Some products are advertised as having a remarkable and
immediate effect. We are shown the situation before using the product and this
is contrasted with the situation that follows its use. Taking a tablet for a
headache in such advertisements can have truly remarkable results. For not only
has the headache gone, but the person concerned has often had a new hair-do,
acquired a new set of clothes and sometimes even moved into a more modern,
better, furnished house.
One thing reminds us of another – especially if we often see
them together. These reminders are sometimes more imaginary than real: for some
people snow may suggest Christmas, for others silver candlesticks may suggest
wealth. The advertiser encourages us to associate his product with those things
he thinks we really want – a good job, nice clothes, a sports car, a beautiful
girl friend – and, perhaps most of all, a feeling of importance. The ‘image’ of
a product is based on these associations and the advertiser often creates a ‘good
image’ by showing us someone who uses his product and who leads the kind of
life we should like to lead.
Advertisements often encourage us to believe that because
someone has been successful in one field, he should be regarded as an authority
in other fields. The advertiser knows that there are certain people we admire
because they are famous sportsmen, actors or singers and he believes that if we
discover that a certain well-known personality uses his product, we will want
to use it too. This is why so many advertisements feature famous people.
Maybe we can’t always believe what we’re told, but surely we
must accept what we’re actually shown. The trouble is that when we look at the
photograph we don’t know how the photograph was taken or even what was actually
photographed. Is that delicious-looking whipped cream really cream or plastic
froth? Are the colours in fact so glowing or has a special filter been used?
Is it often difficult to tell but you can sometimes spot the
photographic tricks if you look carefully enough.
If you keep talking about something for long enough,
eventually people will pay attention to you. Many advertisements are based on
this principle.
If we hear the name of a product many times a day, we are
much more likely to find that this is the name that comes into our head when
the shopkeeper askes ‘What brand?’ We usually like to choose things for
ourselves but if the advertiser plants a name in our heads in this way he has
helped to make the choice for us.
In this age of moon flights, hear transplants and wonder drugs,
we are all impressed by science. If an advertiser links his claim with a
scientific fact, there’s even a chance we can be blinded by science. The question
is simply whether the impressive air of the new discovery or the ‘man-made
miracle’ is being used to help or just to hoodwink us.
Advertisers may try to make us want a product by suggesting
that most people or the ‘best’ people, already use it and that we will no doubt
want to follow them. No one likes to be inferior to others and these advertisements
suggest that you will be unless you buy the product.
The manufacturer needs a name for his product and of course
he looks for a name that will do more than just identify or label; he wants a
name that brings suitable associations as well – the ideas that the word brings
to mind will help sell the product.
Most advertisements contain certain words (sometimes but not
always in bold or large letters or beginning with a capital letter) that are
intended to be persuasive while at the same time appearing to be informative in
describing a product, copy-writers insert words that will conjure up certain
feelings, associations and attitudes. Some words – ‘golden’, for example, seem
to have been so successful in selling that advertisers use them almost as if
they were magic keys to increase sales.
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