I. Discuss the following questions in class.

1. What is advertising? Try to define the term in your own words.

2. What are the main media or channels of advertising?

3. What advertising forms do you know?

4. Who produces advertising?

5. What devices do the advertisers use to attract consumers’ attention to the product?

6. What methods of persuasion do you know?

7. What was the first advertisement and where was it used?

8. Whose images are frequently used in advertising?

 

II. Read and translate the first advertising slogans. Try to define stylistic devices on which these slogans are based.

1. “Access – your flexible friend”. (Advertising slogan for Access credit cards, 1981 onwards, in Nigel Rees Slogans (1982), p. 91)

2. “Coughs and sneezes spread diseases. Trap the germs in your handkerchief”. (1942 health slogan, in J. Darracott and B. Loftus Second World War Posters (1972), p. 19)

3. “Don't ask a man to drink and drive”. (UK road safety slogan, from 1964)

4. “Don't die of ignorance”. (Slogan used in AIDS publicity campaign, 1987: see The Times 9 and 13 Jan. 1987)

5. “The hands that do dishes can be soft as your face, with mild green Fairy Liquid”. (Advertising slogan for Procter & Gamble's washing-up liquid)

6. “If you want to get ahead, get a hat”. (Advertising slogan for the Hat Council, UK, 1965)

7. “Let your fingers do the walking”. (1960s advertisement for Bell system Telephone Directory Yellow Pages, in Harold S. Sharp Advertising Slogans of America (1984), p. 44)

8. “No manager ever got fired for buying IBM”. (IBM advertising slogan)

9. “Top people take The Times”. (Advertising slogan for The Times newspaper from Jan. 1959)

10. “Progress through technology”. (Advertising slogan for Audi cars, from 1986)

11. “Beanz meanz Heinz”. (Advertising slogan for Heinz baked beans circa 1967, in Nigel Rees Slogans (1982), p. 131)

12. “Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach”. (Slogan for Heineken lager, 1975 onwards, in Nigel Rees Slogans (1982), p. 16)

13. “Drinka Pinta Milka Day”. (Slogan for the British Milk Marketing Board, 1958)

 

III. Read the following sayings about advertising and express your opinion about them.

1. “You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements”. (Norman Douglas (1868–1952) “South Wind” (1917) ch. 6)

2. “Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it”. (Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) “Garden of Folly” (1924) “The Perfect Salesman”)

3. “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising”. (Mark Twain (1835–1910)“A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”)

4. “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does”. (Stuart Henderson)

5. “The trouble with America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy”. (Louis Kronenberger)

 

IV. Match the brand name with its slogan.

1. LG	a. Intelligence everywhere. / Hello, Moto!
2. Panasonic	b. You always think about us.
3. Nokia	c. There’s no better way to fly.
4. Motorola	d. Ideas for life!
5. Samsung	e. Sweden. Made with mind.
6. Toyota	f. In Touch with Tomorrow.
7. Tefal	g. Can do.
8. Ritter Sport	h. Life’s good! / Digitally yours.
9. McDonalds	i. You can.
10. Toshiba	j. Touch the temptation.
11. Lufthansa	k. I’m loving it!
12. Lexus	l. Connecting people.
13. Electrolux	m. Quadratisch. Practisch. Gut.
14. Canon	n. On the earth is your personal plane in the sky.
15. Candy	o. Manage your dream.

 

Try to remember any other advertising slogans and brands of modern Russian and foreign companies.

THE SCOPE OF ADVERTISING

Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. Marketers see advertising as part of an overall promotional strategy. Other components of the promotional mix include publicity, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion.

In ancient times the most common form of advertising was 'word of mouth'. However, commercial messages and election campaign displays were found in the ruins of Pompeii. As printing developed in the 15th and 16th century, the first steps towards modern advertising were taken. In the 17th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England and within a century, advertising became very popular.

As the economy was expanding during the 19th century, the need for advertising grew at the same pace. In 1843 the first advertising agency was established by Volney Palmer in Philadelphia. At first the agencies were just brokers for ad space in newspapers, but in the 20th century, advertising agencies started to take over responsibility for the content as well (pic. 1.1).

Pic. 1.1. Advertisement from 1913

Some commercial advertising media include: billboards, printed flyers, radio, cinema and television ads, web banners, skywriting, bus stop benches, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, taxicab doors, musical stage shows, stickers on apples in supermarkets, the backs of event tickets, and skywriting (pic. 1.2). Any place an “identified” sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising. Covert advertising embedded in other entertainment media is known as product placement.

The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format and this is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events.

Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the “relevance” of the surrounding Web content. E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited E-mail advertising is known as “spam”.

Pic. 1.2. Skywriting

Some companies have proposed to place messages or corporate logos on the side of booster rockets and the International Space Station. Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising, and the pervasiveness of mass messages.

Unpaid advertising (also called word of mouth advertising), can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Such techniques as personal recommendations, spreading rumours, or achieving the aim by equating a brand with a common noun (“Hoover” = “vacuum cleaner”) require a lot of fantasy from the holder of an advertising budget.

One of the purposes of advertising is to stimulate demand for a product, service, or idea. A major way advertising may stimulate demand is to create a brand franchise for a product. A brand franchise is the ability of the brand to draw buyers (even without further advertising). One can talk about the supreme brand franchise, when the brand is used to describe the whole category of products, i.e. it is used as a generic term. One of the most successful firms to have achieved a brand franchise is Hoover, whose name was for a very long time synonymous with vacuum cleaner. In Texas it is common to hear people refer to any soft drink as a Coke, regardless of whether it is actually produced by Coca-Cola or not.

A legal risk of the brand franchise is that the name can become so widely accepted that it becomes a generic term, and loses trademark protection. Examples include “escalator”, “aspirin” and “mimeograph”.

Other objectives include short or long term increases in sales, market share, awareness, product information, and image improvement.

A number of advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods and services can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about serious non-commercial issues, such as AIDS, energy conservation, and deforestation.

Advertising, in its non-commercial use, is a powerful educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences. “Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest – it is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes”, – Howard Gossage, a successful adman, said.

There have been increasing efforts to protect the public interest by regulating the content of advertising. Some examples are the ban on tobacco advertising imposed in the USA, and the total ban on advertising to children under twelve imposed by the Swedish government in 1991. In Europe and elsewhere there is an energetic debate on whether and how much advertising to children should be regulated.

a Post-Reading Tasks