ESSAY

'Advertising Doesn’t Sell Things; All Advertising Does Is Change How People Think Or Feel' (Jeremy Bullmore).

Evaluate This Statement With Reference To Selected Critical Theories (Past Or Present).

Advertising is the backbone of industry, without advertising there are no businesses; it is the key to success. But this statement from Bullmore makes us question the façade of advertising, what is hiding beneath the surface and the truthful aims of the company. Adverts are renowned for the over exaggeration of a product and usually the positive effects it would have on ones life. Despite many people being aware of the lies and common deceit within this form of communication they are still often subconsciously being convinced that not only do they want the product but that their lives would be greatly and undoubtedly improved by it, creating the need to obtain this. The context of advertising continually changes, particularly through the media in which we see it today. The creation of online social media has allowed companies to direct their advertisements at very specific audiences, this also happens with TV commercials as companies can choose the channel and time of day allowing them to have maximum control as to who is influenced by their advertisement. It is no secret that provoking the feelings of the audience and manipulating them into thinking or believing in an idea is the key to selling your product.

I believe that companies use sex as their key selling point in the majority of advertisements, however this is not just in todays’ industry, this is a technique that has been around for decades. It is clear that sex sells, we see advertisements all around us on TV, on the streets, on billboards and in other forms of communication. ‘Publicity increasingly uses sexuality to sell any product or service. But this sexuality is never free in itself; it is a symbol for something presumed to be larger than it: the good life in which you can buy whatever you want.’ (Berger, 2008) Berger picks up on how sex is used as a comparison to the product, suggesting that the product has a strong relation to sexual behavior and therefore draws the audience in through a seductive skill to suggest that the product itself is better than sex. We have become so accustomed to seeing women and men with clothes removed or laid in a seductive manor that we no longer look at it as the exploitation of people and an inappropriate way to sell a product. But has it ever been seen as inappropriate?

At the height of sexism against women in the 1940’s, using women to be ridiculed was enhanced by the technique of them being naked or luring in some form. They were used as sex objects and their only place was in the kitchen or the bedroom, as was shown by the constant flow of advertisements for household products followed by the stereotypical male chauvinistic comment placed above a beautiful woman. The influence of the war I believe had a strong impact on this type of advertising; men were sent to war and this image of the men fighting for their country lead people to perceiving them as heroes. Whether this inflated their egos or whether treating women this way was something seen as natural to them I cannot be sure of, but I believe this had an impact on them feeling far more superior to females. As we can see in fig.1 this is a great example of how a naked woman has been strategically placed just behind the product being sold. To the audience they relate buying this product with the image of the woman in the forefront of their mind; this convinces them that they need this product rather than that they want it. This was an ad for Weyenburg shoes yet the first thing we notice is that the text isn’t related to the product but to the keeping of the woman behind. ‘Weyenburg defended protests with this official statement: Weyenburg is taking the first positive stand for masculinity…against the influences of the women’s liberation movement‘ (Rodnitzky, 1999) This shows that the company knew what type of message this gives out and weren’t oblivious as to the exploitation of females. This contradicts Bullmores’ statement however as advertising this figure is selling the product just in a way that pushes subliminal messages forward strongly.

‘People who criticize advertising in its current form argue that advertisements create false wants and encourage the production and consumption of things that are incompatible with the fulfillment and of genuine and urgent human needs.’ (Dyer, 2008) If companies created simple advertisements that solely showed their product it is clear now that they would be highly unsuccessful. The main reason for this is that when selling a product thy have to sell something with it, the lifestyle. Since the birth of advertising there is one key element that runs throughout the majority of posters, campaigns and anything directed at selling a product and that is the false sense of security the audience is lulled into. They believe that by buying the product they are also buying into a particular lifestyle, a convincing example of this is shown in many of, if not all, Gucci’s adverts, fig.2. This male figure demonstrates the utmost of dominance and control here, he is laid back and relaxed and has a beautiful woman sprawled over his lap. His body language speaks volumes, he is sat comfortable looking at the camera in a fairly confident manner, the position of his hand shows control and superiority over the woman he seems to ‘own.’ Again I question, when will this be an advertising technique of the past? Never. Even more so today women accept this without a second thought, it isn’t something that raises concern when they see this in a magazine or a billboard because it is seen so often and is a constant theme running through everything we see or do.

On top of all this it is successful and therefore large companies have no reason to find a new way to sell products that would have this same effect. When we look at the male model in fig.2 he is dressed smartly in a crisp, clean suit, this has strong connotations of class, sophistication and wealth. He looks good, he dresses well and he has a woman under his control, it is the lifestyle that appeals to the audience here. Obviously the audience is directed predominantly at men, and they feel that by buying this product they are buying into the lifestyle they can see in front of them. It becomes a vicious circle when the consumer realizes that this product hasn’t achieved what they thought, they then continue to buy other products in a desperate attempt to achieve the lifestyle portrayed in these unrealistic advertisements. Again this contradicts Bullmore strongly, it shows that there is a constant cycle of people that fall for the false advertising of a ‘perfect’ lifestyle that is highly related to the product. ‘The philosophy behind much advertising is based on the old observation that every man is really two men: the man he is and the man he wants to be. – William Feather’ (Murphy, 1978). I agree with this statement wholly, I believe that every person sets fairly unrealistic expectations of their life and becomes disappointed when their expectations aren’t met. This leads to them searching for what they think will make them happier and improve their lifestyle, a perfect gap for the market to heavily influence people with products that they are told are the key to gaining what they want in life.

The constant need to find something to make the life of the consumer feel more fulfilled is present in men and women, the unrealistic scenarios seen in advertising make them feel unsatisfied and as though their life doesn’t compare. They are made to feel as if something is missing, that they lead an uninteresting boring life and most of all that they are ugly. Feeling inferior to the precisely selected models in these campaigns is a given, the consumer looks at them with jealousy as they seem to have everything; the looks and the perfect lifestyle, usually the perfect relationship also. All these things are hard to achieve and we each have our own idea of what is classed as the best, yet everyone seems to spot something in this world of advertising that they don’t have, but that they need.

Predominantly girls feel the strain more than men, the models they see with great figures are only something they can dream of looking like, this lowers self esteem and confidence in what they look like due to the unrealistic and usually edited models. Through a study done in 1994 ‘Sociocultural factors are thought to play a central role in the promotion and maintenance of eating disorders’…’Results indicated that exposure to the thin-ideal model produced depression, stress, guilt, shame, insecurity and body dissatisfaction.’ (Stice, E, Shaw, H 1994) This seems to agree with Bullmore in terms of that an advertisement doesn’t sell; it just changes how the consumer feels. However it never makes the consumer feel happy or enlightened by an advertisement, it makes them feel unworthy and of lower importance. As a result of feeling this lesser, more insignificant person they reach out to follow the ad and what they recommend, this always being that they buy the product to gain a better quality of life.

Reification comes naturally when advertising a product that is merely an object, this object now becomes a person, and it can be described using objectives that would only be used to describe a living thing. ‘The concept of reification is used by Marx to describe a form of social consciousness in which human relations come to be identified with the physical properties of things, thereby acquiring an appearance of naturalness and inevitability.’ (Burris, V. 1988) Not only is it impossible that a perfume could be ‘sexy’ or ‘inviting’ but it is an impossible feat for it to turn a person so drastically just by wearing it into something that they most desire. Companies use positive objectives to describe in depth the product and when the consumer hears or reads these words they are usually words that we all aspire to describe ourselves by. We, as the target audience find ourselves comparing our qualities to that of an object, on paper this seems absurd but in reality we do it subconsciously day in day out in a state of envy on a different level.

The aim of publicity is to make a product known to as many as possible, not only the target audience but also those who could be attracted to a product through the way it is advertised rather than taste or like towards it. Advertising is a huge industry and one that we will always be surrounded by, the key techniques have been pin pointed and there is no reason to stray from these despite the negative influences it can have on people personally. Companies are greedy for money and are willing to stretch to these lengths of putting people down emotionally as long as it gets their product sold in mass numbers. Some people may argue that the advertising world we know today is only echoing what we already know about society. We already know that people like to set goals and aim higher, improve their physical appearance so why not produce campaigns that focus on making them strive to be better? Could this be a positive way of making people sit up and realize they could be a better version of themselves, whether it is healthier or just to feel better about how they look? As a society we are also aware of the fixation of our body shapes, the desperate attempts to have a perfect body and the amount of extreme diets available being a direct reflection of the media we are already exposed to. Companies use this when designing a product to get a head start before the campaign is even released or designed, ‘Nina’ by Nina Ricci is a perfume bottle in the shape of an apple, this is by no means coincidence but a subliminal message to the audience that has connotations of being healthy and active. Jean Paul Gautier releases each of its perfumes in a bottle that is in the shape of a very slender woman with curves for the female line and a muscular torso shaped bottle for the mens line. We each notice this when we look at the bottle, but myself included, we don’t realize that we are thinking of our own body shape when we see this and making a mental comparison. This in effect makes us long for this figure and relate the bottle of perfume to having this type of body or maybe smell like someone who has that figure.

‘Madison Avenue’s new interest in consumers’ subconscious was thus of deep concern, to say the least, with admen’s potential ability to make people buy things they didn’t really want or need or, much worse elect Soviet sympathizers into office, a nightmare of epic proportions.’ (Samuel, L, 2011)) It became clear very quickly how the advertising world had such a hold over the consumerist market when techniques had been perfected into convincing people to almost buy anything. This became more than worrying regarding political concern; they had more of a challenge on their hands to bring a credible visual campaign to the table. Not only was this a concern but so was the great scale of effect that the media now had, they influenced each and every single one of us whether we liked it or not. They have great control over the decisions we make and this could lead to potentially devastating results, it feels almost as though they can compel the public to get their own way and depending on the morals and ethics of the company this could be harmful to individuals, society and culture.

Many celebrities are used in advertising surrounding us daily, celebrities are linked to what they are famous for, whether it be an actor, an athlete or any other profession they are all credited for being excellent in their occupation. Excellence is something we all strive to achieve and we look up to people who have made it so famous from their career because of the talent displayed. Using a celebrity figure not only attracts new customers but also builds awareness of a brand; it becomes far better known and written about. The public looks at these celebrities advertising a product and come to the conclusion ‘if it’s good enough for her, its good enough for me.’ Again this pushes sales higher as people feel this product is now more legitimate now it is being sold by someone who is highly regarded and well known. ‘Celebrity endorsed advertising is not a recent phenomenon, but is experiencing a worldwide resurgence in recent times. Its emergence and popularity is related to the evolution of consumer culture and celebrity culture in tandem with economic growth and development of an advertising industry in a society.’ (Sun, Z 2008) As the advertising industry grows and develops the celebrity endorsements alter and change in conjunction with this. Particularly recently during the recession we have noticed celebrities now selling offers and deals to promote products and get the consumer to spend what very little money they have left on their product, to make them feel that it is a necessity and worth what they have.

It is clear that advertising is part of our society and the world in which we live, we see it constantly and it has become part of our daily routine to take in the messages and constant flow of recommended products that supposedly improve our well being. Referring back to Bullmores’ thesis that 'Advertising Doesn’t Sell Things; All Advertising Does Is Change How People Think Or Feel' (Jeremy Bullmore). I believe that advertising changes the way people think or feel dramatically, that is the main aim to convince and manipulate how they view a product and see it only in a way that it would benefit them once they have purchased it. Each advert persuades the public in a slightly different ways, some use celebrities, reification, twisting of the truth and many other forms, but their ultimate goal is always the same, money is their concern so sales need to be as high as possible no matter what technique is present. It becomes complex and difficult to sell a product today, it never has been a case of just selling the product; a fantasy lifestyle and unrealistic goals are sold with it, which is what the audience is predominantly buying into. To conclude, advertising does indeed change the way that we think and feel but by doing this it is shaping us to believe that we need the product, therefore resulting in us as the consumer buying the lies and the product.

(fig.2)

(fig.1)

Bibliography

Berger, J (2008). Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin. p-.

Burris, V. (1988). Reification: A Marxist Perspective. California Sociologist. 10 (1), p22.

Dyer, G (2008). Advertising as Communication. London: Routledge . p2.

Eric Stice and Heather E. Shaw (1994). Adverse Effects of the Media Portrayed Thin-Ideal on Women and Linkages to Bulimic Symptomatology. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology: Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 288-308.

Rodnitzky, J (1999). Feminist Phoenix: The Rise and Fall of a Feminist Counterculture. Connecticut : Greenwood Publishing Group. p113.

Samuel, L (2011). Freud on Madison Avenue: Motivation Research and Subliminal Advertising in America. Pennsylvania : University of Pennsylvania Press. p12.

Sun, Z (2009). Celebrities, Products, and Presentation Styles: A Content Analysis of Celebrity-endorsed TV Commercials in China. China: ProQuest. p4.

William Feather, quoted in Edward F. Murphy, (1978) The Crown Treasury of Relevant Quotations, New York: Crown Publishers, p. 15.