What is Advertising?
Kasey Lasch
ENGL 2152/Donovan
X
29 March 2012
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication that is used to persuade an audience to continue something or to take some new action. This audience can be viewers, readers, or listeners. The desired results are most commonly to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common. The purpose of advertising may also be to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful. Some people believe that advertising has no effect on them, but I believe that it persuades everyone to a certain extent every now and then. Does advertising really work on people who think they are too smart to be persuaded? If you are like most people, you think that advertising has little to no effect on you. That is exactly what advertisers want you to believe. If it was true that advertising did not affect us, then why would companies spend over $200 billion a year on advertising? Why would these companies be willing to spend over $250,000 to produce an average television commercial and another $250,000 to air it? Companies that want their commercial to be broadcasted during the Super Bowl will gladly spend over a million dollars to produce it and over one and a half million dollars to air it. There is always a chance that their commercial will get the same reaction as the Victoria’s Secret commercial did during the 1999 Super Bowl. They had models parade across the screen for a mere 30 seconds, and the response was that over one million people took the time to stop watching the game to log on to the Website that promoted the ad. How can we say that advertisement has no influence on us? We like to think of advertising as unimportant, it is in fact the most important aspect of the media. Advertising supports more than 60 percent of newspaper and magazine production and almost 100 percent of the electronic media. Over $40 billion a year
ENGL 2152/Donovan
X
29 March 2012
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication that is used to persuade an audience to continue something or to take some new action. This audience can be viewers, readers, or listeners. The desired results are most commonly to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common. The purpose of advertising may also be to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful. Some people believe that advertising has no effect on them, but I believe that it persuades everyone to a certain extent every now and then. Does advertising really work on people who think they are too smart to be persuaded? If you are like most people, you think that advertising has little to no effect on you. That is exactly what advertisers want you to believe. If it was true that advertising did not affect us, then why would companies spend over $200 billion a year on advertising? Why would these companies be willing to spend over $250,000 to produce an average television commercial and another $250,000 to air it? Companies that want their commercial to be broadcasted during the Super Bowl will gladly spend over a million dollars to produce it and over one and a half million dollars to air it. There is always a chance that their commercial will get the same reaction as the Victoria’s Secret commercial did during the 1999 Super Bowl. They had models parade across the screen for a mere 30 seconds, and the response was that over one million people took the time to stop watching the game to log on to the Website that promoted the ad. How can we say that advertisement has no influence on us? We like to think of advertising as unimportant, it is in fact the most important aspect of the media. Advertising supports more than 60 percent of newspaper and magazine production and almost 100 percent of the electronic media. Over $40 billion a year