Advertising: Vocab and Concepts Flashcards
Be able to identify/define and give an example of each.
Advertising
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
Consumer Culture
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
Planned Obselescence
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)
Fashion
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
Smooth Coating
Coating food in sauces, jellies, juices; it is a disguise, hides the flaws and the nature of the food goods themselves
Overpromise
Buying something in the grocery store that you could never recreate in the kitchen
Ideology
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
Therapeutic Ethic
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
Commodity Self
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)
Commodity Fetishism
Goods are emptied of the basic meaning surrounding they production (labour, cost, waste) and filled with abstract meaning given through discourses like advertising
Strategies vs Tactics
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)
Denotation/Conotation
Literal meaning VS social, historical, cultural meaning, relies on context, experience, deeper meaning, brings it into the realm of culture, ideologies
Bricolage/Counterbricolage
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
Repeat Motif
Gets its meaning from repetition; shape of the bottle and name is consistent, recognizable, prolific, brand rather than a mere product
Side-By-Side Approach
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.
Copy
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.
Type Tricks
Making font look different - change in style, size, way they were presented on print
Slogans
A short and striking or memorable phrase used in advertising.
A motto associated with a political party or movement or other group.
Equivalence
create relationship of sameness; between product and its signifier (i.e. woman and the animal, car and luxury)
Objective Correlative
create relationship of sameness; between product and its signifier (i.e. woman and the animal, car and luxury)
Diffrentiation
Separate it products from the competition in the same category; ads used to define the difference
i.e. 7-up: “the Uncola”
Referent Systems
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
Nostalgia
Longing for a prior state, irretrievable, cannot be attained again (use of children, innocence in ads)
Intertextuality
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
Chromolythography
Method for making multi-coloured prints
Puffing/Puffery
Lies in advertising
“best hamburger in the world” is a claim that may sound like a lie but cannot be truly disproved/approved
Barker
People yelling in the street to advertise
Participatory Copy
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.
Scare Copy
Plays on anxieties of consumer so they are inclined to buy the product
AKA negative appeal
Penny Paper
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
Cult of Thinness
Obsession with things that are skinny (from Killing Us Softly)
Spot
television advertising occupying a short break during or between programmes.
Ether Advertising
When the phone company suggested that time could be sold to private interest and they called this subsidy this term
William Benton
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
Market Segmentation
Tailored to specialized population
Two major categories: Age (Teenagers and Seniors) and Race (African Americans and Latinos)
Rosser Reeves
“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
David Ogilvy
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)
Leo Burnett
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)
Bill Bernbach
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
Icons
Well-known figures (Tony the Tiger, Aunt Jemima)
Approach of art historian, colour, details, lighting, setting
Testimonials
Using someone’s review of the product to give it credibility/add social drama/realism
Reason Why Campaign
Information-based, list of product’s benefits
