The study examined the verbal-visual elements in selected banking industry advertisements in Nigeria. Verbal-visual messages are very prominent of recent in advertising activities in our society. It presents both facts, vague, false, state of individual lives and prevalent issues in the whole world. Most industries, including banks rely on verbal-visual elements in their advertisements to pass their intended messages to target audience. This study explored the way verbal-visual elements are used to relate events and activities of various banks to the world at large on television in order to attract customers’ attention and affect their attitude positively and earn high patronage from the viewers. The study adopted a mixed method, research design, using the three meta functions of meaning as projected by M. A. K. Halliday, elements of reading images by Kress and Van Leewen and survey to determine the impact of verbal-visual elements on television advertisements of selected banks on the viewers. The data comprised of 30 purposively selected banks advertisements from 3 prominent banks. The banks selected are: First Bank, Zenith Bank and Access Bank. The study revealed that there is interplay between verbal and visual elements used in the adverts which revealed the advertisers intended messages to the viewers. It revealed the viewers’ state of mind on the banks and the effectiveness of the banks services to the general populace. The study concluded that visual and verbal elements mutually reinforce one another as used by the advertisers.
Keywords: Interplay, advertisement, target audience, verbal and elements
