Advertising And Advertising : The Use Of Advertising

There has inevitably been a controversial debate on whether Advertising is powerful or not and how effectively semiotics contributes towards an advertisement. The term ‘Advertising’ is a form of marketing communication (visual or audio) that sells a product or service to a consumer (En.wikipedia.org, 2017). The main purpose of advertising is to persuade an audience into purchasing a product/service they neither wanted nor needed (Rothenberg, 2017). What’s particularly engaging about ad campaigns is that many only include imagery but still persuade their target audience without text. As Leo Burnett, a former advertising executive, once said “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at” (Bihl, 2017) which contributes to my point that the simplest visuals still make an impact. Arguably, some may say that advertising is purposeless as on a day-to-day basis, we are bombarded with advertisements using the same psychological pressure effect so we as the audience no longer take interest in them (En.wikipedia.org, 2017).

Many companies hire advertisers to develop a catchy advertisement to sell their product. However, most advertisers have to lie or use certain trick for the product to sell. This is called propaganda. Propaganda: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Propaganda has changed society in many different ways. It has changed the way we think, eat, and live life. Using propaganda has become a way of life for advertisers. Many Americans believe that they are not easily influenced by advertisements or commercials, but the way the human body and mind is set up, advertisements stick with us. Research has shown that an average person sees over 500 advertisements per day. In within those 500 or more advertisements, 500 or more use propaganda techniques to sell their product. Most advertisers use catchy phrases, sex appeal, and celebrity testimonial to sell their products. After watching and analyzing the American Express Card commercial, I realized that the target audiences were adult men and women. The advertisers used several propaganda techniques to manipulate views. The commercial first aired September 24, 2007 as a part of network television 's premiere week.

It is hard to turn on the television without seeing marketing advertisements. Some ads are good and helpful while others are unethical and annoying. An individual will see advertisements for food, sanitary products, prescription drugs, and lawyers, to name a few, but this list could go on and on. All of these companies are trying to get you to use their service or purchase their products. A marketing campaign tries to sway the consumer by trying to satisfy a want or a need that through research they have identified (Bethel University, 2011). Personally, there are numerous needs of mine that have been met, and my decision to go with a product has been based at times on their advertisements. In

Advertisements are and have been a staple for businesses that are trying to sell a product or service throughout modern history. Whether the product is a physical item or a service like a lifestyle, experience or knowledge. Businesses frequently use advertisement to not only to show their product or service to the public, but also to influence how the public sees and feels about their specific product. By using advertisement, the business is trying to persuade the public to purchase their product or service, by showing what it is and how it will benefit the buyers lives. There are many different routes of advertisement including commercials for television or radio, billboards, storefronts or vehicles, and in print like newspapers, flyers, or magazines. In this paper I will be analyzing an advertisement found in the September 2016 issue of the magazine Outside. I will describe the advertisement’s visuals and text, explain the message they are trying to get across, what they are selling and talk about the possible audience this specific advertisement is targeting. The message the I believe this advertisement is trying to say, is that if one uses their service one’s vacation will not only be the best experience but will also be the best for one’s health. For you to be able to follow along I will describe in writing what I see in the advertisement.

Why are advertisements everywhere nowadays? The simple answer may be that companies want people to buy their product. However, there is a deeper meaning to many advertisements that many consumers fail to see. Companies effectively use imagery, language, and creative approaches to globally advertise their product. “In order to understand advertising, you must accept that it is not about truth, virtue, love, or positive social values. It is about selling a product” (O’Neill 348). O’Neill is clearly stating to readers that the main goal of companies is to get consumers to buy their product. Additionally, advertisement creators creatively portray to consumers their desires, aspirations, and even fears. Therefore, I agree with O’Neill’s statement that advertising language mirrors the fears, quirks, and aspirations of the society that creates it because of the thousands of existing advertisements that support his claim in my own life.

The advertising world has shaped society’s views of beauty and what women should aim to look like. Advertisements are plastered everywhere. They are on billboards, the sides of trains and buses, as well as social media networks. People were only exposed to the advertisements of photoshopped models and celebrities with “perfect” bodies on magazine covers and in television commercials, but nowadays, due to the media, we are frequently exposed to them. In “Real Women on Real Beauty”, Kimberly Bissell points out the advertising usually sends out the distorted message that “the thin ideal is possible with the right amount of effort and self-sacrifice” and therefore, “women spend a lot of time and energy trying to obtain something that is not only superficial, but also impossible” (Bissell 659). To make the whole situation worse, the industry uses both models and photoshopping software to ensure that the ads would show the “perfect” woman, instead of using people with average body types. Even though models are already thin, they are photoshopped to appear even thinner by the media’s usage of a “digital diet”, where editors shave the sides of models, making their bodies appear flawless (Bissell 664).

Advertisements work in such a way that we grow to envy those we are not; they exploit our perceived flaws by displaying a person who is the living and breathing version of who we wish to be. John Berger in his book, Ways of Seeing, explains that publicity works by convincing his reader that advertisements use envy to entice the public to buy products: “Publicity persuades us...by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable” (131). Though Berger published his book in 1972, his arguments about envy and publicity still hold truth, perhaps now more than ever. Furthermore, the more present advertisements are in our everyday life, the more envious our society becomes. With the power of envy, those who fall under its spell become choiceless, and therefore powerless. Berger also argues in his book that there is a correlation between the number of advertisements we see and the less freedom Americans possess. However, Berger believes that capitalism hides this powerlessness with the illusion of choice: “Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society” (149). This idea Berger has relates not only to the advertisement of products, but also to present-day politics. Withheld information creates power using envy which is used in both advertisements and the US government. As more envy is created with modern day technology, and we become more immersed into social media, the further we stray from democracy.

Each day we are constantly barraged and hounded with the promise of a better way of living. It doesn’t matter whether you are the epitome of egotism or the embodiment of inhibition, the advertising industry has honed a sure-fire way of nit-picking at your insecurities and luring you into a trap designed to offer immediate, yet short-lived, satisfaction. As adolescents, we are attached at the hip to all forms of social media and are naturally subjected to endless streams of advertising, whether we realise it or not. Do the words “Fit-Tea” ring a bell at all? On average, it is estimated that teens are exposed to thousands upon thousands of ads each day, a factor that advertisers happily use to their advantage. While we may not think it, we adolescents are an easily-targeted and influenced demographic due to our disposable incomes and insecurity, advertisers often preying on our basic human need to feel accepted. Being such easy targets, we are exposed to advertisements on virtually every platform imaginable: whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram or even (though much less likely nowadays) reading a magazine. Such is the case for this ad for L’Oréal Nude Magique Foundation found in Dolly Magazine. Upon absentmindedly flicking through the magazine and stumbling upon this feature, I found myself unexpectedly drawn to the ad, but by analysing this ad using the AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action), the exact reasons why and how this ad managed to capture and hold my

Throughout time many companies change their methods of advertising due to the change in times and African Americans being accepted into society as equal. In “‘Dinnertimin’ and ‘No Tipping’: How Advertisers Targeted Black Consumers in the 1970s” it goes over some strategies that companies like Mcdonald's and Winston used to get the attention of African American societies. While some advertisements used images to represent how “cool and rich” you can be with there product, others used words that had African American slang in order to catch minorities attention. Furthermore the author uses these examples to show how effective these advertisements where and how they have affected the society we live in today. I believe these infomercials were effective because regardlessly they got a response to their advertisement.

Humans have evolved since the time they populated the Earth. Over time, the countless ideas, inventions, and many theories have improved our extended lives, but what about the Earth? As time has gone on, humans have continued to diminish the fragile state of the Earth. The advertisement clearly depicts a once plentiful Earth now slowly being depleted of its most important resource- trees, in attempt to influence the audience into feeling a sort of affection toward their environment.

Advertising is an mechanism that businesses use to reveal themselves to consumers and get their attention. Advertisements are seen in newspapers, television commercials, magazines, on the radio, and on billboards. There are so many advertisements that we see in a day that we don’t even notice. Kilbourne states, “The average American is exposed to at least three thousand ads everyday and will spend three years of his or her life watching television commercials” (RPC 90). We live in a world full of technology which is used to create these ads and display them. Advertisers also use this technology to create different characters or slogans to make a product they are selling more memorable. While most people find advertisements to be informative and helpful, there may be some techniques and hidden messages that we, the consumers, do not take into consideration when being persuaded into buying a product that is being advertised.

Daily, products are sold that fall short of the standards advertised by the company selling the item. One only has to consider the reality of a burger from McDonalds compared to the perfect picture we’re shown on tv. Some products, such as power tools can be hazardous, so ads should accurately depict what’s being sold so the consumer is well informed about it, and it’s possible dangers. As long as there has been a demand for products there has been promotion backing that trade. From traveling business men dealing face to face, to paid promotions in the local paper, the method of pitching a sale has evolved over the times. Regardless of the format, the sales generated due to the advertisement alone can determine its effectiveness. FEIN is the company credited with being the earliest manufacturer of power tools with Emil Fein inventing his first electric hand drill in 1895 after nearly 30 years of development. With advertising agents and slogan ready, Fein’s invention came just in time for the birth of the consumer movement. Regulation was called to be placed on advertising to prevent false information, and when dealing with machinery this becomes a safety issue as well. Ensuring the consumer gets the product they were advertised is still a concern to be kept in check. Additionally, so many mainstream tool brands now manufacture the same types of tools with similar features. An prospective buyer should be able to make an educated decision between product and brand whether or

Advertising is a persuasive communication attempt to change or reinforce one’s prior attitude that is predictable of future behavior. We are not born with the attitudes for which we hold toward various things in our environment. Instead, we learn our feelings of favorability or unfavorability through information about the object through advertising or direct experience with the object, or some combination of the two. Furthermore, the main aim of advertising is to ‘persuade’ to consumer in order to generate new markets for production.

How many of you listened to the radio, watched television, or glanced at a magazine before school this morning? Whether you realized it or not the minute you pressed the power button or flipped the cover page you were exposed to some sort of advertisement. Defined as any paid form of communication by an identified sponsor, advertising dominates a huge part of our daily lives. Living in such a consumer driven economy means that we deal with subliminal and up front messages pushing us to “ buy, buy, buy”, countless times throughout our day. Most of these messages are sent by identified sponsors including major corporations like Wal-Mart, as well as smaller run businesses. No matter the size, all modern day businesses employ workers to

Advertising is the process of communication where a person or groups of people are persuaded to take some form of action, usually to make a purchase or participate in a particular behavior. Advertisements are used in hopes to increase the number of people that use their products or services. All product advertisements try to make people buy their products, so they manipulate facts about the product to make it more appealing to the consumer. Advertisements have such a high level of advertising around the consumers that it is causing it to shape around us as a society. Today, advertising is shaping to our society because the companies are beginning to spend millions even billions of dollars to achieve a behavioral change.