Advertising – creating consumerist imaginations of what life is really about Jacinta Tucker

Advertising is a form of persuasive message that is aimed to motivate consumers to buy a product. The advertising industry uses specific techniques to appeal to their target audience.

The persuasive strategies utilised in advertisements can be divided into three categories: pathos, logos and ethos Persuasive Techniques in Advertising

 An advertisement using pathos will attempt to evoke an emotional response in the consumer. Sometimes, it will be a positive emotion, others times negative emotions or fear and guilt. Pathos: an appeal to emotion

 Advertisers use Pathos techniques such as associations strategies.  Associating a product with catchy jingle, desirable state of being or famous person creates a strong psychological connection in the customer. The ads encourage an emotional response in buyers, which then is linked to the product being advertised, making it attractive through transference.

 An advertisement using logos will give you the evidence and statistics you need to fully understand what the product does. Logos: an appeal to logic or reason

 An advertisement using ethos will try to convince you that the company is more reliable, honest and credible, so therefore you should buy its products. Ethos often involves statistics from reliable experts or a celebrity endorses a product to give it more credibility. Ethos: an appeal to credibility or character

 Advertising that promotes specific features or makes claims about the product hopes to inform, educate and develop expectations in the buyer. Claims can state facts or simply use hype. Claims may mislead through omission or by using certain words which render the claim meaningless if closely examined.

 Repetition: This is a simple but effective technique used to build identity awareness and customer memory.  Bandwagon: This technique sells a product by convincing the customer that others are using it and they should join the crowd. Other strategies suggest the buyer will be left out if they do not buy what’s being sold. A few more techniques to get you to buy …….

 “Consumerism describes a society in which many people formulate their goals in life partly through acquiring goods that they clearly do not need for subsistence or for traditional display. They become enmeshed in the process of acquisition – shopping – and take some of their identity from a (possession) or new items that they buy and exhibit” (Steams 2006) So today advertising has led us to a consumerist society or culture …

 According to sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, a consumerist culture values transience and mobility rather than duration and stability, and the newness of things and reinvention of oneself over endurance. It is a hurried culture that expects immediacy, and one that values individualism and temporary communities over deep, meaningful, and lasting connection to others.

 Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argues that we live in a society of consumers in which consumption dominates culture, everyday practices, lifestyles, values, identifies, world views and behaviour. In such a society we understand ourselves and operate primarily as consumers, and are urged by society to not only keep up, but to stay ahead of others in order to stand out and be seen as valuable members of society.

 In the past society was based on a producers, in which people’s lives were defined by what they produced. The production of things took time and effort, and people were more likely to delay satisfaction until some point in the future.  A consumerist culture is a ‘nowist’ culture that values immediate, or quickly acquired satisfaction. Life wasn’t always this way..

In our consumerist society life is fast paced and there is a permanent state of busyness, and almost a near permanent sense of emergency or urgency. For example the urgency or emergency to being on trend with fashion, and mobile electronics. Thus this consumerist culture is defined by turnover and waste in the ongoing quest for the new goods and experiences. Ours is a world of mass production

There is a Me, Me, Me Now, Now, Now mentality

There seems to be a general shift in values and norms from other to the focus on oneself. The aim is serving the interests and satisfying the desires of the self. “You owe this to yourself.”

 We need things – house, car, phone, clothes, a big TV, shoes and more shoes … to be satisfied, have status and a good placement in society.

 This need for ‘stuff’ makes us easily controlled by the advertisers …

 In our society with the focus on the self and consumer goods there is constant pressure to understand and express ourselves and our identities through the collection of consumer goods.  The advertising of the latest and greatest new products leads to the creation of consumerist imaginations of what life is really about.

 The advertising of stuff has created an illusion.  We have given in to the distractions that we think we want this stuff.

 Generally we want things ….  Things we think we need, whether to make our lives more fulfilling, less depressing or just to flaunt it to the neighbours.

 We choose consumerism to try and give our lives some purpose.  In a consumer society it does seem as the only option - to consume. The consumption of stuff is what life is really about …..

 There is dissatisfaction with products as they lose their luster of newness and are quickly replaced with new products.  Through these consumerist imaginations of what life is really about there is constant pressure as we become obligated to consume in order to express our identities through our consumer purchases.

 In fact we have all been fooled and tricked …. Into the consumerist imaginations or illusions of what life really is about.  We are surrounded and bombarded by advertising

 Advertisements not only advertise and market products but that consumerism brings happiness.  “The cardinal features of this culture are acquisition and consumption as the means of achieving happiness; the cult of the new; the democratization of desire; and money value as the predominant measure of all value in society”

Over the past 100 years, scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations have radically changed the human experience. Today the world is awash in material goods and a higher standard of living for increasing numbers. We live longer, have access to increasingly sophisticated entertainment and modes of communication, and travel greater distances. In short, we are the greatest consumers in the history of life on earth. Yet we seem to be less happy and more anxious. Has our consumer culture become a curse rather than a cure?

  Valleytech.k12.ma.us/medialit/techniques.htm * * * * 8www.foothilltech.org/rgeib/english/media.../advertising_techniques.htm * All images used from google images – advertising/shopping/consumerism References: