Êóðñîâàÿ ðàáîòà: Advertising and popular culture
Êóðñîâàÿ ðàáîòà: Advertising and popular culture
Introduction
Every weeknight when I turn on the TV to watch CSI I mute the ads.
I see SUV ads, Vonage ads, Pepsi and whatever other stuff they're trying to
sell me.
When I check my email (I have a Gmail account), I usually have 1
or 2 new spam in my inbox, and about 120 new spams in my spambox. At the end of
the month, my spambox auto-deletes all spam over a month old. I currently have
over 4000 spams in there. I check any new spams as spam and then go about my
business of answering emails/hatemail.
Then I read an interesting statistic: Advertising profits have
slumped during the last three years in the United States. That doesn't mean
that advertising companies are going bankrupt (although some of them might
eventually), what it means is that companies that are advertising don't seem to
be making as many sales.
For example, if the Widget Company spends $100 million on a new
advertising campaign and usually makes about $500 million in profits, whats
happened is that instead of making $500 M, they are only making $400 M instead.
Obviously people aren't selling Widgets, but the principle is the
same. Companies seem to be going into an "advertising backslide",
almost as if we were in a depression.
Except we're not in a depression. True, the US economy did SHRINK 0.5% during 2005, but that’s not a depression. It’s a minor bump on the
economic radar.
These days you see advertising EVERYWHERE. We use Google Adsense
in order to make sure the Lilith Gallery Network makes a profit and can afford
to pay for its server/etc. Admittedly we also fall into this trap of using
advertising in order to pay the bills, and we can admit to it without being
hypocritical.
But what about the rest of the world? Advertising really is
seemingly everywhere. Dentist offices often get free magazine subscriptions
because the advertising in the magazine is a good way of selling products to
consumers that might not see it otherwise. It also advertises the magazine
itself simply by "being there".
During the whole history the aim of advertising is to inform and
to convince, hasn’t changed. Advertisement which we know now is a modern
phenomenon with its roots in deep past. One of the greatest events of the
history of advertisement was the invention of demountable fonts by Johann
Gutenberg in 1440. His invention gave life to the new carrier of advertisement:
printed posters, leaflets and newspaper announcements.
Albert Lasker, the father of modern advertisement, told that
advertisement is “a printed kind of trade”. But this definition was given
before the invention of radio and TV.
Advertising is a transfer of information, usually paid and has the
characteristic of persuasion, about production, service or ideas by famous
advertiser with the help of different carriers.
Advertising occupies a major place in American society. Linked to
the bedrock principles that shaped American nation – free speech, competition
and individual choice – it has served the public since colonial times as a
source of vital information about their open, market-based economy.
Advertising is a positive force in our free society. Protected by
the First Amendment, it informs the public, promotes competition, fuels
economic growth, creates jobs and fosters a wide array of media choices for
consumers.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “Congress
shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press…” In a long
series of cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has conclusively extended this
protection to “commercial speech.” As a result, advertising of lawful products
and services, conducted in a non-misleading way, is fully protected by the U.S.
Constitution.
According to a landmark study conducted by the highly regarded
consulting firm Global Insights under the direction of a Nobel Laureate in
Economics, advertising is a remarkably powerful economic force. Nationally, it
generates over $5 trillion in economic activity, or approximately 20 percent of
U.S. total economic activity. Sales of products and services stimulated by
advertising support 21 million jobs, or 15 percent of the total jobs in the
country. In addition, another Nobel Laureate in economics, George Stigler, also
has noted that advertising is a critical force in fostering economic efficiency
and competition throughout the US economy.
Advertising enables consumers to enjoy a vast array of media
choices. Commercial television and radio are available to the public at no
cost, thanks to advertising. In addition, advertising revenues provide
substantial support for most print publications, large portions of the Internet
and cable, giving people access to immense information and entertainment
content at little cost. This support helps democratize access to information.
The public, wherever they are located geographically and regardless of their
income level, have more information available to them than at any other time in
history.
Advertising informs consumers about product choices available in
the marketplace. Increasingly, it also educates them about issues that affect
their lives. Recognizing the power of advertising to educate, the industry
annually voluntarily devotes multi-billions of dollars worth of creative and
media resources to high-visibility public service campaigns.
Vast, affordable media options enrich our society and underpin a
core American value: the democratization of knowledge and information.
Advertising plays a critical role in fostering this abundance of information,
as it provides the financial foundation for the immense number of media and Web
services available to U.S. consumers.
Commercial broadcasting, both radio and television, is supported
solely by revenues from the sale of advertising time and space. Other types of media,
including the Internet, newspapers, magazines and large segments of cable
television rely heavily on advertising for a major portion of their revenues.
Indeed, without advertising dollars, many of today’s media outlets would not
exist, and the cost of those that survived would be substantially higher for
the consumer.
Advertising revenue has helped lead to a tremendous proliferation
of media choices. For example, television viewers in the early 1950’s and 60’s
could watch only three broadcast networks. Today, viewers can choose from
multiple broadcast networks, hundreds of cable channels and direct broadcast
satellite programming.
The advertising-supported business model has also fueled the
explosive growth of the Internet, creating a low barrier-to entry for an
immense number of entrepreneurial online businesses. According to research firm
comScore, more than 200 million Americans age 15 or older use search engines
each month. These consumers are going to the Internet to access – at no cost –
all types of content: from news and health, to sports and entertainment, to job
listings and travel recommendations. The most popular Internet search engines,
news outlets, entertainment portals, photo and video sharing services and
social networking sites all give consumers free access to vast content and
online experiences thanks to their advertising revenues.
The online media has developed at an extraordinary pace. It took
38 years for radio to reach 50 million Americans; network television took 13
years and cable television took 10 years. It took only about three years for
the Internet to reach 50 million users in the U.S.
According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), there was
$23.4 billion spent on advertising and paid search on the Internet in 2008. To
put this in perspective, the Internet today is a bigger advertising medium than
radio, outdoor advertising and about the same as consumer magazines.
(www.iab.net).
However, policymakers need to refrain from imposing undue restrictions
that would limit the effectiveness of interactive advertising, thereby
diminishing the flow of ad dollars into this promising new media channel.
The economic health of most of American media, including the
online marketplace, rests primarily on the strong financial foundation provided
by advertising.
You see that modern economy, especially advertising, as a part of
modern economy not only in the USA, is much connected with pop culture: TV,
Internet, literature, art and etc. This phenomenon is very interesting. The
problem of advertising is very important for economics because you need ads for
promoting your production, especially if you only start your own business.
Everybody knows that ad is connected with the culture: TV, magazines,
newspapers, radio, even films an so on.
So in my work I’ll try to study the problem of affecting
advertising on pop culture in America. At first we’ll learn the definitions of
advertisement and pop culture.
Advertising
Advertising is a form
of communication intended to persuade its viewers, readers or listeners to take
some action. It usually includes the name of a product or service and how that
product or service could benefit the consumer, to persuade potential customers
to purchase or to consume that particular brand. Modern advertising developed
with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[1]
Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased
consumption of their products or services through branding, which involves the
repetition of an image or product name in an effort to associate related
qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers. Different types of media
can be used to deliver these messages, including traditional media such as
newspapers, magazines, television, radio, outdoor or direct mail. Advertising
may be placed by an advertising agency on behalf of a company or other
organization.
Organizations that spend money on advertising promoting items
other than a consumer product or service include political parties, interest
groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies. Nonprofit
organizations may rely on free modes of persuasion, such as a public service
announcement.
Money spent on advertising has declined in recent years. In 2007,
spending on advertising was estimated at more than $150 billion in the United States[2] and $385 billion worldwide,[3] and the latter to exceed $450
billion by 2010.
History
Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters.
Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the
ruins of Pompeii and ancient Arabia. Lost and found advertising on papyrus was
common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial
advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is
present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America. The
tradition of wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock art paintings that
date back to 4000 BC.[4]
History tells us that Out-of-home advertising and billboards are the oldest
forms of advertising.
As the towns and cities of the Middle Ages began to grow, and the
general populace was unable to read, signs that today would say cobbler,
miller, tailor or blacksmith would use an image associated with their trade
such as a boot, a suit, a hat, a clock, a diamond, a horse shoe, a candle or
even a bag of flour. Fruits and vegetables were sold in the city square from
the backs of carts and wagons and their proprietors used street callers (town criers)
to announce their whereabouts for the convenience of the customers.
As education became an apparent need and reading, as well as
printing, developed advertising expanded to include handbills. In the 17th
century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England. These early print advertisements were used mainly to promote books and newspapers,
which became increasingly affordable with advances in the printing press; and
medicines, which were increasingly sought after as disease ravaged Europe. However, false advertising and so-called "quack" advertisements became a
problem, which ushered in the regulation of advertising content.
As the economy expanded during the 19th century, advertising grew
alongside. In the United States, the success of this advertising format
eventually led to the growth of mail-order advertising.
In June 1836, French newspaper La Presse was the first to include paid advertising in its pages, allowing it to lower its
price, extend its readership and increase its profitability and the formula was
soon copied by all titles. Around 1840, Volney Palmer established a predecessor
to advertising agencies in Boston.[5]Around
the same time, in France, Charles-Louis Havas extended the services of his news
agency, Havas to include advertisement brokerage, making it the first French
group to organize. At first, agencies were brokers for advertisement space in
newspapers. N. W. Ayer & Son was the first full-service agency to assume
responsibility for advertising content. N.W. Ayer opened in 1869, and was
located in Philadelphia.5
At the turn of the century, there were few career choices for
women in business; however, advertising was one of the few. Since women were
responsible for most of the purchasing done in their household, advertisers and
agencies recognized the value of women's insight during the creative process.
In fact, the first American advertising to use a sexual sell was created by a
woman – for a soap product. Although tame by today's standards, the advertisement
featured a couple with the message "The skin you love to touch".[6]
In the early 1920s, the first radio stations were established by
radio equipment manufacturers and retailers who offered programs in order to
sell more radios to consumers. As time passed, many non-profit organizations
followed suit in setting up their own radio stations, and included: schools,
clubs and civic groups.[7]
When the practice of sponsoring programs was popularized, each individual radio
program was usually sponsored by a single business in exchange for a brief
mention of the business' name at the beginning and end of the sponsored shows.
However, radio station owners soon realized they could earn more money by
selling sponsorship rights in small time allocations to multiple businesses
throughout their radio station's broadcasts, rather than selling the
sponsorship rights to single businesses per show.
This practice was carried over to television in the late 1940s and
early 1950s. A fierce battle was fought between those seeking to commercialize
the radio and people who argued that the radio spectrum should be considered a
part of the commons – to be used only non-commercially and for the public good.
The United Kingdom pursued a public funding model for the BBC, originally a
private company, the British Broadcasting Company, but incorporated as a public
body by Royal Charter in 1927. In Canada, advocates like Graham Spry were
likewise able to persuade the federal government to adopt a public funding
model, creating the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. However, in the United States, the capitalist model prevailed with the passage of the Communications Act of
1934 which created the Federal Communications Commission.7 To
placate the socialists, the U.S. Congress did require commercial broadcasters
to operate in the "public interest, convenience, and necessity".[8] Public broadcasting now exists
in the United States due to the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act which led to the
Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio.
In the early 1950s, the DuMont Television Network began the modern
trend of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsors. Previously, DuMont had trouble finding sponsors for many of their programs and compensated by selling
smaller blocks of advertising time to several businesses. This eventually
became the standard for the commercial television industry in the United States. However, it was still a common practice to have single sponsor shows, such
as The United States Steel Hour. In some instances the sponsors exercised great
control over the content of the show - up to and including having one's
advertising agency actually writing the show. The single sponsor model is much
less prevalent now, a notable exception being the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
The 1960s saw advertising transform into a modern approach in
which creativity was allowed to shine, producing unexpected messages that made
advertisements more tempting to consumers' eyes. The Volkswagen ad
campaign—featuring such headlines as "Think Small" and
"Lemon" (which were used to describe the appearance of the car)—ushered
in the era of modern advertising by promoting a "position" or
"unique selling proposition" designed to associate each brand with a
specific idea in the reader or viewer's mind. This period of American
advertising is called the Creative Revolution and its archetype was William
Bernbach who helped create the revolutionary Volkswagen ads among others. Some
of the most creative and long-standing American advertising dates to this
period.
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable
television and particularly MTV. Pioneering the concept of the music video, MTV
ushered in a new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in for the advertising
message, rather than it being a by-product or afterthought. As cable and
satellite television became increasingly prevalent, specialty channels emerged,
including channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as QVC, Home Shopping
Network, and ShopTV Canada.
Marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for
advertisers and contributed to the "dot-com" boom of the 1990s.
Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything
from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, a number
of websites including the search engine Google, started a change in online advertising
by emphasizing contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended to help, rather
than inundate, users. This has led to a plethora of similar efforts and an
increasing trend of interactive advertising.
The share of advertising spending relative to GDP has changed
little across large changes in media. For example, in the U.S. in 1925, the main advertising media were newspapers, magazines, signs on streetcars, and
outdoor posters. Advertising spending as a share of GDP was about 2.9 percent.
By 1998, television and radio had become major advertising media. Nonetheless,
advertising spending as a share of GDP was slightly lower—about 2.4 percent.[9]
A recent advertising innovation is "guerrilla
marketing", which involve unusual approaches such as staged encounters in
public places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand
messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become
part of the advertising message. Guerrilla advertising is becoming increasing
more popular with a lot of companies. This type of advertising is unpredictable
and innovative, which causes consumers to buy the product or idea. This
reflects an increasing trend of interactive and "embedded" ads, such
as via product placement, having consumers vote through text messages, and various
innovations utilizing social network services such as MySpace.
Public service advertising
The same advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods
and services can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about
non-commercial issues, such as HIV/AIDS, political ideology, energy
conservation and deforestation.
Advertising, in its non-commercial guise, is a powerful
educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences.
"Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest – it
is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes." – Attributed
to Howard Gossage by David Ogilvy.
Public service advertising, non-commercial advertising, public
interest advertising, cause marketing, and social marketing are different terms
for (or aspects of) the use of sophisticated advertising and marketing
communications techniques (generally associated with commercial enterprise) on
behalf of non-commercial, public interest issues and initiatives.
In the United States, the granting of television and radio
licenses by the FCC is contingent upon the station broadcasting a certain
amount of public service advertising. To meet these requirements, many
broadcast stations in America air the bulk of their required public service
announcements during the late night or early morning when the smallest
percentage of viewers are watching, leaving more day and prime time commercial
slots available for high-paying advertisers.
Public service advertising reached its height during World Wars I
and II under the direction of several governments.
Types of advertising
Virtually any medium can be used for advertising. Commercial
advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture
components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television
adverts, web banners, mobile telephone screens, shopping carts, web popups,
skywriting, bus stop benches, human billboards, magazines, newspapers, town
criers, sides of buses, banners attached to or sides of airplanes
("logojets"), in-flight advertisements on seatback tray tables or
overhead storage bins, taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens,
musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable
diapers, doors of bathroom stalls, stickers on apples in supermarkets, shopping
cart handles (grabertising), the opening section of streaming audio and video,
posters, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any place an
"identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium
is advertising.
Television
The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective
mass-market advertising format, as is reflected by the high prices TV networks
charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events. The annual Super Bowl
football game in the United States is known as the most prominent advertising
event on television. The average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during
this game has reached US$3 million (as of 2009).
The majority of television commercials feature a song or jingle
that listeners soon relate to the product.
Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television
programming through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into otherwise
blank backdrops[10]
or used to replace local billboards that are not relevant to the remote
broadcast audience.[11]
More controversially, virtual billboards may be inserted into the background[12] where none exist in real-life.
Virtual product placement is also possible.[13]
Infomercials
An infomercial is a long-format television commercial, typically
five minutes or longer. The word "infomercial" is a portmanteau of
the words "information" & "commercial". The main
objective in an infomercial is to create an impulse purchase, so that the
consumer sees the presentation and then immediately buys the product through
the advertised toll-free telephone number or website. Infomercials describe,
display, and often demonstrate products and their features, and commonly have
testimonials from consumers and industry professionals.
Radio advertising
Radio advertising is a form of advertising via the medium of
radio.
Radio advertisements are broadcasted as radio waves to the air
from a transmitter to an antenna and a thus to a receiving device. Airtime is
purchased from a station or network in exchange for airing the commercials.
While radio has the obvious limitation of being restricted to sound, proponents
of radio advertising often cite this as an advantage.
Press advertising
Press advertising describes advertising in a printed medium such
as a newspaper, magazine, or trade journal. This encompasses everything from
media with a very broad readership base, such as a major national newspaper or
magazine, to more narrowly targeted media such as local newspapers and trade
journals on very specialized topics. A form of press advertising is classified
advertising, which allows private individuals or companies to purchase a small,
narrowly targeted ad for a low fee advertising a product or service.
Online advertising
Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet
and World Wide Web for the expressed purpose of delivering marketing messages
to attract customers. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads
that appear on search engine results pages, banner ads, in text ads, Rich Media
Ads, Social network advertising, online classified advertising, advertising
networks and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam.
Billboard advertising
Billboards are large structures located in public places which
display advertisements to passing pedestrians and motorists. Most often, they
are located on main roads with a large amount of passing motor and pedestrian
traffic; however, they can be placed in any location with large amounts of
viewers, such as on mass transit vehicles and in stations, in shopping malls or
office buildings, and in stadiums.
Mobile billboard advertising
Mobile billboards are generally vehicle mounted billboards or
digital screens. These can be on dedicated vehicles built solely for carrying
advertisements along routes preselected by clients, they can also be
specially-equipped cargo trucks or, in some cases, large banners strewn from
planes. The billboards are often lighted; some being backlit, and others
employing spotlights. Some billboard displays are static, while others change;
for example, continuously or periodically rotating among a set of
advertisements.
Mobile displays are used for various situations in metropolitan
areas throughout the world, including:
·
Target advertising
·
One-day, and long-term
campaigns
·
Conventions
·
Sporting events
·
Store openings and similar
promotional events
·
Big advertisements from
smaller companies
·
Others
In-store advertising
In-store advertising is any advertisement placed in a retail
store. It includes placement of a product in visible locations in a store, such
as at eye level, at the ends of aisles and near checkout counters, eye-catching
displays promoting a specific product, and advertisements in such places as
shopping carts and in-store video displays.
Covert advertising
Covert advertising, also known as guerrilla advertising, is when a
product or brand is embedded in entertainment and media. For example, in a
film, the main character can use an item or other of a definite brand, as in
the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character John Anderton owns a
phone with the Nokia logo clearly written in the top corner, or his watch
engraved with the Bulgari logo. Another example of advertising in film is in I,
Robot, where main character played by Will Smith mentions his Converse shoes
several times, calling them "classics," because the film is set far
in the future. I, Robot and Spaceballs also showcase futuristic cars with the
Audi and Mercedes-Benz logos clearly displayed on the front of the vehicles.
Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie The Matrix Reloaded, which as a result
contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product
placement for Omega Watches, Ford, VAIO, BMW and Aston Martin cars are featured
in recent James Bond films, most notably Casino Royale. In "Fantastic
Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer", the main transport vehicle shows a large
Dodge logo on the front. Blade Runner includes some of the most obvious product
placement; the whole film stops to show a Coca-Cola billboard.
Celebrities
This type of advertising focuses upon using celebrity power, fame,
money, popularity to gain recognition for their products and promote specific
stores or products. Advertisers often advertise their products, for example,
when celebrities share their favorite products or wear clothes by specific
brands or designers. Celebrities are often involved in advertising campaigns
such as television or print adverts to advertise specific or general products.
The use of celebrities to endorse a brand can have its downsides,
however. One mistake by a celebrity can be detrimental to the public relations
of a brand. For example, following his performance of eight gold medals at the
2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, swimmer Michael Phelps' contract with
Kellogg's was terminated, as Kellogg's did not want to associate with him after
he was photographed smoking marijuana.
Media and advertising approaches
Increasingly, other media are overtaking many of the
"traditional" media such as television, radio and newspaper because
of a shift toward consumer's usage of the Internet for news and music as well
as devices like digital video recorders (DVR's) such as TiVo.
Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices
of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the "relevance" of
the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website receives.
Digital signage is poised to become a major mass media because of
its ability to reach larger audiences for less money. Digital signage also
offer the unique ability to see the target audience where they are reached by
the medium. Technology advances has also made it possible to control the
message on digital signage with much precision, enabling the messages to be
relevant to the target audience at any given time and location which in turn,
gets more response from the advertising. Digital signage is being successfully
employed in supermarkets. Another successful use of digital signage is in
hospitality locations such as restaurants and malls.[14]
E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk
E-mail advertising is known as "e-mail spam". Spam has been a problem
for email users for many years. But more efficient filters are now available
making it relatively easy to control what email you get.
Some companies have proposed placing messages or corporate logos
on the side of booster rockets and the International Space Station. Controversy
exists on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising, and the pervasiveness of
mass messages.
Unpaid advertising (also called "publicity
advertising"), can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal
recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it"), spreading
buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun (in the
United States, "Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex"
= tissue, "Vaseline" = petroleum jelly, "Hoover" = vacuum
cleaner, "Nintendo" (often used by those exposed to many video games)
= video games, and "Band-Aid" = adhesive bandage) — these can be seen
as the pinnacle of any advertising campaign. However, some companies oppose the
use of their brand name to label an object. Equating a brand with a common noun
also risks turning that brand into a genericized trademark - turning it into a
generic term which means that its legal protection as a trademark is lost.
As the mobile phone became a new mass media in 1998 when the first
paid downloadable content appeared on mobile phones in Finland, it was only a matter of time until mobile advertising followed, also first launched in Finland in 2000. By 2007 the value of mobile advertising had reached $2.2 billion and
providers such as Admob delivered billions of mobile ads.
More advanced mobile ads include banner ads, coupons, Multimedia
Messaging Service picture and video messages, advergames and various engagement
marketing campaigns. A particular feature driving mobile ads is the 2D Barcode,
which replaces the need to do any typing of web addresses, and uses the camera
feature of modern phones to gain immediate access to web content. 83 percent of
Japanese mobile phone users already are active users of 2D barcodes.
A new form of advertising that is growing rapidly is social
network advertising. It is online advertising with a focus on social networking
sites. This is a relatively immature market, but it has shown a lot of promise
as advertisers are able to take advantage of the demographic information the
user has provided to the social networking site. Friendertising is a more
precise advertising term in which people are able to direct advertisements
toward others directly using social network service.
From time to time, The CW Television Network airs short
programming breaks called "Content Wraps," to advertise one company's
product during an entire commercial break. The CW pioneered "content
wraps" and some products featured were Herbal Essences, Crest, Guitar Hero
II, Cover Girl, and recently Toyota.
Recently, there appeared a new promotion concept,
"ARvertising", advertising on Augmented Reality technology.
Influencing and conditioning
The most important element of advertising is not information but
suggestion more or less making use of associations, emotions (appeal to
emotion) and drives dormant in the sub-conscience of people, such as sex drive,
herd instinct, of desires, such as happiness, health, fitness, appearance,
self-esteem, reputation, belonging, social status, identity, adventure,
distraction, reward, of fears (appeal to fear), such as illness, weaknesses,
loneliness, need, uncertainty, security or of prejudices, learned opinions and
comforts. “All human needs, relationships, and fears – the deepest recesses of
the human psyche – become mere means for the expansion of the commodity
universe under the force of modern marketing. With the rise to prominence of
modern marketing, commercialism – the translation of human relations into
commodity relations – although a phenomenon intrinsic to capitalism, has
expanded exponentially.”[15]
’Cause-related marketing’ in which advertisers link their product to some
worthy social cause has boomed over the past decade.
Advertising exploits the model role of celebrities or popular
figures and makes deliberate use of humour as well as of associations with
colour, tunes, certain names and terms. Altogether, these are factors of how
one perceives himself and one’s self-worth. In his description of ‘mental
capitalism’ Franck says, “the promise of consumption making someone
irresistible is the ideal way of objects and symbols into a person’s subjective
experience. Evidently, in a society in which revenue of attention moves to the
fore, consumption is drawn by one’s self-esteem. As a result, consumption
becomes ‘work’ on a person’s attraction. From the subjective point of view,
this ‘work’ opens fields of unexpected dimensions for advertising. Advertising
takes on the role of a life councillor in matters of attraction. (…) The cult
around one’s own attraction is what Christopher Lasch described as ‘Culture of
Narcissism’.”[16]
For advertising critics another serious problem is that “the long
standing notion of separation between advertising and editorial/creative sides
of media is rapidly crumbling” and advertising is increasingly hard to tell
apart from news, information or entertainment. The boundaries between
advertising and programming are becoming blurred. According to the media firms all
this commercial involvement has no influence over actual media content, but, as
McChesney puts it, “this claim fails to pass even the most basic giggle test,
it is so preposterous.”[17]
Advertising draws “heavily on psychological theories about how to
create subjects, enabling advertising and marketing to take on a ‘more clearly
psychological tinge’ (Miller and Rose, 1997, cited in Thrift, 1999, p. 67).
Increasingly, the emphasis in advertising has switched from providing ‘factual’
information to the symbolic connotations of commodities, since the crucial
cultural premise of advertising is that the material object being sold is never
in itself enough. Even those commodities providing for the most mundane
necessities of daily life must be imbued with symbolic qualities and culturally
endowed meanings via the ‘magic system (Williams, 1980) of advertising. In this
way and by altering the context in which advertisements appear, things ‘can be
made to mean "just about anything"’ (McFall, 2002, p. 162) and the
‘same’ things can be endowed with different intended meanings for different
individuals and groups of people, thereby offering mass produced visions of
individualism.”[1]
Before advertising is done, market research institutions need to
know and describe the target group to exactly plan and implement the
advertising campaign and to achieve the best possible results. A whole array of
sciences directly deal with advertising and marketing or is used to improve its
effects. Focus groups, psychologists and cultural anthropologists are ‘’’de
rigueur’’’ in marketing research”.[44] Vast amounts of data on
persons and their shopping habits are collected, accumulated, aggregated and
analysed with the aid of credit cards, bonus cards, raffles and internet
surveying. With increasing accuracy this supplies a picture of behaviour,
wishes and weaknesses of certain sections of a population with which
advertisement can be employed more selectively and effectively. The efficiency
of advertising is improved through advertising research. Universities, of
course supported by business and in co-operation with other disciplines (s.
above), mainly Psychiatry, Anthropology, Neurology and behavioural sciences,
are constantly in search for ever more refined, sophisticated, subtle and
crafty methods to make advertising more effective. “Neuromarketing is a
controversial new field of marketing which uses medical technologies such as
functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) -- not to heal, but to sell
products. Advertising and marketing firms have long used the insights and
research methods of psychology in order to sell products, of course. But today
these practices are reaching epidemic levels, and with a complicity on the part
of the psychological profession that exceeds that of the past. The result is an
enormous advertising and marketing onslaught that comprises, arguably, the
largest single psychological project ever undertaken. Yet, this great
undertaking remains largely ignored by the American Psychological Association.”[18] Robert McChesney calls it
"the greatest concerted attempt at psychological manipulation in all of
human history."
Dependency of the media and corporate censorship
Almost all mass media are advertising media and many of them are
exclusively advertising media and, with the exception of public service
broadcasting are privately owned. Their income is predominantly generated
through advertising; in the case of newspapers and magazines from 50 to 80%.
Public service broadcasting in some countries can also heavily depend on
advertising as a source of income (up to 40%).[19]
In the view of critics no media that spreads advertisements can be independent
and the higher the proportion of advertising, the higher the dependency. This
dependency has “distinct implications for the nature of media content…. In the
business press, the media are often referred to in exactly the way they present
themselves in their candid moments: as a branch of the advertising industry.”[20]
In addition, the private media are increasingly subject to mergers
and concentration with property situations often becoming entangled and opaque.
This development, which Henry A. Giroux calls an “ongoing threat to democratic
culture”, by itself should suffice to sound all alarms in a
democracy. Five or six advertising agencies dominate this 400 billion U.S.
dollar global industry.
“Journalists have long faced pressure to shape stories to suit
advertisers and owners …. the vast majority of TV station executives found
their news departments ‘cooperative’ in shaping the news to assist in
‘non-traditional revenue development.”[21]
Negative and undesired reporting can be prevented or influenced when
advertisers threaten to cancel orders or simply when there is a danger of such
a cancellation. Media dependency and such a threat becomes very real when there
is only one dominant or very few large advertisers. The influence of
advertisers is not only in regard to news or information on their own products
or services but expands to articles or shows not directly linked to them. In
order to secure their advertising revenues the media has to create the best
possible ‘advertising environment’. Another problem considered censorship by
critics is the refusal of media to accept advertisements that are not in their
interest. A striking example of this is the refusal of TV stations to broadcast
ads by Adbusters. Groups try to place advertisements and are refused by
networks.
It is principally the viewing rates which decide upon the
programme in the private radio and television business. “Their business is to
absorb as much attention as possible. The viewing rate measures the attention
the media trades for the information offered. The service of this attraction is
sold to the advertising business”[22]
and the viewing rates determine the price that can be demanded for advertising.
“Advertising companies determining the contents of shows has been
part of daily life in the USA since 1933. Procter & Gamble (P&G) ….
offered a radio station a history-making trade (today know as “bartering”): the
company would produce an own show for “free” and save the radio station the
high expenses for producing contents. Therefore the company would want its
commercials spread and, of course, its products placed in the show. Thus, the
series ‘Ma Perkins’ was created, which P&G skilfully used to promote
Oxydol, the leading detergent brand in those years and the Soap opera was born
…”
While critics basically worry about the subtle influence of the
economy on the media, there are also examples of blunt exertion of influence.
The US company Chrysler, before it merged with Daimler Benz had its agency,
PentaCom, send out a letter to numerous magazines, demanding them to send, an
overview of all the topics before the next issue is published to “avoid potential
conflict”. Chrysler most of all wanted to know, if there would be articles with
“sexual, political or social” content or which could be seen as “provocative or
offensive”. PentaCom executive David Martin said: “Our reasoning is, that
anyone looking at a 22.000 $ product would want it surrounded by positive
things. There is nothing positive about an article on child pornography.” In
another example, the „USA Network held top-level ‚off-the-record’ meetings with
advertisers in 2000 to let them tell the network what type of programming
content they wanted in order for USA to get their advertising.”[23] Television shows are created to
accommodate the needs for advertising, e. g. splitting them up in suitable
sections. Their dramaturgy is typically designed to end in suspense or leave an
unanswered question in order to keep the viewer attached.
The movie system, at one time outside the direct influence of the
broader marketing system, is now fully integrated into it through the
strategies of licensing, tie-ins and product placements. The prime function of
many Hollywood films today is to aid in the selling of the immense collection
of commodities.[24]
The press called the 2002 Bond film ‘Die Another Day’ featuring 24 major
promotional partners an ‘ad-venture’ and noted that James Bond “now has been
‘licensed to sell’” As it has become standard practise to place products in
motion pictures, it “has self-evident implications for what types of films will
attract product placements and what types of films will therefore be more
likely to get made”.
Advertising and information are increasingly hard to distinguish
from each other. “The borders between advertising and media …. become more and
more blurred…. What August Fischer, chairman of the board of Axel Springer
publishing company considers to be a ‘proven partnership between the media and
advertising business’ critics regard as nothing but the infiltration of
journalistic duties and freedoms”. According to RTL-executive Helmut Thoma
“private stations shall not and cannot serve any mission but only the goal of
the company which is the ‘acceptance by the advertising business and the
viewer’. The setting of priorities in this order actually says everything about
the ‘design of the programmes’ by private television.” Patrick Le Lay, former
managing director of TF1, a private French television channel with a market
share of 25 to 35%, said: "There are many ways to talk about television.
But from the business point of view, let’s be realistic: basically, the job of
TF1 is, e. g. to help Coca Cola sell its product. (…) For an advertising
message to be perceived the brain of the viewer must be at our disposal. The
job of our programmes is to make it available, that is to say, to distract it,
to relax it and get it ready between two messages. It is disposable human brain
time that we sell to Coca Cola.”
Because of these dependencies a widespread and fundamental public
debate about advertising and its influence on information and freedom of speech
is difficult to obtain, at least through the usual media channels; otherwise
these would saw off the branch they are sitting on. “The notion that the
commercial basis of media, journalism, and communication could have troubling
implications for democracy is excluded from the range of legitimate debate”
just as “capitalism is off-limits as a topic of legitimate debate in U.S. political culture”.[25]
An early critic of the structural basis of U.S. journalism was Upton Sinclair with his novel The Brass Check in which he stresses the influence
of owners, advertisers, public relations, and economic interests on the media.
In his book “Our Master's Voice – Advertising” the social ecologist James Rorty
(1890–1973) wrote: "The gargoyle’s mouth is a loudspeaker, powered by the
vested interest of a two-billion dollar industry, and back of that the vested
interests of business as a whole, of industry, of finance. It is never silent,
it drowns out all other voices, and it suffers no rebuke, for it is not the
voice of America? That is its claim and to some extent it is a just claim...”[26]
It has taught us how to live, what to be afraid of, what to be
proud of, how to be beautiful, how to be loved, how to be envied, how to be
successful.. Is it any wonder that the American population tends increasingly
to speak, think, feel in terms of this jabberwocky? That the stimuli of art,
science, religion are progressively expelled to the periphery of American life
to become marginal values, cultivated by marginal people on marginal
time?"[27]
Popular culture
Popular culture (commonly
known as pop culture) is the totality of artistic products, ideas,
perspectives, attitudes, memes,[28]
images and other phenomena that the average person of any nation or group is
likely to have encountered or been influenced by. In developed countries,
cultural products are often disseminated by market-driven mass media (at least
from the early 20th century onward). For this reason, it sometimes comes under
heavy criticism from various scientific and non-mainstream sources (most
notably religious groups and countercultural groups) which deem it superficial,
consumerist, sensationalist, and corrupted.[29]
It is manifest in preferences and acceptance or rejection of
features in such various subjects as cooking, clothing, consumption, and the
many facets of entertainment such as sports, music, film, and literature.
Popular culture often contrasts with the more exclusive, even elitist
"high culture", that is, the culture of ruling social
groups, and the low or folk culture of the lower classes. The
earliest use of "popular" in English was during the fifteenth century
in law and politics, meaning "low", "base",
"vulgar", and "of the common people"; from the late
eighteenth century it began to mean "widespread" and gain in positive
connotation. (Williams 1985). "Culture" has been used since the 1950s
to refer to various subgroups of society, with emphasis on cultural
differences.
Definitions
Defining 'popular' and 'culture', which are essentially contested
concepts, is complicated with multiple competing definitions of popular
culture. John Storey, in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, discusses six
definitions. The quantitative definition, of culture has the problem that much
"high culture" (e.g. television dramatizations of Jane Austen) is
widely favoured. "Pop culture" is also defined as the culture that is
"left over" when we have decided what high culture is. However, many
works straddle or cross the boundaries, e.g. Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.
Storey draws attention to the forces and relations which sustain this
difference such as the educational system.
A third definition equates pop culture with Mass Culture. This is
seen as a commercial culture, mass produced for mass consumption. From a
Western European perspective, this may be compared to American culture.
Alternatively, "pop culture" can be defined as an
"authentic" culture of the people, but this can be problematic
because there are many ways of defining the "people." Storey argues
that there is a political dimension to popular culture; neo-Gramscian hegemony
theory "... sees popular culture as a site of struggle between the
'resistance' of subordinate groups in society and the forces of 'incorporation'
operating in the interests of dominant groups in society." A postmodernism
approach to popular culture would "no longer recognize the distinction
between high and popular culture'
Storey emphasizes that popular culture emerges from the
urbanization of the industrial revolution, which identifies the term with the
usual definitions of 'mass culture'. Studies of Shakespeare (by Weimann, Barber
or Bristol, for example) locate much of the characteristic vitality of his
drama in its participation in Renaissance popular culture, while contemporary
practitioners like Dario Fo and John McGrath use popular culture in its
Gramscian sense that includes ancient folk traditions (the commedia dell'arte
for example).
Popular culture changes constantly and occurs uniquely in place
and time. It forms currents and eddies, and represents a complex of
mutually-interdependent perspectives and values that influence society and its
institutions in various ways. For example, certain currents of pop culture may
originate from, (or diverge into) a subculture, representing perspectives with
which the mainstream popular culture has only limited familiarity. Items of
popular culture most typically appeal to a broad spectrum of the public.
Institutional propagation
Popular culture and the mass media have a symbiotic relationship:
each depends on the other in an intimate collaboration."
—K. Turner (1984), p.4[30]
The news media mines the work of scientists and scholars and
conveys it to the general public, often emphasizing elements that have inherent
appeal or the power to amaze. For instance, giant pandas (a species in remote
Chinese woodlands) have become well-known items of popular culture; parasitic
worms, though of greater practical importance, have not. Both scholarly facts
and news stories get modified through popular transmission, often to the point
of outright falsehoods.
Hannah Arendt's 1961 essay "The Crisis in Culture"
suggested that a "market-driven media would lead to the displacement of
culture by the dictates of entertainment." Susan Sontag argues that in our
culture, the most "...intelligible, persuasive values are [increasingly]
drawn from the entertainment industries", which is "undermining of
standards of seriousness." As a result, "tepid, the glib, and the
senselessly cruel" topics are becoming the norm. Some critics
argue that popular culture is “dumbing down”: "...newspapers that once ran
foreign news now feature celebrity gossip, pictures of scantily dressed young
ladies...television has replaced high-quality drama with gardening, cookery,
and other “lifestyle” programmes...[and] reality TV and asinine soaps," to
the point that people are constantly immersed in trivia about celebrity
culture.[31]
In Rosenberg and White's book Mass Culture, MacDonald argues that
"Popular culture is a debased, trivial culture that voids both the deep
realities (sex, death, failure, tragedy) and also the simple spontaneous
pleasures.... The masses, debauched by several generations of this sort of
thing, in turn come to demand trivial and comfortable cultural products."
Van den Haag argues that "...all mass media in the end alienate
people from personal experience and though appearing to offset it, intensify
their moral isolation from each other, from reality and from themselves."[32]
Critics have lamented the "... replacement of high art and
authentic folk culture by tasteless industrialised artefacts produced on a mass
scale in order to satisfy the lowest common denominator." This
"mass culture emerged after the Second World War and have led to the
concentration of mass-culture power in ever larger global media
conglomerates." The popular press decreased the amount of news or
information and replaced it with entertainment or titillation that reinforces
"... fears, prejudice, scapegoating processes, paranoia, and
aggression."
Critics of television and film have argued that the quality of TV
output has been diluted as stations relentlessly pursue "populism and
ratings" by focusing on the "glitzy, the superficial, and the
popular." In film, "Hollywood culture and values" are
increasingly dominating film production in other countries. Hollywood films
have changed from creating formulaic films which emphasize "...shock-value
and superficial thrill[s]" and special effects, with themes that focus on
the "...basic instincts of aggression, revenge, violence, [and]
greed." The plots "...often seem simplistic, a standardised template
taken from the shelf, and dialogue is minimal." The "characters are
shallow and unconvincing, the dialogue is also simple, unreal, and badly
constructed."[33]
Folklore
Folklore provides a second and very different source of popular
culture. In pre-industrial times, mass culture equaled folk culture. This
earlier layer of culture still persists today, sometimes in the form of jokes
or slang jargon, which spread through the population by word of mouth and via
the Internet. By providing a new channel for transmission, cyberspace has
renewed the strength of this element of popular culture.
Although the folkloric element of popular culture engages heavily
with the commercial element, the public has its own tastes and it may not
embrace every cultural item sold. Moreover, beliefs and opinions about the
products of commercial culture (for example: "My favorite character is
SpongeBob SquarePants") spread by word-of-mouth, and become modified in
the process in the same manner that folklore evolves.
Owing to the pervasive and increasingly interconnected nature of
popular culture, especially its intermingling of complementary distribution
sources, some cultural anthropologists literary and cultural critics have
identified a large amount of intertextuality in popular culture's portrayals of
itself. One commentator has suggested this self-referentiality reflects the
advancing encroachment of popular culture into every realm of collective
experience. "Instead of referring to the real world, much media output devotes
itself to referring to other images, other narratives; self-referentiality is
all-embracing, although it is rarely taken account of."[34]
Many cultural critics have dismissed this as merely a symptom or
side-effect of mass consumerism, however alternate explanations and critique
have also been offered. One critic asserts that it reflects a fundamental
paradox: the increase in technological and cultural sophistication, combined
with an increase in superficiality and dehumanization.[35]
Examples from American television
According to television studies scholars specializing in quality
television, such as Kristin Thompson, self-referentiality in mainstream
American television (especially comedy) reflects and exemplifies the type of
progression characterized previously. Thompson[36]
argues shows such as The Simpsons use a "...flurry of cultural
references, intentionally inconsistent characterization, and considerable
self-reflexivity about television conventions and the status of the programme
as a television show." Extreme examples approach a kind of
thematic infinite regress wherein distinctions between art and life, commerce
and critique, ridicule and homage become intractably blurred.
Long-running television series The Simpsons routinely alludes to
mainstream media properties, as well as the commercial content of the show
itself. In one episode, Bart complains about the crass commercialism of the
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while watching television. When he turns his
head away from the television, he is shown floating by as an oversized
inflatable balloon. The show also invokes liberal reference to contemporary
issues as depicted in the mainstream, and often merges such references with
unconventional and even esoteric associations to classical and postmodernist
works of literature, entertainment and art.
Advertising in Literature, Art, Film, and Popular Culture
What is advertising? Advertising is a means of conveying
information to consumers about a product or service that exists in many
different media. Advertising serves to persuade and inform a consumer base in
order to influence them and their purchasing power.[37] No matter the channel by which
the advertising is communicated, be it in print, video, or sound-all
advertising seeks to accomplish the same goal.
Is advertising a direct affect Popular Culture, or is it a direct
effect of Popular Culture? Through the exploration of advertising history in
the 20th century, brand identities and their development, along with the
examination of Popular Culture, and historical events occurring during the same
time frame, we can hope to find an answer to both of these questions.
Lowering of prices and the beginning of mass production made
products more widely available to the public, and thus carrying with it, the
need to bring their attention to the new items on the market. With the creation
and development of the transcontinental railroad, a national market for
products opened.
Although the first advertising agency was developed in 1841 by
Volney B. Palmer, it wasn't until the 20th century that advertising agencies
began to offer a full spectrum of services ranging from branding and logo
design, to concepts, and implementation of the campaign. Originally, the agency
served to secure the ad space in a newspaper. By the time the 20th century
began there were several agencies for companies to choose from. Experts started
coming out of the woodwork left and right to share their thoughts on
advertising and the best methods to use, writing book after book on the
subject.[38]
Literature
and Advertising
Scholars and literary critics differ over what constitutes
literature. The once revered canon of texts (such as The Canterbury Tales, The
Merchant of Venice, and Wuthering Heights) has given way to the study of a much
broader range of texts (including popular romances, soap operas, and
advertisements) and voices (especially kinds of voices that had not been
included among canonical texts such as African-, Asian-, and Latin-American writers).
Some definitions of literature specify criteria that a text must have in order
to qualify as literature whereas others emphasize acceptance by a reading
community as the primary marker. The following two definitions of literature
represent these differing approaches:
In antiquity and in the Renaissance, literature or letters were
understood to include all writing of quality with any pretense to permanence.
[focuses on textual criteria][39]
... literature is a canon which consists of those works in
language by which a community defines itself throughout the course of its
history. It includes works primarily artistic and also those whose aesthetic
qualities are only secondary. The self-defining activity of the community is
conducted in the light of the works, as its members have come to read them (or
concretize them). [focuses on community acceptance][40]
Whether one of these or yet another definition of literature is
preferred, there is a widely shared sense that literature stands apart from
more ordinary texts such as telephone books, shopping lists, operating
instructions, and advertisements. A practical approach to understanding
literature might enumerate some widely shared characteristics:
- Literature consists of written texts.
- Literature is marked by careful use of language, including
features such as creative metaphors, well-turned phrases, elegant syntax,
rhyme, meter.
- Literature is written in a literary genre (poetry, prose
fiction, or drama).
- Literature is intended by its authors to be read aesthetically.
- Literature is deliberately somewhat open in interpretation.[41]
Are advertisements "writings of quality with pretenses to
permanence"? Are advertisements widely understood to be a form of
literature? Are they careful in their use of language, written in a
recognizable literary genre, intended to be and actually read aesthetically,
and deliberately open in interpretation? In fact, advertisements fail by any of
these definitions to qualify as literature. It is this difference that gives
rise to the sense that literature is a part of "high" culture while
advertisements are something else and belong to "low," or mass,
culture.
However, this binary division does not reflect the real
relationship of literature and advertising either in the present or the past.
The literary theorist Jennifer Wicke argues that neither the novel as a
literary genre nor the advertisement as a text can be properly understood alone
but rather share a long and intimate history. She notes that prior to
Gutenberg, scribal manuscripts contained advertisements (or notices) that
explained the circumstances of the copying. For example, a notice that copying
had been done during holy days would signify that the text was not to be sold.
At first, such notices appeared at the end of manuscripts. Later, after the
printing press was invented, printers began placing them as prefatory material
before the main texts. The content of these notices expanded to announce,
describe, and indicate ownership of the texts that followed. Thus, the very
technology of printing spurred the development of advertisements of printed
texts.
Elizabeth Eisenstein, investigating this historic relationship of
the book and the ad, writes: "In the course of exploiting new publicity
techniques, few authors failed to give high priority to publicizing themselves.
The art of puffery, the writing of blurbs and other familiar promotional
devices were also exploited by early printers who worked aggressively to obtain
public recognition for the authors and artists whose products they hoped to
sell."[42]
This promotion of printed works by printers also led to the
significant identification of texts with authors. The crediting of the author
had not always occurred previously when oral stories were written down. These
new techniques established books as intellectual property and made many authors
into celebrities.
These early advertisements eventually became separated from the
texts themselves. "By the late seventeenth century... [these] publicity
techniques called 'advertising' had slipped out from the covers of literary
works and helped to create the newspaper—The Advertiser became a generic name
for journalistic offerings." At this point, advertisements as we know them
today began to develop separately from books, appearing not only in newspapers
but in public spaces as signs and posters as well.
In the 19th century, the novel emerged as the most important
literary genre and remained so until film, radio, and television challenged its
popularity it in the 20th century. After advertisements became separate and
independent texts in their own right, the relationship between literature and
advertising did not cease. Rather, it assumed complex new forms, as Wicke shows
in her masterful analysis of three classic novelists—Charles Dickens, Henry
James, and James Joyce.
In several of the novels by Charles Dickens (Sketches by Boz,
Pickwick, The Old Curiosity Shop, Martin Chuzzlewit, Bleak House, and Our
Mutual Friend), advertising figures prominently. In Sketches by Boz he wrote:
"...all London is a circus of poster and trade bill, a receptacle for the
writings of Pears and Warren's until we can barely see ourselves underneath.
Read this! Read that!"
Dickens knew intimately of what he wrote. Before establishing
himself as a novelist, he worked in Warren's blacking factory where shoe polish
was manufactured. It seems that he sometimes helped write the copy for
advertisements and that for a while he was placed in a window polishing shoes
as a form of advertising. Later, when he wrote his novels, the power and
presence of factory work and the promotion of goods played significant roles.
In addition, Dickens engaged with advertising yet another way by
taking great interest in the advertising of his own novels—choosing or writing
ads for them. The great popularity of his stories led to the incorporation of many
of his characters into a broad range of advertisements in ways that are
familiar today. Player's cigarettes issued in 1912 a set of trade cards (one
inserted in each pack of cigarettes) for Dickens's characters. Various
commercial products mimicked the style or used the name of one or more of his
characters—from Dolly Vardon aprons to chintz fabrics emboldened with
Dickensiana. This trend continues even today as various brands make reference
to "A Christmas Carol" or ask "Oliver Twist."
The American author Henry James similarly engaged advertising in
his novels. The American stage for spectacle, exaggeration, and outrageous
claims was set earlier in the 19th century by P.T. Barnum and his extravagant
and outlandish publicity for his traveling shows, circus, and museum. An America that succumbed to Barnum and unchecked advertising claims of every sort fascinated
James. This fascination is reflected in his novels. According to Wicke, James's
own style of fiction "bears a confessed kinship to the melodramatics of
advertising." His late work The American Scene (1907) takes up the subject
of the consumer society.
His book commemorates the trip he took in 1904, after returning
from twenty years in Europe, a "pilgrim" come to see his own native
land. The patchwork of places and sights—St. Augustine, Newport, the
Waldorf-Astoria, Hoboken—may seem impressionistic renderings of his journey,
but above all the text explores the phenomenon of a capitalist culture that has
come into its own since his departure.[43]
Irish author James Joyce, like Dickens before him, wrote
advertisements at an early stage of his career. (He ran a film theatre and
often wrote the ads for it.) It is his masterful Ulysses (1922) that directly
conjoins literature and advertising. Leopold Bloom, the central character in
the novel, works as an advertising canvasser thus occasioning many references
to advertisements in the novel. More profoundly, "the constantly unfurling
'stream of consciousness' that is Bloom's narrative style is largely made up of
his 'mind' wending its way through the eddies, currents, and shorelines of
advertising or advertised goods."
Many literary theorists have recently noted connections like those
above between literature and the culture of consumption for which advertising
is the mouthpiece. The James Joyce Quarterly asserts that advertising
influenced the writer at least as much as Thomas Aquinas, Dante, or Shakespeare
did.[44]
Other writers like George Eliot and Sherwood Anderson have been studied for
their connections to advertising discourse as well. Eliot's Middlemarch
(1871-2) contains passages reflective of Bloom's interior monologues about
consumer goods in Ulysses.[45]
Anderson himself had a long career in advertising before writing his many
observations about its practices.
Thus, what all these connections between literature and
advertising show is the impossibility of maintaining any strict division
between the "high" culture of literature and the mass culture of
advertising. Some writers of great literature were also authors of many
advertisements to which and from which they took their style of writing. More
importantly, many influential writers have brought advertising into their
stories in order to analyze the role of advertising in society. Finally, the
study of literature has opened itself to the examination of many kinds of
non-canonical texts such as advertisements in order to understand the culture that
generates them.
Advertising
and Art
The relationship between advertising and art is even more intimate
than that with literature. Over the centuries, artists have been hired to paint
signboards, shop walls, and other kinds of images in the service of commercial
promotion. However, it was in the 19th century that a much closer relationship
between advertising and art developed.
In London, the well-known illustrator Cruikshank was commissioned
in 1820 by Warren's blacking company (the same company that Dickens worked for
as a boy) to illustrate an ad. The drawing he produced—a cat frightened by its
own reflected image in the sheen of a highly polished boot—clearly added spark
to the long-copy advertisement it accompanied. Such relationships were typical
19th-century interactions between the art world and advertising.
In addition to the drawings and other images produced directly for
commercial use, a second relation of advertising to art was the appropriation
of high art for use in advertisements. For example, John Everett Millais's
sentimental painting Bubbles (1886) became a poster for Pears soap, but not
without considerable critical uproar from those who wanted to keep
"art" on a high pedestal above the crassness of everyday commercial
appeals.
Even more significant, however, was the close connection between
advertising and modern art that developed in the later years of the 19th
century. Both advertising and the artistic movement known as modernism emerged
about the same time—around 1860 to 1870. The stage for their collaboration was
set by at least two factors: the development of techniques supporting the mass
production of images, and an abundance of consumer goods hitherto unknown.
Modernism dismissed literal representations in favor of freer modes intended to
evoke the sorts of fantasies and emotions that marketers were coming to realize
would help move products. By the final years of the 19th century, modern art
and modern advertising were freely borrowing from and influencing one another.
The French advertising poster of the late 1800s marks the
beginning of this crossover between advertising and art. For example, Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec produced advertising posters, as did many other artists who
are usually thought of as belonging to the "high art" tradition. It
was Jules Chéret, however, who invented and perfected the advertising
poster as a new genre that had no real precedent in earlier artistic
traditions. His poster for the Folies-Bergère in Paris privileges
movement over literal representation. Its bright colors also depart from
literalism to convey the excitement of the spectacle of the Folies-Bergère.
Despite widespread use, the advertising poster did not always meet
with universal acclaim. There were those who felt that filling the streets of Paris with advertising was a sure sign of cultural decay rather than progress. A
conservative writer, Maurice Talmeyr, published an article entitled "The
Age of the Poster" in which he assessed its impact on society.
[The poster] does not say to us: "Pray, obey, sacrifice
yourself, adore God, fear the master, respect the king..." It whispers to
us: "Amuse yourself, preen yourself, feed yourself, go to the theater, to
the ball, to the concert, read novels, drink good beer, buy good bouillon,
smoke good cigars, eat good chocolate, go to your carnival, keep yourself
fresh, handsome, strong, cheerful, please women, take care of yourself, comb
yourself, purge yourself, look after your underwear, your clothes, your teeth,
your hands, and take lozenges if you catch cold!" [46]
The artist Georges Seurat became a great fan of Chéret and
the style of his posters. He drew inspiration for some of his later work from
them. Chéret's high-stepping dancers in Les Girard: Folies-Bergère,
a lithograph from 1879, reappear a decade later in Seurat's Le Chahut
(1889-90). Many similar links between "high" artists and the popular
cultural artists producing advertising are recognized by historians of art.
In 1990, the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted an
exhibition entitled High and Low: Modern Art, Popular Culture that explored the
relation in such areas as words, graffiti, caricature, comics, and advertising.
The exhibition catalogue noted: "[T]he story of modern artists' responses
to advertising, and vice versa, is the most complex and tendentious of the
various histories [the exhibition] addresses." The exhibition traced the
link between art and advertising from the French advertising poster to the
present.
An artistic movement based around "found objects"
spilled over into advertising itself. The now familiar Michelin Man (1898)
emerged from Édouard Michelin's observation that a stack of tires might
resemble a man with the simple addition of arms. It was in such moments, where
art and life come together, that many great advertising ideas of the 20th
century were born. Another example is the RCA dog inspired by a real pet and an
actual incident.
The influence between advertising and art moved the other way as
well. Picasso, in his Landscape with Posters (1912) and Au Bon Marché
(1913), and many Dada avant-garde artists incorporated images of ads or actual
parts of advertisements into their productions. In the 1920s, Fernand Léger
modeled his painting The Siphon (1924) on an ad that appeared in the French
newspaper Le Matin. Examples such as these abound in 20th-century art.
The social theorist Michael Schudson has termed American
advertising "capitalist realism" in order to indicate the similarity
of advertising art in the 1930s to the propagandistic art forms that grew up in
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union at that same time. According to Schudson,
each of these states celebrated the different local ideas of heroism
(communist, national socialist, or capitalist) in styles that were
"reassuringly legible and impervious to ambiguity."
After World War II, artists like Andy Warhol commented on modern
life through references to advertisements. Warhol painted cans of Campbell's soup repetitively to comment on modern life—a world in which endless copies of
mechanically produced products are available and serve to homogenize
experience. (Ironically, Andy Warhol was later commissioned by Absolut Vodka to
produce an image of its famous bottle in the Warhol style as an actual advertisement.)
Artistic commentaries on the nature of capitalism, consumption, and a world
populated with advertising imagery are mainstays in contemporary art.
The omnipresence of advertising imagery in contemporary society is
surely one of the hallmarks of this period in history. When future generations
look back on 20th- and 21st-century life, they will surely marvel at how little
care we took to preserve the popular art of advertising—most of which
disappears quickly. TV commercials are intended to evaporate, billboards to
come down, and magazines and newspapers to be recycled. Yet, the mutual
influence of high art and popular culture is one of the most salient
characteristics of contemporary expressive culture.
Advertising
and Film
Since the end of World War II, first Hollywood films and later TV
scripts have frequently included advertising as one of their themes. The
Hucksters (1947) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) tell stories
about the lives of men who work in advertising, but the stories they tell are
not flattering. In fact, they constitute the beginning of a long tradition in Hollywood to use advertising (often as a backdrop to a story rather than its central focus)
in a highly stereotyped manner. The establishment of this screen version of
advertising and its perpetuation even into the present has provided for members
of the public—most of whom have never been inside an advertising agency and do
not know anyone who works in one—their primary source of information about the
inner workings of advertising. It is no different really from how the mass
media has constructed images of lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, airline
pilots, movie stars, and a host of other professions. Although these
representations develop mythologies through repetition and are usually
secondary to the main themes of stories, they nonetheless leave after-images
that linger in our minds about what we have seen.
How does Hollywood represent advertising? For the purposes of this
unit, a list of several films that deal with advertising in some way was
developed. Then about half of these films were studied in detail for how they
represent advertising. On the basis of this analysis, recurrent themes about
advertising in the films were identified.
The themes that will be discussed in detail are the Hollywood representation of: (1) advertising as a profession, (2) the impact of advertising
on society, and (3) the characteristics of people who work in advertising.
By setting a film in an advertising agency and/or featuring people
who work in advertising, the film describes (albeit inadvertently) the
profession of advertising. Films typically make advertising appear to be easy
work. Creative ideas are not depicted in relation to strategy and research, but
rather ideas seem to emerge while throwing pencils like darts at the ceiling or
in a moment of serendipity. For example, a creative team in Nothing in Common
(1986) invents skits and songs by acting out an idea for a commercial. The
scene conveys a convivial, friendly, and fun atmosphere at work. Ray Liotta's
character comes up with the perfect jingle in Corrina, Corrina (1994) while
banging out notes in a piano duo with his housekeeper, played by Whoopi
Goldberg. Many scenes show the fun aspects of his job as a writer for
commercials for Jell-O and Mr. Potato Head. In the clip, the creative solution
"just happens." In How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Matthew
McConaughey's character is engaged in a conversation with Kate Hudson's, who uses
the word "frosting" to describe diamonds. He recognizes the
originality and power of the description and develops the tag line, "Frost
yourself," for a diamond company.
None of these representations portray the lengthy process that
goes into making an advertisement nor the strategy that lies behind it. Rather,
the most photogenic aspects of the creative process are selected and edited
into the story about advertising that gets told through movies.
Another aspect of advertising's appearance in film is the
glamorous lifestyle that surrounds the field. The collage of images in Figures
31-34 below shows advertising professionals dressing stylishly, working in
beautiful offices, attending elegant parties, and living in extraordinary
apartments and houses. For example, Ben Affleck in Bounce (2000) has a home
whose large glass windows give a spectacular view of Venice Beach and the waves of the Pacific beyond it. Keanu Reeves in Sweet November (2001) lives in a
high-ceiling refurbished loft in San Francisco. This early morning scene shows
the elegant furnishings that include 12 flat-screen TVs. Mel Gibson in What
Women Want (2000) lives in a Chicago high-rise apartment with a large balcony,
elegant furnishings, and a killer view of the cityscape.
Offices are at least as impressive as homes in Hollywood's version
of the lifestyles of advertising professionals. Offices are lively, colorful,
interesting places to work. For example, Mel Gibson's office in What Women Want
is filled with award trophies, leather chairs, and advertisements. Its dark
woods and colors signify masculinity. By contrast, Helen Hunt's office in the
same film is brighter and has lots of flowers and a more feminine feel. Her
large office has not only a very big desk but plenty of other furniture and
memorabilia of her career. The interior shots of the agency in the film show a
large open space with many workstations where mid-level employees work. The
architecture of the old building, complete with mezzanine and old ironwork,
exudes style and good taste.
Advertising people attend lots of parties in the movies. Meg Ryan
is shown below in a still from Kate & Leopold (2001). The setting is a
business dinner where everyone is well dressed, all the tables have beautiful
flowers, and the room itself is lovely. In a second clip from How to Lose a Guy
in 10 Days, the party is a gala evening black-tie affair; the occasion is the
celebration of an ad campaign for diamonds, plenty of which sparkle in the
room. In Picture Perfect (1997), guests attend a lavish dinner where canapés
pass on trays and two models dressed as the product celebrate Gulden's Mustard.
Not to be outdone by their surroundings, advertising people dress
exceedingly well in the movies. Doris Day's character in Lover Come Back (1961)
steps out of a convertible only to be covered by a canopy leading to the door
of a fashionable New York building. She wears a matching dress and jacket
outfit that is complete with a fur collar. Cuba Gooding, Jr., in The Fighting
Temptations (2003) is smartly dressed in a well-tailored, fashionable suit as
he addresses attendees at a board meeting. Meg Ryan in Kate & Leopold wears
an expensive crushed velvet riding jacket to a business lunch in an uptown
restaurant.
On top of the glitz and glamour that is advertising in film is a
darker image that is repeated again and again. This is the notion that
advertising is filled with lies and manipulation. The following clips from
films are typical. Each of them conveys this idea rather directly. In The
Fighting Temptations, Cuba Gooding, Jr., says in a conversation with his boss
that deception is company policy in advertising. In Picture Perfect, Illeana
Douglas's character, speaking with Jennifer Aniston's, remarks, "I didn't
lie, I sold." Even more pointedly in Crazy People (1990), Dudley Moore
describes advertising work by saying, "We lie for a living."
This notion dates back at least to the age of P.T. Barnum, whose
exaggerated and frequently false claims, as mentioned earlier, gave the public
a bad taste for advertising. It was not helped by traveling salesmen who
drifted in and out of town in 19th-century America nor by the unrestricted
claims about the benefits of patent medicines that were common well into the 20th
century. When Hollywood began to depict advertising, all this plus Vance
Packard's exposé about motivational research had alerted the public to
the idea of deceit in advertising. This is the image of advertisers that was
laid down on film, and these stereotypes have remained largely unchanged though
there has been little if any effort to offer evidence for them.
A second theme about advertising in films concerns its impact on
society. The idea is that advertising generally causes people to buy things
they do not need. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House features Cary Grant as
an advertising executive who wants to move from New York City to the country.
It is his success in advertising that provides the means to make this decision,
but the work Mr. Blandings does is not respected by his children. In a
particularly pointed statement, one of his daughters speaks of the social evils
associated with advertising. In The Fighting Temptations, another indictment of
advertising's social policy in the willingness of Cuba Gooding's character to
exploit the public for gain and his condescending attitude toward them.
A third idea in the Hollywood depiction of advertising is that
there is a certain kind of person who does well in advertising. This is someone
who is willing to do almost anything asked of him or her, to put job before
family and personal life, and to sell things that they might not believe in
themselves.
An additional theme in some of the films is discrepancy between
men's and women's jobs in advertising. For example, in Lover Come Back, Doris
Day and Rock Hudson both work in advertising. However, she works while he
plays. In What Women Want, Mel Gibson gets all the credit for Helen Hunt's
ideas.
Advertising
and Popular Culture: The Super Bowl
Each January advertising moves onto center stage in American
popular culture. The occasion is the Super Bowl—itself one of the country's
most watched TV programs. In the weeks and days leading up to the actual event,
media hype about the game and the commercials predicts game outcome, celebrates
fans, and promises ever more spectacular ads.
In 2006, viewers in more than 45 million homes tuned in to the
Super Bowl, making it the second-most viewed program in the history of American
television. More than 15 percent of these viewers claimed to be watching
primarily for the commercials.[47]
As for the commercials themselves, they are among the most expensive to produce
and air. It was reported that airing a 30-second spot could cost as much as
$2.5 million in 2006. Having come to appreciate the appeal of Super Bowl
commercials, advertisers are making their Super Bowl offerings available for
video streaming online—for watching again, forwarding to friends, adding to
personal web pages, and even downloading to video iPods.
In return for their investment, advertisers hope that viewers will
remember their commercials and associate them with their brands. Nothing is
more distressing than a viewer who says, "That was a very funny ad for
light beer, but I couldn't tell you if it was for Miller or Bud." Despite
the entertainment value of Super Bowl commercials (including the picking of
winners and losers), these ads must still do their work of reinforcing brand
loyalty, encouraging selection of their brands over the competition, or, more
rarely, introducing new products or services.
The cost of airing commercials has risen from $42,000 during the
first year to $2.4 million in 2006. The reach to homes and viewers has steadily
increased during this period, making it a highly ranked and prestigious venue
for showcasing ads.
A few spots from previous Super Bowls have achieved something of a
cult status as best-liked ads. According to a poll conducted by America Online,
the three best Super Bowl commercials ever were Coca-Cola's Mean Joe Greene
(1980), Apple Computer's 1984 (1984), and Reebok's Terry Tate (2004). Each of
these commercials struck responsive chords with audiences by focusing on themes
like sports heroes, distrust of corporate giants, and work environments.
Newspapers, magazines, and above all the Internet reviews the ads
after they appear on the Super Bowl. This publicity, if it is positive, is of
incalculable value to the sponsors, but not all of it is positive. For example,
the 2006 post-Super Bowl assessments included the following:
Let's start with the lowest of the low: GoDaddy.com. Talk about a
$5 million vanity project (so bad they had to run it twice). This complete mess
was what it took Bob Parsons 14 tries with ABC to get through.
— Barbara Lippert, Adweek
A prehistoric air express delivery—of a stick, via pterodactyl—is
stymied by a hungry tyrannosaurus, leading to the first-ever mailroom firing.
Adorable and funny. Also, how can you fault a strategy (nobody ever lost his
job for choosing FedEx) that's 40 million years old?
— Bob Garfield, Advertising Age
Ah, now here's a show stopper that should have been our lead-in:
Burger King puts on a Busby Berkeley musical number. Singing and dancing
"Whopperettes" dress as various burger components (my favorite is the
mayonnaise dress, followed by the beef-patty tutu). This was the only ad all
night that was outsized and garish enough to be Super Bowl-worthy.
— Seth Stevenson, Slate
Atmosphere BBDO developed an extension of Pizza Hut's Super Bowl
promotion with Jessica Simpson creating a site that allows consumers to
literally play with their food. The Pizza Hut Cheesy Bites site allows visitors
to remix their own version of the Jessica Simpson Pizza Hut song, "These
Bites Are Made for Poppin.'" With 28 musical tracks and 40 sound effects
to choose from, people can watch and share their version of the song played
along with the television commercial and see Jessica singing along to their
creation.
— AdRants.com
Our favorite of all the Anheuser-Busch work this year is the
hysterically funny, "On The Roof," where Bud Light-loving husbands
seek refuge. The comic timing is perfect. Ditto the meticulously realized
visuals."
— Lewis Lazare, Chicago Sun-Times
In addition to these professional columnists and commentators,
many others offered their opinions of Super Bowl commercials via the Internet.
One blogger wrote, "Nicely shot, but what's the point?", incisively
cutting through the usual verbiage. Bulletin boards posted rants and raves
about the commercials. And more than a few groups specially assembled for the
purpose of reviewing Super Bowl commercials were reported on in the press. For
example, in Boston members of ad agencies assembled to view the ads together.
From their group emerged the not surprising finding that men and women liked
different ads more. The women in the group were especially approving of Dove's
commercial focusing on women's self-esteem.
Many times when people express opinions about ad preferences, they
lack reasons for the preferences. Even when reasons are given, they tend to be
more emotional than rational reactions. The Wall Street Journal, in an article
quoting viewers' opinions about Super Bowl ads, included the following:
- the ad broke through and was attention-grabbing.
- it was so unpredictable.
- the spot was very moving.
- hilarious, everyone cracked up laughing.
- didn't like it, I was waiting for a spoof.
- tons of impact and very memorable.
- I'm a sucker for monkeys. [spot featuring office run by chimps]
All this hype about Super Bowl commercials brings the phenomenon
of the TV commercial to public attention once a year and results in
considerable discussion about the aesthetic and business value of this mode of
advertising. Unlike the more highbrow domains of culture like literature, art,
and even film, the commercial is at home in popular culture. For many, it is
unabashed fun and hilarity. Maintaining the suspense about the commercials can
be as exciting as the football game itself. The Super Bowl becomes the one
moment in American cultural life where advertising is unabashedly welcomed.
Conclusion
Advertising arised in antiquity when the majority of people
couldn’t read or write. The period of after the World War II was the period of
progress of TV advertisement, intense competition in selling and branding.
Advertising has certainly come a long way since the beginning of
the century. While the basic principles remain the same, as society becomes
more accepting of certain topics, the advertising will continue evolve. For
instance, consider in the '50s when it was taboo for pregnancy to be shown on
television. "I Love Lucy" broke this wall down, and it is now
commonplace. Things that are "politically incorrect" and aren't seen
in advertising during one time period become accepted and visible in another.
The answer to our question, whether or not advertising is a direct
effect or affect of advertising, is simple. Both are yes. Advertising uses what
it sees as popular in its audience at the particular time the campaign is ran,
to call attention to the product. What people see in the advertising of a
product that they consider popular, creates a new trend in culture. Advertising
both directs and reflects popular culture. Thousands of products are advertised
daily in many different ways. Oftentimes people will discuss the manner in
which the product was advertised as frequently, if not more so than the product
itself. What makes any particular advertisement memorable is the
"personality" which it is given, and the consumers ability to relate.
While some advertising has proven itself to be more effective than others, once
again it all serves the same basic purpose-to inform, and persuade. As long as
there is a creative motivation to create new products and to allow the familiar
ones to continually impact us, advertising will continue to drive and be driven
by popular culture.
So you see that the role of advertising in American pop culture is
very high: we can see hidden ads in films, on the pictures, even in music.
Advertising affects on pop culture: ads can put such market conditions that a
new direction in pop culture can appear.
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Appendix
The Art and Science of the Advertising Slogan
by Timothy R. V. Foster
1. A slogan should be memorable
Memorability has to do with the ability the line has to be
recalled unaided. A lot of this is based on the brand heritage and how much the
line has been used over the years. But if it is a new line, what makes it
memorable? I suggest it is the story told in the advertisement - the big idea.
The more the line resonates with the big idea, the more memorable
it will be. 'My goodness, my Guinness!', as well as being a slick line, was
made memorable by the illustrations of the Guinness drinker seeing his pint
under some sort of threat (perched on the nose of a performing seal, for
example). It invoked a wry smile and a tinge of sympathy on the part of the
audience at the potential loss if the Guinness was dropped.
If it is successful, ideally the line should pass readily into
common parlance as would a catchphrase, such as 'Beanz meanz Heinz' or 'Where's
the beef?'
In addition to a provocative and relevant illustration or story,
alliteration, coined words, puns and rhymes are good ways of making a line
memorable, as is a jingle.
2. A slogan should recall the brand name
Ideally the brand name should be included in the line. 'My
goodness, my Guinness!' thus works, as does 'Aah, Bisto!'. On the other hand,
'Once driven, forever smitten' does not easily invoke the word Vauxhall, nor
does 'All it leaves behind is other non-bios' scream out Fairy Ultra. This, by
the way, is possibly the worst endline in the history of advertising! It
certainly gets my vote. It's a brand manager at P&G speaking to a brand
manager at the competition and it means it doesn't leave a nasty residue in the
wash -- the laundry equivalent of 'no bathtub ring'. No 'housewife' could
possibly understand it.
What's the point of running an advertisement in which the brand
name is not clear? Yet millions of pounds are wasted in this way. If the brand
name isn't in the strapline, it had better be firmly suggested. Nike dares to
run commercials that sign off only with their visual logo -- the 'swoosh' --
like a tick mark or check mark, as the Americans say. The word Nike is unspoken
and does not appear. This use of semiotics is immensely powerful when it works,
because it forces the viewer to say the brand name.
Rhymes - with brand name
One of the best techniques for bringing in the brand name is to
make the strapline rhyme with it. Here are some lines we've selected from the
AdSlogans.com database. See how well it works if the brand name is the rhyming
word.
3. A slogan should include a key benefit
'Engineered like no other car in the world' does this beautifully
for Mercedes Benz. 'Britain's second largest international scheduled airline'
is a 'so what?' statement for the late Air Europe. You might well say "I
want a car that is engineered like no other car in the world." But it is
unlikely you would say "I want two tickets to Paris on Britain's second largest international scheduled airline!"
In America they say 'sell the sizzle, not the steak.' In Britain they say 'sell the sizzle, not the sausage.' Either way, it means sell the benefits not the
features.
Since the tagline is the leave-behind, the takeaway, surely the
opportunity to implant a key benefit should not be missed? Here are some...
4. A slogan should differentiate the brand
'Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach' does this
brilliantly. When the line needed refreshing, it was extended in later
executions to show seemingly impossible situations, such as a deserted motorway
in the rush hour, with the line 'Only Heineken can do this', and lately showing
unlikely but admirable situations, such as a group of sanitation engineers
trying to keep the noise down to the comment: 'How refreshing! How Heineken!'
The distinction here is that the line should depict a
characteristic about the brand that sets it apart from its competitors. In the
above examples, we see Swan Light, an Australian low-alcohol beer. 'Won't make
a pom tiddly' is brilliant. It plays on the expression 'tiddly pom', the sort
of noise a stiff-upper-lip Brit would say in the colonies when reviewing the
troops as they march past, and, of course, a Brit to an Oz is a pom. And what
could be worse than a tiddly (tipsy) pom? This line gets my vote as one of the
all-time greats. And it runs on double-decker bus 'super sides'.
5. A slogan should impart positive feelings for the brand
Some lines are more positive than others. 'Once driven, forever
smitten', for example, or 'Aah, Bisto!'. Contrast this with Triumph's line for
its TR7 sports car in 1976: 'It doesn't look like you can afford it', or America's Newport cigarettes: 'After all, if smoking isn't a pleasure, why bother?' "Because
I'm hooked, you bastard!" might well be the answer from those who are
addicted to the weed, a sentiment the cigarette company may not appreciate as
part of its message.
Publishers will tell you that negative book titles don't sell. It
is my belief that negative advertising is hard to justify.
Notice how boring all the negative electioneering is in general elections.
The voters just want to turn off.
6. A slogan should reflect the brand's personality
How can a brand have a personality? Our dictionary says
personality means 'habitual patterns and qualities of behaviour of any
individual as expressed by physical and mental activities and attitudes;
distinctive individual qualities of a person considered collectively.'
So think of the brand as a person. Then consider whether the line
works for that person.
7. A slogan should be strategic
Some companies can effectively convey their business strategy in
their lines.
8. A slogan should be campaignable
This means that the line should work across a series of
advertising executions. It should have some shelf-life. Then you could have a
dozen different ads or commercials, each with its own unique story, with a
single common tagline that supports them all.
9. A slogan should not be usable by a competitor
In other words, you should not be able to substitute a competitive
brand name and use the line. For example, 'My goodness, my Murphy's!' just
would not work, but 'A company called TRW' could be a company called anything.
Let's look at these characteristics in more detail, illustrating the points
with more examples.
So many slogans have absolutely no competitive differentiation.
You could add any brand name to the line and it would make sense. And this
often is proven by how many users of a line there are.
10. A slogan should be original
In advertising, originality is king. A new way of sending a
message can set a brand apart from copycats and also-rans.
11. A slogan should be simple
Remember, the endline is what you want the punter to 'get'. So
KISS (keep it simple, stupid!).
12. A slogan should be neat
We're using the word neat in the teenage sense. A neat line helps
portray the product progressively in the punter's perception.
13. A slogan should be believable
Poetic licence is allowed. Even exaggeration.
14. Does the line help when you're ordering the
product or service, or at least aspiring to it?
15. A slogan should not be in current use by others
The more different users of a slogan, the less effective it is.
AdSlogans.com offers its LineCheck service so you can make sure
your line isn't in use by others.
16. A slogan should not be bland, generic or hackneyed
Slogans that are bland, redolent of Mom and apple-pie, clearly
suffer a weakness.
17. A slogan should not prompt a sarcastic or negative response.
18. A slogan should not be pretentious
This is the pomposity test.
Try reading the line with the utmost gravity, like an American
narrator in a 50's corporate film, giving it the true spin of importance.
19. A slogan should not be negative
Publishers will tell you that negative book titles don't sell. It
is my belief that negative advertising is hard to justify.
Notice how boring all the negative electioneering is in general
elections. The voters just want to turn off.
20. A slogan should not reek of corporate waffle, hence sounding
unreal.
21. A slogan should not be a "So what?" or
"Ho-hum" statement
22. A slogan should not make you say "Oh yeah??"
23. A slogan should not be meaningless
These are... What on earth are they trying to say?
24. A slogan should not be complicated or clumsy
25. You should like it
26. It could be trendy - All in a word
There area two trends in slogans these days. One is the
single-word line, such as exemplified here:
Budweiser: True
Hankook Tyres: Driven
IBM: Think
Irn-Bru: Different
Rover: Relax
United Airlines: Rising
It could be trendy - All in three words (or three terse ideas)
It is hard to deliver a complex message in a single word, so that
brings us to the other trend - the triple threat...
Air France: New. Fast. Efficient.
British Gas: Energy. Efficiency. Advice.
ICI: World problems. World solutions. World class.
Jaguar: Grace... Space... Pace...
Marks & Spencer: Quality. Value. Service.
And of course...
AdSlogans.com:
Check. Create. Inspire.
It could be trendy - The twenty most frequently used words in
slogans
We thought it would be interesting to see which words were the
most prevalent in slogans, so we delved through the AdSlogans.com database.
Omitting such words as 'the' and 'and', etc, here's what we found.
The percentages represent the number of lines using that word out of the total
number of lines.
1. you 11.15%
2. your 7.94%
3. we 6.03%
4. world 4.18%
5. best 2.67%
6. more 2.54%
7. good 2.43%
8. better 2.12%
9. new 1.90%
10. taste 1.85%
11. people 1.54%
12. our 1.49%
13. first 1.42%
14. like 1.41%
15. don't 1.36%
16. most 1.19%
17. only 1.16%
18. quality 1.15%
19. great 1.13%
20. choice 1.08%
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