Advertising exists to gain our attention in public spaces and persuade us to buy products. It works through various media platforms and appeals to emotions, nostalgia, and aspirations. Advertising suggests life will be better if we consume certain products and makes viewers feel anxiety that can only be relieved by purchasing. While advertising claims to support consumer choice, it also uses stereotypes and sells audiences to other companies. There is debate around how to reasonably limit advertising and whether it imposes values within a free market society.

1. By K McCabe 2012

2. Mid-15c:
’written
statement calling attention to
something, a public notice’
of anything, but often of a sale);
Fr. avertissement, from stem of avertir. Meaning
‘public notice (usually paid)’
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Advertising exists in
a public space and
wants our attention.

3. Advertising works in a number of ways:
• Through Broadcast, Print and EMedia platforms
• Though endorsements made by real consumers, by
acting ‘real’ consumers, by expert opinion, by celebrity.
• Through lines of appeal to persuade, such as the
appeal of nostalgia, of nurture, of luxurious lifestyles etc.
• Through persuasive rhetoric such as slogans,
repetition, emotive language, imperatives etc.
• Through brand identification and awareness.

4. • Viral advertising
• Sponsorship of sports,
programmes, events
• Product placement
• On toilet doors
• Within computer games
• Through email
• On social networking
• On entertainment ‘news’
• On vehicles
The brands we wear, the
brands celebrities wear is all
part of promotion. We are
all walking advertisements

5. You do not only buy an object...
....you buy social respect, discrimination,
health, beauty, success and the
power to control your
environment.
Williams
*Material possession
alone is not enough for
us, we need to be
gratified in other ways

6. ‘Capitalism feeds people with
the product of a culture industry to
keep them
passively satisfied
and
politically apathetic’
Adorno
John Berger states that
‘the purpose of publicity is to
make the spectator marginally
dissatisfied with his/her present
way of life…It suggests that if he/she
buys what [the media text] is offering ,
life will become better…if you buy
this you will become desirable.’
Advertising makes the viewer feel
anxiety which can only be
overcome by consuming products.

7. ‘Advertising has become involved with the teaching of
social and personal values’
Williams
Advertising is a ‘social
phenomenon and has
social effects’

8. Williams states that Advertising has become ‘...the official
Art of modern Capitalist society...It is what ‘we’ put up in
‘our’ streets.’
However, David Foster Wallace makes ‘a useful distinction
between art and advertising’. He states that ‘art is a
gift given to the audience by the artist... An ad is
trying to get something out of the
audience: a purchase, a change of opinion, a new
behaviour... An artist may be trying very hard to seduce or
convince the audience. An ad can be made in a generous
spirit. But art that resembles advertising tends to be
annoying, and advertising that's too artsy can be
ineffective if it draws too much attention to itself and not
enough to the product it's selling.’ www.quora.com

9. Leiss et al state:
‘ advertising... continues to agitate – feminists, civil rights
activists etc...yet after more than a century of modern
advertising there is still little understanding how, within a free
democratic society, we may define reasonable limits for
advertising...’
‘regulating advertising is incompatible with the free
market’
‘part of the problem is advertising appears to defend
consumer choice’

10. According to Leiss et al the problem of Representations lies
‘not so much in the relation advertising bears to reality as in
the reason advertising uses condensed codes’. ‘..Time
restrictions, segmented audiences’ mean that advertisers use
generalised representations of social groupings’ but
that ‘advertisers are
no more sexist or racist than people in other areas’.
They go on to claim that advertising reinforces ‘a biased and
predominantly male view of life, and male fantasies
in it’s representation of women and more generally of giving
** Perkins view that
priority to white, middle-class standards’
Stereotypes are
complex rather than
simple .

11. The ‘visibility’
of Advertising and the issues it ‘reflects’ means that advertising
itself has become
the social issue.
Leiss et al discuss an ‘unfair
burden of blame’ on the
advertising industry.

12. Leiss et al state that:
Advertisers claim that the ‘erotic...images of women... are
similar to those in Art or Fashion Photography and do not
violate standards’

13. The Audience or Consumer pay for the Advertising.
The Advertising pays for the Media.
Advertising upholds values of choice and freedom by making the widest range
of products known to the consumer.
However, the Audience or Consumer is:
• not able to select the advertising they
are exposed to,
• they cannot choose the representations
shown to them
• they cannot filter out misleading information contained
in advertisements.

14. Leiss et al state that ‘Audiences are the
commodity and Advertisers are the shoppers’
and that some audiences are more valuable
than others.
‘The media work ‘to serve the needs of the
advertisers who wish to create and gain
access to particular kinds of audiences’.
‘The light entertainment bias... is based on
competition for audiences’.

15. • Advertising is not just about ‘selling’
• Those who create advertising are the few, the minority with
access to the Mass Media
• As Social Communication in a public space it has a impact
and influence on culture and society.
• The industry is problematic because of confusion over it’s
role and limits within a capitalist, consumer society.

16. ‘Advertising: the Magic System’ by Raymond
Williams
‘Social Communication in Advertising’ by
W.Leiss, S. Kline, S. Jhally and J.Botterill.
‘The Promotional Condition of Contemporary
Culture’ by A. Wernick
www.quora.com