Advertisers Use Big Words To Selling Customers

Every day, companies present the people with advertisements everywhere they go. Advertisements have become very prevalent in today’s society nowadays focusing in on a negative connotation. Advertisement has become an effective way for producers to display their new products. In present day, they come in forms of billboards, flyers, e-mails, and even text messages. It is widely known that companies create advertisements to persuade people to buy specific products or goods; however, it is not widely known that advertisements can make a negative impact on today’s society. The companies manipulate people’s mind and emotions, swaying people by new promotions and therefore generating a strong desire to fit into the society, that causes them to make inessential expenditures. Advertisements pose a critical impact on the American culture.

Every minute of every day, millions of people are exposed to advertisements. They plague televisions, streets, radio waves, and all means of communication. These advertisements employ many methods of persuasion and their influence is irresistible. Just like prisoners in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, we are told every day to invest our time and interest into the subject of these advertisements, and to accept the forms of reality they serve us. Whether it be a commercial for a must-have new car, to a spot featuring desirable fast food, or to magazines with photoshopped models; we are seduced to accept these false

Advertisements are everywhere. From billboards, to magazines, to newspapers, flyers and TV commercials, chances are that you won’t go a day without observing some sort of ad. In most cases, companies use these ads as persuasive tools, deploying rhetorical appeals—logos, pathos, and ethos—to move their audiences to think or act in a certain way. The two magazine ads featured here, both endorsing Pedigree products, serve as excellent examples of how these modes of persuasion are strategically used.

Do you ever watch the Super Bowl for its commercials? Have you ever bought a more expensive product because you had seen its advertisement? If the answer is yes, then you might have been a victim of today’s marketers. Jean Kilbourne, the author of “Killing us Softly” stated in one of her lectures, “The influence of advertising is quick, cumulative and for the most part, subconscious, ads sell more products.” “Advertising has become much more widespread, powerful, and sophisticated.” According to Jean Kilbourne, “babies at six months can recognize corporate logos, and that is the age at which marketers are now starting to target our children.” Jean Kilbourne is a woman who grew up in the 1950s and worked in the media field in the 1960s. This paper will explain the methods used by marketers in today’s advertising. An advertisement contains one or more elements of aesthetics, humor, and sexual nature.

The Onion’s satirical press release of the new, exciting “MagnaSoles” revealed the ploys and tactics of how products are advertised to a consumer population. Exposing the fallacy and manipulative power of ads, it uses a satirical tone throughout the article through inflated diction, absurd reasoning, coupled with false testimonies and counterfeit professions to discredit

The average United States Citizen views about 5000 advertisements a day (Johnson). Advertising is everywhere. Billboards on the way to work, ads on the internet, and paper products such as magazines or newspapers display a sale or a promotion of a good or service. Usually, the ad will give a brand or company name, and uses the product’s merits to draw the consumer closer. This has grown exponentially as advertisements in media in 1970 were estimated to be 500 a day, a ten percent increase in the last 48 years. (Johnson). This is due to the rise of technology, as the computer has become a household gadget within the new millenium. These advertisements are meant to give a synopsis of the product or service’s purpose, quality, and efficiency. If a consumer views 5000 advertisements in a single day and assuming the commercials do not repeat, 5000 goods or services are introduced. With more options to choose from in such little time, the consumer has a harder time differentiating the quality and perhaps necessity of the product. The marketers rely on the quick, impulsive decision making of consumers. With the misleading nature of many infomercials or radio broadcasts, the people of American society are bombarded with constant propaganda, thus making seemingly harmless promotions more potent to filling industries’ pockets and lessening the common population’s

     We live in a fast paced society that is ruled by mass media. Every day we are bombarded by images of, perfect bodies, beautiful hair, flawless skin, and ageless faces that flash at us like a slide show. These ideas and images are embedded in our minds throughout our lives. Advertisements select audience openly and subliminally, and target them with their product. They allude to the fact that in order to be like the people in this advertisement you must use their product. This is not a new approach, nor is it unique to this generation, but never has it been as widely used as it is today. There is an old saying 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' and what better way to tell someone about a product

Advertising is all around us. Companies of all sorts rely heavily on internet, television, print, and various other types of media outlets as means to reach their audience. Advertising aims to bring in more customers and thereby, more profit. All of this is complicated by the fact that, out of the vast number of products and services available, companies want to prove that theirs are the best. From this is born the tricky and unique language of advertising. In their respective articles, With These Words, I Can Sell You Anything and The Language of Advertising, both William Lutz and Charles A. O’Neill discuss popular ploys used by marketing advertisers to rope in the most customers. Lutz takes a

In this article released from The Onion the writer uses satirical strategies such as sarcasm, humor, and mockery to show how easily customers fall into the outrageous claims made by marketers.

Over the years, it is apparent that adverts in general have adapted their advertising language by employing extensive methods of persuasion, instead of focusing on their actual product or purpose.

Over the last few decades, American culture has been forever changed by the huge amount of advertisement the people are subjected to. Advertising has become such an integral part of society, many people will choose whether or not they want to buy a product based only on their familiarity with it rather than the product’s price or effectiveness. Do to that fact, companies must provide the very best and most convincing advertisements as possible. Those companies have, in fact, done

The retail industry is a very competitive business to partake in. Companies will do anything to gain the attention and respect of a new customer. Advertising plays a big role in helping companies achieve these goals. The onion, a satirical website, released a mock press release that satirizes easily fooled customers through humor and meticulous mocking, in order to expose the phony marketing strategies companies use to allure customers. The onion takes the time to ridicule both sides of the advertising spectrum such as the consumers and advertisers.

Lutz critize the linguistic habits of hucksters. He alerts readers to the special power of the ‘‘weasel words’’-those familiar and sneaky critters that “appear to say one thing when in fact they say the opposite or nothing at all”(Lutz,357). Like weasel persuades us that the eggs is not hallowed by eating inside of an egg and deceive us by putting it back in the nest like how it appeared before. The advertisers use similar persuasive techniques like a weasel in their ads by using words or claims which appear really appealing in the beginning, but upon close examination they appear to be like hollowed out eggs in the nest which has nothing in

Dave Ramsey, America’s most trusted financial adviser and a radio show host, once said, “We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.” (Ramsey). Ramsey’s quote reflects the state of consumerism that our society is going through. Most of us can easily relate to this quote, let’s be honest most of us have been there done that and then later question our genuine need for whatever we have bought. Regardless, if we feel guilty or not we ought to ask ourselves why and what made this purchase seems so important and necessary at the time. Although this might not come as a surprise to most of us, the answer would be the advertisement industry. In 2016, The United States has spent more than 198 billion U.S dollars on advertising, making America the leader in advertisement in the world (Statista). These ads are designed to force consumers to keep buying things that are unnecessary by sending subliminal messages and applying psychology to trick the consumer into a spending spree. In his short story, “Subliminal Man”, J.G. Ballard uses science fiction approach to illustrate to his readers the preposterous techniques that the advertising industry has been using to boost consumerism. Ballard believes that the consumer’s brain has been tricked into buying against their well, by using technology and applying subliminal technics. Ballard short story questions the effect of consumerism on our moral values, lifestyle, and behavior. Ballard claims that

Leech (1966:25) posits, “Most advertising language comes under the broader heading of “loaded language” that is aimed to change the will, opinions or attitude of its audience…” Cook (in Okeke 2006:13) says advertising as a part of communication. In his book The Discourse of Advertising, Cook argues that communication has to do with text, content, interaction and persuasion and advertising performs all these functions. Leech (1966:74) agrees with this opinion when he asserts that any aspect of language use is an aspect of discourse. He describes the style of discourse in the language of advertising as being either “colloquial-formal; casual – ceremonial; personal-impersonal; or simple - complex, depending on the particular audience and the audience sought to reach”.