From: slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen)
Subject: Re: Elle MacPherson causes rape?
Organization: OUC, University of Notre Dame
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 16:34:32 GMT

In article <robert.722215826@labyrinth> robert@informix.com (Robert Coleman) writes:
>slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen) writes:
>
>>Part of the function of advertising is to create a desire on the part 
>>of the buying public for a particular product.  
>
>>The point is, by offering idealized images of women, and men, too, advertisers
>>are *deliberately* trying to reach the deepest, most sacred confines of our 
>>psyches in order to manipulate our purchasing impulses.  By recognizing this 
>>reality of modern existence, the individual is a step closer to rejecting 
>>the unrealistic human condition portrayed by the mass media and is also a 
>>step closer to taking control of their individual existence.  
>
>	I remember reading once about an advertising firm that specialized in
>deliberately obnoxious commercials.  They were quite successful, but they would
>have been completely unsuccessful by this analysis, because these ads would be 
>tying in negative psyche images with the product.
>	The commercials worked because advertisements have a very different
>fundamental goal; their main purpose is to *get your attention*.  And much
>like a kid who isn't getting attention will sometimes turn to bad behavior in
>order to get some attention, advertisers realize that *any attention is
>better than none*.  

No, the main purpose of advertising is to sell.  Getting your attention is 
just one of many means by which they can sell their product.  An obnoxious 
commercial can cause you to remember the product name, but if the 
commercial is too obnoxious and the public expresses hatred of the product 
because of the commercial and sales drop, then the commercial will be 
pulled and the ad agency will lose the account.  Advertisers have to show 
results and those results must be in the form of increased sales.  
All the Clios in the world will not help an advertiser keep an account 
if sales do not improve.

Remember the Alka-Seltzer commercials in which some poor wretch had 
eaten too much and was in need of relief?  Remember in the background 
there would be some minor character making faces or gestures.  These 
commercials caught a lot of attention, won a lot of awards.  They were 
eventually yanked and Alka Seltzer moved on to another agency.  Why? 
Market research showed the consumer was more emotionally involved with 
the minor character and was not receiving the message to buy Alka-
Seltzer.  Sales remained flat.  The consumer was not responding to the 
*primary* message to buy the product, they were responding to a 
*secondary* message, one that apparently was more entertaining than 
persuasive.

This is just one of many examples in which some unanticipated secondary 
message will impact the consumer.  The advertiser and client really do 
not care about these secondary messages as long as they serve to 
either reinforce the primary message or at least not contradict the 
primary message.  This is also just one of many examples in which even 
the advertising industry will admit that their commercials and ads 
contain secondary messages.

>	I don't own any Bugle Boy jeans.  I know that bugle boy colored jeans
>exist, though; they showed a sexy commercial on MTV.  A lot.  They reached 
>out with a lot of very fundamental psyche-tweaking images (for the average
>heterosexual man) and I payed attention.  Why didn't this commercial succeed
>in "making" me buy those jeans?
>
>	A lot of reasons, really.  I'm comfortable with blue jeans.  I don't
>see a lot of other people wearing the colored jeans, so I have no desire to
>conform to *real* pressure (peer pressure).  I already have a fair investment
>in jeans, and I hate shopping.  I have a brand I like already.  Etc.  Etc.  

This may hold true for you right now.  But if Bugle Boy succeeds in 
carving out a market niche by appealing to less ad-resistent consumers 
and the sales of colored jeans increase, or if sales Nirvana is reached 
and colored jeans achieve the status of cultural icon then the peer pressure 
will be there to conform and purchase the colored jeans.  Remember, the 
advertising does not have to work with any given individual, it has to 
be effective in the targeted market.  

>	Coke spends a great deal of money trying to convince me that diet coke
>tastes good.  The medical industry, as well, spends a lot of time trying to
>convince me that being even moderately "overweight" can kill me.  Coke's
>current ad campaign ("You've got the right one, Bay-ay-bee!") pushes almost
>all the buttons: sexy, underdressed women, power, fame, glamour and glitz,
>excitement, rock and roll; the other big button, death, is punched by our
>medical profession.  None of this has been able to convince me that anything
>"diet", par*tic*ularly anything with nutrasweet, tastes good.

Again, Coke and its advertisers don't need to convince the individual you 
of anything.  If their sales increase then the job is done.  

>	The commercial can't make me desire the product.  All it can do is let
>me know that the product exists, so that I can try it, and evaluate it for
>the things that really matter.

Whoa, once again you are using yourself as some standard for all buying 
habits.  Market research and advertising history proves that advertising, 
or maybe more accurately, promotion of products can create a market where 
one did not exist previously.  To globalize this further, our entire free-
market system is geared to expansion, an expansion that can only be had 
if the consumer can be convinced that he/she must have the latest, the 
greatest, what is the most mod and trendy thing ever.  And next week comes 
the even newer thing that must be bought.  Without ever-increasing 
consumer sales, our economy goes flat, or even worse, could deflate.

Where was the market for microwave ovens in 1949?  Where was the market 
for calculators in 1965?  Where was the market for gummy worms in 1978? 
These did not exist.  Desire had to be created on the part of the buying 
public and advertisers were on the frontlines creating that desire.

>	I've read the popular analyses of advertising; "appeal to authority",
>"positive association", etc.  The very basis of these analyses is that people
>are incredibly stupid.  Sure, if Bill Cosby says Jello is fun, well, it *must*
>be.  If there's a bikini'd babe draped over that convertible, well, she must
>come with the car.  Or at least be an option.

Try a thought experiment.  Don't concentrate on the primary message.  Yeah, 
most of those messages are transparent.  Concentrate on the reinforcing 
secondary messages.  Search for the unanticipated secondary messages.  
Using your Jello example....  The reality is Jello is processed sugar 
water, not even a real food.  Bill Cosby is not trying to appeal to parents, 
he wants kids to nag, nag, nag the parents into buying Jello.  Hey, it's 
harmless, right?  Dig deeper....  Bill Cosby, cultural icon, has a 
doctorate degree in teaching from Temple.  He's entertaining, but he's 
a smart guy, knowledgeable about kids.  Why, he would never promote a 
product that is harmful.  He loves kids.  He wrote a book about fatherhood, 
after all.  Look at the product itself....  It is bright, colorful, it 
mooooooves!  Ah, remember mom's jello salad?  Christmas, all green and 
red....  Oops.  The advertisers are using Bill Cosby, kids, colors, 
movement, happiness, and a whole boatload of other images to create 
associations.  The more the secondary messages reinforce the primary 
message--the more the production manager can control and manipulate 
the secondary messages, the less likely the commercial or ad will 
contain messages contradictory to the primary message.  The advertiser 
checks the quarterly sales reports, voila, goal met, sales increased 
in the markets where Cos's commercial ran.  

>	People just aren't that stupid.  When's the last time you heard an
>argument along the lines of "Well, of *course* jello is fun!  Bill Cosby said
>so!"  The much simpler explanation is that people watch the jello commercial 
>because they like Bill Cosby, and eat jello because they like jello.  People 
>buy more of the car that the woman is draped over because they go try out 
>the car, and like it.  Advertising is full of examples of well advertised 
>duds, because people don't buy a product because of ads.  All that ads do is 
>raise interest; people may *try* the product, but if they continue to use it,
>it's because the *like* it.

True.  But sometimes the goal is to only get the consumer to buy the product 
once.  Pet Rocks did not get too many return customers, but it made the 
guy who came up with the idea very wealthy indeed.  If the ads raise 
interest and if the consumer tries it, sales increase, goal met.  New 
commercial ordered to get the consumer to try the "new, improved" 
version of the product.

>	Oh, re: deodorant.  The example you've given has nothing to do with
>advertising; it has to do with peer pressure.  Peer pressure is a proven
>manipulator.  As it happens, I don't sweat most of the time (for instance,
>at work) so I don't use a deodorant unless I know I'll be sweating.  If 
>anyone *ever* told me I smelled bad, I would use that deodorant in an instant,
>but the reality of my life is very different from that projected by the
>commercials.  The cognitive dissonance is obvious, and makes the commercial
>ineffective as a manipulator.  Still, when I buy a deodorant, I'll probably
>buy one of the ones I've heard of;  as far as I'm concerned, they're
>essentially interchangeable.  Ban spring to mind; OK, I'll buy Ban.  I'll buy
>it before one I've never heard of, even if the one I've never heard of is
>cheaper, out of nothing more relevant than superstition.
>	But none of the commercials have convinced me that I've got to wear
>it all the time.  I notice that you've gotten a similar reply from some other
>folks.  That leaves an interesting question: why do *you* believe it's so
>necessary, when others do not?  Since we're all subjected to the same
>commercials, it probably has more to do with other factors, like how we were
>raised, than the commercials...

But, you are proving the point.  Even though you claim sales resistance, 
you believe you would buy the deodorant if someone told you you smelled. 
You further believe you would buy one that had been advertised.  The 
commercial did not have to sell you on the idea, it only had to sell 
your peers on the idea that deodorants are necessary.  

Remember the Scope commercials wherein a bottle of Scope appeared on 
the desk of an offending co-worker?  In two places of my 
employment, bottles of Scope ended up on workers' desks (no, I would 
never do anything like that (: ).  It was obvious to me that 
commercial gave "permission" to the folks who felt they had been 
offended to use the product to "solve" the problem of bad breath on 
the part of another.

I find it real interesting too, that you are trying to use "peer pressure" 
to shake me from my point that advertisers created a market for 
deodorant.  Actually, it simply serves to reinforce my impression that 
not only did advertisers create the market, but they are using their 
established consumer base to pressure the hold-outs.......  And a more 
subtle secondary effect that could be traced to modern advertising:
the legitimazing of peer pressure as a tool of persuasion.

>	Meanwhile, I don't really know how we decide on what physical images
>define our human ideal.  I don't think anyone else knows, either.  I do know
>that we've had physical ideals, and they've changed cyclically through the 
>years, from well before we developed the concept of advertising; I'd look for 
>some other source.

Where did I say that advertising is the sole source for our cultural 
imagery?  What advertising does is use existing imagery and our 
existing prejudices to sell products.  They wouldn't dare to invent an 
image, because with millions of dollars on the line, advertisers 
will turn to the tried and true.  But, in using familiar imagery, ads  
do perform a role in reinforcing said cultural imagery and our prejudices 
by playing them back to us, over and over and over again.  And, they 
spread around those images and messages to the largest audience 
possible.  A huge, huge force in the maintenance of the status quo. 
And a huge, huge force in playing with our collective minds.

Sue Larsen
slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu
Newsgroups: alt.supermodels