution of novel cell types).

As with genes, the ability to infer cell trees depends on the phylogenetic signal of cellular traits such as cellular gene expression profiles. Although the phylogenetic signal of expression data has been demonstrated in various contexts [ 32 – 35 ], certain cell types, such as cancer cells that follow a distinct mode of evolution, may exhibit less tree-like structures [ 34 ]. Species-specific effects and signals from correlated evolution may also obscure cell phylogenetic signals. Given the low-rank nature of cell gene expression, dimensional reduction techniques such as principal component analysis have been employed to extract and clarify phylogenetic signals [ 33 ]. Other complexities, such as naturally occurring instances of cellular reprogramming or transdifferentiation could also potentially obscure phylogenetic signals, although cellular identity is thought to be stable under most circumstances [ 36 ].

Another obstacle to comparing single-cell datasets are reported batch effects [ 26 ] across experiments, which may need to be accounted for via integration [ 23 ]. When considering these effects, it is critical to remember that the null expectation is that species are different from one another. Naive batch integration practices have no method for distinguishing technical effects from the real biological differences that are the target of study in comparative scRNA-seq analysis [ 23 ]. Other approaches (e.g., LIGER [ 37 ] or Seurat [ 38 ]) are reportedly able to distinguish and characterize species-specific differences [ 23 ]. Given that null hypotheses are still being developed [ 16 ] for how much variation in expression is expected to be observed across species [ 19 ], we hold that cross-species integration should be treated with caution until elucidation of the approach can robustly target and strictly remove technical batch effects.

A final obstacle is that cell identities and homologies may be more complex than can accurately be captured by categorization into discrete clusters or cell types, particularly when considering multiple cell states along a differentiation trajectory [ 14 , 15 ]. Single-cell experiments that include both progenitor and differentiated cells can reveal the limits of clustering algorithms [ 39 ]. In these experiments, there may or may not be obvious boundaries for distinguishing cell states. In cases where boundaries are arbitrary, the number of clusters, and therefore the abundance of cells within a cluster will depend on technical and not biological inputs, such as the resolution parameter that the user predetermines for the clustering algorithm. A solution here is to define homology for the differentiation trajectory, rather than for individual clusters of cells [ 26 ]. This can be accomplished by defining anchor points where trajectories overlap in the expression of homologous genes while allowing for trajectories to have drifted or split over evolutionary time, such that sections of the trajectories no longer overlap [ 15 ]. Cellular homologies within a trajectory may be more difficult to infer, as this requires contending with potential heterochronic changes to differentiation (e.g., as cell differentiation evolves, genes may be expressed relatively earlier or later in the process) [ 26 ].

Constructing comparisons of scRNA-seq data

Single-cell comparisons potentially draw on a broad range of phylogenetic comparative methods for different data types, including binary, discrete, continuous, and categorical data [ 40 ] ( Fig 3 ). The primary data structure of scRNA-seq is a matrix of integers, representing counts of transcripts or unique molecular identifiers for a given gene within a given cell [ 41 ]. In a typical scRNA-seq analysis, this count matrix is passed through a pipeline of normalization, transformation, dimensional reduction, and clustering [ 42 , 43 ]. The decisions of when during this pipeline to draw a comparison determines the data type, questions that can be addressed, and caveats that must be considered.

Several types of scRNA-seq data could potentially be mapped onto a phylogeny. Nine types of data are shown, along with example questions that can be addressed and caveats to be considered.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002633.g003

Gene expression data

Unlike bulk RNA sequencing, where counts are typically distributed across a few to dozens of samples, scRNA-seq counts are distributed across thousands of cells. The result is that scRNA-seq count matrices are often shallow and sparse [ 44 ]. The vast majority of counts (often >95%) in standard scRNA-seq datasets are either 0, 1, or 2 [ 41 ]. These count values, representing the number of unique molecular identifiers that encode unique transcripts in cells, are discrete, low integer numbers, and not continuous measurements. The high dimensionality and sparse nature of single-cell data therefore present a unique challenge when considering cross-species comparisons [ 2 ].

In a standard scRNA-seq approach, expression values are analyzed after depth normalization and other transformations. With depth normalization, counts are converted from discrete, absolute measures to continuous, relative ones (although currently available instruments do not actually quantify relative expression). There is a growing concern that this, and other transformations, are inappropriate for the sparse and shallow sequencing data produced by scRNA-seq [ 45 , 46 ]. Further transformations of the data, such as log transformation or variance rescaling, introduce additional distortions that may obscure real biological differences between species.

Alternatively, counts can be compared across species directly, without normalization or transformation [ 41 ]. There are 2 potential drawbacks to this approach. First, count values are influenced by stochasticity due to the shallow nature of sequencing, resulting in uncertainty around integer values. Second, cells are not sequenced to a standard depth. Comparing raw counts does not take this heterogeneity into account, although this can be accomplished using a restricted algebra to analyze counts [ 41 ]. Another option is to transform count values to a binary or categorical trait [ 47 ]; for example, binning counts into “on” and “off” based on a threshold value and then modeling the evolution of these states on a tree. Analyzing expression as a binary or categorical trait eliminates some of the quantitative power of scRNA-seq, but still allows interesting questions about the evolution of expression dynamics within and across cell types to be addressed.

Models of expression

A promising avenue for scRNA-seq data is using generalized linear models to analyze expression [ 46 , 48 , 49 ]. These models describe expression as a continuous trait and incorporate the sampling process using a Poisson or other distribution, avoiding normalization and transformation, and returning fitted estimates of relative expression. These estimates can be compared using models that describe continuous trait evolution. One feature of generalized linear models is that they can report uncertainty values for estimates of relative expression, which can then be passed along to phylogenetic methods to assess confidence in the evolutionary conclusions drawn.

Cell diversity

In a standard scRNA-seq approach, cells are analyzed in a reduced dimensional space and clustered by patterns of gene expression [ 43 ]. There are several types of cellular data that can be compared. The evolution of the presence or absence of cell types can be modeled as a binary trait. When cell type labels are unambiguously assigned, this approach can answer questions about when cell types evolved and are lost. Such a comparison is hampered; however, when cells do not fall into discrete categories [ 14 ] or when equivalent cell types cannot be identified across species due to substantial divergence in gene expression patterns. An alternative is to model the evolution of cell differentiation pathways as a binary trait on a tree to ask when pathways, rather than cell types, evolved and have been lost. As with other comparative methods, this approach must contend with complex evolutionary histories, including the potential for convergence as pathways independently evolve to generate cell types with similar functions and expression profiles.

Similarly, the abundance of cells of a given type might be compared across species (for example, to ask how dynamics of cell proliferation have evolved). However, the number of cells within a cluster can be influenced by technical features of the experiment such as the total number of clusters identified (often influenced by user-supplied parameters), as well as where cluster boundaries are defined. An alternative is to compare relative cell abundance values, which may account for experimental factors but is still unreliable as it is susceptible to bias from technical aspects of how cells are dissociated and how clusters are determined.

Cellular manifolds

One area for further development are methods that can model the evolution of the entire cellular expression manifold—the space that defines cell-to-cell similarity and cellular differentiation—on an evolutionary tree. Practically, this might be accomplished by parameterizing the manifold, for example, by calculating measures of manifold shape and structure such as distances between cells in a reduced dimensional space. The evolution of such parameters could be studied by analyzing them as characters on a phylogenetic tree.

Alternatively, we can envision a method in which entire ancestral landscapes of cellular gene expression are reconstructed, and then the way this landscape has been reshaped over evolutionary time is described. Such an approach would require an expansion of existing phylogenetic comparative models to ones that can incorporate many thousands of dimensions. It would also likely require dense taxonomic sampling to build robust reconstructions.

Future directions and conclusion

Comparative scRNA-seq analysis spans the fields of evolutionary, developmental, and cellular biology. Trees depicting relationships across time are the common denominator of these fields. Taking a step back reveals that many of the trees that are typically encountered, such as species phylogenies, gene phylogenies, cell phylogenies, and cell fate maps, can be reconciled as part of a larger whole ( Fig 4 ). Because all cellular life is related via an unbroken chain of cellular divisions, species phylogenies and cell fate maps are 2 representations of the same larger phenomenon, visualized at vastly different scales. Gene trees and cell trees (i.e., cell phylogenies) depict the evolution of specific characters (genes and cells) across populations within a species tree. These characters may have discordant evolutionary histories with each other, and with the overall species phylogeny, due to patterns of gene and cell duplication, loss, and incomplete sorting across populations.

All cellular life is related by an unbroken chain of cell divisions. Species phylogenies describe the relationship between populations. Populations are themselves a description of the genealogical relationships between individuals. Peering even closer reveals that each individual consists of a lineage of cells, connected to other individuals via reproductive cells. Therefore, species trees, genealogies, and cell lineages are all descriptions of the same concept—the tree of life—but at different scales. Gene trees and cell trees (i.e., cellular phylogenies) describe the evolutionary histories of specific characters within the tree of life. These trees may be discordant with species trees due to duplication, loss, and incomplete sorting in populations.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002633.g004

The synthesis of species, gene, and cell trees makes 2 points clear. First, phylogenetic trees are essential for testing hypotheses about cellular gene expression evolution. Mapping single-cell data to trees, whether gene trees, cell trees, or species trees, allows for statistical tests of coevolution, diversification, and convergence. The choice of which trees to use for mapping data will be determined by the questions that need to be answered. For example, mapping cellular expression data to gene trees would allow whether expression evolves differently following gene duplication events (i.e., the ortholog conjecture [ 50 ]) to be tested. Second, because the fields of evolutionary, developmental, and cellular biology study the same phenomena at different scales, there is a potential benefit from sharing methods. In the case of scRNA-seq, building evolutionary context around data can prove essential for understanding the fundamental biology, including how to interpret cell types and cellular differentiation trajectories, and how to reconcile gene relationships. An evolutionary perspective is also critical for building robust null expectations of how much variation might be expected to be observed across species [ 16 ], which will allow the significance of results to be interpreted as new species atlases come to light. Methods that infer and incorporate trees are essential not only for evolutionary biology, but also for developmental and cellular biology as well. As single-cell data become increasingly available, rather than reinvent methods for building cell trees or comparing across cellular network diagrams, we can draw approaches from the extensive and robust fields of phylogenetic inference and phylogenetic comparative methods. These approaches include Bayesian and Maximum Likelihood inference of trees, evolutionary models, ancestral state reconstruction, character state matrices, and phylogenetic hypothesis testing, among many others [ 51 – 53 ].

Biology has benefited in the past from the synthesis of disparate fields of study, including the modern synthesis of Darwinian evolution and mendelian genetics [ 54 ], and the synthesis of evolution and development in the field of evo-devo [ 55 ]. With the advent and commercialization of technologies like scRNA-seq, there is a broadened opportunity for new syntheses [ 56 ]. Rich and complex datasets are increasingly available from understudied branches on the tree of life, and comparisons between species will invariably invoke evolutionary questions. By integrating phylogenetic thinking across fields, we can start to answer these questions and raise new ones.

Acknowledgments

We thank Daniel Stadtmauer, Namrata Ahuja, Seth Donoughe, and other members of the Dunn lab for helpful conversation and comments on an initial version of the manuscript.

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