Advertising within its Environment

Debbie Guenther

Prof. Terryl Atkins

VISA 1500

September 27, 2021

In downtown Kamloops BC on the corner of 4^th Avenue and Landsdowne Street, exists a Payday Loan business called Speedy Cash. A Canadian owned and operated cash loan service that is found in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia since 1998 (Speedy Ca$h Online Payday Loan Lenders). Their advertising can be seen on T.V., online, pop ups on phones, and on their property in the form of large colorful vinyl sticker appliques on exterior windows, a protruding, red vinyl awning that surrounds the upper portion of the building and a sidewalk sign that alerts passersby of any instore specials.

The photo shows the end of a two story, corner, red brick building with five windows on the left side and two on the right side with a door between each set of windows. Above, the awning offers shelter as well as advertising, with its primary red and bold white text. Each window contains vinyl stickers of various imagery intended to capture anyone walking or driving by. The five window panels on the left side of the building frame advertising consisting of a flowing wave of geometric shapes of soft greys and white that borders the lower half of each window, giving a sense of left to right movement, rhythm and continuity, then continues around the front onto the other 2 windows.  People in larger-than-life size poses, in various positions and ages, animate all but one of the windows, each person is fair skinned, middle class and healthy. In the foreground, and the focal point, is blond haired women, in her late twenties or thirties, happily engaged in reading something on her cellphone, wearing a red T-shirt, the same color as the Speedy Cash awning, giving a solid pop of red that draws the eye first. Behind her, are the supporting cast, here we see a mature middle-aged couple embracing with the man looking toward the right at the father and child in the next window panel and the older women capturing the viewer with her straightforward gaze. The younger father has the child on his shoulders, and both have arms raised in what could be perceived as joyous freedom, completing the impression that life is good with the approval from your elders and fulfillment is at your fingertips.

The style choices that Speedy cash uses to advertise their services, are meant to create a sense of security, freedom, flowing wealth, through a cascade of shape reminiscent of coins, primary reds which are happy and passionate, and actual real-life imagery of fair skinned, middle-class people, because aren’t they the most successful kind? However, Speedy Cash, faces a continuous problem of having a notorious reputation for being “predatory lenders” for their higher that average interest rates and invasive practises to commit vulnerable cliental to repay their loans (Omololu 1). For instance, on the Government of Canada website, one can look up Pay day loans and get a basic awareness of what you can expect if you use a payday loan. While federal legislation has done little to nothing to cap payday loans high interest rates, with an average of $442% not including administration fees, analysts make it very clear that should anyone to choose this route there can be serious consequences for not repaying the loan (Payday Loans 6-7). Enoch Omololu warns new Canadians about this in his editorial in Savvy New Canadians, that payday lenders have the right, by law, to contact you personally, garnishee wages, sue you, use a collection agency, and damage your credit rating, in their attempt to retrieve monies owed them (7). With such a bad reputation, it is no wonder Speedy Cash uses joy and peace of mind in their imagery to calm any potential customers to the legitimate risk they are taking in using a pay day loan.

Work cited

Omololu, Enoch. “Payday Loans Are Bad: Here are 10 Strategies to Avoid Them.” SAVVY: NEW            CANADIANS, 23 Nov. 2020, (https://www.savvynewcanadians.com/payday-loans-and-the-never-ending-scourge-of-indebtedness/).

Payday loans. Government of Canada, 2021, (https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/services/loans/payday-loans.html#toc0).

“Online Payday Loan Lenders.” SPEEDY CA$H, 2021, (https://www.speedycash.ca).