Advertising and Marketing

1. Advertising and Marketing AS Media Studies

2. Advertising is… • Paid for • A way of promoting products, services or information • A form of communication • A physical commodity • An integral part of pop culture • An important economic force • A part of our urban landscape

3. Forms of Advertising Forms of Advertising • CONSUMER ADVERTISING A mass media tool bought by a manufacturer to persuade consumers to buy a product. • PUBLIC BROADCAST ADVERTISING Used by the government to inform the public about health and welfare issues. • CHARITY ADVERTISING Adverts are designed to get the masses to give money to help those less fortunate. Advertising Formats • MAGAZINES Buy advertising to satisfy their target audience. • BILLBOARDS Seen by everyone and usually as inoffensive as possible. • TV Time of day and place in schedule are important when placing an advert. • LEAFLETS Usually informative and found in most public places. Often arrive through your letterbox or as inserts in magazines/papers.

4. Sophie Dahl ‘Opium’ billboard advertisement (2000)

5. History Timeline • 17th century – advertising begins in newspapers (text only). • 19th century – technological advances mean that colour and illustrations could be added. • WW1 – governments used propaganda. • 1950s – new media, including cinema and TV used prolifically. Postwar affluence meant people had needs advertisers targeted and the disposable income to buy. • 21st century – advertising manifests itself in all known media forms and is constantly seeking new media & new channels of communication. Growth of the internet, mobile phone technology etc.

6. Audience • Targeting the audience is vital in advertising. • Since marketing began, consumers have been placed in groups according to class, gender, age, religion etc. • Over recent years, marketing has moved away from demographic profiling and towards psychographic profiling. • This categorises the consumer in terms of motivation and need. • The advertisers position the audience to make them believe the product is perfect for them.

7. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1954) The need to succeed, to become what you wish to become Self esteem, status, respect and admiration of others The need to belong to a group Job security, friends

8. Adverts for fast cars offer the possibility of being the envy of others Need for attention – beauty products will make you desired

9. Audience • In the 1970s Young and Rubicam (American Advertising Agency) developed the 4 C’s (Cross-cultural consumer Characteristics). • This approach categorised people in terms of their aspirations. • Mainstreamers • Aspirers • Succeeders • Reformers • In 1988 – the Individual

10. Audience The reader recognises the offered meaning in the text and accepts it – Sun readers will accept that there are naked women in the paper and find it inoffensive Dominant/Preferred Reading Dominant reading is recognised but rejected - A reader who rejects the nudity and finds it ideologically offensive. Oppositional Reading Audiences acknowledge the preferred reading, but modify it to suit their own values and opinions – reader accepts some people enjoy nude pictures but can also see how this could offend others. Negotiated Reading

11. Preferred reading? Oppositional reading? Negotiated reading?

12. Brand Identity • A brand offers a set of ready made values attached to a product that we too can adopt on purchase. • Most modern advertising deals with enhancing the image of a brand, rather than promoting the benefits of a particular product. • Audiences are suspicious of the hard sell and prefer to have meanings indirectly associated with a product through branding.

13. Brand Image • A brand is not a product! • A brand is the umbrella term under which many products are marketed. • It can even be a company name – Coca Cola, Nestle, Kellogs Kleenex. • A brand is created when a company has a popular product and then creates many similar products, launching them all under one brand name.

14. Associated with the upscale, urban lifestyle enjoyed by Carrie Bradshaw and the SATC girls Manolo Blahnik Associations of wealth, glamour, success, sexual independence and fashion

15. Brand Products Advantages • Consumers are more likely to try a new product if it’s got a brand name they know and love. • Consumers connect brand names with certain ideologies/lifestyles. • Brand name products have a ‘snob’ appeal – it seems more middleclass than buying a cheaper alternative. • Consumers are assured of quality whereas buying an unknown product has a risk attached. Disadvantages • Branded products are often more expensive due to advertising and packaging costs. • Corporate success may lead to company corruption – Nike has made trainers in Indonesian sweatshops to increase profits. • The ideology behind a brand name is a constructed image and it can hide a less than squeaky clean company.

16. What associations do you have for the following brands?

17. Homework • Collect examples of adverts that can be applied to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. • Select one and write an analysis of it using your advertisement worksheet.

18. Recap • Forms and formats of advertising • Audience demographics and psychographics • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need • Audience – dominant, oppositional and negotiated reading of media texts • Brand identity, image and products

19. Advertising Techniques *Pun *Slapstick *Ambiguity 1) HUMOUR

20. Advertising Techniques *Slogans *Logos *Brand names 2) REPETITION

21. Advertising Techniques 3) SHOCK TACTICS

22. Advertising Techniques 4) SEX

23. Advertising Techniques TIME & SPACE SAVERS *STEREOTYPES *INTERTEXTUALITY *MUSIC *ELITE PERSONS

24. Advertising techniques Problem-solution Left-right reading path Given-new Given: some women spend a lot of time on their looks New: it’s quicker to drink Ocean Spray 24

25. Advertising techniques Problem-solution Top-bottom reading path (also diagonal) Given-new Given: some people go to extremes to find tranquillity New: Glenmorangie is a more down-to-earth way of finding it 25

26. Advertising techniques: direct look Look at reader is a demand Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives) demands that you indulge yourself 26

27. Advertising techniques - indirect look Look away from reader is an offer Low angle point-of-view We look up at the model and wonder would if we would look as sophisticated in Prada eyewear 27

28. Advertising techniques: language Informal or colloquial language: “By ‘eck petal, you smell gorgeous tonight” (Boddington’s) Word/phrase invention: “A newspaper not a snoozepaper” (Mail on Sunday) Repetition: “Drinka Pinta Milk a Day”; “Beanz Meanz Heinz”; “Va va voom” (Renault Clio); “Hello Moto” (Motorola) Paradox: “Let your fingers do the walking” (Yellow Pages) Ambiguity: “Everyone’s a fruit and nut case” (Cadbury) 28

29. Print ad content headline Copy (text) illustrations (photographs, artwork, graphics, product) ‘Lead a muller life.’ slogan (strapline) signature with logo

30. ‘Traditional’ print ad analysis Denotation: ‘hand’ of green leaves offers reader fromage frais Connotation: ‘hand’, wild flowers, countryside connote ‘nature’ Inference: Little Stars is safe for our children; this is confirmed by copy “a helping hand from Mother Nature” Myth: countryside as ‘natural’; masks human labour and technologies (chemical, biological, mechanical) which produce product & countryside 30

31. Key elements Who is the target audience? Representation of gender, age, ethnicity, celebrity...? Textually analyse the mise-en-scene What is the USP? What are the connotations of the product name?

32. Overt and Covert Advertising Product placement • When a film/TV programme contains many visual references to a certain product. • Captive audience • Cheaper than overt advertising or sponsorship • If the programme/film is a success, your advertising gets a wider audience • The product becomes linked to the film/programme and the inherent lifestyle/ideology in the text. • This attracts people to buy into the image through the product.

33. Sponsorship of TV programmes • Introduced in Britain in 1995. • Sponsorship adverts are covert, usually entertaining, never a hard sell and never very informative. • Sponsorship hopes to link the product more directly to the film/programme. • More expensive than product placement but more effective.

34. Plugging Products • In supermarkets, reps plug products by offering you ‘try before you buy’. • Promotional plugging – celebrities use TV chat shows to get free advertising for their latest book/film/record. Freebies • Free products like toys and CD’s are regularly given away in the hope you will love it and buy into the real thing. • MacDonald’s regularly plug Disney films by giving away free toys with their happy meals.

35. Charity Advertising • Much more complex than promoting a product, service or brand. • Often deal with taboo areas of society – circumstances that audiences don’t really want to read about. • Cannot glamorise or deglamourize (excessive use of negative stereotypes) their subjects. • ASA will step in if ads are too shocking or controversial. • They want to create ads that will generate both discussion and donation. • Provocative adverts is one way of getting a charity into the news – where column inches are free.. • NSPCC clip

36. Advertising and the Internet • Until the advent of the internet in the early 1990s, advertising did not have a truly global medium. • The internet provides 24/7 access to promotional material for interested audience. • Has given advertising industry a real boost. • However, a ‘click rate’ of less than 1% on banner ads suggest that the audience are not interested. • On the other hand, most print ads now contain a URL where consumers can find out more about the product. • The internet serves to add to the globalisation of advertising.

37. Regulation and Censorship • Read and make notes on the ASA and regulations in advertising.