Summary: The Language Of Advertising

1. O’Neil mention in his article, ‘The Language of Advertising,” advertisers create in consumers a sense of need for products. I think it is not ethical for advertisers to create such a sense when their products are generic and do not differ from those of the competition. It is common that consumers don’t have too much knowledge about the products that they are buying, and they relay on the information that are provided by the company. If the information is not accurate and correct, which mean the advertisers deceive customers to buy things. For example, some gasoline companies claim that their gasoline is more efficient than the other brands’. Not everyone is a chemical engineer, who can check the formula of the gasoline to see if it is more
There are several ways that language of advertising differs from other kinds of language. Language of advertising is always simple and short because people do not have the patient to think and listen to a long and complicated advertisement. Also, using simple language also can help advertisers to target to variety groups of people. For example applying the Fox Index equation, we can tell which group of people (with different age and education level) can understand the advertisement. Not only do language of advertising is simple and short, but also it repeats a lot. According to Answer.Com, “the average person needs to hear something twenty times before they truly learn it.” The advertisers want their slogan to play repetitively in consumer’s mind and convince people to use their service or buy their products. Advertisements also use well-known celebrities to represent their products, so people can relate themselves more to the products because people want to be as famous and beauty as those celebrities. Another characteristic of language of advertising that I can think of is that it use ethos and pathos appeal more than logical appeal. In other words, advertisements try to move people emotional with stories and other
O’Neill claims that celebrity endorsement of products is “fault” logic. I think what he means is that people will associate the products with the celebrity who sell them, however, those products might not have the effects of what of what the consumers wanted. For example, “Britney Spear drinks milk. She is a hottie.” People might want to drink milk too because they look as good as Britney Spear. However, people forget that the milk might not be the only thing that make Britney Spear looks good, and her appearance can be base on genetic not what she drinks. People buy products sold by famous people because celebrity are the people we “know” and like, so we trust them and trust the products they sell. Also, people always compare themselves with celebrities, and they want to be as perfect as them, which is also the reason why people would like to use the products that a celebrity