“Advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel” (Jeremy Bullmore).

In today’s society advertisement is unavoidable it can be found everywhere; on billboards, posters, television. This essay will discuss the idea of adverts in the 1970’s portraying women as domestic providers and their roles being limited to the domestic sphere only cooking food for their husbands and looking after the children. I will also look into how adverts try and persuade us to buy products we don’t need in today’s commodity culture. Some adverts also use a series of signs, which work as signifiers for things with deeper meaning for example using celebrity’s status to sell products or persuade people to want to buy their products.

In John O’Shaughnessy’s book “persuasion in advertising” he goes on to explain the different methods of advertisements he stated that “Effective advertising is, almost always, persuasive advertising; and advertising that does not seek to persuade is really missing an opportunity”.

In john Berger’s ways of seeing he describes advertisement as something we cant escape, images which are everywhere showing us an alternative way of life he goes on to say that we might not necessarily be influenced by them but for a moment we take in the adverts and are stimulated by them causing us to potentially think or feel differently about them. In Guy Cooks book “The Discourse of advertisement” Cook (2001: 1) goes on to say, “Despite all the care and skill in their creation, ads are flicked past, put in the bin. Advertisement is everywhere but nowhere”, this shows that not all adverts out there are interesting enough or influence us enough to make us stop and be persuaded to buy their products this could potentially mean that adverts no matter how interesting and funny don’t always catch our attention.

John Berger stated that, “Publicity plays upon the fear of not being desirable” (Ways of Seeing – Advertisement). This statement shows that adverts try and sell us glamour through publicity and they give us the idea if we purchase their products we will become enviable to others, Berger also stated that. “A man’s ability to consume is directly related to his sexual validity” (Ways of seeing – Advertisement) this means that the adverts play upon men’s fears of not being sexually desirable by the opposite sex if we don’t buy the products which are being advertised. Stewart Ewen backs this up by saying “In commodity culture we construct our identities through the consumer products that inhabit our lives”, this shows that adverts try and sell you a lifestyle and if you don’t buy their products you run the risk of being undesirable, Stewart called this the “commodity self” where were selling ourselves to commodities and materialistic values to fit in with society.

John Berger goes on to say, “A publicity pictures suggests if we buy what it is offering our life will be different from what it is” (Ways of seeing – Advertisement), this statement shows that adverts suggest that we are inadequate and that they are trying to sell us an alternative lifestyle which will be better than our current lifestyle, therefore adverts don’t necessarily try and sell you products but they play upon our emotions and fears to try and persuade us to purchase their products in order to be accepted into society.

A lot of advertisements use symbolic association to interest people in their products, the advert symbolically associates itself with the models sociability, youth, and sophistication, multiracial, popularity this unisex fragrance is selling itself to be suitable for anyone no matter who you are. The products themselves are perceived as being cool, sexy and sophisticated. Guy Cook (2001: 2) stated that: “Advertising can be seen as urging people to consume more by making them feel dissatisfied or inadequate, by appealing to greed, worry and ambition…” This adverts symbolic associations with sex plays upon the fear of not being desirable to the opposite sex if we don’t spend forty pounds on perfume, we will run the risk of being inadequate. This advert builds upon the idea of a dream, an idyllic view of what your life could be if you bought this product, It is trying to convince us that we will have a better quality life buy buying it. John Berger’s stated that: “adverts try to enforce the fact that all our relationships will become radiant because of our new possessions and we can only achieve such radiance if we have money” (Ways of seeing – Advertisement). This quote in forces the idea that adverts try and sell us a new lifestyle to try and improve our lives, by doing this it is makes you are a lesser being if you do not own the products they try and sell. This advert is also trying to trigger an emotional response to capture its audience into persuading them to buy this cool and sophisticated fragrance O’Shaughnessy (2004:27) stated that, “In the grip of an emotion, a person not only feels differently, but tends to think differently. Advertising that resonates emotionally stands more chance of inducing a change in beliefs and values/motives/wants/desires than one based on logic alone.” In reality we don’t need these expensive products to improve our lives, or to aspire to them. The products that they sell create false needs, we can be happy in our lives without them.

In this advert for kitchen extension phones by Bell telephone uses the stereotypical 1960’s housewife and the mythical idea that women are always gossiping over the phone with their friends to illustrate the need for a phone in the kitchen. The ad states that having an extension phone in the kitchen will mean that the women wont forget about her food in the oven or need a reason to even leave the kitchen. This ad indicates that women have been portrayed as domestic providers who do not make significant decisions and that they are dependent on men to protect them or to provide them with money. The ad illustrates notion of sexism with the idea that men are superior over women and that the women’s main role is at home in the kitchen. This advert make out that men only regard women as sex objects who are there to provide them with food and children.

The advert persuades you to buy into the lifestyle it is selling, the “American Dream” where the women is at home and happy making food for her husband and looking after the children, the ad also sells the idea of successfulness, if you can afford a second phone in the kitchen for your wife. John Berger stated, “If we buy what is offering our life will be different” (Ways of seeing – Advertisement). In this advert it offers you the perfect stereotype lifestyle.

The advert for Chanel nr 5 is another example of women being used to advertise products in 1978, unlike the previous advert this one is promoting its products in a much different way, this advert uses the face of Catherine Deneuve, a well known French Actress and celebrity. Judith Williamson decoded this advert and pointed out that this advert works with semiotics. Chanel Nr 5 is printed out across the bottom of Catherine’s face, which is a part of a system of signs; her face is the signified, which represents elegance and sophistication. This then represents the fragrance as being elegant and sophisticated to the public. This type of advert persuades us that we can gain some of this elegance by using Chanel nr 5 and that our lives will be improved. Nowhere in this advert does it tell us to buy the fragrance but instead with a set of signs it subtly persuades us that our lives will be more glamorous and sophisticated if we buy this product, like Catherine Deneuve a celebrity and actress.

This Chanel advert is persuading that you can obtain something of Judith Williamson by buying this fragrance, John O’Shaughnessy (2004:83) stated in his book that, “People seek social approval from all others, but it is more valued when it comes from those higher up the social scale since it is less likely to be self-serving and is considered more perceptive”.

In conclusion adverts don’t directly try and get people to buy there products, they work much more subtle. Referring back to the title of “Advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel”, we can clearly see after investigating the three adverts that they all persuade the public in slightly different ways. The first advert makes us think or feel that we are inadequate and that we need to buy the products to improve our lives and to let them become radiant with all our new possessions, the advert also makes us think that we need to fulfil all the false needs it proposes to us for instance buying a 40 pound bottle of perfume we done need. The second advert uses the idea of the perfect household by using stereotypes and makes you think that you need to obtain this and the only way you can is by buying the advertised products, which will improve your lifestyle. The third advert persuades us that we can become as elegant and sophisticated as celebrities by buying their products; this makes us think that we are inadequate. To conclude advertising does change the way people think or feel and it uses this to persuade us that we need to buy their products to belong within their set society.

Bibliography

Books:

Cook, G. 2001. “The discourse of Advertising”. 2^nd ed. London: Routledge.

O’Shaughnessy, J. “Persuasion in advertising”. London: Routledge.

E – Books:

Advertising Association President’s Lecture, 1998. “Advertising and its Audience”. London: WPP Group. Available at: < http://www.wpp.com/NR/rdonlyres/ED5FD8FF-F951-4C77-8ADA-FB5E61C85587/0/advertising_and_its_audience.pdf> [Accessed on 12/01/2011].

Youtube:

Manwithaplan, (n.d.). Ways of seeing (final episode – advertising) ¼. Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmgGT3th_oI> [accessed 14/01/2011].

Manwithaplan, (n.d.). Ways of seeing (final episode – advertising) 2/4. Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q0JvXiZw7o&feature=related> [accessed 14/01/2011].

Manwithaplan, (n.d.). Ways of seeing (final episode – advertising) 3/4. Available at:<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbebPdXv70w&playnext=1&list=PL872405DBCBDFF922&index=14> [accessed 14/01/2011].

Manwithaplan, (n.d.). Ways of seeing (final episode – advertising) 4/4. Available at:< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAJovNjXMTs&feature=related> [accessed 14/01/2011].

Websites:

The Gender Ad’s project. Available at: < http://www.ltcconline.net/lukas/gender/pages/roles.htm> [Accessed 18/01/2011].

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