Ads (or advertisements) are everywhere. These messages come from different platforms, and they are aimed at convincing people to purchase goods, services, and ideas. From its simple beginnings in ancient Greece and Rome, advertising is now multimillion-dollar industry. Companies make huge investments, utilize sophisticated technologies, and make use of very persuasive language to market existing products (Green, 2012). The automobile industry made excellent use of advertisements. According to Georgano (2013) “the advertising industry and the automobile grew up side by side and each was a major stimulus to the other” (para 1).
Advertisements are one of many things that Americans cannot get away from. Every American sees an average of 3,000 advertisements a day; whether it’s on the television, radio, while surfing the internet, or while driving around town. Advertisements try to get consumers to buy their products by getting their attention. Most advertisements don’t have anything to do with the product itself. Every company has a different way of getting the public’s attention, but every advertisement has the same goal - to sell the product. Every advertisement tries to appeal to the audience by using ethos, pathos, and logos, while also focusing on who their audience is and the purpose of the ad. An example of this is a Charmin commercial where there is a bear who gets excited when he gets to use the toilet paper because it is so soft.
“The Persuaders” by Frontline is about how advertising has affected Americans. It starts out by stating the problem of attaining and keeping the attention of potential customers. Balancing the rational and emotional side of an advertisement is a battle that all advertisers have trouble with. Human history has now gone past the information age and transcended into the idea age. People now look for an emotional connection with what they are affiliated with. The purpose of an emotional connection is to help create a social identity, a kind of cult like aroma. Because of this realization, companies have figured out that break through ideas are more important than anything else now. But there are only so many big
Advertising is so prominent in American culture, and even the world at large, that this media form becomes reflective of the values and expectations of the nation’s society at large.
While researching the field of advertising I found that it’s extremely broad and diverse. In simple terms I found that an advertisement is simply a public notice intended to convey information and attract consumers. Advertising has two basic purposes: to inform and to persuade while both are distinct, they both work hand in hand. According to Gustafson (2001):” Advertisers often assume that their influence on society is benign, because they assume to be a sovereign rational self.” (p. 203) With this thought, advertising is expressed as being the vehicle of getting products to the consumers to fulfill their wants, but that it avoids creating desire or shaping the consumer’s affection. Everywhere we turn we forcibly encounter advertisements and very little of the ads we encounter is because of our wants. Theodore (1970): “As more and more products entered the battle for consumer’s fleeting dollar, advertisings has increased in boldness and volume.” (p 84). Realizing the amount of products and services that must be sold, the method of selling such as the extreme exaggeration and deception is not a surprise.
Advertisements have an enormous effect on the collective conscious of consumers today. Advertisers, through advertisements, have the ability to manufacture a world that may seem real to the consumer. In these manufactured realities, advertisers entice consumers to buy products specifically marketed to them.
Advertisements are everywhere in the world today. It seems as if no one can go more than ten feet without seeing an advertisement. Seeing so many advertisements on television, on the internet, and on billboards, people never think anything of the advertisements. Besides being annoying, people just see how the company is trying to sell their product. Advertisements are just one example of a use of a unique type of language called rhetoric. Learning about rhetoric changes the view on advertisements and even the rest of the world. For example, advertisements are no longer just a billboard or a commercial; the advertisements are more complex than that. Learning about rhetoric gave me a new view on the influence advertisements or art has on me.
When it comes to the world we live in today, there are no escaping advertisements. Walker-Smith, CEO of The Futures Company once said, “It seems like the goal of most marketers and advertisers nowadays is to cover every blank space with some kind of brand logo or a promotion or an advertisement” ("Cutting Through Advertising Clutter - CBS News." CBS News. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2015 .)This quote is extremely relevant to what the average person experiences every day through writing, images, videos, and so on. The Super Bowl games have always been among the United States most watched television broadcast, which is why a variety of the best, unique, and most entertaining commercials are featured during the game. During the 2015 Super Bowl, with over 114.4 million viewers, T-Mobile released a commercial featuring Kim Kardashian. In this appealing commercial, the celebrity does an excellent job of introducing T-Mobile’s new Data Stash feature which allows customers to roll over their unused data, enabling
Looking through the eyes of an adolescent, many things are seemingly a necessity. From clothes to materialistic things, advertising has brainwashed the American society and has stripped them of their better judgement. Although there are many perks to advertising like awareness, promotion, and entertainment, the advertising world is harmful to society.
Over the the last century, Advertisement has had extremely quick advancements and a huge impact on our society. I will be discussing why brands and other companies advertise and what they are actually doing by producing adverts. Along with this i will be looking into the evolution of advertisements, The history behind them, changes of medium and how they have adapted to keep up with the demands of modern society. I will be looking into Coca-Cola as a case study to see if they fit the model of advertising over the years and whether it has been successful for them.
“Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket”-George Orwell. Since 4,000 B.C, there have been all types of advertisements, like billboards and advertisements from outside your home, just to get customers to buy goods or services. Advertising is a form of marketing communication that is used to persuade an audience into taking or continuing to take some action. There are different types of media that advertising use, such as magazines, televisions, newspaper, radio, pop-up ads on the computer, etc. Advertisements in colonial America, was frequently announced about goods which were persuasive and with little description. Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette reached out to readers with new devices like headlines and illustrations, which gave a visual view and a description. The 18th and 19th century advertisements were not only for consumer goods. Now in the 21st century, an average of 40,000 ads have been seen by people on the internet per year. Different topics from health to fashion to foods are being talked about in every other ad for any type of service. Everyone is affected by advertising, but the people most vulnerable would be teenagers. It has a pervasive influence on teenagers. Advertisement has a huge affect on the lives of teenagers.
In 2010, five major industries spent a whopping $4.2 billion in ad expenses. Since then, the cost of advertising has skyrocketed (Teixeira 2014). With such a massive amount of money, comes an elaborate strategy to make these ads effective. While slogans give an iconic message, methods such
We live in the age of consumerism; we are constantly surrounded by advertisements in our everyday environments. Through television, print, billboards, radio, the Internet and countless other mediums, it seems as though we cannot escape ads. We have become so accustomed to advertisements that most of the time we are unaware of the impact they can have on us. To help us become more aware of the effects of advertisements and consumerism, activist groups like Adbusters has helped bring more attention and awareness to how information and meaning gets generated and transmitted in our society today.
Nowadays, advertisements are everywhere embedded in our daily life. They are powerful resources that inform people the latest news about a particular product or brand in many different ways. Most of the people are being able to get more information and detail of a product from media, radio stations, newspapers and internet. Even though advertising is a big informative source, it also can be considered as a marketing tool to control the mind and desires of the consumers to manipulate and persuade them to buy things they do not need.
Advertising has been an essential source for aiding in global consumption. Individuals in society work to be able to spend their money, and advertisement play a big role in where money is being spent. Ads are very diverse and often consist of an array of fields in which consumers are targeted. Ranging from food, health, clothing, sports, image, lifestyle, etc. Ads provide important means of influence on our society. Ads often play the role of persuade people to come buy products from a specific distributor. On average an individual is exposed to 3000 plus more ads daily, via TV, Internet, print, billboards, etc. In the past decade though ads have drastically changed due to the ever-growing digital era we are living in. Digital technology has assisted in the industry making changes to accommodate our tech-savvy society. Changes in the advertising industry have occurred due to the adoption of the Internet, social media, television, and mobile technology.