How does an advertising process work?
The Theoretical Answer
Our inquiry here is the mechanism of an advertisement, and hence we pose the starting question: how does an advertising process work? A simple answer might be something like this: there is a product someone is trying to sell. someone uses some means first to attract the potential consumer, then to deliver the producer's message. The advertisement is considered as successful if it achieves its goal - to persuade the consumer to buy the advertised product. This simple answer is not incorrect; however, it is all too trivial, for, firstly, it onlylists out the basic elements of advertisment: a product, an ad, and an audience; secondly, the actual, detailed process of how these elements fit together is overlooked. Specifically with respect to the process of advertising, we need to know why is it that certain means are choosen over others for delivery, and how is it that one way is more effective than another. In this essay, I want to suggest that the mechanism of an advertisment is ultimately a language game - we can abstract from the millions of advertisement "out there" a code, and via this code we can see exactly how an effective advertisement is produced.
In the analysis of an advertisement, we are not so much concerned with the product that someone is trying to sell; nor are we necessarily and exclusively preoccupied with the audience of the advertisement. What is of concern is the relationshipo between the advertisement itself and the audience who is going to decode it.
Advertisement is a language game because, like an ordinary spech or an Aesopian fable, it has a message it is trying to get across. The essence of an effective advertisement is its ability to codify persuasive arguments for a certain product within the bounds of its medium (poster, radio ad, TV, etc.). This "essence" is exactly the same as our natural (spoken and written) language. A producer for a product probably can write ten thousand words essays as to why someone should purchase his product; but very few of us have the patience to read something like that, and certainly none of us has the time. An advertisement, therefore, needs to condense those many words into one or two visual or audio symbols, and integrates those symbols into the overall design of the advertisement such as to deliver the equivalent message. A basic example would be slogans like "Got Milk?" (a rhetorical question) and "Obey your thirst" (an outright but very reasonable command). But many advertisements are non-verbal, and relies exclusively on symbols and/or sounds. The question now becomes this: how do these advertisements work? And why is it that some are more effective than others?
If an advertisement is indeed site where language games take place, then we are better off talking about the nature of language than the elements of advertisement. Well, how does language work?
Firstly, language is a relationship between a specific code and its decoder. Without a code the decoder is an animal; without a decoder the code is meaningless. The decoding process is entirely arbitrary: "someone" decided that "t-r-e-e" (the arbitrary made up code or the "signifier") means "tree" (the mental image or the "signified"). Hence every time a decoder sees the written character "tree", he would have a mental image of "tree" in his mind, and meaning is created this way.
But what we should keep in mind is that the "meaning" of a word or code is arbitrary. "Arbour", for someone else, can also trigger the mental image of a "tree". For every code to work there needs to be a specific decoder who can decode the code and have acess to the meaning of the message.
What is the significance of this digression on language for our discussion on the mechanism of an advertisement? An advertisement is just metaphorically another language. All the words, sounds and symbols in an advertisement are like signifiers of the natural language, while the mental image or the implicit message inside the audience's mind is the "signified". The key to advertisement is decoding; advertisement, like language, has a certain code. The code, however, is much less systematic, but also much more intimate than something like the English alphabet.
The code of advertisement comes from ideology. (Ideology is "the set of beliefs characteristic of a social group or individual" - OED) An effective advertisement must be readily understood. This means that the designer of the advertisement must perfectly understand the mentality of his intended audience; the designer must also understand the social values and codes of his intended audience. Only with these two pieces of wisdom can anyone design an effective advertisement, and only with a comprehensive understanding of the operation of language can an advertisement designer become "wise."
Our inquiry here is the mechanism of an advertisement, and hence we pose the starting question: how does an advertising process work? A simple answer might be something like this: there is a product someone is trying to sell. someone uses some means first to attract the potential consumer, then to deliver the producer's message. The advertisement is considered as successful if it achieves its goal - to persuade the consumer to buy the advertised product. This simple answer is not incorrect; however, it is all too trivial, for, firstly, it onlylists out the basic elements of advertisment: a product, an ad, and an audience; secondly, the actual, detailed process of how these elements fit together is overlooked. Specifically with respect to the process of advertising, we need to know why is it that certain means are choosen over others for delivery, and how is it that one way is more effective than another. In this essay, I want to suggest that the mechanism of an advertisment is ultimately a language game - we can abstract from the millions of advertisement "out there" a code, and via this code we can see exactly how an effective advertisement is produced.
In the analysis of an advertisement, we are not so much concerned with the product that someone is trying to sell; nor are we necessarily and exclusively preoccupied with the audience of the advertisement. What is of concern is the relationshipo between the advertisement itself and the audience who is going to decode it.
Advertisement is a language game because, like an ordinary spech or an Aesopian fable, it has a message it is trying to get across. The essence of an effective advertisement is its ability to codify persuasive arguments for a certain product within the bounds of its medium (poster, radio ad, TV, etc.). This "essence" is exactly the same as our natural (spoken and written) language. A producer for a product probably can write ten thousand words essays as to why someone should purchase his product; but very few of us have the patience to read something like that, and certainly none of us has the time. An advertisement, therefore, needs to condense those many words into one or two visual or audio symbols, and integrates those symbols into the overall design of the advertisement such as to deliver the equivalent message. A basic example would be slogans like "Got Milk?" (a rhetorical question) and "Obey your thirst" (an outright but very reasonable command). But many advertisements are non-verbal, and relies exclusively on symbols and/or sounds. The question now becomes this: how do these advertisements work? And why is it that some are more effective than others?
If an advertisement is indeed site where language games take place, then we are better off talking about the nature of language than the elements of advertisement. Well, how does language work?
Firstly, language is a relationship between a specific code and its decoder. Without a code the decoder is an animal; without a decoder the code is meaningless. The decoding process is entirely arbitrary: "someone" decided that "t-r-e-e" (the arbitrary made up code or the "signifier") means "tree" (the mental image or the "signified"). Hence every time a decoder sees the written character "tree", he would have a mental image of "tree" in his mind, and meaning is created this way.
But what we should keep in mind is that the "meaning" of a word or code is arbitrary. "Arbour", for someone else, can also trigger the mental image of a "tree". For every code to work there needs to be a specific decoder who can decode the code and have acess to the meaning of the message.
What is the significance of this digression on language for our discussion on the mechanism of an advertisement? An advertisement is just metaphorically another language. All the words, sounds and symbols in an advertisement are like signifiers of the natural language, while the mental image or the implicit message inside the audience's mind is the "signified". The key to advertisement is decoding; advertisement, like language, has a certain code. The code, however, is much less systematic, but also much more intimate than something like the English alphabet.
The code of advertisement comes from ideology. (Ideology is "the set of beliefs characteristic of a social group or individual" - OED) An effective advertisement must be readily understood. This means that the designer of the advertisement must perfectly understand the mentality of his intended audience; the designer must also understand the social values and codes of his intended audience. Only with these two pieces of wisdom can anyone design an effective advertisement, and only with a comprehensive understanding of the operation of language can an advertisement designer become "wise."
posted by Tristan at 10:47 a.m.
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