Why has advertising and promotions come to be so central and ubiquitous in modern life?

Product advertisements are broadcasted through media such as the television, internet, newspapers and magazines, flyers, posters, and so many others. Billboards are a common element in cityscape, commercials are squeezed in as part of the timeslots of TV shows, and print ads constitute a thick percentage of the pages of magazines. And since the development of websites, spaces have been allocated for banners and streamers of advertisements in every page. In addition, advertising methods like internet pop-ups, telemarketing, and unsolicited emails (also referred to as SPAM) even make consumers complain about advertisements being invasive of their privacy.
Advertisements are everywhere. Not only are they a part of everyday lives, but they even contribute a substantial sum of the daily dose of visuals we each digest. It has come to a point where they are sometimes viewed as nuisances and even referred to by some as “mental pollution”. For a lot of industries, these advertisements keep their business alive. And for some, these advertisements are the only reason why they have a business at all. Advertising, when properly utilized, proves to be a very lucrative investment.
Business turns to advertising as a marketing communications tool: to give information about their product or service and where it may be availed of, and to direct the market’s perspective of the product. The role of advertising in the success businesses has greatly intensified as the 20^th century progressed. Advertising has turned into a business necessity.
So how did advertising reach a state of importance as vast as it holds today? When exactly did companies turn to advertising as a chief marketing tool? A look into the history of media development in the 20^th century provides details on how advertising adjusts to conditions of life.
There are certain historical events that account to the attachment the mass population has developed to its media. The radio served as the main source of entertainment and information during the 1920’s to the 1940’s. During the Great Depression, the radio served as a binding force to nations, giving people the feeling of being united. And the radio also disseminated popular culture and government propaganda quickly and efficiently when the world war came, posing a great opportunity for profit and influence. Gerd (2002) says that the unifying power that the radio held as a medium that “spoke to, and about, a nation”, became even more pronounced during the wartime crisis. Media, mainly in the form of radio, became an indispensable necessity. During those times, people wanted to know, more than anything, what was going on.
In 1922, a group of telecommunications companies founded the British Broadcasting Company, or BBC, which became the first national broadcasting organization. The corporation started out for the broadcast of experimental radio services. And on 1932, they had started on experimental television broadcasts using an electromechanical 30 line system developed by John Logie Baird, which then became a regular service until the Second World War erupted.
The World’s Fair of 1939 was an underrated historical moment in the history of culture and society in the whole world. America beheld a new machine on display with only a modest admiration brought about merely by its mystery.
As George Gilder notes,
“Most people could not have anticipated that this glowing Cyclops would give its name to a new age: the age of television” (1994, p. 35).
This big, bulky box of tubes was the Pandora’s Box of pop culture. The television, or the TV, detonated an era of awareness, liberalism, feminism, and so many other movements. The TV was globalization’s ultimate advocate. Gilder (1994) describes how the TV shoved the radio, America’s once primary source of entertainment and news, to second place. But due to the Second World War, television broadcasting was suspended and resumed only in 1946.
Although Gilder declares that the television age was short-lived, it opened up the world into a new dimension of global awareness. TV had the power to have a certain population looking at the same thing at the same time. The television was a colossal force promoting mass culture and defining the mainstream. Its influence, as affirmed by Gilder, is a very weighty factor in the nature of pop culture to this day,
“Television heavily determined which books and magazines we read, which cultural figures ascended to celebrity and wealth, and which politicians prospered or collapsed”(1994, p. 37).
American pop culture conquered global audience more than any other country, with Hollywood being the acme of the world’s entertainment industry. And since the massive success of pop culture, companies began turning into “global brands”, marketing the same products under the same name in different countries. International marketing quickly fired up into a trend. Although around a decade behind the innovation, the UK and Europe slowly caught up with the trend despite the government strictly controlling broadcasts.
There have been television developments like LCD’s (Liquid crystal display), plasma, etc. And despite the rise of computers, the TV still remains a basic requirement for every home, making it a very profitable advertising tool. Advertising takes advantage of technological trends to expand their coverage of the market, maximizing every new medium to its full market extent. With the advent of video advertising instead of the old audio-only medium, TV gave the advertising industry a big break. And although more media options are continuously being introduced to the public, nothing would make a bigger bang than the TV. In order to reach out to its audience, a product assumes an image that is appropriate to the supposed personality of its target market. The success of how a product represents itself helps carry out the message to the right people. An advertising strategy starts with finding the prospective market, and then finding out how to connect them to the product.
Coomber (2002) says that, “The essence of a great brand is that it stays true to the spirit of the thing that it represents” (2002, p.14). Coomber says that being honest and direct about what made a brand great in the first place would take their business far. However, Chatterjea (2005) says otherwise. In his study, he points out that the advertisement must be made using the target market’s perspective, and presented in a manner that is consistent with the intended reaction. The brand must reflect values its audience can relate to. Otherwise, the chances of the message being alienated by its target are relatively high. As Chatterjea concludes:
“…when patterning the communication, it must be judged in terms of how the target will respond and not in terms of what claims the marketer wants to make” (2005, p.13).
Chatterjea (2005) describes the main function of advertising as influencing decisions taken by human beings. And although advertising aims only to influence, some advertising strategies gain enough hold of consumers’ decision-making as a whole. Advertising mainly functions to stimulate a person’s need of the product, but also has the power to create the need when there is none.
Choosing the right medium to disseminate the message also plays an important part in a successful campaign. After profiling the target audience, the advertising strategy is then formed based on the target’s lifestyle and habits. By doing so, the promotion will be sent through the medium that maximizes its reach of the chosen demographic. As the years passed, agencies have come up with countless publicity stunts to make their product stand out. And as pop culture infested the new generation’s social habits and preferences, celebrities and personalities became part of the advertising industry’s persuasion weapons.
Without a doubt, the advent of new media led to practically the extinction of some industries. The modern advertising industry has a multitude of improved media options: from the old school manually painted billboards, we now have graphics in digital prints which are easily reproducible; the “world wide web” for worldwide audience; applications and gadgets that are regularly upgraded with newer versions. But all of these innovations crept quite silently into the already noisy entertainment industry. None of these can compare to the first explosion, the revolutionary medium that first broke the four-decade long reign of the radio.
Arens (1999) says that ethical advertising tells the audience about the product as creatively as possible without having to forfeit the truth. However, though the years, advertising has been a center of criticism and legal complaints as well. Arens relates how the advertising industry received blows from the public and how it continuously struggles through the same obstacles to this day. A series of incidences where certain products are marketed with unsubstantiated claims resulted to public scrutiny. The public began voicing out complaints concerning advertisements with misleading messages and false promises. Government regulations were then created to set legal limitations on advertising claims.
Public relations aim to build relationships with different audiences and to interpret the advertiser’s message in a language that is suitable to that populace. While advertising content revolves around the attributes of the campaign, such as message and visual communication tools, promotional strategies cover a wider scope of work. Promotional strategies cover not only the advertising campaign itself, but also tactics on how to disperse the promotional materials to the right people. Public relations is an essential part of the promotional strategy. This ensures that the message is accepted in a positive manner by building a relationship with the audience.
In the earlier times, publicity was mainly concerned about news releases and basic information about events. Advertising, however, had more flexibility to branch out into different media, and more creative ways to deliver messages. Wilcox et al (1998) explains that the difference between advertising and publicity is that advertising is material broadcasted by the medium for a certain agreed price, whereas publicity requires approval from the medium’s editors. This involves more work since this approval usually depends on the brand’s reputation, and whether the publicity of this brand will be beneficial or harmful to the medium’s credibility. In the present times, though, even publicities may be paid for to broadcast or publish a feature.
As time grew on, just like advertising, the public relations industry suffered some setbacks brought about by issues of honesty and ethics. Wilcox et al (1998) also narrate how the public relations industry used to be dominated by reporters and journalists mainly because of their writing skills. However, the requirements of the industry grew along with the development of mass media and management skills became an integral requirement for someone working in the PR industry.
Another fact they pointed out was that traditionally, majority of the people working in this industry were men. And although more and more young women entered the industry during the 1980’s, the salary range that women are being paid are usually five to ten percent lower than those of men. The higher positions are also offered to men and the junior jobs to women. Times have changed. The PR industry is now dominated by women.
Obscenity, blasphemy, and libel have always been given delicate consideration in the United Kingdom. But after the wars, freedom of the press became even more strictly regulated. Criticisms on the Communist regime were avoided in the UK, being member of the Allied Powers. In 1962, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was formed to regulate advertising content in the United Kingdom. However, advertising agencies still create advertisements that are less than legally acceptable, resulting in certain commercials being banned. But what’s amusing about banned commercials is that the more they are censored, the more controversial they get, and the more they are searched for online.
Copy text, or tag line, plays a major role in an advertisement. A catch phrase or statement pulls in attention and stimulates product retention in the audience’s memory. All-time favourites include Nike’s “Just Do It”, HSBC’s “The world’s local bank”, and Johnnie Walker’s Keep walkin’. There really isn’t a definite system for coming up with a tag line and there isn’t any formula as to which ones will work. Advertisers go with what works regardless of why.
Pratkanis and Aronson (2001) tackle how advertisements lean toward dispersion of manipulative messages and deceptive propaganda tactics in order to persuade the viewers to accept concepts favourable to the intended effect. By appealing to deepest fears and irrational hopes, products are sold out of the abusive use of propaganda.
The Propaganda device “card stacking”, for instance, conceals unpleasant truths about the product while favourable selling points are overemphasized. Such campaigns raise a question of pragmatics. The definition of ethical advertising being “truth well told”, as McCann-Erickson states it, loses credibility and is instead clouded by suspicions of manipulated pragmatics, rephrasing claims to fit consumer desire while still being legally justifiable. The main role of advertising to a business is to sell the service or product. If the product doesn’t sell itself, advertising will do the work.
Critics, including some advertisers themselves, argue against how advertising exploits the media by abusing the power to create a need, by turning desire into necessity. Advertisements tend to emphasize their products by creating ideologies, dictating things such as connotations of luxury, poverty, security, etc.
The success of the DeBeers advertising campaign, “A diamond is forever”, for example, gave the diamond industry an overrated sense of luxury which stretches to this day. Diamond prices hiked up incredibly and the diamond industry became a major source of income for many countries. The population benefiting from this industry includes Africa, where the scandal about the diamond industry financing civil terrorist activities led to a worldwide advocacy against the purchasing of diamonds from war zones, referred to as “blood diamonds” or “conflict diamonds”. In this case, the product was too well-marketed; the product was marketed to a dangerous extent.
The fear of obesity, heart failure, and other diseases plagued America. McDonald’s, for one, suffered a massive dent on its public image when Morgan Spurlock’s “Supersize Me” (2004) rattled the American populace by documenting the alarming effect of the daily consumption of McDonald’s foods on an individual’s health. McDonald’s and fast-food chains of the same variety had to make major adjustments such as displaying calorie information and adding healthier items to their menu.
Barthes (1957) challenges the innocence of the elements of the social and cultural environment we move in everyday. He is concerned about the myths that people have allowed themselves to be wrapped around in through long periods of exposure to global ideologies and pop culture. Certain ideologies in the present may be allegedly attributed to such elements individuals are exposed to in their everyday lives. Most of these elements are already present even during a child’s early development years.
In the earlier times, bulkier women were viewed as beautiful. This is due to the fact that a curvier body usually signifies that a woman came from a well-off family. But through the years, the ideal female form began to take a new shape.
State for example, that in 1959, a doll that was initially made for the adult demographic made a breakthrough in the toy merchandising industry. It wasn’t their adult target audience that bought the merchandise, though. Instead, this doll became a must-have for every little girl growing up. With its extremely thin waist, perfectly shaped face, and exceptionally long legs, the Barbie doll became every girl’s ultimate symbol of beauty.
Nowadays, skinny is beautiful. The skinny ideal conquered America and Europe and spread throughout parts of the world through pop media. Weight is a very hot topic for pop culture, mostly with female celebrities being the target of scrutinizing magazines and websites: if she gains weight, she’s losing control of herself; if she loses weight, she’s anorexic. Could Barbie be responsible for this trend in the new age perspective of the “ideal female body”?
There’s more to the “Barbie mentality” than the weight issue—there’s the breast issue, the nose, the lips, the cheeks, the list could go on. That plastic surgery became a trend almost simultaneously with the rise of the Barbie doll is only coincidental becomes quite improbable.
The fact that is even more disturbing than the brainwashing of generations into psychological uniformity is the ignorance of it, the point of realization coming only when an individual struggles to become an individual again, instead of continuing to be just a part of the mainstream populace. May (1979) studied series of incidents relating to loss of individuality and describes problems of “self-identity”, in his study of problems of the modern Western man, as “profound and powerful resistance against the ‘facelessness of students in the modern factory university'” (1979, p.26).
The reason why advertising peaked to the dominance it now holds is because the industry has been very well adaptable to the media it revolves in. The evolution of advertising swayed and swerved with accordance to the evolution of media. So long as this bond is maintained, adverts are unstoppable.
Advertising and media — a marriage between two most powerfully influential forces in the modern age materialized into the omnipresence of the messages, both literal and subliminal, in the environment we live in. The advertising industry kept itself present in the mainstream population’s mind by being existent everywhere. And because these messages have been a part of everyday ambience, we have lost resistance to whatever ideology these messages suggest.
Advertising and media became a tandem in disseminating messages relevant to current events and the economical, physical, and more importantly, the emotional state of their audience. By conceding the momentary emotional requirements of the market, the media exudes an image marked by sympathy, therefore gaining public trust and favour.
Advertising became a successful force of influence because the psychology behind it is so well-manipulated to the point that it is actually impressive. These advertising tactics are unquestionably unethical. But whether we can regulate these manipulations is an even greater force to be dealing with.
Nevertheless, business has grown a great deal of dependence on the advertising industry. And companies, being mainly concerned about the profitability of their business, will continue to employ advertising services to their maximum extent allowable by law.