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AdvertisingLefteris ChelioudakisAnna Maria Papastergiou

Alexandros Plessas

11/22/2014Course: English

Course Lecturer: Alexandros Christodoulou

Semester: Winter

Advertising

ContentsIntroduction................................................3Definition of advertising...................................3

History of Advertising......................................4Use of advertisement........................................5

Role of Advertising.........................................6Ways of getting a product sold..............................7

Unrealistic standards.......................................8Body image and advertisement...............................10

Movements to change this policy............................11References.................................................12

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Advertising

IntroductionAdvertisement as a concept dates back to 3000 B.C when

items were promoted by word of mouth. The evolution of

technology helped advertising develop significantly

during the years and especially the last centuries with

the mass media developments. In this time and era,

advertisements has a lot of uses in our life and plays an

important role in the economy of the world since a lot of

money are spent by companies to promote services,

products and business. However, today’s fierce

competition has led companies use insidious methods in

order to manipulate people to overspend by illustrating

the perfection within unrealistic beauty standards. This

causes negative effects on people’s psychology, body

image and generally their self esteem and more

specifically to teenagers. Advertisements have other

manipulative ways of mentally forcing them to buy their

products.

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Advertising

Definition of advertising Advertising is an act of promoting a company’s product

with many illustrated information in order to gain from

it. Is about the creation of a prototype message, which

refers to a material or a product and the systematic

promotion of its advantages, in order to increase the

demand and to manipulate the receiver to buy it. (Maria,

2014)

History of AdvertisingMany people tend to believe that advertizing is an

outcome of the last century. This is not quite true,

however the last century and after industrial evolution

advertizing has developed rapidly. Advertizing has its

origins in ancient Egypt and Greece when people back then

used to advertize products by word of mouth. Despite

that, papyrus have been found in Pompeii and ancient Rome

which used to serve some purposes, like sales messages,

wall posters for political campaign. Another type of

advertising has been found around the ancient world, to

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Advertising

India, to Africa and South America more specific. Wall or

rock painting traces have been recognized to India 4000

years B.C. (Bhatia, 2000) There are no significant

changes in the advertising until Johannes Gutenberg

(Germany) invented a mechanical movable type printing at

in around 1439 and it was possible to create more printed

papers promoting products and servings. Then with the

economic expansion and the Industrial revolution in the

19th century, advertising need to developed more and would

cover all large spaces, indeed useful advertisements

started to appear in the newspapers and public places.

The most evolutionary advertizing agent was Volney Palmer

in Philadelphia who proclaimed himself as an agent of

advertising (Anon., n.d.) The 20th century was the century

that people started broadcasting advertisements in the

radio and started from New York in 1920 from WEAF radio

station. In the 1950s when television inserted in the

market quickly became the main and most important way of

advertising since through television they can control

even emotions so and plasmatic needs. Last but not least,

internet advertisements first appeared in 1990s and in

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Advertising

the future were to be the greatest of all previous kinds

of advertizing. (Bittlingmayer, 2011)

Use of advertisement1. From the begging, advertisement gave an outlet to

the inner need of men to satisfy his curiosity,

2. The trend of his to publish his creations to the

other member of his social circle.

3. The economic circumstances of the modern society

have led advertisement to a mandatory term. Since

the markets broaden because of the globalization and

the deals have been simpler and expanded

simultaneously all around the world. (Maria, 2014)

4. The technology progress allows the rise of

production and feed the economic competition of

businesses. So, advertizing is mandatory for the

enforcement of products to the consumer.

5. Modern people enjoy higher standard of living in

comparison to the older ages. Therefore, people do

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Advertising

not restrict to cover only their basic needs. That

is why advertizing is in need as an incentive for

everyone to spend their money to things and products

of second need matter which will offer them joy and

pleasure. (Maria, 2014)

6. Educating the people is another use of

advertisements as many consumers lack of knowledge

for many services and products and their use. (Jain,

2014)

Role of AdvertisingAdvertising can be considered as a well structured

business and a non-personal communication. Firstly, the

role of advertising is to a way of inform us what is on

the market and it is available for anyone. Advertising is

also an intrigue game between big companies in order to

gain the attraction of people let alone their pockets.

Due to this fact companies are becoming more and more

ingenious and they use many unlawful and devious tricks

to attract us. Furthermore, advertising not only plays a

vital role in promoting our economic growth but it is a

colorful and diverting aspect of life (Peter Drucker).

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Advertising

Every year more than 4 billion dollars spend to

advertisements to all media (news paper, TV, internet

etch.). Up to the point, it is well known that the reason

behind the constantly repeated advertisements is to

create demand in the markets. Consumers unconsciously see

the availability of a product or a service and the

automatically desire it. In addition, advertisements are

able to change the beliefs. Advertisements are not only

concern with products and services but also political

propagandas and different messages such as world

pollution etc. Last but not least, the role of

advertisements is to familiarize people with a specific

brand for example, a business or a fast-food restaurant

(McDonalds) .So concluding advertisements promote a firm

in the market and helps to reduce consumer’s dissonance

about it. (Abiodum, 2011)

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Advertising

Ways of getting a product soldNowadays, media is playing a very important role as a

mean to our need of entertainment, since, according to

surveys, almost every household owns at least one

Television and/ or one Computer, thus making those means

the main target that corporations are aiming for to sell

their products, and make more money. In order to approach

this goal, advertisement corporations are involved to

show the product to the people in such way that they’ll

be convinced to buy it regardless the fact that they need

it or not. For instance, a tasty, unhealthy meal may be

served in less than 60 seconds in a fast-food restaurant,

but you would not choose theirs over another’s and that’s

because advertisements told you so. According to a

research that was conducted by Dr. Julie Sedivy, people

are more prone to accept something that is offered to

them since they are so passive when they are not prepared

to think about it which comes to the case of

advertisement that is televised or depicted in magazines.

Other way to make you manipulative is to build a bridge

between advertisements and emotions. Emotions are very

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tight to memory so if they make a connection between

advertisements and emotions, you’re more positive to

remember the product, rather than just forget about it,

and that’s what they want to achieve. For example, a

Google advertisement that was aired in Super Bowl 2010,

and was also voted as the best commercial at that time,

used search strings to illustrate how a young man went to

Paris, met a woman, fell in love with her, married her

and then started a family. This example fits perfectly

for our cause, because in this commercial, it is not

referred anywhere that this search engine is great and

you should use it because of the various search results,

but that’s what is implied through the young man’s search

and use of it and you are more likely to remember it

through the emotion that is emitted from it. However,

those are not the only ways of persuading people to buy

their products. Another way of making you buy things that

you do not necessarily need is to create a sense of lack

that should not exist and make you think through the need

of desire and not through logic. Buying things out of

desire is not always negative, but it may lead you to an

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Advertising

excessive number of unnecessary purchases. Thinking

through the balance of desire and logic is the most

ideally way of buying things. To be more specific, when

you go to a movies theater, a very reasonable desire is

to accompany your movie with a cup of popcorn, and you’re

most likely to do that even though the popcorn is

overpriced and one of the unhealthiest foods you could

eat. According to scientists, if you hear something that

is wrong on a daily basis, you’re more likely to change

the way you see it and maybe even believe it. To date,

modern advertisement is more about to get the product in

our head than about the product itself. This is

accomplished by applying the repetitive bombardment of

adverts in almost every minute of our lives. With this

method, you are assured that even if you do not like a

product for some reason and think that its use does not

interest you, you will give it a try at some point.

As the years go by, corporations must find new methods to

get their products sold in order to survive in the

business industry. That does not necessarily mean that

those ways are right and ethical, but they are effective

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and that is all that matters to them, despite the fact

that they are doing more harm than good to the everyday

citizen.

Unrealistic standardsThe new Victoria’s secret underwear campaign is all over

the place, available throughout America and even easy to

get from the international customers via e-shop.

The famous motto of our times; skinny for perfection is

showcased again.

However, this time the company went the extra mile. Not

only, was an unrealistic airbrushed body promoted but

also the photo held the caption; “Perfect body”.

Hundreds of people signed petitions accusing the company

for an “unhealthy and damaging message” 1

It is universally established that advertisements play

the role of the dominator role in the society, but in

what extent does this infect the youth in order to have a

low self esteem so as to purchase the new products?

Body image

When an adolescent is going through puberty has to face a

1 The telegraph UK (2014)

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lot of tremendous changes in the physical appearance, as

both boys and girls become more familiar to their new

body shape and size. Body image derives from a person’s

social, cultural and biological background and is a real

concern for the teenagers as they want to be admired and

corporate into the society. An adolescent constructs her

or his body image in many ways including impute from

family members, peers and the media.The thin model is for

girls and muscular one for boys in the Modern western

countries.2It does not surprise us that physical

attractiveness is of a great importance on our daily

lives. We are taught from a very tender age that

beautiful kids are usually more appreciated by their

peers or even the teachers seem to give higher

evaluations to the work of the most attractive children.

“The 'bias for beauty' operates in almost all social situations – all experiments

show we react more favorably to physically attractive people.”3

2 Adolesc Med (2008)3 Kate Fox, 1997

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Body image and advertisement It is estimated that we see approximately 3.000

advertisements per day, so it is really easy to get

carried away and buy products on impulse.

A common marketing technique in order to thrive on

competition is to give the audience and especially in

young women negative messages about their bodies.

The consequences of such body dissatisfaction can be

fatal.

Experiments have shown that after being shown TV Ads

including very beautiful and slim people the individuals

became more insecure about their appearance.

Even though, most TV programmes use very attractive

people the TV use the most idealized ones even from a

cultural point of view as for instance real families have

nothing in common with the happy-perfect ones in ads .

The same applies to fashion magazines as well.

It has been brought to light by researchers that

exposure to photographs of super skinny models can have a

negative impact on someone’s life and cause depression,

stress, insecurity etc.

In many eating disorders clinics magazines like Elle and

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Advertising

Vogue are banned.

Moreover, it is reported that in many gossip magazines

celebrities are getting judged for the amount of weight

they gained with comments strongly linked with

stereotypes such as; that all fat people are lazy and

promoting that those who have lost weight are successful.

Movements to change this policyIn the UK “Be Real” which launched in October 2014 is a

national movement in order to change attitudes to body

image and help to develop a healthier relationship with

our bodies.

It is made of schools, charities, public bodies,

individuals etc.

It was formed in response to the Reflections on Body

Image report from the All Party parliamentary Group for

Body Image.

The campaign was executed in the partnership of Dove and

sponsored by Facebook, New look, Debenhams, bare minerals

The purpose of this campaign is educating people towards

body confident especially setting the example for school

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age children calling their parents to adopt a healthier

point of view.

In addition, they want to change the models that media

aim for; by calling businesses, publishers, editors etc

to act responsively by positive promoting different body

shapes and sizes, people with or without disabilities,

from all ages and ethnicities.

Conclusion

Taking everything into account, technology has helped the

advertisement industry flourish. Nowadays, advertisement

have several helpful uses in the society and an

incontestable role. Αs far as self esteem is concerned

advertisements have the power to influence us most of the

times in a negative way so as to believe that we are not

beautiful enough and buy new products we don’t

particularly need .

It is really sad to see young girls hating themselves

and having eating disorders because they do not fit the

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“skinny – beautiful” cover of a magazine or don’t have a

thigh gap! Although, many people are actually naturally

beautiful and thin and when looking on magazine we want

to see something attractive it would be advisable to stop

trying to imitate models and stop shaming fat people.

As J.K Rowling has said;

“Is fat really the worst thing a human being can be? Is

fat worse than vindictive, jealous, shallow, vain,

boring, evil, or cruel? Not to me.” Although adverts are

used worldwide to publish various products and ideas, in

order to convey their message and benefit from it,

corporations study about how our brains can be tricked

into making us buy a product willingly, even though we

may find it rather useless right after the purchase.

However, this action has side effects regarding our

health. For instance, addictions such as Oniomaniai (also

known as shopaholism) can be created or even damaging our

mental state’s health.

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Advertising

References Abiodum, A. O., 2011. The impact of advertising on sales volume, s.l.: s.n.

Anon., n.d. [Online] Available at: http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~el6/presentations/pres_c2_hoa/19thand20thadvertising.htm[Accessed 16 November 2014].

Bhatia, 2000. Advertising in Rural India: Language, Marketing Communication, and Consumerism. In: s.l.:s.n., p. 62+68.

Bittlingmayer, G., 2011. Library Economics Liberty. [Online] Available at: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Advertising.html[Accessed 18 November 2014].

Jain, R., 2014. What are the main purposes of advertising, s.l.: s.n.

Maria, Τ., 2014. Greek Language. 10th ed. Athens(Voula): Austria Hellas TUV.

Roberta Segal, (2012), How do advertisements manipulate

our buying/consumer behavior, Available at:

http://www.quora.com/How-do-advertisements-manipulate-

our-buying-consumer-behaviour [Accessed: 19th November

2014]

Adam Dachis, (2011), How Advertising manipulates your

choices and spending habits (and what to do about it),

Available at: http://lifehacker.com/5824328/how-

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advertising-manipulates-your-choices-and-spending-habits-

and-what-to-do-about-it [Accessed: 19th November 2014]

Brad Tuttle, (2010), How you’re manipulated into buying

stuff you don’t want and paying more than you should,

Available at: http://business.time.com/2010/09/16/how-

youre-manipulated-into-buying-stuff-you-dont-want-and-

paying-more-than-you-should/ [Accessed: 19th November

2014]

International Statistics, Media > Households with

television: Countries Compared, Available at:

http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Media/Hous

eholds-with-television#date [Accessed: 19th November 2014]

M. V. C. S. Marjorie J. Hogan, "Body Image, Eating Disorders, and the Media," Minneapolis, 2008.

R. Sanghani, "The telegraph," October 2014. [Online]. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11192298/Victorias-Secret-lingerie-adverts-spark-outrage.html. [Accessed 11/11 November 2014].

K. Fox, "SIRC," 1997. [Online]. Available: http://www.sirc.org/publik/mirror.html. [Accessed 13.11.2014 November 2014].

"BE real," October 2014. [Online]. Available:

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http://www.berealcampaign.co.uk/home/. [Accessed 16.11.2014 November 2014].

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i The excessive need to buy new things