Advertising

Advertising is the nonpersonal

communication of information
usually paid for and usually
persuasive in nature about
products, services or ideas by
identified sponsors through the
various media.
Bovee/Arens, 1992
Advertising is the nonpersonal
communication of information
usually paid for and usually
persuasive in nature about
products, services or ideas by
identified sponsors through
the various media.
 Two kinds of selling
 Personal  Expensive in both
 Plenty of time to time and money
deliver the message
 Labor-intensive
 Done face to face
 Time consuming
 Message can be
adjusted to fit how
it’s getting across
 Easy to find
customers
 Non-Personal
 Limited in time and/or  Message doesn’t have to
space be created on the spot
 Don’t know who the  Extensive research
customer is  Far cheaper than
 Don’t know how the personal selling
customer is reacting
 Can’t change the message
in mid-stream
Advertising is the nonpersonal
communication of information
usually paid for and usually
persuasive in nature about
products, services or ideas by
identified sponsors through
the various media.
 The Senses
 Smell

 Touch

 Taste

 Sound

 Sight
Advertising is the nonpersonal
communication of information
usually paid for and usually
persuasive in nature about
products, services or ideas by
identified sponsors through
the various media.
 Affirmative disclosure
 "Sometimes the consumer is provided not with
information he wants but only with the
information the seller wants him to have. Sellers,
for instance, are not inclined to advertise
negative aspects of their products even though
those aspects may be of primary concern to the
consumer, particularly if they involve
considerations of health or safety . . . "
Lewis A. Engman, FTC Chair
 Puffery
 Thelegitimate exaggeration of
advertising claims to overcome natural
consumer skepticism
Advertising is the nonpersonal
communication of information
usually paid for and usually
persuasive in nature about
products, services or ideas by
identified sponsors through
the various media.
Advertising is the nonpersonal
communication of information
usually paid for and usually
persuasive in nature about
products, services or ideas by
identified sponsors through
the various media.
Advertising is the nonpersonal
communication of information
usually paid for and usually
persuasive in nature about
products, services or ideas by
identified sponsors through
the various media.
 The bundle of values
 Functional value
 Social value

 Psychological value

 Economic value

 Whatever else the consumer thinks is

important
Three ways to differentiate products
 Perceptible
 Actual differences
 Easily seen

 Imperceptible
 Actual differences
 Can’t be seen

 Induced
 No actual differences
 Parity products
Advertising is the nonpersonal
communication of information
usually paid for and usually
persuasive in nature about
products, services or ideas by
identified sponsors through
the various media.
 Advertising is the nonpersonal
communication of information,
usually paid for and usually
persuasive in nature about
products, services or ideas by
identified sponsors through the
various media
 Has been around for a
long time
 We still don’t know what
the Lascoux paintings
were for
For the first few thousand
years advertising
promoted locations,
services and “want ads”.
 Ad written on a Roman tomb
 Weather permitting, 30 pairs of gladiators,
furnished by A. Clodius Flaccus, together with
substitutes in case any get killed too quickly, will
fight May 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at the Circus Maximus.
The fights will be followed by a big wild beast
hunt. The famous gladiator Paris will fight.
Hurrah for Paris! Hurrah for the generous
Flaccus, who is running for Duumvirate.
Under the ad was written:
Marcus wrote this sign by the light of the moon.
If you hire Marcus, he’ll work day and night to
do a good job.

Daniel Mannix, Those About to Die

Location
Handbills and fliers to promote
events or to recruit for the
military
Handbill
recruiting sailors
for
USS Constitution
1798
Ad about runaway slave - 1770
 Since most products such as
shoes and clothing were one-of
and made to order you only
needed to advertise where to
order
Service
 Industrial Revolution
 Early 19th Century
 Mass production of products
 Led to three stages of marketing:
 Production-oriented
 Demand far outstripped supply
 Could just advertise the existence of the product
and where to get it
 Whatever was made was sold
 Example: People wanted cars, so car companies
made whatever they wanted and the cars were
sold before they were built
 Sales-oriented
 Supply exceeded demand
 Companies tried to convince consumers to buy
their products rather than their competitors’
 Companies still made whatever they wanted,
counting on their ability to peddle their products
 Example: supply of cars went up, so the
companies made whatever they wanted and
convinced people they wanted that
 Marketing-oriented
 Supply of products far exceeded demand
 More choices than any promotion could overcome
 Resistance to “hard-sell”

 Companies tried to discover what products

consumers wanted before making them, then
advertise they had it
 Non-American companies (e.g., VW) found out
what people wanted, then built cars that had it
(e.g., a gas gauge)
Let’s take a example

The American auto

industry
Production-oriented
Sales-oriented
Marketing-oriented
 Early sales-oriented ads were basically “caveat
emptor” (let the buyer beware)
 Producers said whatever they wanted and thought
they could get away with
 For example, the “Health Jolting Chair”
 Led to consumer and competitor anger
 1938 – Federal Trade Commission given power
to regulate deceptive and unfair advertising
 Advertising could no longer lie, so new
approaches were tried
 40s and 50s
 Era of the hard-sell
 Rosser Reeves “irritation school of advertising”
 Relied on brain-numbing repetition and treating the
consumer as an idiot
 The USP – Unique Selling Proposition

 It was jack-hammered into consumers’ skulls

A Reeves ad
 60s
 The positioning era
 Shift to the soft-sell
 Compare your
product to your
competitors’
 Treat consumers as
intelligent
 Appeal to emotion
more than intellect
 General comments on ads
 Advertising is limited in time and/or space
 Breaks the rules of grammar and syntax
 Ads contain two elements
 Copy
 illustrations
 Two basic ways of presenting a
sales message

 Intellectually
 Usually about the product’s function
 Usually copy heavy and line drawings

 Emotionally
 Usually not about the product’s function
 Usually copy is light with high connotative content

 Uses photographs or video

 Advertising aims at consumers’
subconscious minds much more than
their conscious minds
 It’s all about getting the consumer to
react on a basic, instinctive level, and
not think at all
 It’s about “act now” on your basic
desires – think only of yourself
 It’s usually selfish and anti-social
 Psychological Appeals
 Self-preservation  Constructiveness
 Sex  Destructiveness

 Greed  Curiosity

 Self-esteem  Imitation

 Personal  Altruism
enjoyment
 Self-preservation
 “Listen to me, I’ll
keep you alive”
 Because humans
are so social, we
extend the appeal to
others, like family,
friends, and social
group
 Sex Appeal
 “Listen to me, I’ll get you laid”
 Gender linked because of different goals:
 For men it’s sex with ease and no complications
 In other words, attract more women that want to have
sex with you
 For women it’s attract more men from which to
choose
 Select the best among the possible choices, and the
greater the selection, the better the choice
 Sex Appeal
 Male and female animals have different sexual
strategies based on the cost of sex
 Males are promiscuous because the cost is very
low
 A little time, a little energy, then move on
 Criteria are simple – she has to be there, breathing,
and impregnable
 Females are picky because the cost is so high
 Lots of time, lots of energy
 Must select the best possible male, not the nearest

 Criteria can be complex

 Non-humans are concerned with genetics
 Males want, on an instinctive level, to have as
many offspring as possible to ensure genetic
success
 Females, because of the cost of reproduction,
on an instinctive level want the best genes in
their male
 Males compete with other males, usually
physically, to demonstrate they’re the best choice
 Females select the winner because he’s shown
he’s better than the other males
 For most animals, it is the female that deals with
raising offspring (a major part of the cost of
sex)
 The male has no place in rearing offspring (she’ll
even drive him away)
 The major exception is birds
 Even there, the female will often select one male
as the father, and another male to help her raise
the chicks
 Sex appeal in humans
 Humans have the most complex social life on
Earth
 Instinctive criteria for men are the same as for
any other male animal – she’s there
 Criteria for women is far more complex:
 Not just genetically, but socially:
 Be a good father – help with raising children
 be a good provider – have money, social connections,
etc.
 Sex appeal for men
 Buy the product, get
the woman
 Think of all those Axe
commercials
 Sex appeal for women
For most female animals,
genetic quality is the
most important
 For women, it’s a good
provider
 The ad shows he has
money, cares about her
as an individual, and
will stick around
 It’s called “romance”
The use of sex appeal in
advertising may appear sexist.
That’s because it is – on a social
level. But sex in advertising aims
at instinct, and society is
conscious, not subconscious.
Advertising often appeals to one
gender at the social expense of
the other.
 Greed
 “Listen to me, I’ll
make you rich”
 Human social life
requires having
resources, usually
represented by money
 Instinctively, “greed is
good”
 Self-esteem
 Requires a social group
 Requires the individual to be able to make a
comparison with other individuals in the group
 Thus, requires a sense of self as a separate entity
from others
 Self-esteem
 Again, there’s an instinctive gender link
 For men, it’s competitive
 Demonstrate he’s the best male around
 Self-esteem comes from a sense of superiority

 For women, it’s cooperative

 Make and maintain as many connections as possible
 Self-esteem comes from a sense of connection
 Self-esteem for men
 Demonstration of
superiority
 Buy the product, be
the superior man
 Often shows a “loser”
beating a “winner”
because the loser buys
the product
 Self-esteem for women
 The product increases
the number and
quality of
connections with
others
 Personal Enjoyment
 “Listen to me, you’ll have
more fun”
 Humans, because of
their intelligence, are
often easily bored by
routine
 The ad promotes getting
out of the routine
 In other words, have fun
 Constructiveness
 “Listen to me, I’ll help
you improve things”
 A desire to build and
improve on whatever you
have
 Destructiveness
 “Listen to me, I’ll tell you
how to destroy things”
 We all have a desire to
occasionally blow things
up
 Just watch “The
Mythbusters”
 There does seem to be a
gender link – men seem to
like it more than women
 Curiosity
 “Listen to me, I’ll answer
your questions”
 We all want answers to
things – it’s a survival
characteristic
 The problem is raising
that curiosity – if the
person doesn’t care
about the answer, it’s a
useless appeal
 Imitation
 “Listen to me, I’ll make
you just like someone
else”
 Requires the person to
want to be like the
model
 Almost always linked to
one or the top five
appeals
 Altruism
 “Listen to me, you’ll give
of yourself with no hope
or expectation of return”
 Doesn’t exist as an ideal
 Reciprocal altruism does
exist
 I’ll do for you now, you
do for me later
 Linked to top five
 Tricks of the Trade
 Advertising often uses logical fallacies rather
than giving logical reasons to buy the product
advertised.
 You think the ad is saying one thing when it fact
it’s saying something else, or saying nothing at all
 Black/White
 “You want it [whatever it
is], you can only get it
from us.”
 It leaves out any other
options, e.g., “love it or
leave it.”
Buzz Words
 Words that seem to say
something, but what?
 “Crisp”
 “Natural”
 “Organic”
 Weasel Words
 Words tossed into a sentence that changes the
meaning while leaving an impression that’s
different
 Examples:
“Our [canned] corn is as good as
fresh cooked corn.”
Libby’s Vegetables

 Note it doesn’t say it’s as good as fresh corn, but

as good as fresh cooked corn.
 Cooked corn has had vitamins and minerals
boiled out in the cooking process.
 And now you have to heat the corn again, which
takes out even more nutrients.
 The weasel is “cooked”
“Our dog food contains as much
meat protein as 10 pounds of sirloin
steak.
Alpo dog food

 Targets people who love their dogs

 Doesn’t contain sirloin steak, only as much meat
protein as sirloin steak
 That could be any kind of meat – it’s sure not
sirloin, and may not even come from a cow
 Three out of four doctors
recommend the major ingredient
in Excedrin.
 “Some studies seem to suggest that
eating the major ingredient in our
cereal may have an effect on certain
kinds of cancer.”
“If . . .”
The ultimate weasel word
 Begging the Question
 The question contains a statement that has not
been and is never proven, basically saying that
something is simply because it is.
 Example:
 “Henry Miller’s filthy books should be banned.”
 Contains the unsupported premise that the books
are filthy.
 Dangling Comparative
 There appears to be a
comparison, but
compared to what?
 It relies on the consumer
filling in the blank
 Complaints about advertising
 It perpetuates stereotypes
 Absolutely true
 It has to

 Makes people buy things they don’t need

 Not true
 Advertising can’t make anybody do anything