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Chapter 11
Advertising
I.
Advertising and Commercial Culture
 Product placement- the advertising practice of strategically placing
products in movies, TV shows, comic books, and video games so the
products appear as part of a story’s set environment
II.
Early Developments in American Advertising
 Advertising has existed since 3000 B.C. when Babylonians started
hanging up door signs for their shops.
 The earliest media ads were in the forms of handbills, posters, and
broadsides (long newsprint-quality posters).
A. The First Advertising Agencies
 Before the 1830’s there was little need for advertising because
everyone basically made their own tools, clothes, and food.
 National advertising started in the 1850’s with patent medicines.
 It started on the railroads with the transportation of national consumer
goods.
 Space brokers- in days before modern advertising, individuals who
purchased space in newspapers and sold it to various merchants.
 In 1841, Volney Palmer opened the first ad agency in Boston; for a
25% commission he worked for newspaper publishers and sold spare
space to advertisers.
B. Advertising in the 1800’s
 In 1875 in Philadelphia, N.W. Ayer was the first so-called modern ad
agency because it worked primarily for the advertisers rather than the
publishers.
 An agency collects a fee from its advertising client for each ad placed;
the fee covers the price that each media outlet charges for placement of
the ad. The agency keeps 15% of the fee for its self and passes the rest
on to the appropriate mass media.
 The more ads an agency places, the larger the agency’s revenue.
i.
Trademarks and Packaging
 In the mid 1800’s company’s began giving their products
distinctions so that people would know and ask for them by
name
 Smith Brothers, which advertised cough drops, was one of the
first brand names
 Quaker Oats was the first cereal company to register a trade
mark, when it used the image of William Penn to project a
company image of honesty, decency, and hard work since
1877.
ii.
Patent Medicines and Department Stores
 By the end of the 1800’s, patent medicines and department
stores took up half of the revenues taken in by ad agencies.
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III.
A.
B.
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Patent medicines were often made with water and 15-40%
concentrations of ethyl alcohol, which made the consumer
feel better but also made them addicted.
 Many products originated from medicines ex. Coca-Cola,
Post and Kellogg cereal
 By the early 1890’s, 20% of ad space was for department
stores.
 Started taking out small shops
Promoting Social Change and Dictating Values
 Persuasive advertising influenced the transition from a producerdirected to a consumer-driven society.
 Advertising promoted technological advances by showing how new
machines could improve daily life.
 Advertising encouraged economic growth by increasing sales.
 Since newspaper and magazine readers were mainly women,
advertisers directed their ads at women, making them simple ads with
emotional content.
 Subliminal advertising- a 1950s term that refers to hidden or disguised
print and visual messages that allegedly register on the unconscious,
creating false needs and seducing people into buying products.
Early Ad Regulation
 The American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA),
established in 1917, tried to minimize government oversight by urging
ad agencies to refrain from making misleading product claims.
The Shape of U.S. Advertising Today
 Slogan- a catchy phrase that attempts to promote or sell a product by
capturing its essence in words
 Slogans were the use of most U.S. ads until the 1950s.
The Influence of Visual Design
 In the 1960s and 70s the use of images in advertising made a big
affect.
 MTV was a leader in this movement of visual advertisements.
The Mega-Agency
 Mega-agencies- large firms or holding companies that are formed by
merging several individual agencies and that maintain worldwide
regional offices; they provide both advertising and public relations
services and operate in-house radio and TV production studios.
 The world’s four largest advertising agencies, Interpublic Group of
Cos., WPP Group, Publicis Groupe, and Omnicom Group, control over
half of the advertising money.
The Boutique Agency
 Boutique agencies- small regional ad agencies that offer personalized
services.
The Structure of Ad Agencies
i.
Market Research and VALS
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iv.
Market research- the department that uses social
science techniques to assess the behaviors and attitudes
of consumers toward particular products before any ads
are created.
In 1932, Young and Rubican first used statistical
techniques.
Demographics- the study of audiences or consumers by
age, gender, occupation, ethnicity, education, and
income.
In the 1960s and 70s, TV greatly increased advertising
revenues
Psychographics- the study of audience or consumer
attitudes, beliefs, interests, and motivations.
Focus group- a common research method in
psychographic analysis in which a moderator leads a
small-group discussion about a product or an issue,
usually with six to twelve people.
In 1978, the Stanford Research Institute put in the
VALS strategy.
Values and Lifestyles(VALS)- strategy that divides
consumers into types and measures psychological
factors, including how consumers think and feel about
products and how they achieve (or do not achieve) the
lifestyles to which they aspire.
Creative Development
 Storyboard- a blueprint or roughly drawn comic-strip
version of a proposed advertisement.
 Super Bowl advertising remains to be the most
expensive—thirty seconds worth of ad costs about $2.5
million in 2006!!!!
Media Selection and Buying Ads
 Media buyers- the individuals who choose and purchase
they types of media that are best suited to carry a
client’s ads and reach the targeted audience.
 Saturation advertising- the strategy of inundating a
variety of print and visual media with ads aimed at
target audiences.
Account and Client Management
 account executives- client liaisons responsible for
bringing in new business and managing the accounts of
established clients.
 account reviews- the process of evaluation or
reinvigorating an ad campaign, which results in either
renewing the contract with the original ad agency or
hiring a new agency.
IX. Persuasive Techniques in Contemporary Advertising
A. Conventional Persuasive Strategies
 Famous-person testimonial- an advertising strategy that associates a
product with the endorsement of a well-known person. This is used the
most frequently
 Plain-folks pitch- an advertising strategy that associates a product with
simplicity and the common person.
 Snob-appeal approach- an advertising strategy that attempts to
convince consumers that using a product will enable them to maintain
or elevate their social station. This is often used when trying to sell
perfume, jewelry, luxury cars.
 Bandwagon effect- an advertising strategy that incorporates
exaggerated claims that everyone is using a particular product, so you
should, too.
 Hidden-fear appeal- an advertising strategy that plays on a sense of
insecurity, trying to persuade consumers that only a specific product
can offer relief. Deodorants, mouthwash, and shampoo ads do this a
lot.
 Irritation advertising- an advertising strategy that tries to create
product-name recognition by being annoying or obnoxious. For
example those stupid “head on, apply directly to the forehead”
commercials.
B. The Association Principle
 Association Principle- a persuasive technique that associates a product
with some cultural value or image that has a positive connotation but may
have little connection to the actual product.
 This technique is used a lot with cars.
 There has been a lot of controversy with this technique when companies
have used it to associate women with the stereotype of being sex objects
or clueless house wives.
C. Advertising as Myth
 Myth analysis- a strategy for critiquing advertising that provides insights
into how ads work on a cultural level; according to this strategy, ads are
narratives with stories to tell and social conflicts to resolve.
 There are three common mythical elements found in many types of ads:
1. Ads incorporate myths in ministory 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 applying or purchasing a product. In advertising,
the product and those who use it often emerge as the heroes
of the story.
X. Commercial Speech and Regulating Advertising
 Commercial Speech- any print or broadcast expression for which a fee is charged
to the organization or individual buying tie or space in the mass media.

Infomercials- thirty-minute late-night and daytime programs that usually feature
fading TV and music celebrities, who advertise a product in a format that looks
like a talk show.
A. Critical Issues in Advertising
 Advertising seems to be all-powerful but at times the consumers out smart
the companies.
 Like when Oldsmobile targeted its campaign toward the younger
generation and in return ended up losing some its older loyal costumers.
 Studies have suggested that between 75 and 90% of new consumer
products typically fail because they are not embraced by the buying
public.
i.
Children and Advertising
 Children are viewed as “consumer trainees”
 TV shows are aired just to sell products, for example G.I. Joe, My
Little Pony, Powerpuff Girls
 Sugar-coated cereals have many parents worried because the ads are so
appealing to children.
ii.
Advertising in Schools
 Channel One has become one of the most controversial developments in
school recently.
 Posters, folders, film strips, are all things that companies give out to
schools in order to promote their products.
iii.
Health and Advertising
 Eating Disorders- showing everything on little skinny models or buff guys
give out a certain stereotype to young people and causes health issues with
eating.
 Tobacco- Tobacco ads disappeared from TV in 1971 due to pressure by
Congress. Joe Camel was used to try to reach children, Eve and Virginia
Slims were trying to reach women consumers, and Uptowns were trying to
reach African Americans. They have some kind of cigarette out there for
every group. This has caused many lawsuits. And has started antitobacco ads such as the Truth Campaign. In 2005, tobacco companies
spent $15.4 billion on U.S. advertisements, more than twenty times the
amount spent on anti-tobacco ads.
 Alcohol- people have accused a lot of alcohol ads, such as the Budweiser
frogs, as being cartoonish and targeting children. Once again there are
alcohol ads for every group of people. A national study released in 2006
said “that young people who see more ads for alcoholic beverages tend to
drink more.”
 Prescription Drugs- ads for prescription drugs have made names like
Nexium, Claritin, Paxil, and Viagra household names. A lot of people
think that people shouldn’t know these unless their doctor prescribes them
because the patient needs them.
B. Watching Over Advertising
 Commercial Alert is a group that watches for big advertisement deals that are
threatening to consumers. They caught the Sony and Major League Baseball
deal over Spider-Man and told people to boycott Sony. The deal ended up
being dropped.
 Commercial Alert is just one of many non-profit watchdog and advocacy
organizations.
C. Product Placement
 Product companies and ad agencies have become adept in recent years at
strategically placing ads in movies, TV shows, comic books, and video games
so they appear as part of a story’s set environment.
D. Advertising’s Threat to Journalism
 Advertisers can threaten journalist with their business if they try to publish
anything that reflects poorly on their company.
E. Advertising and the Internet
 Interstitials- advertisements that pop up in a new screen window as a user
attempts to access a new Web page.
 Spam- a computer term referring to unsolicited e-mail.
F. Alternative Voices
 “The Truth” campaign has become a leader in alternative voices against
advertisements. They are targeting the tobacco companies.
XI. Advertising, Politics, and Democracy
 Political advertising- the use of ad techniques to promote a candidate’s image
and persuade the public to adopt a particular viewpoint.