Advertising and Commercial CultureCHAPTER 11

Ads are Everywhere

Product placement: The purchase of spaces for particular goods to appear in a TV show, movie, or music video

Which ads do you watch for fun? How and when do ads annoy you? Can you think of ways you intentionally avoid advertising?

Early Developments in American Advertising

Early Advertising

Babylonian merchants hung signs outside of their stores Advertising has been discovered in Pompeii By 900 C.E., many European cities had town criers who called out

the news—and directed customers to various stores Handbills and posters existed as early as the 1400s The first newspaper ad in colonial America ran in the Boston

News-Letter in 1704

The First Advertising Agencies

Before the Industrial Revolution, 90 percent of Americans lived in isolated areas and produced most of their own tools, clothes, and food

The limited existing advertising was generally for local merchants National advertising came along with the railroads in the 1850s The first American advertising agencies were space brokers,

individuals who purchased space in newspapers and sold it to various merchants

Advertising in the 1800s

Agencies collected a fee from its advertising client for each ad placed

The fee covered the price that each media outlet charged for placement of the ad, plus a 15 percent commission for the agency

The more ads an agency placed, the larger the agency’s revenue Agencies had little incentive to buy fewer ads on behalf of their

clients Nowadays, many ad agencies work for a flat fee, and some will

agree to be paid on a performance basis

Trademarks and Packaging

Manufacturers came to realize that if their products were distinctive and associated with quality, customers would ask for them by name

Advertising let manufacturers establish a special identity for their products, separate from those of their competitors

Studies suggest that although most ads are not very effective in the short run, over time they create demand by leading consumers to associate particular brands with quality

Patent Medicines and Department Stores

By the end of the 1800s, patent medicines and department stores accounted for half of the revenues taken in by ad agencies

Some patent medicines contained up to 40 percent ethyl alcohol, and some even contained morphine

Many contemporary products—such as Coca Cola—originated as medicines, and it contained traces of cocaine

Post and Kellogg’s cereals claimed to cure stomach problems The Food and Drug Act passed in 1906 regulated these claims Department stores were criticized for undermining local stores,

but they could also put more of their profits into ads

Advertising’s Impact on Newspapers

The companies that were the first to take advantage of the Industrial Revolution were also the first to advertise

Whereas newspapers in the mid 1880s featured 70-75 percent newshole, by the early 1900s, more than half the space in daily papers was devoted to advertising

Promoting Social Change and Dictating Values

Advertising significantly influenced the transition from a producer-directed to a consumer-driven society

Advertising also promoted technological advances by showing how new machines—such as vacuums, washing machines, and cars—could improve daily life

Advertising encouraged economic growth by increasing sales, prompting manufacturers to produce greater quantities, which reduced the cost per unit

Appealing to Female Customers

By the early 1900s, advertisers and ad agencies believed that women, who made up 70-80 percent of newspaper and magazine readers, controlled most household purchasing decisions

However, 99 percent of the copywriters and ad execs at the time were men

Many ads emphasized stereotyped appeals to women, believing that simple ads with emotional and even irrational content worked best

Dealing with Criticism

The industry began to actively deflect criticism that advertising created consumer needs that ordinary citizens never knew they had

After WWII, the Ad Council was created (PSAs)

Early Ad Regulation

Partly to keep tabs on deceptive advertising, advocates in the business community in 1912 created the nonprofit Better Business Bureau, which now has more than 100 offices in the U.S.

At the same time, advertisers wanted a formal service that tracked newspaper readership, guaranteed accurate audience measures, and ensured that papers would not overcharge ad agencies and their clients

As a result, publishers formed the Audit Bureau of Circulations, now known as the Alliance for Audited Media

1914, the government created the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) The industry created the American Association of Advertising Agencies to

minimize government oversight Subliminal advertising: Hidden or disguised print and visual messages,

banned in 1958

The Shape of U.S. Advertising Today

Advertising Today

Until the 1960s, most ads were determined by a slogan, the phrase that attempts to sell a product by capturing its essence in words

Through the influence of European design, TV, and (now) multimedia devices, such as the iPad, visual style became dominant in U.S. ad agencies

The Influence of Visual Design

Part of the visual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s was due to magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair hiring European designers as art directors. Europe had government-sponsored radio with no ads, so they were driven by visuals rather than words

By the 1970s, ad agencies had put together teams of writers and artists, granting equal status to words and images

The quick-edits and musical/visual style of MTV influence advertising

Now, popular songs and music are regularly featured in ads… Ads are now more interactive, often 3D, very visual, but design

has become much simpler

Types of Advertising Agencies

About 14,000 ad agencies currently operate in the U.S. Mega-agencies: Large ad firms that formed by merging several

agencies that maintain regional offices worldwide Boutique agencies: Devote their talents to only a handful of

select clients Both types of agencies suffered declines in 2008 and 2009 due to

the economic decline, but had slowly improved by 2013

Mega-Agencies

Mega-agencies provide a full range of services, from advertising and public relations to operating their own in-house radio and TV production studios

The trend towards mega-agencies has stirred debate among consumer and media watchdog groups

Some consider large agencies a threat to the independence of smaller firms, which are slowly being bought out

The four largest firms control more than half of advertising dollars globally

Boutique Agencies

The visual revolutions in advertising during the 1960s elevated the standing of designers and graphic artists, who became closely identified with the look of particular ads

Offering more personal services, the boutiques prospered, bolstered by innovative ad campaigns and increasing profits from TV accounts

The Structure of Ad Agencies

Ad agencies, regardless of size, generally divide the labor of creating and maintaining advertising campaigns among four departments:

1. Account planning2. Creative development3. Media coordination4. Account management

Account Planning, Market Research, and VALS

The account planner’s role is to develop an effective advertising strategy by combining the views of the client, the creative team, and consumers

Market research: Assesses the behaviors and attitudes of consumers toward particular products long before any ads are created

Demographics: Age, gender, occupation, ethnicity, education, and income

Psychographics: Categorizes consumers according to their attitudes, beliefs, interests, and motivations

VALS (Values and Lifestyles): Researchers measure psychological factors and divide consumers into types (thinkers, achievers, experiencers)

Creative Development

Teams of writers and artists outline the rough sketches for print and online ads, and then develop the words and graphics

They do everything from choosing a narrator’s voice to determining sound effects

Viral marketing: short videos or other content that quickly gains widespread attention as users share it with friends online or by word of mouth

Often the creative side of the business finds itself in conflict with the research side

Both sides acknowledge that they can’t predict which ads and which campaigns will succeed

Media Coordination: Planning and Placing Advertising

Media buyers: People who choose and purchase the types of media that are best suited to carry a client’s ads, reach the target audience, and measure the effectiveness of those ad placements

Saturation advertising: A variety of media are inundated with ads aimed at target audiences

Account and Client Management

Account executives: Responsible for bringing in new business and managing the accounts of established clients

Oversees new ad campaigns in which several agencies bid for the client’s business

Trends in Online Advertising

The earliest form of online advertising was banner ads Different formats have emerged, including video ads,

sponsorships, and rich media like pop ups, pop unders, flash multimedia ads, and interstitials, which popup in new screen windows as a user clicks to a new web page, or spam

Paid search advertising has become the dominant format of web advertising

Online Advertising Challenges Traditional Media

Because internet advertising is the leading growth area, advertising mega-agencies have added digital media agencies and departments to develop and sell ads online

Facebook has made big strides in mobile advertising Google and Facebook account for the most online advertising

Online Marketers Target Individuals

Internet ads offer many advantages to advertisers, compared to traditional media outlets

Perhaps the biggest advantage is that marketers can develop consumer profiles that direct targeted ads to specific web site visitors

They do this by collecting information about each internet user through cookies and online surveys

Agencies can also add online and retail sales data to user profiles to create a database, largely without your knowledge

Online ads are beneficial because they are precisely targeted and easily measured

Advertising Invades Social Media

Social media provide a wealth of data for advertisers to mine Social media are helping advertisers use personal endorsements

to further their own products and marketing messages—basically letting consumers do the work for them

Persuasive Techniques in Contemporary Advertising

Conventional Persuasive Strategies

Famous-person testimonial: A product is endorsed by a well-known person Plain-folks pitch: Associates a product with simplicity Snob-appeal approach: Using a product will maintain or elevate their social

status Bandwagon effect: Everyone is using a particular product Hidden-fear appeal: Plays on consumers’ sense of insecurity Irritation advertising: Creating name recognition by being annoying or obnoxious

The Association Principle

Association principle: A widely used persuasive technique that associates a product with a positive cultural value or image even if it has little connection to the product

Disassociation as an Advertising Strategy

Companies sometimes create second, dummy corporations to link new brands in a product line to eccentric or simple regional places rather than to images conjured up by big cities and multinational conglomerates

Advertising as Myth and Story

Myths help us define people, organizations, and social norms According to myth analysis, most ads are narratives with stories

to tell and social conflicts to resolve. Three common mythical elements are found in many types of ads:

1. Ads incorporate myths in mini-story form, featuring characters, settings, and plots

2. Most stories in ads involve conflicts, pitting one set of characters or social values against another

3. Such conflicts are negotiated or resolved by the end of the ad, usually by purchasing a product. The product or those who use it often emerge as the heroes of the story

Product Placement

Product placement: Strategically placing ads or buying space in movies, TV shows, comic books, video games, blogs, and music videos so that products appear as part of a story’s set environment

Commercial Speech and Regulating Advertising

Commercial Speech and Regulating Advertising

The First Amendment ensures that citizens and journalists can generally say and write what they want, but it says nothing directly about commercial speech—any print or broadcast expression for which a fee is charged to organizations and individuals buying time or space in the mass media

Critical Issues in Advertising

Is advertising manipulating helpless consumers? Does it attack our dignity, and invade the privacy of our minds?

According to this view, the advertising industry was all-powerful Most people are not easily persuaded by advertising Between 75 and 90 percent of new consumer products typically fail

because they are not embraced by the buying public However, advertising has raised the American standard of living and

finances most media industries Critics continue to condemn ads that stereotype or associate products

with sex appeal, youth, and narrow definitions of beauty Some of the most serious concerns involve children, teens, and health

Children and Advertising

Groups have worked to limit advertising aimed at children Some TV shows are developed directly to promote a line of toys

Parents groups have worried about the heavy promotion of products like sugar-coated cereals

Advertising in Schools

Channel One offered free video and satellite equipment (tuned exclusively to Channel One) in exchange for a 12 minute package of current events programming that included two minutes of ads

Public pressure managed to get most junk food ads removed from Channel One by 2006

Organizations like the National Dairy Council have provided posters, folders, or magazines

Health and Advertising—Eating Disorders

Advertising has a powerful impact on the standards of beauty in our culture

A long-standing trend in advertising is the association of certain products with ultra-thin female models

This type of advertising suggests standards of style and beauty that are not only unattainable, but unhealthy. It can lead to an increase in anorexia and bulimia, and an increase in plastic surgery

Advertising has also been blamed for the tripling of obesity rates in the U.S. since the 1980s

Health and Advertising—Tobacco

Cigarette ads on TV have been banned since 1971 Cartoon characters are banned in cigarette ads (no more Joe

Camel) Cigarette advertising campaigns often target a specific group of

people, such as women, African Americans, or young people

Health and Advertising—Alcohol

Like tobacco ads, alcohol ads have been accused of using cartoon characters to appeal to young audiences

College students are often targeted by alcohol advertising

Health and Advertising—Prescription Drugs

TV ads have made household names out of prescription drugs like Nexium, Claritin, Paxil, and Xanax

Nearly 1 in 3 adults have asked a doctor about a prescription drug they saw on TV

The growth of prescription drug advertising brings the potential for false and misleading claims, particularly because a brief TV ad can’t communicate all the relevant cautionary information

Only the U.S. and New Zealand allow advertising for prescription drugs

Watching Over Advertising—Excessive Commercialism

Commercial Alert—a nonprofit, brings attention to the ways that advertising has crept out of its “proper sphere,” such as movies cross-promoting with fast-food restaurants

They also bring attention to corporate partnerships in children’s books, and the placement of products woven into stories aimed at teens

They question the limit of corporate influence on publicly elected government bodies

The FTC Takes on Puffery and Deception

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) enforces truth-in-advertising rules

Commercials must not be deceptive When the FTC discovers deceptive ads, it usually requires

advertisers to change them or remove them from circulation They can also impose fines or require an advertiser to run spots

to correct the deceptive ads

Alternative Voices

The Truth Foundation uses TV and print ads to combat smoking

The Future of Advertising

Although commercialism has generated cultural feedback that is often critical of advertising’s pervasiveness, the growth of the industry has not diminished

Many consumers buy magazines or watch the Super Bowl just for the advertising

Many consumers dismiss advertising as trivial, or a “necessary evil”

As a society, we have developed an uneasy relationship with advertising