Advertising Is Legalised Form of Lying Essays

Advertising Is Legalised Form of Lying Essays Advertising Is Legalised Form of Lying Essay Advertising Is Legalised Form of Lying Essay Essay Topic: A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Non Controversial Push Precious Advertising, generally speaking, is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually performed by an identified sponsor. Marketers see advertising as part of an overall promotional strategy. Other components of the promotional mix include publicity, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion. Advertising involves the process where in a massage is designed so as to promote a product, a thought, an idea or even a service. The concept of advertising has assumed a dynamic form with the use of the various mediums of communication. From the newspaper, magazines, posters, neon and fluorescent signboards, billboards to the commercial on TV, laser shows to inflated high-rise figures and objects, advertising has come a long way. The work is formidable as it spearheads a process intended to attract, modify, change and influences public opinion. Modern advertising really began in the middle of the century. World War II had taught Americans plenty about propaganda and new technologies had erupted, offering both increased production and more ways to propagate a media message. They combined to create the modern ad. In addition to stating the facts somewhere in the fine print, advertisers began to lace their ads with ideas designed to appeal to the senses of the reader, as well as the deeper, more emotional self interests of love, sex, anxiety, fear, alarm, ambition, envy, indulgence and especially vanity. And to discover which appeal would work best, advertisers began to develop more and better research techniques and act upon the results. Someday, theyd call it target marketing, but for now, they were content with being able to select the right message to transmit and then aim it at the right receiver in the market. What sounds obvious now was in fact not recognized in the 19th century. Advertising was a print medium at first, and primarily followed the basic rules of decorum and factual reporting of the journalism of the day. Thus, a Sears And Roebuck catalogue from the 19th century offered Underwear For Fat Men with a line drawing a hefty, older fellow with a distended belly trying on a pair of longjohns (Sears Roebuck, 1879, p. 6). In addition to such straightforward advertising, there were rules which limited the effectiveness of print advertising as a visual medium in many venues. Ads were kept in the back in the early 19th century, and only moved across to the front of magazines and newspapers in the 1890s. Line drawings and other artwork was introduced, but the copy remained relatively staid and straightforward. Print advertising today is far different. Incredible graphics, manipulative copy and inserts, [emailprotected] (ads disguised as articles) and coupons make up the bulk of newspaper and magazine advertising. Of course, the old style of print ads remain as well. There are still classified ads in the back of nearly every magazine, and line drawings grace the ads in many newspapers. Nobody sells Aunderwear for fat [emailprotected] any more though. Bills, or bulletins, are also still common in the 1990s. Most urban centers have huge sections of walls and public space taken over by row after row of bills, huge print ads. In these days of media saturation, it is not surprising to see many layers of bulletins atop a wall or on a construction site. Bulletins were started in the 1890s as well. ARagged bills hawking everything from Tutts Pills and St. Jacob=s Oil to Battle Ax Plug, Hood=s Sasparilla, and Official Five Cent Cigars fluttered from every fence, lamppost and curb. (Starr and Hayman, p. 25). In both centuries, bulletins are most often [emailprotected] or posted up without the permission of property owners. The final form of outdoor advertising is the billboard or display. Displays are three-dimensional, huge mockups of products or events. The first billboards were painted bulletins, permanently covering the side of a building and often identifying the busine sses within. Later, around the end of the 19th century when most major cities had electricity to spare, these billboards were lighted so that they would be visible at night. It wasn=t long before the [emailprotected] was born. Spectaculars are bright, lighted billboards made of many bulbs (the slogan or logo is often spelled out in light) which often contains some three-dimensional elements. The first spectaculars debuted at the end of the 19th century, along with the first lighted marquees. At the end of the 20th century, spectaculars have become even more important, becoming landmarks in places like New York City and Las Vegas. However, outside of the landmark status of some spectaculars, outdoor advertising is very limited. The largest differences between the advertising of the 1890s and the 1990s are the sheer number of media available and what can be called the culture of Acool. @ The 1990s has radio, television, ads before motion pictures and videotapes, Internet advertising of various types (email [emailprotected] banner ads), direct mail advertising, blimps and cropdusters to add to the arsenal of outdoor advertisement and concentrated target marketing. More important than the available media is the net effect of advertising. Advertising is now totalizing, both the dominant culture and counterculture are appealed to. Instead of simply announcing the existence of a product, advertising works to create a culture of consumption for everyone. Advertisings images of consumption evolved from phony promises of a better life for white, nuclear families to the hip-based brand of product cool that still exists today. (Frank, 1997). Everything from youth rebellion to counter-hegemonic violence to law breaking has been commodified. Advertising today seemingly encourages people to break the rules, to tell the world to Akiss [emailprotected] and to be an individual. Beneath this surface rebellion though, people are trained to buy, to tie their emotions to consumption, and eventually, to discard the old with disappointment and embrace the new, in order to rebel again. The greatest difference between the advertising of the 1890s and the 1990s is that instead of buying underwear, one buys the feeling of being cool. This paper is meant to explain some concepts of advertising in cortese s Provocateur. Three basic concepts I will explain, as well as show examples of, are Body Clowning, Body Chopping and Subconscious Seduction. These three concepts are widely used in the advertisement business today. I will be providing and referring to some advertisements, out of magazines, to show these methods. This should further help the understanding of the material being covered. The first method advertising I will be discussing is Body Clowning. Body Clowning is a technique used to show a happy or entertaining side of the product at hand. In this type of advertising there are usually a man and a woman. The man is being portrayed as very powerful, secure and seductive. Even if they are wearing next to nothing the men are still looking very powerful and intelligent. While the men are being portrayed as the higher power in the ad, the woman are acting very playful and are shown to be almost childish. Some describe them as acting like clowns, hence the name Body Clowning. Now that we are in the 1990 s we have started to change the role of this. The woman is the more serious one, {as in ad #1}, and the guy is acting more playful. This ad shows a man in a football uniform jumping around while the woman is holding a cake and having excellent posture and acting incredibly lady like. Though I could not find any advertisements on the traditional and more popular roles of this topic, there are many out there. This type of advertising, if it is done correctly, can be incredibly affective. Body Chopping is another advertising concept that is incredibly effective in the modern advertising business. This technique is used in a lot of clothing, cologne/perfume ads and make-up ads. Body Chopping is when a certain part of the body is photographed and shown in the advertisement. This method is supposed to focus on the sexy side in the human body. It is commonly said by critics that it is degrading to women because it makes it seem that a woman s body is more important than her mind. This is mainly used with woman but it is also used with men every once and a while. You can t even flip through a magazine without seeing this method. This is effectively shown in ad number 2. As you can see, the face is the only part of the body being shown in this ad for Revlon. It shows the sexy, full and luxurious lips of a woman. This is supposed to make ladies feel that if they used this brand of make-up than their lips will look as good as the woman s in the ad. In ad number 3 you can see that the persons tongue is in focus. This ad is for the candy Spree. The phrase at the bottom of the page reads It s a kick in the mouth. Now this obviously is saying that this candy will make your mouth feel very good as well as taste terrific but will it really taste like that? You will never know until you try it. This whole point of the ad is to make you want the candy and make you feel like you have to go out right now and buy it. This is made possible by the close up view of the tongue. That is why the method of Body Chopping is so successful. Out of all the advertisements we see in a day very rarely do we sit down and try to analyze them. If we did do this however, we would find a good bit of subliminal massages inside of an advertisement. Now these are really not very easy to see but they are very catchy to the human eye. These stand out but at the same time have a very different meaning. This is done because the average person looks at an ad for two seconds. This is not leaving a whole lot of time for the ad to make you want to have the product advertised. That is why they put these messages in that stick out, so you can see this and relate to the mood of he ad and want the specific product. We all do this with out even thinking about it, leaving it the name of subconscious. Here are some examples of some subconscious seduction techniques: In lipstick ads the lipstick is usually a symbol for oral or anal sex. Though we are not sure why this is it is proven that it is, oddly enough, a good symbol for this. This actually does sell a lot of these products thought this method. In conclusion, I hope that these examples have greatly increased your knowledge of at least three of the techniques used by advertisers today in their ads. There is a lot to be said about these advertisements, but they can be very tricky to read and see at the same time. Now that you have been informed on these points, you should be able to pick these things up and understand the advertisements better. Just as there is to everything else in life, there are costs and benefits to advertising. Advertising plays a major role in our lives. Everywhere you turn there is some form of advertising taking place. Companies spend outrageous amounts to get the attention of the viewer and hold it long enough to increase sales of there product. An example of this is a Chevy truck commercial. They use a more masculine approach to make you believe the truck gives off the same idea. The costs of advertising are many. For one the increase in advertising raises consumer prices. The company needs to pay for it somehow so guess who the cost is pushed on? The consumer. Another bad point in advertising is that it often makes you buy things you dont need or didnt even want. The worst aspect of advertising is probably the fact that it controls the media. Think if a radio station is sponsored by dorittos it is unlikely they would ever negatively refer to the product. People protect their advertisers. Its power has a majority of the media wrapped around its finger. The benefits of advertising are many as well. Advertising can give you price information, availability of it, and improvements that may have been made on a product. Without advertising compassion would be slim. Advertisers try to impress the consumer and draw them in. If one product is more appealing advertisers work on launching a bigger and better campaign to make their product appear to be better. Without advertisements paying for radio and many news papers it is possible that we wouldnt be so informed on breaking news and public issues. I was impressed by the truck commercial because it targets more to a male audience. It makes the truck seem like the high point of being a man. Without the truck it seems like they are trying to say you are not as much of a man. Most likely I wouldnt by something just because of a commercial. Trucks are nice and maybe they do make you appear to be more manly, but if I was to buy a truck its quality and care it had received would rank above its affects on my image. Ring around the collar, Once you pop, you cant stop, Just do it. Television viewers today are ombarded with increasing commercial content. From the barrage of 15-second commercials every seven minutes, to product placement, to infomercials, when the viewer watches television, they are constantly exposed to some form of advertising. Beyond the minor annoyance, very few people think that much is wrong with advertisements. What viewers do not realize is how much advertising influences the content of television, often in a neg ative manner. In his article Conscientious Objections Neil Postman states The anarchy in television news is a direct result of the commercial structure of broadcasting. When the Government granted television stations the right to broadcast over American airwaves, there was an agreement that stations would serve the public interest. Slowly but surely, things have changed. Television no longer serves the public, what goes on the air is now determined largely by advertisers. Many of the changes in television occurred because of the government deregulation of television in the 1980s, when the head of the Federal Communications Commission under Reagan rolled back the principle components of broadcast regulation. Two major components of the deregulation where the elimination of the three-year rule, which stated that broadcast entities could not be sold for three years after the date of purchase; as well as allowing more commercials in a broadcast hour. The deregulation changed the television industry forever. The three-year rule had ensured that a station remained viable and intact. The deregulation changed the status of many television stations. In the article Consumer Culture and TV Programming, Robin Andersen writes: Before deregulation, corporate speculators did not purchase stations solely for the purpose of commodity trading. After deregulation, however, speculators who had no interest or experience in the media bought and sold stations simply to make a profit. Corporate investors would often cut corners to make a profit, this included cutting news departments, and giving in to many advertiser demands. (Andersen, 19) The other major step taken during the deregulation of the 1980s overwhelmed viewers with advertising, and diminished advertising s effectiveness. Before the deregulation, advertising had a firm grip on viewer attention. Viewers watched advertisements with vigor, and research revealed that they remembered a great deal of what they saw. Along with more commercials per hour, the standard 30-second commercial gave way to more short 10- and 15-second spots. After the deregulation the number of commercials on network TV in an average week tripled to more than 5,000. (Andersen, 20) Just as viewers were being bombarded with commercials in the 1980s, remote-control technology showed viewers an escape route. With the help of the remote control, viewing habits changed. Audiences began to change the channel, mute, or fast-forward their recordings during television advertisements. Advertisements lost a great deal of the persuasive power when viewers began to disregard them. Since then, marketers have searched for ways to bring back advertising s persuasive power. One result of this search has been increased demands that programming content supports and reinforces advertising messages. Another consequence has been the advent of subtle advertisements that disguise their promotional character such that viewers will be more accepting of the persuasive messages. A good example of one such practice would be product placement, in which brand names are strategically placed into the television program. As advertisers became more demanding of television support of advertising, television became dependent on advertisers financial support. Andersen states that in the 1980s, the costs of prime-time programming escalated, while revenues plateaued. This led to forcing all programs to become more cost efficient. At the same time, the advent of cable television in the 1980s gave advertisers more channels in which they could run their commercials. Therefore, networks had to lower their advertising costs to compete with the cable stations. With cheaper advertising, stations became increasingly dependent on ad revenues for their livelihood. With stations more dependent on advertising dollars, and advertisers more desperate to reach viewers, big business advertisers gained more influence into the content of the media. Advertisers would refuse to advertise during shows that were not receptive to advertising. With slim budgets, stations could not afford to cross these advertisers. Therefore, any content to which certain advertisers might take offense with was often omitted from television programs. News and public affairs directors are made aware that advertisers are monitoring their programming and that to contradict corporate sponsors or their advertising messages would have a negative financial impact on the station and their jobs. Because of this pressure the media must tiptoe around any issues advertisers may find offensive. In his article Censorious Advertising Milton Glaser exposes Chryslers advertising policy which requires that magazines submit articles in advance for screening by Chrysler to determine whether they contain any editorial content that may be construed as provocative or offensive. Censorious policies such as Chryslers are not at all uncommon in the advertising business. In her article Sex, Lies, and Advertising, Gloria Steinem chronicles her experiences as head of Ms. magazine. In her article she gives examples of many companies with advertising policies similar to Chryslers. For example S. C. Johnson Son orders that its ads should not be opposite extremely controversial features or material antithetical to the nature/copy of the advertised product. Procter Gamble states that advertisements for its products were not to be placed in any issue that included any material on gun control, abortion, the occult, cults, or the disparagement of religion. Caution was also demanded in any issue covering sex or drugs, even for educational purposes. (Steinem, 226) Advertisers have made the message clear that they want the media to be as non-controversial as possible, in order to maintain an optimal consumer environment. Although Steinems particular situation involves pr int media; there are many similarities between the two genres. In her aforementioned article, Andersen cites this example of advertiser influence: When CNN s Capitol Gang was summoned to carry out a mock program in front of a group of advertisers, the producers and commentators were sent a clear message, namely, that the programs content will be monitored with great interest. Under these circumstances it is unlikely that information unacceptable to CNN advertisers will be included. (Andersen, 24) With such a clear message sent to the cast of Capitol Gang, it is obvious that advertisers have a substantial influence on the programs content. Advertising power can be especially damaging to news content. In 1994, ABC news reported on Philip Morris manipulation of tobacco levels, an issue that had been advanced by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration. Although the information was true, Philip Morris brought a $10 billion libel suit against ABC. Philip Morris, through its Kraft Foods, is a major advertiser. Not wanting to lose precious ad revenues, ABC apologized on air for telling the truth. (Andersen, 27) The threat of libel suits, and the withdrawing of advertisement is a powerful one that prevents many newscasts from airing controversial material involving large advertisers. As the late dvertising executive Howard L. Gossage stated [Advertiser] control is not by intent, but through the simple ability of advertising to bestow or withhold favors. (Lowenstein and Merrill, 77) It is painfully clear that advertising can have a negative influence on television content, but is there a solution? Gloria Steinems solution for Ms. problems was to become commercial-free. After having tried various methods of dealing with advertising, to no avail, Ms. magazine became a commercial free publication. PBS also operates as a commercial free entity, being partially funded by the U. S. Government. The U. S. Government partially funds this form of Public Television. PBS represents an alternative in the television media system, and at a low cost for taxpayers. The author of The Future of Public Television argues that the media must be democratized. He believes that Public Broadcasting is an important step in the democratization process. In important respects, particularly its partial removal from market forces and the early articulation of its commitment to diversity, our current system of public television provides a concrete example of both the vast potential and the increasing necessity of a more democratic mass media. (The Future of Public Television, 167) Unfortunately, Steinem and PBS solutions are not viable for most forms of television media. In order to maintain television as a free service to the viewers, stations need advertiser support. It is unlikely that the government would be able to fund such a large number of stations. Lowenstein and Merrill offer a different solution th an Steinem and Miller, stating that advertisement has a right to broadcast its message. The authors state that the broadcaster has an obligation to provide a program at the lowest possible cost to the consumer. However, Lowenstein and Merrill state that Government agencies must regulate advertising s misleading and unfair policies. The authors believe that only through government intervention can the effects of advertising be controlled. The current media system needs to be repaired. However, as the author states, changes in the media system Certainly will not be completed overnight (The Future of Public Television, 167). Solutions such as Steinems and PBSs are not feasible at this point. Commercial television is a multi-billion dollar business. Many jobs depend on this enormous industry, and to transform television to a commercial free format would cause economic problems. Renovating the media system is unfeasible because of its large size. The system is too complex to be drastically changed. A small step must be taken first, I propose that a government agency should be created to oversee and regulate advertising. This agency would look into advertisers to make sure that program content was not subverted, that deceptive advertising did not happen, and that advertisers would not be allowed to preview programs before deciding whether or not to advertise. These steps will diminish the influence which advertisers have on television broadcasters. In order to keep advertisers and broadcasters from breaking these rules, this agency would be given the power to fine any corporations and broadcasters that did not follow the rules. This government agency would be the first step in freeing the media from advertiser influence. Although it may not cure television of all advertiser influence, it is the first step towards that goal.