Aspects of Advertising

1. Aspects of Advertising • Ubiquitous • Sponsorship: arenas, bowl games, web sites • Anonymous • Never know who wrote jingles • Symbiotic • Connected to social organizations/campaigns • Reagen: “Born in the USA”/Ford: “Born to be Wild” • Intertextual • Repetitive

2. Audience Analysis • Who’s the intended or target audience • What signs, markers, images, language, social practices imply that audience • How is the audience linked to use of the product? • What are the underlying value assumptions • Having white teeth enhances your popularity • Casino gambling is enjoyable

3. Audience as Consumers of Experiences, Events, Objects • Objects, events, services are commodities • Audiences become markets; markets are constructed as audiences • Fictional, idealized notions of audiences: “female adolescent” • Creating needs related to status/identity • Marketing campaigns create needs • “Merchants of Cool”--associate product with being cool • Coke as “cool” = international appeal to the “common people” • Coffee consumption as “with-it/yuppie” • Marketing of technology as fulfilling social needs • “connecting” to the world

4. Attention transacting • “Knowing how to elicit information from others, encouraging them to provide it (with appropriate assurances), and knowing how to work with that information so that it becomes an instrument for meeting what the other party believes to be their needs or interests… [through the] the use of new information technologies to obtain, interpret, share, and act on information of a private nature, knowing how to build and honor trust in online settings, knowing how to divulge and interpret information obtained electronically in appropriate ways, and so on.”

5. Audience Identification with a Group or Cause • Create a group or cause: “Pepsi Generation” • Portray this group in an idealized manner • Equate consuming a product with being a member of this group • Gain audience’s identification with the group • Audience equates being a member of group with consuming the product

6. Branding • Creating values for products/objects identified by brand • What do we value about a brand • Associate meanings with a brand • Public relations campaigns: positive image • Why do we buy certain products • Research on consumer behaviors

7. Consumption • Creating needs related to status/identity • Marketing campaigns create needs • “Merchants of Cool”--associate product with being cool • Coke as “cool” = international appeal to the “common people” • Coffee consumption as “with-it/yuppie” • Marketing of technology as fulfilling social needs • “connecting” to the world

8. Contact displaying • People may increasingly employ “public media” to “create an opportunity to gain attention” in ways that achieve “‘immediate effects’ (rhetorical, quirky, stunning)The role of web page design that rhetorically serves to capture attention

9. Figurative language • Simile • Miller: The Champagne of Bottle Beers • Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine. • Metaphors • Sherwin-Williams covers the earth

10. Positioning • Subjective stance within a group • Influence of discourses shaping language use and roles • Competing subject positions • Adopting positions in terms of class, race, or gender stances and practices • Reaction to and resistance of categories

11. “Sisterly Relationships” • “Problem pages” for “self-maintenance” • Quizzes: “right answers”= “perfect girl” • Pronouns: “we”/ “you” • Relational lexicon • Shared advice • Question/answer dialogue/gossip • Hedges

12. Pronouns and Identification • Use of “you”--assumes a relationship • “Don’t let coughs keep you off duty” • Use of “we”: personalizes the impersonal • “At McDonald’s, we do it all for you.” • “We try harder” (Avis) • Use of “he”/”she”: shared knowledge • “Does she of doesn’t she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure” (Clairol)

13. Slogans that Stick • Catchy sounds: Alliteration • “Before it can become a Heinz bean, every raw bean is tested by a light beam” • Intonation • “I exercise, AND I ea the right sort of breakfast.” • Different languages • “You can fudgi it or you can Fuji it”

14. Magic/Religion • Instant transformation/salvation/cure • Mythic hero/figure/savior • Man From Glad/White Knight • Mythic references • Atlas tires, Hermes FTD flowers, Ajax white knight • Creation of evils/problems to be cured • Magical thinking • Perfume ads: Tabu, Obsession, Sorcercy

15. Language as Class Markers • Language as “marked” vs. “unmarked” • Cultural assumptions about dialects, register, pitch, topic elaboration, intonation, hedging, asides, narrative development • Types of speech acts performed • the power to perform orders, commands, etc. • Class as a set of cultural, social practices enacted through language, gestures, dress

16. Discourse of Femininity • Media construction of identity • Beauty work: sense of inadequacy • Membership in imaginary communities of consumption • “synthetic personalization” • Mass audience treated as an individual “you” • “synthetic sisterhood”

17. Everyday Conversation Doorbell rings Woman: Hi Man: Laura Woman: You always did stay up late. Man: How long have you been back? Woman: About a day and a half. I was just passing by. Man: At this time of night? Woman: Are you along? Man: Yes, er, no. Look, I’m expecting someont Woman: It’s a neighbor Man: Well, do we have time for a coffee?

18. Everyday Conversation Announcer: GOLDERN ROASTED RICHER SMOOTHER NESCAFE GOLD BLEND Doorbell rings 2nd woman: Hope I didn’t get you out of bed. 1st woman: This coffee tastes good Man: sighs 2nd woman: gaze towards camera/1st woman

19. Culture jamming ‘Counter-cultural practices which critique, spoof, and otherwise confront elements of mainstream or dominant culture.” Hypermedia can be used to morph, alter, re-create images in ways that parody, ridicule, resist dominant cultural practices. Henry Jenkins, in Textual Poachers, (1997) found that Star Trek fan club members employed video editing to construct their own versions of Star Trek programs through editing clips from programs.

20. Paradigms: Audience Research: Abercrombie and Longhurst • Behavioral: • Uses/gratification or cause/effect of media • Incorporation/resistance • Audience incorporate/resists ideological stances or discourses • Spectacle/performance • Audience as active consumers/producers • Focus on identity formation in mediascapes

21. Fan Hierarchies • Knowledge about show/text • Level of participation • Access to actors/production people • Leaders • Use of venues

22. Paradigms: Audience Research: Abercrombie and Longhurst • Behavioral: • Uses/gratification or cause/effect of media • Incorporation/resistance • Audience incorporate/resists ideological stances or discourses • Spectacle/performance • Audience as active consumers/producers • Focus on identity formation in mediascapes

23. Three Types of Audiences: Simple Audience • Direct communication between performer and audience • Performance occurs in a specific place • Performance involves public ceremony • Performance is public • High distances between audience and event • High level of audience attention

24. Three Types of Audiences: Mass Audience • Communication is mediated • Performance event is global • Less ceremony than with simple audience • Audiences experience event in private • Distance between performer and audience is very high • Attention is variable

25. Three Types of Audiences: Diffused Audience • Diffused/extensive audience events as part of everyday life • Adolescents: 4 1/2 hours a day • Media use as constitutive of everyday life • Listening to the radio while one works • Audiences as active performers in a performative society

26. Three Types of Audiences: Diffused Audience • Media performances as constructing identities • Global audiences--not restricted in space and time • Little or no ceremony • Public and private performances • Low or variable attention

27. Media Drenching and Being a Viking Football Fan • Spectacle/Narcissism • Increased visibility/knowledge through performance • Display of logos, photos, clothes, etc. • Need for increased football on TV • Interaction in everyday life/discussion • Performance of identity as Viking fan • Attachment to team • Knowledge about team

28. Narcissism: Resistance to Exploring Cultural Other • Focus on “project of the self”: narcissism or self-absorption/gratification. • leads adolescents to perceive everything “in terms of the already existing self.” • In responding to teen magazines, adolescents react to portrayals of ideal selfhood • media texts primarily flatter and appease the self, rather than challenge self • self is therefore not interested in being challenged by cultural others or alternative values

29. Responding in Media Culture • Engagement in “mediascapes” as activities (Abercrombie & Longhurst, 1998) • Markers of class, race, and gender become less important than lifestyle or appearing “cool.” • focus on the “project of the self” constructed through appearing to be “cool.” • world becomes as “object of spectacle”: experiences are treated as part of seeing and being seen. • “possessive gaze” that focuses on surface images and brands associated with “coolness.”

30. Mediascapes and the Imagination • Blur of distinction between fiction and real • “Reality” television shows • Duo-documentary • Media as resource for the imagination • Audiences as constructing modes of escape/day dreams/alternative identities/spectacle • Identification with media stars • Intertextuality--links between film, magazine, TV interviews, advertisements, and stars

31. Audience as Community • Communities defined symbolically • Vs. communities as local/spatial • Creating imagined communities • Television and evangelical communities • Talk radio and conservative communities • Chat rooms and fan communities • Issues of lived-world political activity

32. Soap Opera Fans • Informing • Sharing information • Speculating • What may or should happen • Criticizing • Lack of realism • Ideological objections • Rewriting • Creating alternative plots

33. Felicity: Audience Participation • Texts constructed to invite audience participation as a promotion tool • Web site promotions/summaries • Fan clubs/chat rooms • CD’s/music tie in • Novel • Active involvement results in increased social participation/sharing