Advertisements : How Do They Persuade Us ?
Advertisements : How do they persuade us ?
Advertisements are part and parcel of our lives. Perhaps, they are one of the most decisive and, at the same time, imperceptible factors moulding and channelling our “purchasing habits,” so to speak. On the face of it, advertisements promote products and services; they create demand by dint of inducing and increasing consumption. Yet, the ways in which they convey their messages have a profound effect on all aspects of our lives: our happiness, our culture, family and interpersonal relations, business, stereotypes, wealth and status, individuality, and so forth. According to Leiss et al. (1990: 1), advertising is ‘a “privileged form of discourse”’, in that it can attract our attention, insinuating itself into our thought processes and carving out a niche in our lives. As we shall see, advertisements succeed in selling us a lot more than merely products; in fact, they contrive to reconstruct our relations to things and other people—in short, they interfere with our sense of identity, they equate us with things, and manipulate us. Williamson’s observation succinctly encapsulates their power: ‘Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves’ (Williamson, 1978: 13). In the present study we are concerned with how advertisements, or rather ‘ad men’, to quote Packard (1957), persuade us to buy their products, and exploit our “hidden” needs—both processes taking place beneath our level of awareness. In searching for more effective ways of persuading people to buy goods, a great many merchandisers or ‘probers’ (Packard, 1957) turned to psychologists in order to gain insights into the deepest recesses of the psyche and the factors that motivate people, and then to capitalise on their expectations and fears. Equipped with this knowledge, ad men nowadays exert a remarkable influence on
Advertisements are part and parcel of our lives. Perhaps, they are one of the most decisive and, at the same time, imperceptible factors moulding and channelling our “purchasing habits,” so to speak. On the face of it, advertisements promote products and services; they create demand by dint of inducing and increasing consumption. Yet, the ways in which they convey their messages have a profound effect on all aspects of our lives: our happiness, our culture, family and interpersonal relations, business, stereotypes, wealth and status, individuality, and so forth. According to Leiss et al. (1990: 1), advertising is ‘a “privileged form of discourse”’, in that it can attract our attention, insinuating itself into our thought processes and carving out a niche in our lives. As we shall see, advertisements succeed in selling us a lot more than merely products; in fact, they contrive to reconstruct our relations to things and other people—in short, they interfere with our sense of identity, they equate us with things, and manipulate us. Williamson’s observation succinctly encapsulates their power: ‘Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves’ (Williamson, 1978: 13). In the present study we are concerned with how advertisements, or rather ‘ad men’, to quote Packard (1957), persuade us to buy their products, and exploit our “hidden” needs—both processes taking place beneath our level of awareness. In searching for more effective ways of persuading people to buy goods, a great many merchandisers or ‘probers’ (Packard, 1957) turned to psychologists in order to gain insights into the deepest recesses of the psyche and the factors that motivate people, and then to capitalise on their expectations and fears. Equipped with this knowledge, ad men nowadays exert a remarkable influence on
References: • Bolinger, D. 1980. Language. The Loaded Weapon. New York: Longman. • Erikson, E. H. 1968. Identity, Youth and Crisis. USA: W. W. • Fairclough, N. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Longman. • Leiss, W. et al. 1990. Social Communication in Advertising. • Packard, V. 1957. The Hidden Persuaders. England: Penguin. • Williamson, J. 1978. Advertisements. Ideology and Meaning in Advertising Acknowledgements • The Sunday Times Culture, February 27, 2000. • The Sunday Times Magazine, February 27, 2000.