Ch06 Studying Advertising

Module Studying Advertising Objectives In studying this module you should learn to - recognize the need to frame advertising analysis within the larger context of understanding advertising within a consumer culture - formulate a rationale for helping students learn to critically analyze ads - apply and know how to teach semiotic rhetorical critical discourse analysis and feminist methods to ads - define ways in which ads can function as propaganda or is used in politics - analyze uses of advertising on the Web or school contexts - create your own ads including the uses of parody or spoofs of ads - develop teaching methods for teaching critical analysis of ads A Broader Definition of Advertising Instruction In studying advertising students are focusing on more than simply studying television or magazine ads They are also studying all aspects of marketing merchandizing promotion sponsorship and branding associated with being members of a consumer culture in which all aspects of experience are commoditized Moreover they are examining larger issues of consumption associated with environmental impact as well as construction of values and identities in a consumer society the subject of Sut Jhally s Advertising and the End of the World for a video clip http mediaed org videos CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia Advertising EndOfWorld Jhally argues that we need to understanding the role advertising plays in creating the needs for consumer goods in a capitalistic consumer culture The problem with this reliance on consumption is that creating and using consumer goods continues to not only use up the natural resources of oil water wood iron ore natural gas coal minerals and the land but to also create pollution through their use For example advertising creates the need to own a car to the point that everyone believes that they need to have car The more cars that are built and sold the more resources are used to build the cars and the more cars are crowding highways and polluting the air particularly those which are not energy-efficient Given the growing number of countries who are becoming more consumption economies and as the population of the countries grows natural resources will be depleted or will become more scarce as well as enhancing global warming and ecological devastation Media Awareness Network Wasting Away Natural Resources and the Environment http www media-awareness ca english resources educational handouts ethics wasting away cfm Media Awareness Network The Resource Racket A Global Perspective on Resources and Consumption http www media-awareness ca english resources educational lessons secondary ethics resource racket cfm Webquest Renewable Energy Resources http mywebpages comcast net intechgration port rer htm Center for Science in the Public Interest Living in a Material World -- Lessons on Commercialism Consumption and Environment Curriculum materials on consumerism and advertising Lincoln NE Center for Media Literacy http gpn unl edu cml cml product asp catalog Fname GPN product Fid Advertising in a consumer culture Understanding advertising therefore requires an understanding of the larger consumer culture In that culture consumption is more than simply a matter of purchasing goods In the past the economy was built on simply exchange of goods in which the focus was on production and distribution of goods between individuals based on basic needs for food housing and health Advertising during the th and early th century focused primary on providing information as to how a product served these basic needs An ad for Arm Hammer Baking SodaTM simply described the functional uses for baking soda After World War II with the rise of a consumer economy in which products or goods are consumed for more than just meeting basic needs the focus shifted to consumption as active work involved in defining one s identity and social relationships consumption that influences global economies and markets Miller Thus during the past century advertising moved from simply providing information about a product to associating uses of that product with social status and identity as well as the promotion of brand images Stuart Ewen argues that contemporary consumer culture emphasizes the importance of one s social image how one appears to others as related to a perceived lifestyle Advertisers market these images through associating the use of certain products with establishing a certain image as hip cool sophisticated or classy These images of coolness are associated with models impersonal withdrawn look of not being emotionally expressive Wearing the right kind of clothes or owning certain in products serves to mark oneself as having allegiances to certain social status groups Consider the work you do in presenting yourself through the objects you include in your home for display to others your clothes media choices car s or hobbies as well as ways of differentiating your own choices from those of others in the home Miller To guide and socialize you in making these choices businesses now spend billions of dollars to equate certain lifestyles or identities with certain brand images or signs of for example being upper-middle-class with owning a CadillacTM or wearing Christian DiorTM clothes The meaning of being a certain kind of person is therefore equated with a meaning system of signs and images constructed by the advertising industry Given this early socialization into consumerism it is important that students learn to not only criticize the messages being conveyed by ads but also understand the larger marketing agendas behind advertising in the culture As Jhally points out in Advertising and the End of the World it is only when people recognize the larger problem of living in a world dependent on consumption that they will begin to change their attitudes towards the negative impact of consumption on the environment which he argues will reach a crisis point in when raw materials and water have been depleted and climate change will render much of the planet unlivable While it may be considered as too late to change adolescents perceptions of ads it is during adolescents that they begin to acquire the capacity for critical thinking and analysis of larger institutional forces It is therefore important to foster a critical stance during that time period particularly one that examines advertising in the context of larger cultural values History of advertising links The Advertising Century http www adage com century Harper s Weekly th Century Advertising http advertising about com gi dynamic offsite htm site http A F Fadvertising harpweek com F The Ad Access Project advertisements printed in U S and Canadian newspapers and magazines between and http scriptorium lib duke edu adaccess National Museum of American History advertising archives http www americanhistory si edu archives d- htm The Eisner Museum of Advertising Design http www eisnermuseum org home shtm Archives top ad campaigns http www emediaplan com admunch Archives Archives asp For examples of early ads http www admuseum org ads resources http www mediahistory umn edu advert html Video Sell Spin The History of Advertising A E Home Video Video Talk Box Advertising The Art of Persuasion Center for Media Literacy http gpn unl edu cml cml product asp catalog Fname GPN product Fid Video - HBO Buy Me That Complete Set The Kid's Survival Guide to TV Advertising Center for Media Literacy part video series http gpn unl edu cml cml product asp catalog Fname GPN product Fid Anderson N Pungente J Between the lines Interactive projects for multimedia production Lincoln NE Center for Media Literacy an online learning package that engages students in production of their own ads as well as analysis and production of film techniques http gpn unl edu cml cml product asp catalog Fname GPN product Fid For further reading on the history of advertising and it s influence on American culture Berger A A Ads fads and consumer culture New York Rowan Littlefield Berger W Advertising today London Phaidon Fowles J Advertising and popular culture Thousand Oaks CA Sage Fox S The mirror makers A history of American advertising and its creators Urbana IL University of Illinois Press Hine T I want that How we all became shoppers Lincoln NE Center for Media Literacy Leiss W Kline S Jhally S Social communication in advertising persons products and images of well-being New York Routledge Mierau C Accept no substitutes The history of American advertising New York Lerner Nava M Richards B Macrury I Eds Buy this book Studies in advertising and consumption New York Routledge Samuel L Brought to you by Postwar TV advertising and the American dream Lincoln NE Center for Media Literacy Savan L Sponsored life Ads TV and American culture Lincoln NE Center for Media Literacy Schmitt B Simonson A Marketing aesthetics The strategic management of brands identity and image New York Free Press Twitchell J B Adcult USA The triumph of advertising in American culture New York Oxford University Press Twitchell J B Twenty ads that shook the world The century's most groundbreaking advertising and how it changed us all Pittsburgh PA Three Rivers Press Twitchell J B Living it up America's love affair with luxury New York Simon Schuster Advertising is therefore endemic to our consumer culture It is - Ubiquitous it is now found in not only media texts but also in all contexts of life in sports arenas bowl games web sites schools restaurant bathrooms clothing highways etc Consumption of goods has now become a global activity influencing cultures around the world even in poor countries Adolescents throughout the world have become increasingly conscious of brand names and consumer pastimes - Anonymous in contrast to books or songs you never know who created the ad or wrote the jingles so there s no sense of accountability to what someone it promoting or no way to challenge the producer of ads - Symbiotic in that it s meanings are symbolic of or tied to larger agendas social organizations or campaigns For example Ronald Reagan political campaign ads employed the Bruce Sprinsteen song Born in the USA while Ford ads employed Born to be Wild - Intertextual in that ads are continually making references to other texts in the consumer media world or in the culture For example the Coke SuperBowl ad with Britney Spears made references to previous Coke images from the soda fountain era of s - Repetitive ads repeat their messages endlessly the same ads may also appear many times during an ad campaign often in the same genre form for example the Energizer Bunny ads employ the same parody spoof genre form Advertising Drives Content Another important aspect of advertising is that is drives the content of commercial television radio and magazines The content itself is simply filler designed to sell the ads which in commercial media texts are simply made to make money The programming content is often designed simply to attract certain types of viewers who will also be exposed to ads geared for a certain demographic Much of the content of prime time television is geared for the year old market who presumably are engaged in purchasing of the products advertised However Gloria Goodale and M S Mason in their articles in The Christian Science Monitor Youth powers TV but is that smart business http www csmonitor com p s -altv html challenge this orientation of marketing for the - year old market A growing number of experts are suggesting that the get 'em while they're young premise is an outdated assumption about both the young and the old First women not men control percent of all personal and household spending according to recent research And the over- crowd in general has more disposable income than younger people Really older people look around for things to spend it on says Susan Easton an Indiana University professor who has written extensively in the field of demographics Next brand loyalty is not something that lasts a lifetime Indeed women ages to are more likely to abandon a favorite brand than are younger women according to a study by Information Resources In baby boomers then moving into their s tried just as many brands of soda beer and candy bars as did - to -year-olds discovered A C Nielsen which tracks TV viewers' purchases just as its Nielsen cousin tracks viewing habits Ms Easton goes so far as to characterize the whole rationale for catering to young adults as a myth It's an idea inside the heads of advertisers she says Much of this points to the fact that advertisers and content producers create demographic categories that are largely fictional Ang The - -year-old male is a fictional creation yet that concept shapes much of not only advertising for beer cars sports promotion computer games etc but also the content that will attract these advertisers sports wrestling MTV etc And the style of advertising itself shapes the style of content Critics such as Mark Miller argue that Hollywood films have actually become more like commercials in their use of high-speed editing and flashy shots given the assumption that audiences will not pay attention to slow-moving traditional cinematography And magazine and newspaper contain more short catchy articles that are often difficult to distinguish from the ads Why Study Ads One primary goal of having students critically examine ads to counteract years of socialization of themselves as consumers a process that begins at a very young age In an article distributed by Reuters Maureen Bavdek Marketing to Children Causes Great Divide http story news yahoo com news tmpl story cid ncid e u nm bs nm media marketing children dc notes that the following - Critics of advertising aimed at children say that Madison Avenue should stop exploiting youngsters by turning them into little insatiable consumers But marketing executives in the billion-a-year industry who dream up the campaigns and slogans meant to capture the attention of children argue that they are simply informing the consumer and follow all the rules in doing so - Experts say the average U S child is bombarded with some commercials a year on television alone Corporations are now using more sophisticated marketing techniques to grab a child's attention and hold it often for years In an article on the impact of advertising on children Miriam H Zoll or American News Service http www mediachannel org originals kidsell shtml notes that children regardless of their background share a strong desire for material goods In my practice I see kids becoming incredibly consumerist said Kanner who is based at the Wright Institute a graduate psychology school in Berkeley Calif The most stark example is when I ask them what they want to do when they grow up They all say they want to make money When they talk about their friends they talk about the clothes they wear the designer labels they wear not the person's human qualities I see parents in this context too Kanner continued They come to me and say their kids are depressed and ask for violent video games or the food they see on TV Parents say they feel in conflict They want to say no but they don't want to have their child be upset with them It's not just the pervasiveness of marketing campaigns aimed at children Kanner said Nowadays advertisers are making their pitches to younger and younger audiences many of them not yet out of diapers Do ads directed at toddlers work According to Kanner they do Recent studies have also shown that by the time they are months old American children recognize an average of brand logos he said More stringent measures have been taken in other parts of the world The governments of Sweden and Norway prohibit television advertising directly targeting children under the age of Greece bans TV stations from advertising toys to children between the hours of a m and p m Quebec restricts all television advertising directed at children under the age of Many of children s television shows contain numerous ads pitching fast food toys dolls and sports items Based on research that indicated that children under age eight are not capable of critically responding to advertising and therefore tend to accept their messages the American Psychological Association recommended that restrictions be placed on advertising geared for children particularly in terms of fast-food marketing http www apa org releases childrenads html The London Telegraph reported that British children view commercials a year There are junk-food television commercials each day While it is difficult to prove a cause and effect relationship between advertising and obesity the obesity rate in children has increased by per cent from to and affects one in six-year-olds Leonard T Children bombarded with junk food adverts http www telegraph co uk news main jhtml xml news njunk xml sSheet news ixnewstop html Given the assumption that advertising may be harmful to their health the Australian government does not allow advertising in preschool program limits advertising to five minutes for every thirty minutes of children s television and places restrictions on the content of that advertising http www aba gov au tv content childtv advertising htm Lesson The Consumer Economy http www michigan gov scope - - - -- html Media Awareness Network guides Advertising and consumption http www media-awareness ca english special initiatives girl guides guides advertising guides advertising cfm Advertising and consumption http www glbtq com arts ad consume html Children and advertising http www mediafamily org facts facts childadv shtml For further reading on children and advertising Fox R R Harvesting minds How TV commercials control kids New York Praeger Macklin M Carlson L Eds Advertising to children Concepts and controversies Thousand Oaks CA Sage Unnikrishnan N Bajpai S The impact of television advertising on children Thousand Oaks CA Sage For a textbook workbook with seven units and activities for grades - Paxson P Media literacy Thinking critically about advertising Lincoln NE Center for Media Literacy For a book for children ages eight and up Graydon S Made you look How advertising works and why you should know New York Annick Press http www made-you-look ca activities htm Application of Semiotic Analysis to Ads Contemporary advertising depends primarily on assumed meanings of images and signs Semiotic analysis focuses on the meaning of these images or signs in advertising based on a code system of consumption Robert Goldman notes that Modern advertising thus teaches us to consume not the product but its sign What the product stands for is more important than what it is A commodity-sign is complete when we take the sign for what it signifies For example diamonds may be marketed by likening of them to eternal love creating a symbolism where the mineral means something not in its own terms as a rock but in human terms as a sign Williamson The diamond is on longer a means of securing eternal love it has become eternal love Conversely eternal love assumes diamond-like qualities p Advertising therefore constructs the meaning of sign values associating with constructing identities Goldman cites the example of perfumes Purchasing the right perfume means that a woman will not only acquire a particular odor at a particular price but a gorgeous sexy young fragrance A customer will in consuming the product acquire the qualities of being gorgeous sexy and young No she acquires a sign of being gorgeous sexy young It is the look we have come to desire and the look we desire is the object of desire People thus become a kind of tabula rasa a slate filled with desired attributes by the objects they consumer the object becomes an active agent capable of going all the things that a gorgeous sexy and young person can do p For a semiotic analysis of magazine ads for men s fragrances by Alexander Clare http www aber ac uk media Students awc html PBS Food Advertising Tricks http pbskids org dontbuyit advertisingtricks foodadtricks html This suggests the need to analyze how brands acquire certain meanings how Cadillac or Christian Dior acquire meanings associated with those brands through advertising and marketing Describe the meanings you associate with the following popular brand names and how your acquired these meanings - Haagen-Dazs - Coke - Apple Computer - McDonald s - Saturn - Rolex - Johnny Walker - FedEx - Campbell s Greg Myers identifies four systems or p s of marketing that serve to constitute the meanings associated with these brands product placement promotion and price Product The nature of the product as well as the packaging and presentation of the product for example ads may describe the unique ways in which a beer is brewed Placement How products are placed and displayed in a store in order to make certain brand names prominent in a store Promotion How brands are promoted through various advertising techniques Price How brands are promoted in terms of being a good value or in terms of customers willingness to pay a premium price Myers also describes four more p s associated with the promotion of brands past position practices and paradigms Past Brand names are associated with a certain tradition or heritage in terms of meanings based on how advertisers create a record over time Position Advertisements attempt to place brands in competitive relationships with other brands to mark those brands as superior or unique the fact that Hertz is or Avis tries harder in the number two spot Practices Customers actual uses of products practices associated with the meaning of brands the fact that Starbucks coffee is associated with a yuppie practice of consuming coffee and or meeting with others at a coffee shop As Myers notes practices may change for example how Levi s jeans shifted from being work clothes to more fashionable social markers Paradigms Larger cultural frameworks or discourses shaping the meanings of brands for example how the meaning of smoking in the s compares with contemporary meanings given shifts in larger paradigms related to perceptions of smoking Go back and review the meanings associated with the brand names listed above in terms of Myers s eight p s What advertising images do you associate with your meanings of the different brands What intertextual experiences or code systems are you applying to construct the meanings of these brands The meanings of these brand names are constituted by larger public relations campaigns involved in creating positive images for products companies industries or organizations This includes creating logos that are readily identifiable and that evoke a positive image If a logo is perceived to evoke an outdated out-of-touch image that logo will then be revised For examples of logos see http www mckarney com pages Logos jpg htm Which of these logos is effective and which are not Have students create their own logos using the following features http www nhb org howto h logo html A good logo often has one or more of the following attributes - Simplicity - Appealing colors - Legibility - A relevant graphic The big question is how does one judge whether these attributes are present since each is very subjective If you have an opportunity test your logo by allowing customers or potential customers to see it But the truth is in the final analysis the logo must please you Look at the National Honey Board s logo for an example Take a look at the National Honey Board s logo Judge it according to the attributes mentioned above The logo is simple It has the word Honey and a bear eating from a honey jar The logo is legible Even though Honey is in a script style one can easily read it The colors are appealing Though it s not visible here the logo is often shown in black and white with a striking gold highlight The logo features a relevant graphic The illustration of a bear eating honey implies the wide appeal of honey the product s old-fashioned innocence and its natural purity However in some cases there are problems with the argument that brand names carry a lot of power Wolfgang Grassl argues that this concept of brand idealism http ontology buffalo edu brands html fails to consider the differences between brands and products when they are often quite different For example consumers of products such as break or milk may not consider brand names in making such choices Or in some cases imitation products without the same brand name for example Rolex watches without the Rolex name may retain their same value And certain products cannot always be successfully sold through marketing their brand name In her book on branding No Logo Naomi Klein argues that branding is part of a larger multi-international corporate attempt to assume power and control within the context of economic globalization She is critical of the emphasis on public relations campaigns designed to sell positive images for companies who are either selling undesirable products or who are violating worker rights or anti-pollution laws http nologo org index pl section classroom Education Media Foundation video with Naomi Klein No Logo Brands Globalization Resistance http www mediaed org videos CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia NoLogo Part of this branding process marketing people attempt to determine how adolescents construct their identities through wearing or using products based on these products coolness or brand names Both the PBS Frontline documentary Merchants of Cool entire documentary online http www pbs org wgbh pages frontline shows cool etc synopsis html and Alissa Quart document the ways in which marketers hire consulting firms and trend-spotters to acquire information about adolescents perceptions of what particular brands fashions music and other products are perceived of as trendy or cool See also Module on media ethnography They also encourage adolescents to engage in word-of-mouth promotions of certain products with their peers http www workopolis com servlet Content fasttrack FCNERD section Marketing Use of color in ads http www tc umn edu rand adweb adhome html For further reading on the semiotics of advertising Forceville C Pictorial metaphor in advertising New York Routledge Williamson J Decoding advertisements Ideology and meaning in advertising London Marion Boyars Rhetorical Audience Analysis of Ads Traditional rhetoric focused on strategies for persuading an audience to do or believe something Traditional rhetoric can be applied to an analysis of direct hard-sell ads in which a speaker is expounding reasons to use and buy a certain product ads that were typical of early advertising even up to the s and s Such analysis would focus on the use of evidence supporting the product the believability and status of the speaker the validity of reasons provided and various techniques employed citing scientific evidence or use of celebrity endorsements Early ads therefore focused on the product itself often with an image of the product in the ad along with reasons for use of these products If you trace the evolution of ads in the following Timeline of ads from the s to the s from the American Advertising Museum http www admuseum org museum timeline timeline htm note the shift in the focus of the primary topic of the ads from the product itself with a lot of information about the product to an increasing use of images and audience use of the product Advertising has always played a role in American commerce and industrial growth As early as The Boston News Letter carried such paid announcements as one seeking a buyer for an Oyster bay Long Island estate Advertising writers of the mid- s developed an excessive flamboyant style characterized by the showmanship of PT Barnum's circus promotions Coca-Cola was first registered as a trademark by Atlanta pharmacist Asa Briggs Chandler in The distinctive script name was advertised on souvenir fans serving trays calendars and countless other specialty items eventually becoming the most recognized trademark in the world To support recruiting efforts and promote sales of war bonds and stamps during World War thousands of advertisers featured war themes in their campaigns while media contributed space By the contributions totaled billion Celebrity endorsements were a popular tool used by cigarette advertisers to add glamor to their brand during the Golden Age of Hollywood Even advertising couldn't sell a car the public didn't want When Ford promoted the Edsel with photo-lengthened pictures to make it look more glamorous In reality it looked simply ordinary and became the butt of many jokes George petty styled his curvaceous Petty Girl after the red-suited Jantzen Diving Girl one of the world's best-known trademarks since its beginnings in the s His rendition became one of the most popular pin-ups of World War II Volvo automobile advertising put a humorous spin on America's growing obsession with dieting in this ad produced in In Apple began one of the decade's most aggressive advertising campaigns Its objective was to take some of the mystery out of personal computers Nike pictured sports figures wearing its shoes in giant size during the Los Angeles Summer Olympics - a fitting symbol of America's growing presence in the international market Focus on audience identification with groups or causes As you may note in the above evolution of ads there is an increasing emphasis on uses of the product by the audience itself the Volvo owner the Apple user and the Nike sports star More recently ads have shifted away from direct hard-sell appeals to focus on gaining audience identification with a social group or cause In this more indirect soft-sell approach by gaining identification with a certain group or cause the ad producer can then link or equate involvement with this group or cause with use of the product For example in the following series of magazine ads for an Accura SUV the primary focus is on the images of the SUV associated with uses of the SUV for surfing on the beach This ad creates an appeal to a certain audience group involved in outdoor activities for example surfing hunting fishing etc The image of the surfer is equated with owning an SUV the product is then assumed to be a necessary part of the surfing hunting or fishing process Similarly the Joy of Pepsi ad campaigns http www pepsi com current joy of pepsi tv spots index cfm portrays the Pepsi Generation in an idealized manner as a group who is equated with celebrities Britney Spears Jeff Gordan Shakira Ken Griffrey Jr and Sammy Sosa images of status or fame that are they equated with being a member of the Pepsi Generation which in turn is equated with drinking Pepsi Again understanding the meaning of these intertextual equations requires an understanding of the larger discourses and cultural models operating in a consumer culture in which these celebrities assume star status The producers of the Pepsi ads assume that their audiences are familiar with these celebrities and that they will equate positive associations between these celebrities group membership and the product All of this requires the ability to conduct analyses of the various discourses constituting the meaning of the audience text relationships Underlying these audience appeal are certain values assumptions For example the reasoning behind the SUV ad is that if you have an SUV you are going to be able to better access sites for surfing Students could identify certain value assumptions lurking behind ads and then interrogate those assumptions by asking such questions as couldn t one get to the beach on foot or by another type of transportation All of this suggests the need to examine these questions - Who s the intended or target audience - What signs markers images language social practices imply that audience - How is the audience linked to use of the product - What are the underlying value assumptions Having white teeth enhances your popularity casino gambling is enjoyable Dream-like fantasy world Another basic element of advertising is the way in which it creates a dream-like fantasy world that appeals primarily to audiences emotional desires for popularity status power or sex appeal Audiences identify with idealized people who have attained popularity status power or sex appeal through their use of certain products These products are also associated with an instant magical transformation of the self By using a certain shampoo one becomes beautiful By taking certain pills one s headache is cured immediately By going on a certain diet one loses weight in days By owning a certain car one immediately becomes the center of attention These magic transformations reflect the dream-like fantasy world that waxes over the complexities of life The element of magic is also evident in the uses of mythic heroes or savior such as the Man From Glad or the White Knight who instantly transforms a dirty kitchen into a clean one Mythic references are also evident in references to Atlas tires Hermes FTD flowers or the Ajax white knight In his classic study of portrayals of women in advertising Irving Goffman described the way in which ads portrayed women as child-like dependent on males often positioned in unnatural pose and mindless images associated with what he described as the ritualization of subordination p He cites the example of female models who frequently adopt a dazed look with seemingly little on their mind as in the following pantyhose ad Ads also position audience to adopt gazes that define females or males as the objects of desire as things to be desired http www aber ac uk media Documents gaze gaze html http www uvm edu tstreete powerpose Given these highly emotional appeals it is important for students to define how ads employ various emotional appeals and images to construct a dream-like fantasy world While much of the appeal may be working on a subconscious level students could consciously employ a image-sound skim method to list the images and sounds in the ad and then the emotions the associate with those images and sounds Critical Discourse Analysis of Ads From the perspective of critical discourse analysis Guy Cook argues that advertising is a discourse itself constituting the meaning of both the text the ad itself and the context in which people are responding to the ad He argues that is important to examine the meanings of ads based on how audiences construct these meanings based on their semiotic knowledge of images signs genre knowledge needs desires and discourses applied to the ad He describes the following components of context p Substance the physical material which carriers or relays text Music and pictures designed to entertain and capture people s attention Paralanguage meaningful behavior accompanying language such as voice quality gestures facial expressions and touch in speech and choice of typeface and letter sizes in writing Situation the properties and relations of objects and people in the vicinity of the texts as perceived by the participants Co-text text which precedes or follows that under analysis and which participants judge to belong to the same discourse Intertext texts which the participants perceive as belonging to other discourse but which they associated with the text under construction and which affects their interpretation Participants their intentions and interpretations knowledge and beliefs attitudes affiliations and feelings Each participant is simultaneously a part of the context and an observer of it Participants are usually described as senders and receivers The sender of a message is not always the same as the addressers however the person who relays it In a television ad for example the addresser may be an actor though the sender is an advertising agency Neither is the receiver always the addressee the person for which it is intended The addresses may be a specific target group but the receiver is anyone who sees the ad Function what the text is intended to do by the senders and addressers or perceived to do by the receivers and addresses Let s apply these different components to the Sprite Lowrider ad click on link http www ads com ads adInfo jsp ad id us pt sr Substance music pictures In this -second ad a group of Hispanic adolescents are riding down the street on their lowrider bikes Some younger kids stare at them as the words Some people don t get it are heard in the background At the end one of the riders is shown drinking a bottle of Sprite with the words Obey your thirst in the background The images of this ad are designed to imply hipness or coolness an equation of the lowrider bike image with the product image The music and images in this ad are geared for an adolescent audience who are not yet driving so they are still limited to their bikes although the appeal may also be to the larger adolescent audience A critical discourse analysis goes beyond simply these images to suggest that the discourses of masculinity and subcultural resistance constituting the lowrider biking practice are then transferred to the practice of drinking Sprite For a discussion of Latino students studying the lowrider culture in Mexican-American culture see Cowan P Devils or angels Literacy and discourse in lowerider culture In J Mahiri Ed Literacy in the lives of urban youth pp - New York Peter Lang An analysis of Sprite s campaign to improve their market share in the late s in the documentary Merchants of Cool http www pbs org wgbh pages frontline shows cool etc synopsis html indicated that Sprite launched a major campaign using sports celebrities parodying celebrity endorsement ads in an attempt to equate being ironic hip or cool with the product As a result Sprite sales jumped among the adolescent group Sprite also increased its advertising on MTV the program shows a hip-hop concert event sponsored by Sprite again designed to link certain cultural images in this case hip-hop with the product Paralanguage The voice speech and words that appear on the screen are all consistent with an appeal to a young male adolescent audience The words some people don t get it and obey your thirst are spoken in a defiant manner associated with the image of assertiveness These paralanguage uses serve as markers for certain identities associated with gender class or race For example audiences bring certain assumptions about the relationships between dialects register pitch topic elaboration intonation hedging asides types of speech acts performed and social class as a set of cultural social practices In this ad audiences may assume that the people are more working to middle-class given their language use and social practices The typeface of the words that appear on the screen are large bold comic-book-like script also associated with coolness Myers notes that ads use typeface and word graphics frequently to convey certain meanings He cites the example of a perfume ad for Passion p be touched by the fragrance that touches the woman in which the shape of the words with the second line protruding to the left matches the shape of the perfume bottle a link between the words themselves and the product Myers also notes the importance of the connotations of words in ads used as brand names for example Poison for a perfume a word that connotes death or killing words associated with femme fatale Or while the denotation of Opium is that of a narcotic its connotation is that of Romantic poets the Orient dreams or bohemian practices pp - And Myers argues for the need to analyze the uses of figurative language in ads For example similes such as Miller The Champagne of Bottle Beers or breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine Or the use of metaphors such as Sherwin-Williams covers the earth Language is also employed in creating slogans as in the use of catchy sounds in alliteration Before it can become a Heinz bean every raw bean is tested by a light beam or intonation as in I exercise AND I eat the right sort of breakfast and a mixture of different languages You can fudgi it or you can Fuji it Myers also identifies how pronouns are used in ads to attempt to build personal relationships between the ad and the audience particularly with the use of you that assumes a relationship with the audience as in Don t let coughs keep you off duty Similarly the use of we personalizes the impersonal as in At McDonald s we do it all for you or in the Avis ad We try harder Avis And the use of he she implies a certain shared knowledge between ad and audience as in the Clairol ad Does she of doesn t she Only her hairdresser knows for sure Myers also examines the use of everyday conversation in ads as in the two following Nescafe coffee ads that use dialogue to create a mini drama associated with drinking coffee Doorbell rings Woman Hi Man Laura Woman You always did stay up late Man How long have you been back Woman About a day and a half I was just passing by Man At this time of night Woman Are you along Man Yes er no Look I m expecting someont Woman It s a neighbor Man Well do we have time for a coffee Announcer GOLDEN ROASTED RICHER SMOOTHER NESCAFE GOLD BLEND Doorbell rings nd woman Hope I didn t get you out of bed st woman This coffee tastes good Man sighs nd woman gaze towards camera st woman For more of Myers s analysis of the uses of language in ads http www ling lancs ac uk staff greg analysis html Situation co-text It is difficult to know how the Sprite ad is perceived or on what programs is occurs but one could guess that it would appear on programs associated with a male adolescent audience MTV programs sports shows etc Intertext There is a strong intertextual link in the Sprite ad to the phenomenon of lowrider bikes http www lowriderbike com something that would appeal to a young adolescent market particularly in parts of the country in which lowrider cars bikes are popular This reflects a larger association with an Easy-Rider adolescent rebellion against the usual status-quo car bike in the form of creating one s own versions of bikes This rebellion against the some people who don t get it the status quo is then linked with the act of drinking Sprite Participants The clothes sun glasses and terrain evokes an adolescent world in which adolescents dominant the neighborhood streets in which younger kids don t get it because they have not yet achieved adolescents The potential audience of participants are assumed to be attracted to this portrayal of hipness although some my not identify with the idea of a younger adolescent group who is still riding bikes Function This ad functions within the larger Sprite campaign of equating images of coolness with the product It is also part of an even larger marketing effort to promote soft drinks given recent criticisms of the soft drink industry by health experts and educators who are alarmed with increasing obesity and lack of nutrition in adolescents diets Advertising as Propaganda Public Relations Ads Another perspective for analyzing advertising is to consider it as propaganda for developing positive attitudes towards consumerism Ads can then be perceived as more than just promoting products they are also promoting attitudes values and ideologies From this perspective advertising itself functions to indoctrinate audiences to believe in consumer products as providing them happiness status and success For example Exxon Oil may have an ad that portrays the value of education or even the environment These ads are not designed to directly sell oil Rather they are selling the larger image of Exxon as a corporation that cares about education or the environment despite the fact that oil is the leading cause of air pollution and global warming These public relations ads qualify as propaganda in that they distort facts in order to promote their own ideological perspectives and agendas in the case of Exxon Oil often to resist efforts to curtail oil exploration or production However as in any critical analysis of propaganda students could ask who does advertising really benefit leading them to recognize that it is the producers not the audiences who are benefiting http members aol com MrDonnUnits Propaganda html webquest propoganda techniques http www thematzats com propaganda process htm webquest What is the Truth propaganda analysis http valhalla guhsd net library webquest somewhereinmid html To create your own ad analysis ask students to go to the following sites for ads http www adflip com http www ads com ads index jsp us pt and analyze the different components listed above For examples of ad analysis see the following sites Dan Chandler ad analysis http www aber ac uk media Modules MC analad html The Big Lie The Truth about Advertising lots of other components http www randomthoughtslimited com advertising html ad analyses http www lclark edu soan advertising html http projects edtech sandi net brooklyn advertising http website education wisc edu rla ADSITE index htm webquest elements of advertising http et sdsu edu APaxton-Smith eslwebquest index htm Advertising and Idealized Gender Images Advertisers also portray various images of gender roles in order to promote certain products associated with achieving those roles For example the multi-billion dollar beauty industry employs ads to promote images of ideal femininity and now masculinity to equate the use of their products to achieving these ideal gender images By projecting images of the ideal ad function to create a sense of inadequacy that one is imperfect without a certain product And these ads also establish a sense of membership in imaginary communities of consumption with others a synthetic personalization with a mass audience treated as an individual you to create a synthetic sisterhood This suggests the need to have students examine the disparities between the ideal image and the reality of their own complex realistic identity For example most female s body shape do not match the thin body shape of models employed in ads Adolescents need to recognize that it is impossible to change one s body shape and therefore to achieve the appearance of models in ads And males who believe that they can achieve a muscular body-builder image through excessive training or even steroid use need to realize the limitations of doing so Moreover they need to recognize the health risks of eating disorders or for males steroid use The video What a Girl Wants video clip http mediaed org videos MediaGenderAndDiversity WhatAGirlWants studyguide html documents the ways in which advertising using celebrity females such as Britney Spears Christina Aguilera Mandy Moore and Jessica Simpson to promote these idealized images of femininity for females to emulate Jean Kilbourne a leading critic of these ads in her Killing Us Softly video video clip http mediaed org videos MediaGenderAndDiversity KillingUsSoftly studyguide html and the video Slim Hopes video clip http mediaed org videos MediaGenderAndDiversity SlimHopes makes the following points in the teacher s guide accompanying the Killing Us Softly video - As girls reach adolescence they get the message that they should not be too powerful should not take up too much space They are told constantly that they should be less than what they are At least in young women in America today has an eating disorder One recent study of fourth grade girls found that of them were on diets Twenty years ago the average model weighed less than the average woman Today the average model weighs less than the average woman - Only of women have the body type tall genetically thin broad-shouldered narrow- hipped long-legged and usually small-breasted seen in almost all advertising When the models have large breasts they ve almost always had breast implants The obsession with thinness is used to sell cigarettes out of women are dissatisfied with their appearance Almost half of American women are on a diet on any given day - million women are struggling with serious eating disorders The American food industry spends billion on advertising each year Women s magazines are full of ads for rich foods and recipes Eating has become a moral issue Words such as guilt and sin are often used to sell food - Americans spend more than billion dollars on dieting and diet-related products each year of all dieters regain the weight they lost and more within five years - Articles about the dangers of diet products are often contradicted by advertisements for diet products within the same magazine - Sex is frequently used to sell food Many ads eroticize food and normalize bingeing These ideas support dangerous eating-disordered behaviors - There are many images in advertising that silence women images that show women with their hands over their mouths and other visuals as well as copy that strip women of their voices - The body language of young women and girls in advertising is usually passive and vulnerable Conversely the body language of men and boys is usually powerful active and aggressive - When girls are shown with power in advertising it is almost always a very masculine definition of power Often the power that women are offered in advertising is silly and trivial - Women are often infantilized in advertisements producing and reinforcing the sense that they should not grow up resist becoming a mature sexual being and remain little girls - Advertisements rarely feature women over the age of and there are many advertisements for beauty products that claim to help women continue to look young even when they no longer are Given her critiques of the construction of femininity by the beauty industry students could examine ads for cosmetics clothes diet products etc and have them define the discourses constituting the meaning of these ads In our own research on high school students perceptions of stereotyped portrayals of females in magazine ads Beach Freedman we found that students demonstrated little critical analysis of these ads Moreover when asked to create narratives associated with the people in the ads for example a female dressed in a Zum-Zum prom gown dancing with a sailor students created highly idealized narratives for example that the couple will fall in love and get married Students could examine how these ads influences their own gender perceptions as to what it means to be female or male Submissive females in advertising http gladstone uoregon edu pingle submissivefemale html Webquest Images of Girls and Women as Portrayed in the Media http schools sbe saskatoon sk ca evanh webquest Webquest Carol Boehm Images and Influences http eprentice sdsu edu J OW boehm INDEX Images Influence htm Webquest Dying to be Thin http www lkdsb net TEAS Webquests Disorders disorders htm Advertising geared for males focuses more on selling products beer cars video games clothes sports sports equipment etc associated with male-peer bonding and markers of masculinity For example given the relatively high percentage of males playing video games the video game industry is now placing more ads in the games A study conducted by the industry itself Activision and Nielsen Entertainment Video Game Habits A Comprehensive Examination of Gamer Demographics and Behavior in U S Television Households and therefore possibly suspect in terms of bias toward promoting the idea of video game advertising found that over one quarter of the gamers recalled ads from the last game they played had positive perceptions of the ads and one third indicated that the ads help them make purchase decisions http www videogame net vgn newsstory cfm newsid system Multi One central theme of male-oriented ads is the appeal to the archetype of the muscular tough even violent male hero who takes on the world or the male sports star These idealized images of masculinity engaged in male cultural practices are often associated with beer car or video game ads A Media Awareness Network instructional unit on male violence in advertising examines five basic themes evident in these ads Attitude is Everything The Cave Man Mentality The New Warriors Muscles and the Ideal Man Heroic Masculinity Media Education Foundation video Advertising and Male Violence http www media-awareness ca english resources educational lessons secondary gender portrayal advertising male violence cfm Media Education Foundation video Tough Guise Violence Media the Crisis in Masculinity Featuring Jackson Katz Part One Understanding Violent Masculinity Introduction Degendering Violence Upping the Ante Backlash The Tough Guise Part Two Violent Masculinity in Action The School Shootings Constructing Violent Masculinity Violent Sexuality Invulnerability Vulnerability Better Men http www mediaed org videos MediaGenderAndDiversity ToughGuise vidinfo Study Guide http www mediaed org videos MediaGenderAndDiversity ToughGuise studyguide html Media Awareness Network Advertising and Male Violence http www media-awareness ca english resources educational lessons secondary gender portrayal advertising male violence cfm Media Awareness Network Sports Personalities in Ads http www media-awareness ca english resources educational lessons secondary advertising marketing sports ads cfm Media Education Foundation video Wrestling with Manhood Boys Bullying Battering SECTIONS Taking Wrestling Seriously Happy Escalating Violence Making Men Glamorizing Bullying Homophobia Constructing Heterosexuality Divas Sex Male Fantasy Normalizing Gender Violence It s Only Entertainment http www mediaed org videos MediaGenderAndDiversity WrestlingWithManhood vidinfo Media Scope Body Image and Advertising http www mediascope org pubs ibriefs bia htm Males in Ads lots of useful examples http www ltcconline net lukas gender maleads males htm Males as Objects lots of useful examples of objectification of males http www ltcconline net lukas gender objectify males maleobjects htm Webquest Ann Jones Advertising and Image http www web-and-flow com members ajones advertising webquest htm Webquest Jeff Bailey Exploring Gender Stereotypes through Shakespeare http valnet mtvalleyhs sad k me us MVHS Bailey genderwebqstudent htm Webquest How Do I Look http www mtsd org jswilson main library WebQuestkvp html For further reading males and advertising Boyreau J The Male Mystique Men's Magazine Ads of the s and ' s New York Chronicle Advertising and Alcohol Tobacco Advertisers also promote alcohol and tobacco in magazines billboards in ways that appeal to adolescents A study of alcohol advertising in magazines and adolescent readership published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Garfield Chung Rathouz found that from - in of major US magazines there were advertisements were for beer for wine and for liquor Analysis of those magazines more like to have an adolescent audience found that beer and liquor ads were most likely to be read by adolescents For every million underage readers ages - of a magazine there were times more beer advertisements and times more liquor advertisements The National Institute on Media and the Family noted that - Television advertising changes attitudes about drinking Young people report more positive feelings about drinking and their own likelihood to drink after viewing alcohol ads Austin Grube - Fifty-six percent of students in grades through say that alcohol advertising encourages them to drink American Academy of Pediatrics http www mediafamily org facts facts alcohol shtml A study conducted by The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth click on Marketing Gallery for examples of TV alcohol ads Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television http camy org found that there was an increase of in TV alcohol advertising from to Adolescents viewed two beer and liquor ads for every three seen by adults All most popular shows for adolescents had alcohol ads http camy org factsheets index php FactsheetID A study by The Alcohol and Public Health Research Unit of New Zealand found that many adolescents view alcohol television ads The more positive their reaction to these ads they more likely they were to consume alcohol and to have higher annual alcohol consumption http www aphru ac nz projects Alcohol advertising htm content Education Media Foundation video Deadly Persuasion The Advertising of Alcohol Tobacco http www mediaed org videos MediaAndHealth DeadlyPersuasion Jean Kilbourne Targets of Alcohol Advertising http www health - org targets of alcohol advertising htm Education Media Foundation video Spin the Bottle Sex Lies Alcohol http www mediaed org videos MediaAndHealth SpinTheBottle Media Education Foundation click on Deconstructing an Alcohol Ad http www mediaed org The alcohol industry claims that it has launched ads designed to discourage underage drinking However a study by The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth indicated that in adolescents were times more likely to see an ad promoting alcohol than an industry ad discouraging underage drinking Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth Drops in the Bucket Alcohol Industry Responsibility Advertising on Television in Washington DC Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth There have been a number of policy recommendations related to reducing alcohol advertising including education programs The Alcohol Epidemiology Program at the University of Minnesota recommends the following - Banning ads on buses trains kiosks billboards and supermarket carts and in bus shelters schools and theme parks - Banning or limiting advertising and sponsorship at community events such as festivals parties rodeos concerts and sporting events - Banning advertising in areas surrounding schools residential areas faith organizations etc - Restricting or banning TV and or radio alcohol commercials - Restricting alcohol advertising in newspapers and or on the Internet http www epi umn edu alcohol policy adrstrct html They noted that Oakland California in adopted a strict ordinance prohibiting alcohol ads on billboards in residential areas and near schools The ordinance also banned alcohol advertising within three blocks of recreation centers churches and licensed day care facilities A court challenge by the billboard industry was unsuccessful Institute of Medicine Reducing Underage Drinking A Collective Responsibility online book http www nap edu books html Tobacco ads While television tobacco ads have been banned they are still prevalent in magazines billboards and at sports events And tobacco companies pay movie producers to include smoking in films A study conducted by the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education University of California San Francisco found that of the movies released between and almost percent of PG- rated films and almost half of PG and G-rated films included smoking And the total number of films for young people with smoking actually increased from to Polanksy J Glantz S First-Run Smoking Presentations in U S Movies - San Fransisco Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education University of California San Francisco http repositories cdlib org ctcre tcpmus Movies Given the prevalence of smoking in films often in ways that glamorize smoking The American Legacy Foundation has proposed steps to eliminate smoking in films - Give new movies with smoking an R rating with the exception of when tobacco use and its dangers and consequences are accurately portrayed or when it is necessary to portray a real historical figure - Certify no pay-offs by posting a certificate in movie credits declaring that no talent or members of the production team received anything in exchange for using or displaying tobacco - Require strong anti-smoking ads to run before any film with any tobacco presence regardless of its rating - Stop identifying tobacco brands in any movie scene The Foundation notes that its national American Smoking and Health Survey ASHES survey results indicated strong popular support for adopting restrictions on smoking in films - percent of people support showing brief public service announcements in theaters to counteract the influence of smoking in movies - percent of people said that movie producers and actors should not be allowed to accept money or other items of value in exchange for including smoking in movies - percent of people said that cigarette brands names and logos should not be allowed to appear in movies http www americanlegacy org americanlegacy skins alf display aspx CategoryID e f-dce - b- b -cd f ec ObjectID db ed b-d - f - c c-d fd c Action display user object Mode user ModuleID ad a a-b d - - f- b bc Why People Smoke product placements in films http www quit org au quit display cfm ArticleID table Tobacco category Why People Smoke Google lots of links to smoking product placements in films http directory google com Top Health Addictions Substance Abuse Tobacco Industry Promotion Product Placement In The American Legacy Foundation also launched a series of hard-hitting documentary style anti-smoking ads described as the Infect truth campaign These ads focus on the deceptions employ ed in the tobacco industry s marketing strategies it also focuses on challenging the influence of peer pressure to smoke as a social status symbol And the ads employ clever techniques to draw viewers attention For example one ad shows adolescents putting up mannequins on a street as ''replacement smokers'' who will replace smokers who have died the ads closes with a young girl talking about her father who died from smoking and that no one can replace him The Infect truth site http www thetruth com index cfm connect truth The American Legacy Foundation http www americanlegacy org Despite an increased use of anti-smoking ads a relatively high percentage of adolescents continue to smoke A study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Georgetown University found that impulsive or risk-orientated adolescents characterized as novelty-seeking were more receptive to tobacco advertising and were more likely to start smoking than adolescents who were less oriented to novelty-seeking practices http www eurekalert org pub releases - uopm-ntm php Another study Straub Hills Thompson Moscicki found that the variables most likely to predict th graders intention to smoke were recognition of brand of favorite advertisement willingness to use or wear tobacco-branded products stress and having friends who smoke while th graders who agreed with anti-tobacco advertising were less inclined to smoke http www accelerated-learning-online com research effects-pro-anti-tobacco-advertising-nonsmoking-adolescents asp Education Media Foundation video Pack of Lies The Advertising of Tobacco http www mediaed org videos MediaAndHealth PackofLies Webquest Smoking Awareness http www telus net public a a new page htm Webquest Tobacco Detectives http ucity mints more net JenniferKuehnle TDetectives htm Webquest Dangers of Tobacco Use http infusion allconet org webquest Persuading Kids Not to Smoke html Webquest Will You be a Smoker http www sad us rb MATTHE HTM Webquest Should Smoking be Illegal http web mala bc ca webquests smoking lesson-template htm Webquest The Truth about Tobacco http www smith edu educ student work tobacco For a whole unit on smoking ads along with some examples of anti-smoking ads http www med sc edu smoking htm Advertising and the Pharmaceutical Industry Another major advertiser is the pharmaceutical industry which advertises the use of ads for treating a range of problems particularly given the fact that Congress spurred on by industry lobbying forced the Food and Drug Administration to loosen controls on drug advertising While ads do have to mention negative side effects they often do not have to go into detail about those side effects Much of the cost of this advertising has resulted in the industry refusing to lower the costs of drugs in the United States which unlike other countries such as Canada does not bargain directly with the industry to set drug prices These ads are effective in that various studies find that people are increasingly more likely to ask doctors about these drugs PBS Now program with Bill Moyers A Brief History of Drug Advertising http www pbs org now science drugads html One doctor Michael Wilkes of the University of California Davis Medical School noted that these direct-to-consumer ads attempt to work around the doctor by fostering a belief that patients have certain health problems that need to be treated In both cases the goal is to get patients to seek attention for conditions that they previously considered benign or natural The ads also seek to make their product sound remark able compared to other existing treatments The goal is to get patients using one drug to switch to another Patients ask about ads that encourage them to focus on trivial somatic complaints or cosmetic anomalies leading to unhealthy bodily preoccupation and inappropriate use of health services The ads often lead to physician-patient conflict as a result of the doctor s unwillingness to prescribe an unnecessary or costly drug The patient leaves the office dissatisfied and disrespected http www ucdmc ucdavis edu ucdavismedicine features wilkes html Belkin L Prime Time Pushers Mother Jones Magazine http www motherjones com news feature drug html Advertising on the Web Another important aspect of advertising is the ability to attract one s attention in the midst of a highly cluttered consumer market in which people are saturated with images and sounds Gitlin Given thousands of competing messages or bits of information geared for the same audience how does a marketer or advertiser convey their message in a manner that attracts that audience s attention This has led to a new industry of consultants who assist marketers and advertisers who are able to promote attention itself as a valuable commodity Lankshear Knobel Colin Lankshear Michelle Knobel argue that being a member of the attention economy requires the ability to know how to pay and receive attention p something discussed in Module in terms of the media literacy of attention transacting As fans or consumers people may recognize the difference between an illusory false attention afforded them by stars celebrities or politicians and authentic attention This requires new forms of literacy associated with attention transacting which requires Knowing how to elicit information from others encouraging them to provide it with appropriate assurances and knowing how to work with that information so that it becomes an instrument for meeting what the other party believes to be their needs or interests through the the use of new information technologies to obtain interpret share and act on information of a private nature knowing how to build and honor trust in online settings knowing how to divulge and interpret information obtained electronically in appropriate ways and so on p Another form of literacy is that of contact displaying in which people employ public media to create an opportunity to gain attention in ways that achieve immediate effects rhetorical quirky stunning pp - A central tool in this attention economy is the use of technologies designed to attract others attention particularly advertising on the Internet This ranges from more direct forms of spam or push messages or uses of animation or flashing signals to more indirect means of creating ad bots that inhabit chat rooms and similar spaces on the Net These respond to trigger words and can engage potential customers in private conversation that has commercial relevance p While some of the promises of high levels of revenue from advertising on the Web have not materialized the Web remains a major new site for marketing and advertising Marketers can target certain audiences with spam e-mail advertising Advertisers can promote specific products within the contexts of specific sites associated with specific audiences who use those sites One of the major issues associated with Web advertising involves marketing to children In a report on online marketing and privacy issues http www media-awareness ca eng webaware parents kids pkids htm the Media Awareness group noted that the Web can often jeopardize children s privacy The report contrasts television with online advertising by noting the while there are standards for television advertising there are none for Web advertising It also notes that Web-based ads can engage children through interactivity not present in television ads While television ads have obvious start and stop times Web-based ads are more subtle and interwoven into the content Media Awareness Network Teacher guide Online Marketing Strategies geared for children http www media-awareness ca english resources special initiatives wa resources wa teachers tipsheets online marketing strategies cfm Webquest cyberganda advertising on the Web http www community k mo us webquest bertels quest htm intro Webquest create an ad for the Web http www lfelem lfc edu tech DuBose webquest whittier advertise html Webquest Cycertise Webquest http cte jhu edu techacademy fellows Harris cyvertise Marketing in Schools Another recent phenomenon has been the increase in marketing and advertising in schools Cynthia Peters in an article Teacher there's a brand name in my math problem http www zmag org zsustainers zdaily D peters htm documents some of these marketing campaigns According to the Education and Consumerism issue of Radical Teacher a major battle has heated up in the last year between Coke and Pepsi and it's taking place in U S public schools These multi-million dollar soda companies want to pay schools to exclusively market their product For the soda marketers it's a good use of advertising dollars pay the school to make their brand name central to kids' lives all day everyday For the school it's an easy source of much needed funds Advertising is becoming ubiquitous in schools In Colorado Springs the side of a big yellow school bus becomes a bill board for just A six-foot commercial banner hung inside the school for one calendar year costs only In Toronto schools are using screen savers on their computers that mix motivational messages with sales pitches from fast food and soft drink companies The Pepsi-sponsored screen saver advises kids to develop a thirst for knowledge In Braintree Massachusetts a company called Cover Concepts has made a multi-million dollar business out of giving away free book covers that are decorated with corporate advertising In his book Educating the Consumer-Citizen A History of the Marriage of Schools Advertising and Media Erlbaum Joel Spring documents the many ways in which advertising and commercialism has pervaded the schools Advertisers and corporations provide schools with products or funding in return to being able to place ads on textbook covers or in schools or to sell certain fast-food beverage products in the school Because school funding has been cut schools often need additional funds simply to meet basic needs For example Primedia s Channel One provides morning in-school news now in some of all secondary schools by providing schools with free video equipment of the minute news broadcasts consists of ads self-promotions and filler thereby using what is assumed to be a pedagogical tool to insert advertising into the curriculum Some states including New York and local school districts have not allowed Channel One to be broadcast in their schools Channel One http www channelone com Critical analyses reports on Channel One http www commercialalert org index php category id subcategory id article id http www fair org media-outlets channel-one html http www fair org extra ch -miller html http www aap org advocacy reid htm Commercialism in Education Research Unit Arizona State University http www asu edu educ epsl ceru htm Citizens Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools http www scn org cccs Webquest Kimberly Colley School Funding and Commercial Advertising in Schools http curry edschool virginia edu go edis spring webquests prof pkimcolley home htm Political Advertising Another important topic related to advertising is political advertising Political campaigns often revolve around the number and effectiveness of their television ads These ads may provide some information about candidates but they often stress slogans sound bites and deceptive images In many cases candidates turn to negative advertising focused on attacking their opponent s record Moreover these ads are often highly expensive resulting in the fact that only well-financed or wealthy candidates can run for office Much of this is due to the relatively high costs of advertising charged by television stations Although a campaign finance law passed in it did not include a mandated reduction in the costs of television ads sought by proponents of campaign reform who argue that these cost price many candidates out of the market For more on this topic see the PBS program Second Candidate http www pbs org secondcandidate The American Museum of the Moving Image The Living Room Candidate online exhibit of candidates from - http www ammi org livingroomcandidate Media and American Democracy Analyzing a political ad http www med sc edu tvspots htm Alliance for Better Campaigns improving political advertising http www bettercampaigns org FactCheck deceptions in political ads http www factcheck org C-Span campaign ads for the Presidential election http www c-span org vote campads asp Common Cause The Critical Role of Television in Political Campaigns http www commoncause org publications rpt htm PBS Dissect an Ad http www pbs org pov pov takingonthekennedys dissect html Do the Media Affect the Democratic Process - http www primett org medialiteracy guide htm Effectiveness of Negative Political Advertising http www scripps ohiou edu wjmcr vol - a HTM Webquest political advertising http socialstudies com c yfFDZYUmilj c Pages PolAdv html For further reading on political ads Jamieson K Packaging the Presidency A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising New York Oxford University Press Another important form of political advertising are issue ads designed to shape public opinion and policy These issue ads on topics such as health care drug benefits education etc are used by advocacy groups to promote their particular agenda Many of these issue ads are produced and promoted by think tanks which conduct research that is then used in these ads For example the Heritage Foundation had a major influence on producing ads on behalf of the insurance industry that challenged the Clinton health-care proposals in For a study of how issue advertising influence Congress in see a study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania http www annenbergpublicpolicycenter org ISSUEADS index htm Product Placements One of the major challenges to traditional forms of advertising are new technologies such as TIVO digital recorders that record television programs which audiences then watch and fastforward the ads This means that advertisers are looking for new more indirect ways to promote products within the content itself One of these strategies involves shorter ads that are more difficult to skip as well as product placements in films or television programs in which people or characters are consuming these products The constant display of products in films serves to further promote the representation of society as a consumer culture An analysis of Mighty Ducks made in found that it not only included promotions of hockey brand name equipment Easton gloves shoulder pads and sticks CCM helmets skates and shirts Koho sticks Jofa helmets Champion clothing Cooper pucks Itech masks Takla parnts Christian sticks Bauer skates Vaughn goalie pads and Hendricks hockey apparel but also Bubblicious gum Zubas Dove Greyhound Gatorade General Cinema Diet Coke Little Caesar s pizza Delta and even Duck Head clothing The zenith however making the cover of the Wheaties box Fuller This also includes promotion of media texts themselves Given the increased media conglomeration products created by a company owned by the company producing the media text will often cross-promote their own product A network television news broadcast or talk show will include promotions for films or TV programs owned by that network And products themselves may contain references to media texts as when McDonald s uses images from popular movies or television shows One study conducted by Mediaedge found that about half of audiences notice brands associated with product placements The study finds that percent of those consumers are willing to try the brands advertised with the percentages a little higher for TV than movies Product placement can't hold a candle to traditional television advertising which the Mediaedge cia study said was still the most effective form of advertising TV advertising bested product placement when measuring consumers' recall of brands and willingness to try products Joe Abruzzo director of the MediaLab Ohal said Tuesday afternoon that product placements are really a brand exposure not a well-constructed message that would come through in traditional advertising Forty percent of consumers ages - don't want to see brands in films compared to percent of adults over The study found that product placement boosted brand recognition by percent to percent Gough P April Consumers Respond Favorably To Product Placement Of Brands In TV Movies Media Daily http www mediapost com dtls dsp news cfm newsID Feature This a product placement business methods of doing product placements in Hollywood films http www featurethis com placement html The Blob Factor Ubiquity in Product Placement http xroads virginia edu UG hamlin ppcross html Product placement in computer games http www usatoday com tech techreviews games spotlight htm Webquest Subliminal Persuasion Assignment http www concentric net Creyn COMM SublimWQassignment htm For further reading Segrave K Product Placement in Hollywood Films A History New York MacFarland Creating or Parodying Ads One of the most effective ways to study ads is to have students produce their own ads or create parodies of ads something that you will actually be doing at the end of this module for use in modeling this process for your students By having to consider techniques and strategies for selling a product students are having to think about the techniques and strategies they are critiquing in ads Students could create a new product or consider using existing products and then create magazine video or Web-based ads They could then share their ads with peers and garner feedback as to the effectiveness of their ads Or based on parodies spoofs of ads in Adbusters Magazine http www adbusters org home students could select examples of deceptive ads and construct their own parodies or spoofs of ads False Advertising A Gallery of Parody http parody organique com Zapavision Parodies of ads and movie trailers http www trailervision com zapavision Unofficial Calvin Klein Ads Archive http pobox upenn edu davidtoc calvin html Why Milk parodies of the Got Milk ads http www whymilk com Lampoonery ad parodies http lampoonery com ads htm Teenz parodies of smoking ads http www teenz com sa parody cfm Nicknamers parodies of branding http www members cox net nicknamers nn html Funny Adverts Spoof Ads http www funny-adverts com spoof-ads index php Webquest creating ads http www lfelem lfc edu tech DuBose webquest whittier advertise html Webquest Create an anti-pollution ad http spidey sfusd edu schwww sch webquests alex riverquest html Webquests create anti-smoking ads http www berksiu k pa us webquest Musket index htm http www longview k wa us ralong lib smokhp text Smkindex html Teaching Activity Parodying Ads Students can create their own parody of an ad for a fictitious or actual product you could also create a parody or spoof on an ads such as those found in Adbusters Go to the Adbusters site on how to create your own ad http adbusters org spoofads printad Follow the instructions on this site that involve the following steps Decide on your communication objective Decide on your target audience Decide on your format Develop your concept The visual you may want to select on-line images from art-clip files or from on-line images to insert into a Word or PowerPoint document The headline The copy Subheads The signature Some mistakes to avoid You may also want to create a parody or spoof of an ads for examples go to the Adbusters site http adbusters org You can also find examples of anti-smoking ads on the following site http www med sc edu smoking htm such as the following spoof on the Malboro ads - Write out a description of your intended message audience and concept along with a rough description of the ad itself - Create the ad as a Word or PowerPoint file using clip art Web-images - Then post your ads on the nicenet org documents site along with your description of your intended message audience and concept - Share your ad on the tappedin org with some peers who should describe their perceptions of your intended message the audience appeals employed and their evaluation of its overall effectiveness - Compare their perceptions of the ad with your intended message audience and concept noting reasons for similarities and differences Your ad and discussion of the ad will be evaluated in terms of your ability to - clearly define your intended message audience and concept - employ images language intertextual references and layout in a manner that conveys your intended message and concept and gain audience identification - assess reasons for disparities between intended meanings and audience responses Webquests Advertising http www geocities com horton quests http spidey sfusd edu schwww sch webquests alex riverquest html http www cedu niu edu robinson vislit webquest htm http wneo org WebQuests TeacherWebQuests advertising advertising htm http olc spsd sk ca DE webquests mediaprop index html http website education wisc edu rla ADSITE index htm http et sdsu edu APaxton-smith eslwebquest index htm http www community k mo us webquest bertels quest htm http www fullwood tv zip wq html http technoteacher com webquests nutrition advertising html http explore com advertis htm We close this module with an example of an advertising unit created by Heather Johnson in CI Spring that incorporates much of the material covered in this module AN ADVERTISING UNIT I used spoof ads and regular ads from adflip com and adbusters com I Transferred them onto transparencies and used them for the unit Go to http www pair com udticg lessonplans consumerism for worksheets that accompany this lesson Teens in Culture Do advertisements influence or reflect teenage culture INTRODUCTION The objective of this unit is to make teens aware of the way in which they are marketed by advertisers Teens see approximately hours of television a week compared to the hours they are in the classroom discussing implications and deconstructing the media is a key element to their processing of the ads There are dozens of activities and ideas listed here that are aimed at helping students focus in on the way in which the media manipulates their attention and buying habits Accompanying the unit will be several articles from the magazine Adbusters which offers students the chance to look at ads in a different light Looking at spoof ads assists the students in looking at advertising in a different light Students will be asked to create their own advertising pitch in the end and they are encouraged to use a spoof ad as their marketing pitch The video Merchants of Cool and the Best Commercials of All Time will be used in this unit to accompany the material To start off the unit the students partake in the prompt below students and teacher then discuss commercials on a basic level of entertainment Conversation as such can easily develop especially when it concerns commercials for there is a quality of the commercial that makes it memorable and fun to discuss Take the hype of the Superbowl commercials or the Oscar commercials Ads have become a social connection among peers and coworkers as common phrases such as whasssup enter the classroom and other environments Recognizing the influence of such a medium is crucial to establish right away with students Next we delve into the ads themselves articles about ads spoof ads videos reflection on ways in which we live in an ad-based world and in-class discussions The unit and activities are enough for at least three weeks Part ONE I WHAT DO TEENAGERS WANT Before we examine ads students will first reflect upon what they want as teenagers By examining our desires we may know our values We will do some self-reflection gather some information and compare this data to advertising analysis that we will do later in the unit FOCUS QUESTION What do you suppose is a utopian solution Think about the term and research it if you don t know what the word utopian means Activity Values Inventory minutes javascript Quickwrite What do you want most in life Make a list of things as well as ideas and experiences Teacher records volunteered student answers on overhead board Students choose the top things on their list generated by Quickwrite and record them in the first column of WORKSHEET worksheet htm Teacher discusses the second column and reviews example Students complete PART TWO HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT Ad Inventory Using WORKSHEET students will identify the ads they see from school to home that day They may include ads they see at school They will identify the place the ad is found bus stop bench fast food sign etc and what the ad is for WORKSHEET worksheet htm Activity Assignment Review minutes Quickwrite Reports say that teenagers see an average of ads a day Do you think this is true Explain and give evidence to support your answer Discuss answers which will naturally lead to a review of last night s assignment Teacher creates a composite chart of items found for last night s assignment and students copy Discuss How many of you use or would like to use the products services or ideas that you saw advertised Answers will vary Quickwrite Discuss the last activity s quickwrite Answers will vary but urge students to consider our previous topic of discussion Do they use the products they saw advertised when answering Some of you said that advertising does not influence you and many of you said you are only partially influenced by advertising Let s take a little quiz to see how much you may be affected by Branding add to vocabulary list vocabulary html Another Activity for the classroom Have students pair up in two s and chose a market they wish to explore - teenage girls teenage boys young children mothers fathers grandparents etc Together they gather ads from this genre and find patterns flaws deceptive things that exist within the ads Does it represent the audience that it is trying to sell it s product to Or does the advertiser make it appear as if the audience Needs Wants things that are not necessary Were there any positive well-represented portrayals of the audience in the ads that you found Project results and individual write up with reaction to the assignment project will be due The students will present their findings to the class in two minute presentation Here are some questions to be asked while analyzing a magazine Title -what is the title who does it speak to -what connotations are there from such a title -what audience is the magazine trying to capture what clues do you have that indicate that this is the target market -what kinds of body language is expressed in the magazine -how do the different magazines of the same genre compare -what products are being advertised -how are men and women represented in the magazine Activity Corporate Alphabet minutes Teacher places Corporate Alphabet Adbusters No Oct Nov on overhead and asks students to silently identify the brand names they recognize Discuss Brands that appeared in the corporate alphabet Compare Ask students to raise their hands if they could identify at least of these brands Now ask them to identify something that is considered academically important i e Who was the fourth president of the United States What is the oldest and largest species of tree Or ask them to identify a picture of a famous person in history like Frederick Douglass or Sitting Bull They can draw their own conclusions Discuss Revisit Quickwrite Ask students if any of them changed their minds or want to learn more It is estimated that the average teenager watches - hours of television a week Compare that to the hours of classroom time In the American Medical Association stated Young people spend twice as much time with media than they do with their parents and teachers combined Add media to vocabulary list vocabulary html As we saw in the last activity the ads we see do affect us even if they are just taking up mindspace In this next activity we will take a closer look at television advertisements Activity TV Inventory minutes Teacher will have pre-recorded a half hour segment of prime time TV targeted to a teen audience Suggested programs sit-coms The Simpsons BET MTV etc Student groups use WORKSHEET worksheet htm to track the commercials and complete the worksheet Groups report findings to the class WORKSHEET worksheet htm Rate Sheet Class examines the rates of different TV stations As you can see advertising pays for the free programming that you watch These companies pay a lot of money to make sure that you get their message Their message is of course to get you to buy a product service or idea They are driven to produce an ad that effectively hooks you in the least amount of time So let s take a closer look at the ads and how they work PART THREE III ANALYZING ADVERTISING WHAT ARE ADS REALLY SELLING In the following lessons students will learn about the persuasive techniques used by advertisements They will identify these techniques in print and TV ads and then analyze the messages of the ads Activity Persuasive Techniques minutes Quickwrite Think of a time when you wanted to convince your parent to let you do something What did you do to persuade him or her Discuss answers as teacher lists the techniques on the overhead projector Students will generate a good list of techniques such as logic threats facts appeal to emotions guilt affection etc Definition persuasion add to vocabulary list vocabulary html Distribute and review WORKSHEET Worksheet htm Argumentation and Persuasion Ask the students to write a paragraph in which they use each of these techniques to convince a reader that they should buy a certain brand name product i e a pair of Nike shoes or a that they should use the Google search engine or eat at McDonald s etc They should not identify which technique is being used Students exchange paragraphs with one of their group s members and identify techniques generated in the previous exercise as ethos pathos or logos At the bottom of their partner s paper students will write a paragraph in which they explain which technique was most effective in their opinion Optional Volunteers share paragraphs Discuss How many people though logos was the most effective Pathos Ethos Explain Activity TV Ad Analysis minutes Teacher has pre-recorded primetime commercials Student groups use WORKSHEET worksheet htm to analyze the commercials Discuss HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT javascript Find two effective print magazine newspaper internet hard copy ads to bring to class tomorrow If students ask what defines an effective ad tell them that they are to decide and we will discuss this tomorrow Activity Print Ad Analysis minutes Modeling Teacher shares an ad and discusses what she likes about it and what is effective for her personally using terminology from persuasion unit She records this on the chart in WORKSHEET worksheet htm WORKSHEET worksheet htm Persuasive words used in advertising Study this sheet and use it to analyze their ads Student groups share and analyze their ads Their task is to identify what is appealing about the ad colors celebrity endorsement humor information etc and what persuasive techniques and words are primarily used Students report back to the class depending on time groups may offer or more things on their list Freewrite Activity What do you think is the meaning of moral panic How does this relate to the Activity Ads Sell Image minutes javascript Quickwrite Analyze this statement Ads sell ideas not products Discuss quickwrite Examine an ad and discuss What do you notice first What info is given about the product What is shown as important in the image What is the lifestyle or fantasy being promoted What is the message of the ad Note Try to get the students to notice that very little info about the product is actually offered instead an image or fantasy is created Thus the consumer is led to believe that the product is the key to the lifestyle or fantasy Examine another ad identifying the lifestyle being advertised Also ask Who is the intended audience for this ad Groups analyze their ads discussing the things or ideas that are promoted in the ad Groups share while teacher records the major elements of the lifestyles that are promoted in these ads i e youth sex fun money exercise joy love This list made on either butcher paper or an overhead projector transparency sheet will be saved to post or show later Students revisit WORKSHEET worksheet htm They can now complete the third column using the ads that have already been shown on TV or print ads brought in If they do not find ads to correspond to their desires they must do so as homework HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT Find ads that correspond to your desires on your desire chart worksheet Activity Cigarette Ads minutes javascript Examine a cigarette ad identifying the fantasy that is advertised Examine anti-smoking ads that are adbusters Activity Adbusting minutes Add parody to vocab list WORKSHEET worksheet htm Follow directions and have fun Share and display ads IV THE TEENABE DEMOGRAPHIC Cool Hunting Teens as Targets In this section students will explore the ways in which companies directly target them It will be the final piece in answering the question Does advertising influence or reflect teen culture Quickwrite Were you able to find ads that correspond to your desires Discuss Advertisers hope they can appeal to your desires because they are spending great amounts of resources to reach you the teenage demographic Add demographic to vocabulary list vocabulary html Activity What do Teens Value Focus Groups minutes Discuss Do you think many of your peers will share your desires How about your values Why In their groups students compare their lists in columns one and two In their groups students develop a thesis statement based on this question What do teenagers value most Groups share thesis statements they may write them on tag board and post them around the room If I were interested in designing an ad targeting for your demographic I would have paid a lot of money to have listened in on your previous discussion I may have even paid you to meet with me in a focus group Has anyone ever participated in a focus group These are groups of everyday teens like yourself who give information about your likes and dislikes so that I may design ads that best appeal to your sensibilities Read Sweet Adbusters June July Discuss Is anyone in this room not wearing a visible brand Why is it important to us to identify ourselves with brand names Inevitably the students will say that these companies or products are cool This will segue into a discussion of cool Optional Why did your group name itself after the brand name you choose What makes it cool Activity Cool Is minutes Quickwrite What is cool List things and ideas that are cool Groups discuss answers and make a list of their top coolest things These will be posted and all students will circulate the room viewing the lists and trying to develop a thesis statement Thesis Statement Cool as defined by a St Paul teenager is Cool is a value one that is extremely hard to even identify let alone define Still companies realize that they must be cool to be consumed by teenagers Here are some of the ways in which companies have become successful by becoming cool Read Article Quickwrite Given your understanding of these articles we just read do you think these companies are reflecting or influencing teenagers Discuss Activity Video Viewing Merchants of Cool minutes View video and discuss key points as you go Freewrite brainstorm for final essay Does advertising influence or reflect teen culture Article Slice of za proves brand loyalty is totally stupid Is the slavish brand loyalty of your peers getting you down Are your high school s corridors awash in swooshes and Tommy colors Is every lunch hour a pilgrimage to Taco Bell or Pizza Hut It s the same old story - in the struggle for personal identity it s easier to buy a pre-packaged model than to create your own But it s also easy to expose brand-name conformity with a simple experiment Pick a brand that your peers pledge allegiance to For example Pizza Hut Corral some students in a room and order in a pizza Blindfold your test subjects Feed each blindfolded person one slice of pizza telling them it s fresh from the Hut Next feed them a second identical slice and tell them it s anything else - Uncle Albert s Down Home Pizza for example Ask them which slice tasted better Ninth graders Marcelo Choi and Sean Merat tried this procedure in their science project Do Commercials Work at Burnaby South Secondary School in Vancouver In their experiment all test subjects said the Pizza Hut slice tasted better than the other slice How can this be asks Merat indignantly It s the same pizza from the same box Variations on the test are endless Choi and Merat also buttonholed loyal Nike-wearing students While they tried on both Reebok and Nike shoes the blindfolded students were told they were trying on the opposite brand All eight test subjects said the Nike shoes were more comfortable - then had their blindfolds removed to discover they were wearing Reeboks That s the moment of truth jammers live for Some said Nike was still cooler Merat says But a few admitted it was time to start looking beyond the brand - Eliza Strickland CRITICAL CONSUMERISM VOCABULARY Advertisement something that is trying to influence a person to buy or adopt a product service or idea Branding The advertising of products in such a way that consumers have instant positive brand-name recognition and association with a particular company Media a material or technical means of expression Persuasion the act of moving by argument to a belief opinion or course of action Parody a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for the purpose of comedy or ridicule Demographic relating to the statistical study of human populations especially with reference to size age race religion social class and geographic locale Reflection activity It seems that we have hit the ceiling cap in this digital age what do you think is left to invent Where do we go from here Do we recycle old ideas and make them modern DEFINITIONS OF PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES Bandwagon This technique tries to persuade everyone to join in and do the same thing Testimonial An important person or famous figure endorses a product Transfer Good feelings looks or ideas transferred to the person for whom the product is intended Repetition The product name or keyword or phrase is repeated several times Emotional Words Words such as luxury beautiful paradise and economical are used to evoke positive feelings in the viewer Name-calling Negative words are used to create an unfavorable opinion of the competition in the viewer's mind Faulty Cause and Effect Use of a product is credited for creating a positive result Compare and Contrast The viewer is led to believe one product is better than another although no real proof is offered Ethos The character sentiment or disposition of a community or people considered as a natural contribution the spirit which motivates manners and customs Opposite of pathos Pathos Emotions - That quality or property of anything which touches the feelings or excites emotions and passions esp that which awakens tender emotions Opposite of ethos Logos The quality of anything that involves the use of logic and reason Propaganda Many of the characteristic features of advertising and propaganda are similar As consumers we are both cynical and paranoid when it comes to advertising Although the average American is most likely not making comparisons between advertising and propaganda everyone knows advertising is designed to sell more product Advertising is propaganda whose purpose is to develop allegiance to a product or corporation instead of a government As Professor Widdig http web mit edu fll www people BerndWiddig html notes propaganda is content-independent He made short list of defining characteristics of propaganda It is systematic manipulation It is geared to a mass audience It has high emotional density It uses ideas that are already present and themes that are common to a community It creates an us vs them mentality It never refers to unresolved issues and is not humorous It uses history as raw material which it reshapes to present its ideology as the logical outcome of history All advertising is propaganda in the broadest sense of the word but in its own subclass we tend to distinguish it from other propaganda This is merely semantics as the major impact of the word propaganda is not its literal meaning but its rhetorical power and connotations Manipulation to buy a product or manipulation by a government to support it tend to use the same methods Advertising is definitely designed for a mass audience such as television viewers or magazine readers Content with high emotional density is only one method advertising uses In some ways advertising is more sophisticated than what we think of as traditional examples of propaganda It appeals to preexisting ideas in consumer culture We already buy lots of products We like being competed for by companies and products In theory this competition results in better products In practice it makes us feel valuable The creation of an us vs them mentality is again only one of the methods advertising uses Other approaches emphasize the political values of a company use celebrity figures or use sex appeal Advertising differs however from propaganda in its use of humor Many advertisements incorporate an element of humor In this sense perhaps advertising is the most advanced form of propaganda It is certainly the most practiced It makes sense that it should be the best evolved and adapted There are also certain ethical differences between advertising a product and convincing a nation that your dictatorship is what they truly desire although they are subtle The web has added a new aspect to manipulation and propaganda Because of the nature of the web users expect to access information that they are choosing to access Search engines make this possible to a large extent But when a search engine begins tailoring its responses and advertising based on the subject a user is searching on a more subtle manipulation than ever takes place Advertising actually modifies itself in real time and becomes specific to each user Web sites can now give cookies and use them to track how a user moves through them and how often they visit and what they look for These sites can then present a customized form of advertising based on this information or even send email to a user Propaganda just got personal The web is just another medium and as Widdig states propaganda can take place in any and all medium Advertising is not bad and neither is propaganda as long as we are aware of it and how it attempts to manipulate us Propaganda Types of Propaganda BANDWAGON The basic idea behind the bandwagon approach is just that getting on the bandwagon The propagandist puts forth the idea that everyone is doing this or everyone supports this person cause so should you The bandwagon approach appeals to the conformist in all of us No one wants to be left out of what is perceived to be a popular trend EXAMPLE Everyone in Lemmingtown is behind Jim Duffie for Mayor Shouldn't you be part of this winning team TESTIMONIAL This is the celebrity endorsement of a philosophy movement or candidate In advertising for example athletes are often paid millions of dollars to promote sports shoes equipment and fast food In political circles movie stars television stars rock stars and athletes lend a great deal of credibility and power to a political cause or candidate Just a photograph of a movie star at political rally can generate more interest in that issue candidate or cause thousands sometimes millions of people to become supporters EXAMPLE Sam Slugger a baseball Hall of Famer who led the pros in hitting for years appears in a television ad supporting Mike Politico for U S Senate Since Sam is well known and respected in his home state and nationally he will likely gain Mr Politico many votes just by his appearance with the candidate PLAIN FOLKS Here the candidate or cause is identified with common people from everyday walks of life The idea is to make the candidate cause come off as grassroots and all-American EXAMPLE After a morning speech to wealthy Democratic donors Bill Clinton stops by McDonald's for a burger fries and photo-op TRANSFER Transfer employs the use of symbols quotes or the images of famous people to convey a message not necessarily associated with them In the use of transfer the candidate speaker attempts to persuade us through the indirect use of something we respect such as a patriotic or religious image to promote his her ideas Religious and patriotic images may be the most commonly used in this propaganda technique but they are not alone Sometimes even science becomes the means to transfer the message EXAMPLE The environmentalist group PEOPLE PROMOTING PLANTS in its attempt to prevent a highway from destroying the natural habitat of thousands of plant species produces a television ad with a scientist in a white lab coat explaining the dramatic consequences of altering the food chain by destroying this habitat FEAR This technique is very popular among political parties and PACs Political Action Committees in the U S The idea is to present a dreaded circumstance and usually follow it up with the kind of behavior needed to avoid that horrible event EXAMPLE The Citizens for Retired Rights present a magazine ad showing an elderly couple living in poverty because their social security benefits have been drastically cut by the Republicans in Congress The solution The CRR urges you to vote for Democrats LOGICAL FALLACIES Applying logic one can usually draw a conclusion from one or more established premises In the type of propaganda known as the logical fallacy however the premises may be accurate but the conclusion is not EXAMPLE Premise Bill Clinton supports gun control Premise Communist regimes have always supported gun control Conclusion Bill Clinton is a communist We can see in this example that the Conclusion is created by a twisting of logic and is therefore a fallacy GLITTERING GENERALITIES This approach is closely related to what is happening in TRANSFER see above Here a generally accepted virtue is usually employed to stir up favorable emotions The problem is that these words mean different things to different people and are often manipulated for the propagandists' use The important thing to remember is that in this technique the propagandist uses these words in a positive sense They often include words like democracy family values when used positively rights civilization even the word American EXAMPLE An ad by a cigarette manufacturer proclaims to smokers Don't let them take your rights away Rights is a powerful word something that stirs the emotions of many but few on either side would agree on exactly what the 'rights' of smokers are NAME-CALLING This is the opposite of the GLITTERING GENERALITIES approach Name-calling ties a person or cause to a largely perceived negative image EXAMPLE In a campaign speech to a logging company the Congressman referred to his environmentally conscious opponent as a tree hugger Ad Attack Analysis Chart Describe the product or service presented in this ad Describe the young people portrayed in the ad What are they doing What are they wearing Where do they live What seems to be important to them Compare your life to theirs How does this comparison make you feel Would you like to be like these young people Why or why not Circle a phrase below to rate this ad on how accurately it portrays teens Got it right Pretty good Needs a rewrite Who ARE those kids Attachment Media Awareness Test slogan game Ex The breakfast of champions The copper-topped battery The nighttime sniffing sneezing coughing aching stuffy head fever so you can rest medicine It just keeps going and going and going The softer side of The best part of waking up is in your cup Good to the last drop In the valley of the jolly ho-ho-ho- Melts in your mouth not in your hands Best for you and all your parts Just Do It Kid tested Mother approved Must see TV Always low prices always Nothing runs like a John Be all that you can be in the Yo Quiero Did somebody say It s got to be the It s the cheesiest You look so natural no one can tell The fastest way to send money They care enough to send the very best cents a day every day mmm mmm good bargains by the bagful Answer Key to media awareness test slogan game Ex Wheaties Duracell Nyquil Energizer Sears Folgers Maxwell House Coffee Green Giant M M s Lever Nike Kix NBC Walmart Deere John Deere Week One Advertising Unit Day one minutes Statistic on overhead Teens see approximately of these a day -Have students guess what this statistic could be in reference to -After guessing and coming up with the answer ask students if they think this is possible -Where could ads be seen per day -Have students look around the room and count the amount of ads they see highest count gets prize Coke VS Pepsi -Familiar topic to all when you think of Coke what do you think -When you think of Pepsi what do you think -What is your preference of drink Why -Do you think that the advertisements have an effect on you -If they don t have an effect on the population then why are they spending millions of dollars on these advertisements -Look at comparison of bottles What are the differences Why -Look at comparison of images being sold by each product What audience is each targeting Website transparency used and commercial transparency Day two minutes Start with slogan guessing game Have students guess the slogan The preface students stated yesterday that advertising does not effect them yet they are able to identify over slogans in less than a second minutes Discuss different types of propaganda techniques minutes Show short video that uses persuasive technique and have students identify several techniques used in video pitch for stadium in St Paul minutes Day three minutes Students read the first two viewpoints of article and discuss as a group what was covered in the article not extremely successful Need shorter article minutes Summarize what was covered yesterday propaganda techniques in video etc Place propaganda techniques back on board and look at specific ads discussing different types of techniques used minutes Have students look through magazines in search of ads that sell an image more than the product Share with class as they go minutes Day four Show the Best Commercials of All Time to students and have them identify at least three propaganda techniques used in the commercials Short response paragraph also to follow the identified propaganda techniques minutes Week Two Advertising Unit Day one minutes ADS SELL IMAGE -Place Corporate Alphabet on the overhead How many do you recognize -How many of you still think that we are not affected by advertising -Discuss this statement Ads sell ideas not products -We look at more ads on the overhead and students study respond to what the ad is saying What techniques are being used Questions to be answered when examining an ad What do you notice first What information is given about the product What is shown as important to the image What is the lifestyle or fantasy being promoted What is the message of the ad Hand out worksheet one and have students fill in the first two rows Do you think that many of your peers share the same desires Students get in groups of four and create a thesis statement for their group What as a group do you value most Find ads that correspond with such desires Volunteers share with the group what ads they found that correspond with their desires Hand out worksheet two for the homework of the evening due tomorrow Day two minutes PERSUASION -Pose this question to students at the beginning of class and write down responses on an overhead or chalkboard -Think of a time when you wanted to convince your parent to let you do something What did you do to persuade him or her -Discuss how propaganda surrounds our life in many ways from the advertising pitches that we are bombarded by to the way in which we try to pitch our own beliefs and expressions -Hand out Worksheet Five and read through with the students Ask if they have questions about the handout Give an example of the three types of persuasion argumentation on the overhead Discuss -Have students provide a short pitch for different products using the three basic concepts Partners share with the other the three pitches and the other partner has to guess which technique was used Both partners share pitches -Volunteers for the class share their pitches with the class -Hand out persuasive word sheet used for ads Day three minutes AD BUSTING QUOTATION Thaw with his gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer The one melts the other but breaks in pieces ATTRIBUTION Henry David Thoreau - U S philosopher author naturalist QUOTATION The object of oratory speaking alone is not truth but persuasion ATTRIBUTION Thomas Babington Macaulay - Cialdini found that successful counter ads involve the use of effective counter-arguments that call into question the opponent's facts and trustworthiness Memory links to the opponent's ads a sponging device which essentially infects the opponent's message by linking its memory and impact to the counter ad Ridicule is used to satirize the opponent's ads An example of a successful ad campaign that involved all of these elements was the anti-smoking campaign some years ago that featured mock Marlboro Man commercials Those commercials initially looked like tobacco ads with the same rugged outdoor settings and same macho cowboy characters But the counter ads then transformed into attacks on tobacco depicting the cowboys coughing and displaying other health symptoms that result from smoking This undermined the original ads as Cialdini said the satirical ads made laughable the notion that smoking was linked to images of male strength and potency What is the meaning of the word satire One way to combat persuasion is through the use of satire SATIRE A satire either in speaking or in writing holds prevailing vices or foolishness up to ridicule it employs humor and wit to criticize human institutions or humanity itself in order that they may be remodeled or removed Here is one example of satire there are thousands of examples online Check out The Onion or even the Minnesota Daily archives on-line Show spoof ads begin discussing with students the ads they will be pitching after spring break What is the purpose of a spoof ad We read the article Sweet from the AdBusters magazine What do you think of this article To illustrate other persuasion examples and just for fun the kids really enjoy these With hands on shoulders Oh those are shoulder blades I thought they were wings If I could be anything I'd be a tear Born in your eye live on your cheek and die at your lips Would you happen to have a band-aid because I skinned my knee when I fell for you Day four Present the assignment for spring break The CONTEST We look at more bad ads Show the Chevy ad again There is a distinction between commercials which are broadcast on television radio and other electronic media and advertisements which are found in various print media such as magazines newspapers billboards and posters On the Internet the many static advertisements are I would suggest best seen as electronically disseminated print advertisements The following checklist focuses on print advertisements Chapter provides a checklist for analyzing television commercials The Mood What is the general audience of the advertisement-the mood that is created the feelings it stimulates The Design What is the basic design of the advertisement Does it use axial balance or are the fundamental units arranged in an asymmetrical manner What relationship exists between the pictorial aspects of the advertisement and the copy or written material How is spatiality used in the advertisement Is there lots of white blank space or is the advertisement crowded-full of written and graphic material Is there a photograph used in the advertisement If so what kind of shot is it What angle is it taken from What is the lighting like How is color used The Context and Content If there are figures in the advertisement people animals what are they like Consider factors to the extent that you can such as facial expressions hairstyles and hair color body shape and body language clothes age sex race ethnicity education occupation relationships and so on What does the background of the figures suggest Where is the action taking place and how does the background relate to this action What is going on in the advertisement and what significance does this action have Assuming that the advertisement represents part of a narrative what can we conclude about what has led to this particular moment in time That is what is the plot Signs and Symbols What symbols and signs appear in the advertisement What role do they play in stimulating positive feelings about or desire for the product or service being advertised Language and Typefaces How is language used in the advertisement What linguistic devices provide information or generate some hoped for emotional response Does the advertisement used metaphor Metonomy Repetition Alliteration Comparison and contrast Sexual innuendo Definitions What typefaces are used and what messages do these typefaces convey Themes What are the basic themes in the advertisement What is the advertisement about for example the plot may involve a man and a woman drinking and the theme may be jealousy What product or service is being advertised What role does it play in American society and culture What political economic social and cultural attitudes are reflected in the advertisement-such as alienation sexism conformity anxiety stereotyped thinking generational conflict obsession elitism loneliness and so on What information do you need to make sense of the advertisement Does it allude to certain beliefs Is it a reflection of a certain lifestyle Does it assume information and knowledge on the part of a person looking at the advertisement Hand out worksheet and worksheet to help them recognize techniques More examples of persuasion that gets the kids to think outside of the advertising box and they really get a kick out of them Hey baby are you a parking ticket 'Cause you got fine written all over you Can I borrow your library card I wanna check you out Are you from Tennessee 'Cause Ten is all I See Are your feet tired 'Cause you've been running through my mind all day Are you Jamaican 'Cause you're Jamaican me crazy Do you have a map Because I'm totally lost in your eyes Well here I am What were your other two wishes I bet you bucks you're gonna turn me down What is the point of persuasion What makes someone a good persuader A poor persuader What types of persuasion work best on you Examples humor honesty argument etc Why might it be difficult to turn down someone who's trying to persuade you to do something References Beach R Freedman K Responding as a cultural act In J Many and C Cox Eds Reader stance and literary understanding Norwood NJ Ablex Cook G The discourse of advertising New York Routledge Ewen S All consuming images The politics of style in contemporary culture New York Basic Books Ewen S Captains of consciousness Advertising and the social roots of the consumer culture New York Basic Books Fuller L We can t duck the issue Imbedded advertising in the motion pictures In K Firth Ed Undressing the ad Reading culture in advertising pp - New York Peter Lang Garfield C Chung P Rathouz P Alcohol advertising in magazines and adolescent readership JAMA - Gitlin T Media unlimited How the torrent of images and sounds overwhelms our lives New York Metropolitan Books Goffman I Gender advertisements New York HarperCollins Goldman R Reading ads socially New York Routledge Klein