Advertising: Vocab and Concepts

Question 1

Advertising

Answer 1

Activity explicitly about paying media space/time to direct attention towards goods/services

medium of info, selling, entertainment

Key components:

• States a presence
• Has to persuade
• It pays

Question 2

Consumer Culture

Answer 2

symbols and message people use and consume

how we understand and interpret these meanings

• consumer culture applies obsolescence to all products and so we think of products beyond their material function, as a fashion accessory

Question 3

Planned Obselescence

Answer 3

Giving items a shelf life: Encourage product obsolescence by regularly changing characteristics of products, restyling (wings on cars, colours on fridges, and hemlines on skirts)

“We must accelerate obsolescence” (apparel industry)

Question 4

Fashion

Answer 4

style changes made independent of utility; obsolescence on the basis of style

*the notion that the new by nature is superior to the old even if the older product was still functional

Question 5

Smooth Coating

Answer 5

Coating food in sauces, jellies, juices; it is a disguise, hides the flaws and the nature of the food goods themselves

Question 6

Overpromise

Answer 6

Buying something in the grocery store that you could never recreate in the kitchen

Question 7

Ideology

Answer 7

A set of beliefs underlying customs, habits, and practices common to a given culture, some are marginalized and others hegemonic (dominant and the cultural norm)

• What seems natural, normal, and true may seem ridiculous to one group, but it makes sense to the group involved
• May be forcefully imposed or willingly subscribed to; held consciously or unconsciously

Question 8

Therapeutic Ethic

Answer 8

Nothing will be satisfied; keep buying

• today consumption continues to be a form of therapy = commodities fulfill emotional needs
• societies shifted from protestant work ethic, civic responsibility, and self denial to legitimizing ideas of leisure, spending and individual fulfillment

Question 9

Commodity Self

Answer 9

Self-worth, in part, through the consumption of goods

Buying as a way of giving our lives meaning; subjectivity, sense of self constructed through the use of commodities (depleted of use value and cost of production)

Question 10

Commodity Fetishism

Answer 10

Goods are emptied of the basic meaning surrounding they production (labour, cost, waste) and filled with abstract meaning given through discourses like advertising

Question 11

Strategies vs Tactics

Answer 11

STRATEGIES - Practices by which dominant institutions seek to structure time, location, and actions of their social subjects; structure the lives of their underlings; television schedules to appeal to demographic

TACTICS: practices employed by people who are not people of power (i.e. using a DVR to bypass commercials)

Question 12

Denotation/Conotation

Answer 12

Literal meaning VS social, historical, cultural meaning, relies on context, experience, deeper meaning, brings it into the realm of culture, ideologies

Question 13

Bricolage/Counterbricolage

Answer 13

BRICOLAGE: the practice of working with whatever materials are at hand, “making do” with what one has; refers to the activity of taking consumer products and commodities and making them one’s own by giving them new meaning.

COUNTER BRICOLAGE: The practice used by advertisers and marketers of manufacturing and selling as commodities aspects of bricolage style (i.e. ripped jeans, leggings as pants)

Practice of the marginal, counter - meaning appropriation, to take, repackage and resell those ideas for the mainstream sale of products (Diesel Jeans - gay identity to sell jeans) identity politics as a movement to seem cool

Question 14

Repeat Motif

Answer 14

Gets its meaning from repetition; shape of the bottle and name is consistent, recognizable, prolific, brand rather than a mere product

Question 15

Side-By-Side Approach

Answer 15

Evolution from salesmen to confidantes…
Side by side with the consumer

Anxieties and social pressures made the consumer uneasy, the advertiser intervened with advice on how to triumph over the problem

Don’t size up? Buy the product.

Question 16

Copy

Answer 16

Text of a print, radio, or television advertising message that aims at catching and holding the interest of the prospective buyer, and at persuading him or her to make a purchase all within a few short seconds.

Question 17

Type Tricks

Answer 17

Making font look different - change in style, size, way they were presented on print

Question 18

Slogans

Answer 18

A short and striking or memorable phrase used in advertising.

A motto associated with a political party or movement or other group.

Question 19

Equivalence

Answer 19

create relationship of sameness; between product and its signifier (i.e. woman and the animal, car and luxury)

Question 20

Objective Correlative

Answer 20

create relationship of sameness; between product and its signifier (i.e. woman and the animal, car and luxury)

Question 21

Diffrentiation

Answer 21

Separate it products from the competition in the same category; ads used to define the difference

i.e. 7-up: “the Uncola”

Question 22

Referent Systems

Answer 22

System of signs from which the ad draws it imagery and its idea, draw on links and placement of signs in order to create differentiation

Question 23

Nostalgia

Answer 23

Longing for a prior state, irretrievable, cannot be attained again (use of children, innocence in ads)

Question 24

Intertextuality

Answer 24

One text references another popular text; requires that you will get the reference; other standards in popular culture

i.e. You can’t handle the truth / You can’t handle the tooth

Question 25

Chromolythography

Answer 25

Method for making multi-coloured prints

Question 26

Puffing/Puffery

Answer 26

Lies in advertising

“best hamburger in the world” is a claim that may sound like a lie but cannot be truly disproved/approved

Question 27

Barker

Answer 27

People yelling in the street to advertise

Question 28

Participatory Copy

Answer 28

Ads that ask consumers to participate in a simple way, such as touching their TV screens, searching for a word or simply plugging in their earphones. These ads are simple, yet still clever and engaging, offering the benefits of interactive advertising without requiring a high level of commitment from an already busy consumer.

Question 29

Scare Copy

Answer 29

Plays on anxieties of consumer so they are inclined to buy the product

AKA negative appeal

Question 30

Penny Paper

Answer 30

Cheap, tabloid-style papers produced during the mid 19th century (steam-powered printing)

Famous for costing one cent compared to other papers (~6 cents) and were revolutionary by making news accessible to working and middle class citizens

When paper was really cheap to allow for more advertising

Question 31

Cult of Thinness

Answer 31

Obsession with things that are skinny (from Killing Us Softly)

Question 32

Spot

Answer 32

television advertising occupying a short break during or between programmes.

Question 33

Ether Advertising

Answer 33

When the phone company suggested that time could be sold to private interest and they called this subsidy this term

Question 34

William Benton

Answer 34

1930’s Advertising Agent, William Benton
•	revolutionize the radio commercial
•	create a vivid picture through sound
•	consumer research techniques
•	on-air promotional cue cards
•	the singing commercial, jingles

Question 35

Market Segmentation

Answer 35

Tailored to specialized population

Two major categories: Age (Teenagers and Seniors) and Race (African Americans and Latinos)

Question 36

Rosser Reeves

Answer 36

“The consumer tends to remember just one thing: one small claim or one small concept.”

Emphasize science – background research, information, pseudoscience (sketchy)

Simple repetition of a single theme

Throwback to days where ads grab attention rather than entertain

Did not consider attention span of audience

Buy the product, get the benefit

Claim that the competition could not make

• Unique selling proposition (USP)
• Science was the difference

The “reason why” and “hard sell” – commanding voice, not appealing/entertaining/fluffy, repetitive, intrusive, straight-forward

Question 37

David Ogilvy

Answer 37

Comes from New Yorker magazine (context of ad added to status) - Madison Avenue in 1949

As a maverick in a relatively dull industry
- Classisist – wanted to return to the Golden Age of advertising

Buy product not for the product’s sake but b/c it was associated with a particular image
“Create the right individuality is the supreme accomplishment”
High price and high status products
Elite setting with high status people, luxury car, handsome picture
- Long headline, straight forward, low key copy
- Sense of status and lifestyle through simple headline and resting picture
- A hook to capture people’s attention (create link to other kinds of ads)

i.e. Hathaway man (with the eyepatch)

Question 38

Leo Burnett

Answer 38

Anchored pitch in the product itself
Copyrighter in Chicago

Instead of out of depression hard-sell or using premiums and sex to sell

Using a bit of info, artwork, humour

• Stress on an inherent dream
• Something in the product that could only be found in the product itself
• Though about what keeps the product in the marketplace and keep this thing (an idea, substance, a colour)
• Relied on ability to empathize with a mass audience

i.e. Pillsbury Chocolate Cake (Did you ever?)
and Marlboro Man (cowboy)

Question 39

Bill Bernbach

Answer 39

Shift to new ideas and advertising
- In NYC

Turning second-rate product and lower tier retailers to a real advantage

i.e. Ohrbach’s – “I found out about Joan”
• low-priced second tier dress shop
• humour and something surprising
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s Audrey Hepburn

Question 40

Icons

Answer 40

Well-known figures (Tony the Tiger, Aunt Jemima)

Approach of art historian, colour, details, lighting, setting

Question 41

Testimonials

Answer 41

Using someone’s review of the product to give it credibility/add social drama/realism

Question 42

Reason Why Campaign

Answer 42

Information-based, list of product’s benefits