Advertising

1. Advertising • The typical person sees 250 commercial messages daily and more than two million of them by the time he or she is twenty-five years old. • Studying advertising and the strategies used by advertisers helps us to become more critical, insightful, and selective consumers. • When it comes to commercial ads, for the most part, skepticism is a virtue.

2. Advertising II • In broad terms, advertising uses promotional techniques to persuade people to purchase products or services. • The American Marketing Association’s definition is “any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.”

3. Some Defenses of Advertising • Defenders of advertising claim that it provides many benefits: • Employs a large workforce of writer and producers. • Informs consumers about health and safety issues. • Informs consumers about new treatments for medical problems. • Proponents of advertising claim that advertising stimulates competition and fuels our mass-consumption economy, raising the standard of living for everyone.

4. Criticisms of advertising • Advertising is intrusive • Advertising demeans and corrupts culture, making citizens materialistic. By encouraging consumers to measure their worth solely by what they haverather than who they are, undermines society. • Advertising is a manipulative, deceptive process.

5. College students usually say that advertising does not influence their decisions. • However, studies show that ads can increase sales of certain products. • Most Americans see ads as something thing they can easily tune in and out. • Advertisers want us to believe that. They want to subtly influence us.

6. The majority of things we buy- toothpaste, toothbrushes, and so forth are pretty much the same. They share the same marketing techniques, manufacturing techniques, and use the same technology. The only difference may be how it is presented.

7. Strategies used in advertisements • Humor • Catchy Slogans and Jingles • Fears of Rejection and Hopes for Acceptance and Approval • Emotive Words • Weasel Words • Fine-Print disclaimers • Puffery • The Promise of Sex • Enviable situations • Enviable People • Compliments

8. Political Ads • Political advertising, truthfully and honestly made, can be important to democracy. • The high costs of ads can limit political competition to the wealthy, or people who promise to compromise their integrity on certain issues to get campaign contributions. • Images and text can be designed to appeal primarily to emotions rather than to reason. • Political ads can appeal to bias, fear, hostility, and prejudice.

9. How effective is advertising? • Please get in your groups, look at the handout and determine how many jingles you can match with a product or company. • If time allows, work as a group to think of one ad that you have seen for each of the following strategies: • Humor • Catchy Slogans and Jingles • The Promise of Sex • Enviable Situation • Enviable People