Question Five: 'Advertising doesn't sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel' (Jeremy Bullmore) Evaluate this statement with reference to selected critical theories
Advertising has become a part of our day to day lives whether we realise it or not. ‘Advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience to purchase or take some action upon products, ideas, or services’ implying that without using persuasive and influential advertisement, it would be a lot more challenging for corporations to sell a product to their consumers.
Bullmore’s quote suggests that the consumer is buying into the lifestyle that the product provides and represents instead of the actual purpose of the product itself. Advertisers shape their products to be irresistible to the consumer’s eye through advertisement, which in turn makes them feel that if they didn’t have the product, then their life would not be as for filled as if they did have the product. This is all down to the persuasive techniques that corporations undertake to make their products desirable and irresistible to a passing eye. They set out to use various quantities of media to get their message across to try and attract every target market that is possible. ‘In cities in which we live, all of us see hundreds of publicity images every day of our lives. No other image confronts us so frequently. In no other form of society in history has there been such a concentration of images, such as density of visual messages’. John Berger implies that we are so used to seeing advertisement images every day of our lives that we don’t always see the total impact of them, ‘we are now so accustomed to being addressed by these images that we scarcely notice their impact’. In relation to Bullmore’s statement its implying that advertisement has become such a big part of our daily lives that when we see it, it plays no more part in our day than the normality of seeing these amount of images of wherever we go.
Jeremy Bullmore suggests that advertising isn’t a way of selling a product instead it’s a way of changing consumer’s behaviour and the way they think about the product. Gillian Dyer says ‘We could examine the influence of ads on the individual and look for evidence of the ability of the advertising media to shape and sometimes change a person’s behaviour, opinions and attitudes’. This back’s up Bullmore’s statement by also suggesting that through the use of advertisement, a consumer’s view on a product can be altered. Dyer explains that ‘it encourages people to think in terms of escape from the real world’ suggesting that the product will take them and their minds off of the trouble they may have in reality for a period of time. If a consumer can see this sort of escape through a product when seeing the advertisement for it then this is all that will be playing on their mind until they have the product for themselves. Even if the product doesn’t live up to what the consumer thought it would it doesn’t entirely matter as the job of selling the product has been achieved successfully which just goes to show that the power of persuasive advertising can be very misleading to consumers.
It can be argued that advertisement can sell absolutely anything, even to the extent of making litter and garbage from the streets transform in to a commercially viable product that a consumer would want to have when it’s put into the correct packaging. The perfect example of this comes when looking at a New York based artist named Justin Gignac. He began selling garbage after he was challenged about the importance of package design of a product. ‘To prove them wrong he set out to find something that no one in their right mind would ever buy, and package it to sell. Nine years later, over 1,300 NYC garbage cubes have been sold and now reside in 29 countries around the world’. It started as an experiment in package design but now New York garbage can be found on desks, bookshelves and mantle peaces around the world.
In relation to Jeremy Bullmore’s statement this just goes to show that advertising does change the way in which people think about a product. The consumers have somehow come to the conclusion that a box of garbage is actually worth something all because of the way in which it is sold to them, from it being unwanted litter on the streets has somehow now become worth $100 because it has been placed into a transparent box with the words garbage written on it. It seems that these days advertisement has the power to brainwash us for our money.
Now in some cases this can be agreed with when looking at theories of advertising such as the ELM theory.
The Elaboration Likelihood Model was created by Petty and Cacioppo in 1986. The idea behind the model is that there are two distinct ways in which communication can be persuasive. The two routes are based on the consumer's ability and motivation to process the message being advertised to them. The different routes are called the central route and the peripheral route and these are two very different ways of trying to engage to an audience.
The central route appeals to a consumer that is willing to put time and effort into processing the image or message, for example if a consumer knows in their head a rough idea of a product they desire and then they see some advertisement which is selling what they want then automatically a process starts to occur in their head as they indulge in the image and message very carefully before making a decision. In relation to Bullmore’s quote this theory suggests that when a consumer is slightly unclear minded on what product they want, advertisement of a product can make them stop and think which can change their opinion on it immediately, tipping them towards buying the intended good.
The peripheral route is a route where the consumer does not think carefully about a communication and is ‘instead influenced by temporary superficial cues’ these cues can be anything that relate from an emotional story, catchy music or bright colours but the theory suggests that from an instant sighting of the advertisement the consumer gets tied up with it by relating what is shown to themselves. This type of advertisement technique tries its best to get to a consumers emotion which in turn makes them relate and finally leaving them with the idea that the product is the only thing at that time that could make them happy. If they don’t get a sudden hurry to purchase straight away, the consumer is left to go away with the image burnt into their mind which will play on them until they have bought the product.
Every piece of advertisement is intended to persuade an audience whether it is viewers, readers or listeners to purchase or take some action upon products, ideas, or services. Advertisement suggests that our lives are incomplete without the product that they are selling; Berger says ‘it proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, our lives by buying something more. This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer-even though we will be poorer by having spent our money’. It can be suggested that Bullmore’s quote puts a negative view on advertisement, suggesting that advertisement isn’t there to give you options about products to whether you purchase them or not, instead advertisement is there to try and force you to buy the product. Even though you’re not literally being forced into it, the pressure is always there around you whether you like it or not, tempting the inevitable fate that you will sooner or later come to a purchase based purely to the advertisement.
References
BERGER, J. 1972. Ways of Seeing. Pg. 123
Dyer, G. 1982. Advertising As Communication
The definition of Advertising:
A reference to Justin Gignacs’s garbage:
A reference to Justin Gignac’s garbage image:
An article on how advertising appeals:
http://www.eurojournals.com/ejss_7_1_11.pdf
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