An Essay on Strong vs Weak Theory of Advertising

The background given provides us with an idea of the definition of advertising, its purpose and goals, its different cycles

In the article, “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals”(1982), Jim Fowls, a professor at the University Of Houston, discusses the different ways advertisers are reaching people on a daily basis. He claims that advertisers main goal is to appeal to the audience’s motives and desires, aiming to make the ad as memorable as possible. Every person has a need that he wishes to satisfy, if the advertisement successfully calls this need “then the persons can be hooked”(Fowls, p. 275). Fowls introduces a list created by the psychologist Henry Murray from Harvard University of 15 human needs that advertisement can appeal to. Murray’s classification of needs is a useful tool to understand the effectiveness of an advertisement.

Advertising:- a paid, mediated form of communication from an identifiable source, designed to persuade the receiver to take some action, now or in the future

In the Hunter/Gatherer section of Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan talks about what it takes to accomplish the task of developing a meal on his own; consequently, the people of today’s society are so used to the abundance of food that they have no idea what all is involved in establishing a full meal. Americans take this great abundance of food for granted, which causes an increased craving for more. This is where the world of advertisement has been the strongest. One of the easiest ways to reach people is through their food; therefore, major food industries try to lure people in at all costs just to buy their products. The Fast food industry is the

Advertising is the action of let people know about a specific product or idea. Advertising is nothing fresh, according to “The History of Adverting: How Consumers Won the

The aim of advertising commercials is to win the interest of different groups in the society. Art Markman who has a PhD and is a professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas writes in his publication “What Does Advertising Do” that the most powerful effect of advertising is to create a good feeling about a product by surrounding it with other things that consumers like (1). The commercial tries to convince the people that its consumption has been embraced

Advertising is a form of communication used to encourage or persuade an audience to continue or take some new action. But when advertisers produce an ad, they have many different variables that come into play if they want to successfully persuade consumers. The first most important step they have to figure out is, what type of audience they are trying to target. They then create images and intend to appeal specifically to the values, hopes, and desires of that particular audience. This is why someone would rather pick the well-known Malboro cowboy ads over the new female cigarettes of Virginia Slims. Each of these ads targets a specific audience;

In the earliest methods of advertisements, a man named William Caxton printed what could be Britains first advert in 1477 and from then advertising developed into a genuine business and it wasn’t long before people started to offer themselves as specialists in advertising - the earliest known record of an advertising agency dates back to 1786. (1). A couple centuries after Caxton, followed the rest of the advertisement as we know of today; with a brief time line dating the different approach through the years starting, 1704 - America published their first ever newspaper Ad, 1835 - First billboards appear, 1920 - Air on the radio advertisement, 1941 - First Television commercial, 1978 - The first widely publicised example of online

Advertisements are a huge part of our everyday lives. We see different types of ads everywhere we look; while watching television, listening to the radio, riding on the bus and even walking around your school campus. It seems like the whole world is being flooded by advertisements.

This brings me onto the next subject, appeals. Appeals are relating the audience with the product with a story and emotions. The positioning of the advertisements has to be put in spots where they will appeal to a certain audience. 40-50 year old males, teenagers etc. The can be a change from ugly to beautiful miraculously which would appeal to teenagers because at their age they are self-conscious. Statistics are also used to appeal to the audience. If the public hears statistics they are instantly drawn in. A perfect example of appealing to an audience is the notorious Nescafe advertisement. This consists of a man and woman who meet each other over a cup of Nescafe. There is emotion involved and this draws the audience in. There is a sequence of ads in this story and the audience is drawn in so much that when there is the nest sequence they are practically glued to the television to know how it ends. In thee and they get married, Of course every advertisement includes a cup of Nescafe but that’s what it’s there for

According to Jib Fowles, author of “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals” explains the different kind of

Advertising has always been an important part of our society. The history of advertising can be traced to pre-modern history when it served an important purpose by allowing sellers to effectively compete with other merchants for the attention of clients in Ancient Egypt. From 1704 when the first newspaper advertisement was announced, it gradually grows into a major force in American society based primarily on newspapers and magazines (Ad Age Advertising Century, 1999). It not only helps to raise the target demographics’ awareness of issues, but also educate consumers with the benefits of the product. However, advertising cannot target a particular person before the emerging of World Wide Web.

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.

Advertising is one of the most common types of social communication and an integral element of modern mass culture. It was the product of the development of market-oriented economic culture production methods, gradually, as the development of information technology in the process of historical evolution, becoming one of the most important social institutions of modern society.

But first, we should give a useful definition of advertising. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (2015), advertising are ‘‘the techniques and practices used to bring products, services, opinions, or causes to public notice for the purpose of persuading the public to respond in a certain way toward what is advertised’’. Meanwhile, Belch and Belch (2009, p.18) describe advertising as ‘‘any paid form of impersonal communication about an organization, product, service or idea by an identified sponsor’’.