Home » Advertisers - Concerned or Predatory?

They are flashing images behind your eyes and stored away in your memory - the colours, noises , smells, tastes but most of all the sensations they gave you. Advertisements bombard you heavily every hour of every day - what are the true intentions behind all this creative hassle?

 

'Advertisers' is a relatively broad frame for a very varied group of small and local and government-run companies. Splashed and splurged over a large proportion of magazines are your typical big-name clothes and cosmetics brands: TOPSHOP, MAC, L'oreal, to name a few. Similarly, you have your car retailers such as Volkswagen, Toyota, BMW, who advertise largely on impressive billboards and on the television. Quite differently to both of these, the government funds advertisements such as the popular (and effective) 'Smoking Kills' series, as well as the 'Don't Drink and Drive' strand. So, as can be seen, the product being advertised calls for very different approaches in advertising.

 

Taking the last mentioned example, the televised warnings of the disease and death associated with smoking and alcohol - what are the main features of this type of advertisement? For any of you who have seen these before, I think you would all safely agree when I use the following adjectives; unnerving, shocking, discouraging (note - all negative.) Many of these adverts involve graphic images of real-life patients or in-car situations that basically force viewers into an uncomfortable moment of empathy.

 

Still, the intentions behind such advertisements are hardly illusive. The government clearly aims to lower the numbers of smokers and of road accidents due to excessive alcohol consumption. The government is clearly concerned, pushing for the public, their virtual 'customers', to make informed decisions in future. Although they are arguably pushing for a good cause, there is still an almost predatory factor in the conduction of the adverts - it plays on the strongest of emotions in order to dissuade abusers of tobacco and alcohol.

 

On the other side, the advertising for clothes brands such as TOPSHOP is always very colourful, carefully choreographed and positioned, well-lit - flawless. The aim is again quite clearly to get young girls to buy their clothes. There is no question about it - TOPSHOP is not trying to hide their motive. Despite its differences to the anti-drug campaigns, the common similarity is its use of extremes. The images, the models, the put-together outfits portray an image of perfection that is practically unattainable in the real world 99% of the time. Similarly, the anti-drug campaigns portrays the worst-case scenario. While one slowly ensures customers develop an aspiration to 'become the image', the other slowly ensures customers develop an aspiration to never reach it.

 

But can advertising take its form in even simpler states, for example, a bus timetable? Can a very plain metal plate displaying bus times and routes have ulterior motives? One could argue that even though the bus company is not openly complimenting or recruiting, even the formal and easily comprehensible way it has displayed its details had deep thought behind it, giving off an impression of reliability and professionalism that could in the future encourage more people to use the easy bus routes rather than their cars.

 

This brings me to the question - can there be advertising without persuasion?

 

To answer this, we must try to imagine a world without advertising. One where each and every individual was expected to make decisions and choices on every action they were to take in life without an outside factor contributing to it. This, and only this, would be true free choice, for the moment we are informed about one thing, we automatically consider it in our minds and just getting the name into our minds is often enough for a quick sale.

 

Our world is one ridden with advertising. Even when we attempt to steer clear of it, it is all around - on people in the form of the autumn season collection, in cafe's who serve free-trade coffee, in the career talks they give to students. It is both concerned and predatory - occasionally concerned about the customer, but for the most part with sales figures and general expansion, and it is a very hungry world.