Sell & Spin video played in class

What is Advertising?

It’s a way to get into people’s subconscious/unconscious---delight the eyeballs and motivate to consumer behavior

Always working under the illusion that it’s directed just to me….narcisstic, as if it really cares about you.

Average person sees: 3,000 ads a day

Bus, TV, supermarkets, telephone booths

What do we have to do to see no ads? GO to sleep.

Significance of Advertising

Beginning of 21^st century, $450 milion/year spent on advertising.

Today, $450 billion a year

With all this money being spent, ads have spread gospel of consumption

Single most recognized utterance is OK

Second most recognized utterance: Coca Cola

Moving a series of images through a culture, promising, very much like religion, NOT pleasure of next world, but pleasure of THIS world, and there’s nothing more powerful

Advertising can be effective

Leo Burnett: He began to treat Personalities AS products

Realized people can’t make connections with Frosted Flakes, but the CAN with Tony Tiger.

Can’t connect with cigarettes—the product—but CAN w/ Marlboro Man.

Macho cowboy= complete departure for Marlboro.

Marlboro targeted to women: Mild as May. Sales were flat. Phillip Morris decided to repackage design to men.

Population: after WWII, let’s get the soldiers coming back: promise of freedom, escape, come to where the flavor is, come to Marlboro country.

Marlboro man was shorthand. Annual sales jumped an astounding 3000%!

So advertising WORKS!!

The right advertising can make even controversial products hugely successful.

Edsel:

Sometimes the PRODUCT misses the mark.

Public never liked it. Unlike any other car…the problem

$300 million dollar ad campaign.

The car’s look guaranteed it wouldn’t work. Advertising was fine, people became aware of product. But more advertising ran, more people looked at product and decided they didn’t want anything to do with it.

History

Archeologists: 3,000 year old babeloynian sign. Pompei ads.

Cryers=walking, talking advertisements.

Ancient Greece: criers. Often accompanied by musicians.

Merchant class emerged in Midle Ages: but most people were illiterate, so ads were visual.

Barber pole: vestiges of pre-modern advertising.

1448: Printing Press: changed society and advertising.

Chinese always been printing, but Gutenberg’s invention set in motion ….

Rise of printing press, things dramatically shifted….first ad appeared in 1480…made signs promoting a book’s availability.

Tobacco, tea….

Eventually competitors started tearing down each others’ ads.

New ad code: Ads had to be left up for 2 weeks.

Buy buy buy

Newspaper advertising

Every day: newspaper arrives

Newspaper: 17 century, no ads. Crowded text.

1625: first known newspaper ad:

Newspapers = mass media: made available an endless amount of space.

Most were more like “announcements.” Announced goods and encouraged people to shop.

1704: Boston Newsletter: 3^rd issue = milestone.

Benjamin Franklin.

By the middle of the 18^th century….

Forrunner of advertising slogans:

Ad agencies

For businesses who wanted to advertise outside of hometown, it was hard.

People began to set up Advertising agencies.

Ad agents: working for publishers.

Ad agencies were opening across country.

These agencies were still limited to PlACING ads, not writing them.

Magazines

Post war era…rise of magazines provided exposure to much more advertising.

Beautiful advertising, color advertising.

Cyrus Curtis.

Seemed to have right mix of fiction, faction, articles that appealed to women (Ladies Home Journal, etc….)

Railroad distributed magazines.

Branding

Advertisers had to make their product more desirable: so …branding came about.

From stuff on a barrel…transformation of the brand from the package to the product.

Oreo: You can see the Oreo brand literally on the cookie.

Not goal to get people to try it: Now the goal was to get people to associate the particular soap with a brand.

Best practitioners of branding: Patent medicines.

Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, 1875.

Started a folk remedy for female complaints

At one point, out enormous sign over (Brooklyn?) bridge…but when they STOPPED advertising, sales dropped.

This was the first advertising success story.

Late 19th century, figured out ways to convert products into packaged products into branded goods: UNEEDA Biscuit.

Turned to N.W. Ayers’ expert advice: realized agencies needed to prepare the ads.

N.W. Ayers = first full service ad agency. They create AND place the ad.

Tricks: memorable name, humanizing icon, and a catchy slogan.

UNEEDA bisciuit.

So popular, sold 10 million packages/month.

One technique: Floyd Hopkins: telling people WHY the product was so good. Gave a logical argument as to why it was important.

Ad agencies…created a NEED for a product.

People really believed the claims, believed the language. Immigrant class that came in, wanted to fit in…took it very seriously (langugage)

Colonizing the body

Every orifice in the body was taken over by commercial interests.

People stunk 100 years ago.

Natural rhythms of “being clean” today is a result of advertising.

BO: first you have to come up with the disease and then a cure for the disease.

Odor Oh No.

Forbidden word 100 years ago: armpit

People cancelled their subscriptions b/c of the ad! But sales also skyrocketed

Listerine: invented disease of Haliatosis

Suggest that your entire life would be ruined if you didn’t use this stuff.

Solutions to age old problems…with stunningly provocative pictures.

Outdoor advertising

Ad is never farther away than the next landmark.

Hollywood sign.

Hollywood Land, originally…a real estate developer sign.

Bigger is really better….billboards,

We’ve got to get your attention…should be to the eye what a shout is to the ear.

P.T. Barnum: father of advertising.

Posters: Hey we’re HERE.

Understood, that before you sell a product, you have to gather a crowd.

P.T. Barnum knew how to get people to stop what they’re doing and pay attention.

Advertisers have Long pasted messages on anything that moved: city buildings, etc

After 20^th century, advertisers set their sites much higher.

Airplane ads: dramatically alone in the sky. 1911, Cal Rogers hopscotched across country w/ airplane, sponsoring VinFiz grape drink. (painted on wings)

New Gimicks: writing in the sky.

Blimps. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.

Outdoor ads: a reinforcer, a reminder.

Cars developed, roadside ads started appearing.

Advertising harnessed power of electricity

Neon signs; 1880s it began in New York city: Broadway.

1904: Ny Times: became Times Square, new kind of outdoor advertising.

Lighted billboards: O.J. Lou??

Neon: 1920s

Wrigley billboard: 1936: 8 stories high

Lee: moved to New York. Simple billboard was not good enough. Camel cigarette billboard, unveiled 1941…smoke rings every 40 seconds.

1950s-60s…Times Square continued to be billboard heaven.

Then a place for sex clubs.

Now it’s a destination for more than 20 million tourists a year.

Radio Ads

Nov. 2, 1920. KDKA.

Election results were available to listeners…

Radio programming used to be without commercial interruption.

Never occurred to the developers of radio that it would be an advertising-based business. Thought the money was in selling radio SETS.

Sales of radio sets didn’t offer enough income.

In this country, tradition of free enterprise. 1934….Commercial radio won out.

Radio stations turned to those willing to pay for access to the airwaves: advertisers.

First ad: 10-minute ad for real estate for $50.

At end of few months, real estate agency had sold $127,000 in property.

Once it started, kept on building momentum.

Radio: just had to turn dial on. Theater of the mind. Same techniques were used by advertisers…hearing increased attention.

Advertisers began paying for entire radio shows. Sponsored entire shows.

People would associate shows they liked with advertiser.

First really successful radio program was Amos N Andy

Pepsodent was the sponsor. W/in 7 months, sales went up 300%

Amos N. Andy captivated listeners. You don’t see that kind of mass attention anymore.

Advertising to KIDS

Wheaties: first company to use a jingle. Echoed its way into kids’ consciousness.

Main target = mother, main buyer.

Technique for getting mothers: the soap opera. If you use our soap your clothes will be cleaner.

1938, radio overtook magazines as the number 1 advertising medium.

Television

No other medium has contributed more to the explosive growth of ads.

You can draw attention through emotion. It’s so immediate, so powerful.

Associate what you see and hear, and you want it.

1946: fewer than 10,000 tv sets in the U.S.

5 years later….XX amt. sold (much more)

Advertising supported tv form the start. Advertisers realized they already had radio program content, so they just added pictures…Advertisers owned television. Had enormous influence. McCarthy era: led advertisers to create a blacklist. Lives were ruined. People were identified as sympathizers to communist party. Advertisers paid the bills, and didn’t want “communist sympathizers.”

Advertisers also influenced content: Popular quiz shows were fixed…b/c of pressures exerted from production company to advertisers.

Early TV ad techniques/spot ads

Dib dab. Dib, dab. Phrases over and over again.

The hard sell was the most popular technique early on. Mr. Clean Mr. Clean Mr. Clean

Rosser Reeves…was the “king of advertising you couldn’t avoid.” You could literally irritate your way into people’s consciousness.

An attempt to take machine-made objects and say this is different from exactly the same other kind of objects…Reason why advertising.

Fast Fast Fast relief. Anacin. (Hammers really hit home!)

Sales of Anacin tripled.

Associate the product in a positive way with the pain in the headache.

Creative revolution

late 1950s and 1960s

Late 1950s, a new America was watching tv…viewers were becoming more sophisticated.

Ads more sophisticated

Doyle, Dane, Birnbach

Inspired a whole generation of creative people.

Worked for Volkswagon (client): best ad campaign ever.

1959: sly sense of humor. Encouraging America to “think small.”

Ad was ironic. Broke wall between the viewer, the ad and the thing.

Sold 21 million bugs all over the world.

David Ogilvy

Selling is really about emotion. Big ideas.

Consumer really wants what the object means, not the object especially!

Ads for Maxwell house still evoke an immediate, powerful response to viewers.

Perky pot sound. People will start talking about drinking coffee around kitchen tables.

Mary Wells: First agency head by a woman:

I can’t believe I ate the whole thing (Alka Selzer)

Late 1960s…super sophisticated…catchy jingles.

Process of creating ads

Make us laugh.

Creative advertising is hard work. Ads are molded and perfected

But first they are researched.

System: opinion research.

Started in 1932, first Gallop poll…used empirical data….

Created a science of persuasion, testing consumers to see what campaign would be most effective.

Power of color red.

Repetition was the key of success.

But it’s not scientifically accurate, b/c it relies on human behavior, self-reported opinions and behaviors….= unpredictable.

Need to show client that there’s some palpable reason why they’d want to spend millions of dollars.

Research: focus groups.

10-12 consumers

1970: MacDonalds focus group found that MacDonald’s was seen as “an escape.” So the ads really played that up.

It’s like a little break. SO…”you deserve a break today, so get up and get away, at MacDonalds.”

During 4 years, McD’s sales tripled.

But sometimes, advertisers just go by instinct. Just like when they did the ingredients of a big Mac. Two all beef patties, special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.

Taco bell: switched ad agencies for their Chihuaua ad. Research showed that young people, 18-24 year old men were main consumers of Taco Bell.

Little dog on a serious mission.

Team of creatives, brainstorm to come up with next great idea.