Advertising

Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas 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.

Techniques

Advertisers use several recognizable techniques in order to better convince the public to buy a product and shape the public's attitude towards their product. These may include:

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• Repetition: Some advertisers concentrate on making sure their product is widely recognized. To that end, they simply attempt to make the name remembered through repetition.
• Bandwagon: By implying that the product is widely used, advertisers hope to convince potential buyers to "get on the bandwagon."
• Testimonials: Advertisers often attempt to promote the superior quality of their product through the testimony of ordinary users, experts, or both. "Three out of four dentists recommend..." This approach often involves an appeal to authority.
• Pressure: By attempting to make people choose quickly and without long consideration, some advertisers hope to make rapid sales: "Buy now, before they're all gone!"
• Appeal to emotion Various techniques relating to manipulating emotion are used to get people to buy a product. Apart from artistic expression intended to provoke an emotional reaction (which are usually for associative purposes, or to relax or excite the viewer), three common argumentative appeals to emotion in product advertising are wishful thinking, appeal to flattery, and appeal to ridicule. Appeals to pity are often used by charitable organizations and appeals to fear are often used in public service messages and products, such as alarm systems or anti-bacterial spray, which claim protection from an outside source. Finally, appeals to spite are often used in advertising aimed at younger demographics.
• Association: Advertisers often attempt to associate their product with desirable imagery to make it seem equally desirable. The use of attractive models, a practice known as sex in advertising, picturesque landscapes and other alluring images is common. Also used are "buzzwords" with desired associations. On a large scale, this is called branding.
• Advertising slogans These can employ a variety of techniques; even a short phrase can have extremely heavy-handed technique.
• Controversy, as in the Benetton publicity campaign.
• Guerilla advertising: Advertising by association. Done in such a way so the target audience does not know that they have been advertised to, but their impression of the product is increased (or decreased) if that is the intent of the advertiser.
• Subliminal messages: It was feared that some advertisements would present hidden messages, for example through brief flashed messages or the soundtrack, that would have a hypnotic effect on viewers ('Must buy car. Must buy car.') The notion that techniques of hypnosis are used by advertisers is now generally discredited, though subliminal sexual messages are extremely common, ranging from car models with SX prefixes to suggestive positioning of objects in magazine ads and billboards.

During the 1990s, advertisers have increasingly employed the device of irony. Aware that today's media-savvy viewers are familiar with -- and thus cynical about -- the traditional methods listed above, advertisers have turned to poking fun at those very methods. This "wink-wink" approach is intended to tell viewers, "We know that YOU know we're trying to sell you something, so bear with us and let's have fun." The ultimate goal of such advertising is to convey a sense of trust and confidence with viewers, by essentially saying, "We respect your intelligence, and you should respect us because we're not trying to fool you." Common television examples include most beer advertising and the commercials of the Geico insurance company.

Related Topics:
Irony - Geico

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