NETWORK FOUNDATION
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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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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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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