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16 CHAPTER 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO ADVERTISING
ViewPoint 1.2
Stroking the public good
For many people advertising is about persuading people to buy products and services. However, advertising
can play other roles in society, as demonstrated by the UK Department of Health’s campaign to improve the
nation’s awareness of strokes, and reduce the number of lives lost each year. A stroke is a brain attack
caused by an interruption to the flow of blood, and accounts for 45,000 deaths each year. The cost for
society in terms of hospital care, rehabilitation schemes, carers and drugs is enormous.
By treating stroke victims quickly, within three hours, the outcomes for people can be drastically
improved. However, research showed that the public did not know what the symptoms of a stroke were, and
that victims required the same speed of response as those who experience heart attacks.
To convey the symptoms of a stroke the acronym FAST was developed. This stands for Face, Arms,
Speech and Time. This enabled the symptoms to be seen, recognised and remembered by the target
audience.
Face ⫽ Has their face fallen on one side? Can they smile?
Arms ⫽ Can they raise both arms and keep them there?
Speech ⫽ Is their speech slurred?
Time ⫽ Call 999 if you see any single one of these signs.
The visuals also included a picture of a person with ‘fire in the brain’ to represent the potential damage
in a vivid way and so aid flashbulb memory.
The use of television and print media was critical in order to convey the core message and to provide the
space to convey all of the information.
The results indicate that awareness and understanding of the FAST acronym, symptoms and the need to
act quickly rose significantly not only among the target audience but also among health professionals. The
campaign also affected behaviour. For example, the 999 telephone emergency service received 55% more
stroke-related calls in the first four months of the campaign, compared to the previous year. Analysis indicates that for every £1 spent on the campaign, £3.50 was generated as a value for society in the first year.
Source: Snow (2010); www.stroke.org.uk/; www.nhs.uk/actfast/
Question
To what extent should health-related campaigns provide information or provoke action?
Task
Find an ad campaign designed to support another illness or disease. Make notes about the probable objectives the campaign attempted to achieve.
Exhibit 1.5
A shot of the ActFast campaign
Source: NHS
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DEFINITIONS – WHAT IS ADVERTISING?
17
Definitions – what is advertising?
Our consideration of the significance, scope, and role of advertising within society and business enabled us to highlight some of the ethical and cultural issues that surround, pervade and
attract advertising. However, it seems appropriate that we now attempt to clarify what advertising is and, of course, what it is not.
For many consumers everything they see, hear or log on to that attempts to influence
them to consider products and services constitutes a form of advertising. For them any of
the various promotional methods and techniques such as public relations, sponsorship credits, promotions or direct mail is advertising. This blurred vision of the commercial communication landscape is of no consequence to the public. For those practising marketing or the
communication disciplines these differences are important as there are important, significant differences between the elements that configure the marketing communications mix.
One of these elements, and some might argue the most significant, is advertising.
The Institute of Practitioners of Advertising present a variety of definitions some of which
have their roots in the pre-digital era. The two that follow are not so much definitions but
perspectives held by two of the great advertising men of the 20th century.
Advertising says to people, ‘Here’s what we’ve got. Here’s what it will do for you. Here’s
how to get it’. (Leo Burnett)
I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. (David Ogilvy)
Both assume a utilitarian orientation, that advertising has a functional rather than frivolous
or peripheral role to play in either marketing or society as a whole.
Academics Richards and Curran (2002) found variances in the way advertising was defined
by authors of various textbooks. They also noted that many of the definitions used the same
or similar words. These core words were paid, non-personal, identified sponsor, mass media, and
persuade or influence. This enabled them to propose a definition that encapsulated a general
consensus around the essence of these words. They referred to this as a current definition.
Advertising is a paid, non-personal communication from an identified sponsor, using mass
media to persuade or influence an audience.
This interpretation, however, is debatable. The development of digital technology and the
internet in particular has led to a plethora of new communication techniques and approaches
that raise questions about the validity of some of the words in the current definition. Is ‘paid’
still viable: can some forms of advertising be unpaid? Surely the use of commercial text messaging indicates that advertising can be ‘personal’ and the ‘mass media’ label must therefore
be an invalid restriction.
Using a Delphi research approach, Richards and Curran (2002) sought to develop a more
contemporary definition of advertising. After much discussion and re-evaluation of the issues
and wording, a consensus formed around the following proposed definition:
Advertising is a paid, mediated form of communication from an identifiable source,
designed to persuade the receiver to take some action, now or in the future.
These changes might be subtle but they represent an important and methodical attempt to
review and update the meaning of advertising. The word ‘mediated’ replaces the restrictiveness
of mass media. ‘Source’ replaces identified sponsor, and ‘persuasion’ replaces the duplication
apparent in persuade and influence. Whether this proposed definition has infiltrated the textbooks and dictionaries published since 2002 should be the subject of further research.
However, marketing practitioners and students are encouraged to use the proposed definition
and to ignore the cry of consumers who will no doubt continue to lump promotional activities
under the advertising banner.
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