In this lesson students explore what's hidden behind advertising messages by analysing and creating parody advertisements. You can print a few of these prior to class or, if your school library or the public library have copies of adbusters magazine, you can flag the pages these ads appear on, and pass them around the class. The Lesson Guided Discussion Parody ads are a fun way to analyse popular advertisements. When you spoof an ad, you take the elements of the ad that give it power, and make them absurd. You turn the message around to show that it is ridiculous or even untrue.
Activity Have students work in small groups.
Have students answer the following questions. Tell students they have 5 minutes to answer these questions as a group and to write down their answers in point form. Students will be asked to share their responses with the rest of the class. Give students some real ads, or have them choose real ads to spoof out of the magazines that have been brought to class. In their groups they will create a spoof ad.