ADVERTISING

WHAT IS IT?- - -

ADVERTISING

Definitions...

1 - “The act of drawing the public's attention to something”

= < ad + vertere

ADVERTISING

2 - “attempts to persuade its audience to purchase a good or a service”

ADVERTISING

3- “A form of communication”

ADVERTISING

4 - “Advertising is the structured and composed nonpersonal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about products (goods, services, and ideas) by identified sponsors through various media.”

ADVERTISING

5 - “a true mirror of life, a sort of fossil history from which the future chronicler, if all other historical monuments were to be lost, might fully and graphically rewrite the history of our time.”

(Harpers' Weekly, 1910s)

ADVERTISING

6- “Advertising is 'capitalist realism'...capitalism’s way of saying ‘I love you’ to itself.”

(Michael Schudson,

The Uneasy Persuasion, 1984)

Which of these would you call advertisements and which not?

(A. Goddard, The Language of Advertising)

Examples...

Examples...

Examples...

Examples...

Examples...

Examples...

Examples...

Examples...

What is being addressed – a product, an idea, an image?

Who is being addressed?Who are the addressees? Who are the receivers?

COME AS YOU ARE

VIENI A SCOPRIRCI

SIAMO QUI PER TUTTI

COSI’ COME SEI

Categories of ads

Medium Product Technique Consumer Context

Text + Context

Context includes... substance

Text + Context

Context includes... Substance Music and pictures

Text + Context

Context includes... Substance Music and pictures Paralanguage

Text + Context

Context includes... Substance Music and pictures Paralanguage Situation

Text + Context

Context includes... Substance Music and pictures Paralanguage Situation Co-text

Text + Context

Context includes... Substance Music and pictures Paralanguage Situation Co-text Intertext

Text + Context

Context includes... Substance Music and pictures Paralanguage Situation Co-text Intertext Participants

(verbal) Text + Context

Context includes... Substance Music and pictures Paralanguage Situation Co-text Intertext Participants Function

QUESTIONS

- How does the ad attract attention?

- Does it aim to persuade new customers or to make them switch brands?

- Where does it appear?

- Does it offer a reason why?

- Does it refer to other discourses?

- Is it oriented to emotions? Does it play on fear?

- Does a celebrity provide an endorsement? Why?

- What group does it reach?

Exercise...

Try to describe the ads by identifying the features of context which are peculiar to them

Schweppes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tc7ZB4ywUI

Old spice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

Usain Bolt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZcKY9dux6Q