AD - Advertising Module Overview

Advertising Module Overview

Introduction

Advertisers use sound, language, and images to persuade audiences to purchase or use their product or service. Sometimes they are clear and direct; other times they are abstract and figurative. Therefore, advertisements have a wide range of meaning and intentions:

  • Call to Action Appeal - This technique tells you what you should do: "Buy today! Vote now!" The call to action is intended to make sure you don't forget the advertisement of the product or service. It highlights what your next step should be. For example an advertisement may have the simple message that you should, "JOIN NOW to shed those extra few pounds before the summer!"
  • Emotional Appeal - These types of advertisements try to appeal to how you are feeling in order to sway you to purchase the product or service. Emotional words or phrases are often included: "Army-Be All That You Can Be!" Images are also used to appeal to your emotional side as well as to connect to the mood of the advertisement: hungry children in third-world countries.
  • Explicit Appeal - This involves short and direct sales messages. Usually it claims what makes a product or service unique or better. Consumers don't have to interpret the message. It removes any opportunity for confusion. Consider an advertisement that has the people wearing expensive jewelry and designer clothes perched on luxury vehicles. Would it make the product or service that was advertised automatically seem to be high-end?
  • Fear Appeal - This is the opposite of the association (or transfer) technique. It uses something disliked or feared by the audience (like stained teeth, body odor, or home security) to promote a solution. Advertisements use fear to sell us products or services that claim to prevent or fix the problem. For example, the image of someone's whitened teeth may have the tagline, "Look at the difference when you use White 2.0!" This appeal often serves as the opposite approach to the association (or transfer) persuasive technique.
  • Humor Appeal - Many advertisements use humor because it grabs our attention. Advertisers hope that we remember the good feelings of the product or service and will therefore select to purchase the product or service in the store. The "Eat More Chicken" advertisements by Chick-fil-A are good examples of this.
  • Snob Appeal - This technique tries to make the product or service seem as if that by purchasing or using it that they are part of an elite group or that it will elevate their status. For example, "Buy Starbucks or nothing! Compromise leaves a really bad aftertaste" could be a tagline illustrating the appeal of their product or service. Remember advertisers are appealing to your desire to improve your social group.
  • Testimonial Appeal - This is an appeal based on the word of someone who has had an actual experience with the product or service. An ad for a weight loss product may use people who have lost weight, supposedly using the product. It doesn't state information regarding how many people didn't lose weight, nor does it state if the weight was lost by them. Jarrod Fogle, the Subway guy, attributed his weight loss to the fact he ate Subway sandwiches every day. His story is an example of testimonial.

Advertising plays an important role in almost all media, including that of the news. The art of persuasion isn't new; Aristotle wrote about persuasive techniques more than 2,000 years ago. Learning the language of persuasion is an important journalistic skill. Once you know how media messages try to persuade you to believe or do something, you'll be better able to make your own decisions in an effort to stay unbiased.

Essential Questions

  1. What factors help determine the target audience for a product or service?
  2. What are the different types of persuasive techniques used in advertising?
  3. Why is it important to analyze an advertisement?
  4. What are the different appeals that advertisers make to consumers?

Key Terms

  1. Association (also known as Transfer) - This persuasion technique tries to link a product, service, or idea with something already liked or desired such as fun, success, wealth, etc. It often uses positive words, images, and ideas that suggest that the product or service is also positive. This technique uses sentimental images or words (especially of families, kids and animals) to stimulate feelings of pleasure, comfort, and delight.
  2. Bandwagon - This technique focuses on the idea of wanting to belong. Advertisers using this technique often show a visual scene with lots of people using the product. This demonstrates that everyone is using that product and that if you aren't, then you may be left behind.
  3. Beautiful people - In using beautiful people and celebrities, the advertising technique suggests that you, too, can look that good, or be that happy if you use the product or service.
  4. Call to Action Appeal - This technique tells you what you should do ''Buy today!  Vote now!'' The call to action is intended to make sure you don't forget the advertisement of the product or service.   It highlights what your next step should be. 
  5. Celebrities - This is the use of celebrities to endorse a product or service. For example, Nike often uses leading athletes to endorse its latest athletic products.
  6. Comparative Adjectives - A comparative adjective is used when comparing two nouns. (The red dress from Macy's is more expensive than the blue one from Target.)
  7. Emotional Appeal - Writers may appeal to fear, anger or joy to sway their readers. They may also add excitement. This technique is strongly connected to the mood of the piece.
  8. Experts - The use of scientists, doctors, professors and other professionals to lend credibility to the product, service, or idea being sold.
  9. Explicit Appeal - This technique involves short and direct sales messages. It has very specific promises about quality, effectiveness, or reliability.
  10. Fear Appeal - This is the opposite of the association (or transfer) technique. It uses something disliked or feared by the audience to promote a solution.
  11. Humor Appeal - Many advertisements use humor because it grabs our attention and leaves us with a good feeling about a product.
  12. Intensity - The language of advertisements is full of intensifiers, including superlatives, comparatives, exaggeration, and many other ways to hype the product.
  13. Plain Folks - This persuasive technique works because we may believe a ''regular person'' more than an intellectual or a highly-paid celebrity.
  14. Purr words - Using words like amazing and incredible make products seem really exciting. They also help to make the product more desirable; however they don't give any particular details about the product.
  15. Repetition - Repeating something (slogan, image, frequency of ad) so that the viewer/reader remembers it.
  16. Snob Appeal - This technique tries to make the product seem as if that by purchasing or using it, the consumer will join an elite group.
  17. Superlative Adjective - A superlative adjective compares three or more nouns. (That brand is the least powerful for getting out stains.)
  18. Target Audience - This is the group or type of people that advertisers want to attract. These people are the consumers who are most likely to use the company's products and services. A target audience can be formed of people of a certain age group, gender, marital status, etc., e.g. teenagers, females, single people, etc.
  19. Testimonials - Advertisers often show people testifying about the value or quality of a product, or endorsing an idea. They can be experts, celebrities, or plain folks.

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