Lee Pak Ki 09007324D Lee Sin Ming 09369162D Shum Mei Yee 09169328D
English for Public Relations – Brochure design analysis Lee Sin Ming 09369162D This brochure is designed for Mengniu, which is re-entering the Hong Kong market since its withdrawal during the melamine scandal in 2008, to rebuild its brand reputation and retrieve customers’ trust by emphasizing the company’s concern on customers’ health. This analysis focuses on the section (P.3-4) presenting the quality assurance in all production stages. The first paragraph, made visually standout with bigger font size, introduces this section. Instead of some factual information, a well-known saying is used to arouse readers’ (i.e. potential customers’) attention on how Mengniu prioritize customer’s health through strict quality control. The last sentence concludes and states clearly the focus of the section and indicates further elaboration by the following paragraphs. Each indicated by an eye-catching heading with special font size and type, the other paragraphs in this section explain the steps that Mengniu has always taken to put its slogan ‘From Our Milk to Your Health’ into practice. They aim at providing readers with information and convincing that Mengniu products are safe and healthy for them by several methods. The inclusive pronouns ‘we’, ‘our’ and ‘us’ are used to refer to Mengniu 15 times while the customers are addressed directly by ‘you’ and ‘your’ 9 times. This shortens the distance between the two parties by implying that both are on the same side with the common goal: enhancing customers’ health with dairy products. At the end of each paragraph, there is a concluding sentence connecting the company’s effort with the resultant benefits of customers explicitly, provoking readers’ interests in the detailed explanation. In fact, such you-approach is adopted throughout the whole brochure to maintain a constant tone, attract readers’ attention and echo with the slogan on the cover. To enhance persuasiveness, this section contains a lot of factual information and data to specify and quantify Mengniu’s achievement in quality assurance. Instances include the names of its exclusive farms and production bases, the number of monitoring procedures and the names of its qualification. Meanwhile, positive lexical choices in a very definite tone are made, including ‘endeavour’, ‘absolutely high quality’, ‘unique needs’, ‘most advanced’, ‘100% guarantee’, ‘honour’, and ‘100% safe’ etc . Together with promises/ guarantees made at the end of every paragraph, it is convincing for Mengniu position itself as customers’ health partner.
The ideas are also expressed by various visual means. The bone formed by milk on the cover is exactly a symbolic implication of the slogan and the other pages echo with it with the image of pouring milk as the background. The subheadings are in blue following the cover. As for the introductory paragraphs or headings in each section, they are green in colour, the same as that of Mengniu’s logo. The photographs in this section give readers an actual view and better understanding of the production processes. In short, this section bridges the former and latter parts of the brochure (the company’s objectives turn into final products through the processes mentioned in this section). It maintains readers’ interests and enriches persuasiveness with the use of you-approach, definitely positive wordings and guarantees. With the information of retailers on the last page as a call for action of customers, the brochure rebuilds the brand and promotes sales in a cohesive way with a series of verbal and visual aids.