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Chapter 11

Advertising and Commercial Culture

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Chapter Opener: Harnessing the power of social media has created a new advertising

opportunity—with 35 percent of 2017 advertising budgets committed to Internet marketing.

Media–savvy celebrities like DJ Khaled are getting in on the action by using sites like

Snapchat to share what’s happening in their lives and to promote various products.

I. The Early History of American Advertising: 1850s to 1950s

After the Industrial Revolution, the United States was linked by railroad, telegraph,

and print media, and merchants wanted to advertise their products in newspapers and

magazines.

A. The First Advertising Agencies. The first American advertising agencies were

newspaper space brokers, who purchased space in newspapers and sold it to

various merchants.

B. Retail Stores: Giving Birth to Branding. The creation of brand names and their use

in ads allowed manufacturers to differentiate their products and take control of

pricing from retail merchants.

II. The Evolution of U.S. Advertising: 1950s to Today

New types of ad agencies developed as consumers became more interested in imagery

and new media like the Internet became popular.

A. Visual Design Comes to the Fore. European designers in the 1960s and 1970s and

MTV in the 1980s and 1990s heavily influenced ad design, which is becoming

even more sophisticated thanks to new technology.

B. New Breeds of Advertising Agencies Are Born. The increasing importance of

visual design led to the development of two types of specialized agencies that

wield great control over the type of advertising we see.

1. Mega–Agencies. These agencies provide a full range of services including

public relations and broadcast production, but critics warn that their size gives

them inordinate power.

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C. Ad Agencies Develop a Distinctive Structure. Most advertising agencies have a

similar structure, with four main functions:

1. Account Planning. Account planning develops an effective advertising

strategy by combining the views of the client, creative team, and consumer.

2. Creative Development. Teams of writers and artists—the “creatives”—

develop ads to appeal to consumers.

D. Online and Mobile Advertising Alter the Ad Landscape. The Internet and mobile

technology have complicated advertising and have opened the door for new

competition.

1. The Rise of Web Advertising. Web advertising has become increasingly

sophisticated and includes paid search and spam. Online companies like

Google pose a real threat to traditional ad agencies.

2. How Online Ads Work. Agencies track how often ads are seen and how often

users click on them; they also gather information about consumers through

“cookies.”

III. Persuasive Techniques in Contemporary Advertising

Ad agencies use a variety of persuasive techniques to get consumers to buy a product

or service.

A. Using Conventional Persuasive Strategies. Advertisers have long used a number

of standard strategies like the famous–person testimonial, plain–folks pitch, snob

appeal, bandwagon effect, hidden–fear appeal, and irritation advertising.

Associating Products with Values. For many campaigns, ad agencies associate a

IV. Commercial Speech and Regulating Advertising

Advertisements are considered commercial speech. Debate persists about whether they

should be regulated.

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A. Targeting Children and Teens. Advertisers have targeted children because they

influence billions of dollars of family purchases, but critics worry that ads

sometimes promote unhealthy products or intrude in schools.

B. Triggering Anorexia and Overeating. Critics say that ultrathin female models

contribute to an unhealthy self–image for women and that food ads contribute to

obesity.

C. Promoting Smoking. One of the most sustained criticisms of advertising is its

promotion of tobacco.

D. Promoting Drinking. Many of the same complaints about tobacco ads are also

directed at alcohol ads.

E. Hawking Drugs Directly to Consumers. Critics worry that consumers are

vulnerable to misleading drug ads because the ads can’t convey all the cautionary

information that consumers need.

F. Monitoring the Advertising Industry. A few watchdog groups try to compensate

for the shortcomings of the FTC, which has faced cutbacks and is of questionable

effectiveness.

1. Commercial Alert. Since 1998, Commercial Alert has been working to “limit

excessive commercialism in society.”

V. Advertising in a Democratic Society

Advertising is the central economic support of our mass media industries and has

powerfully fueled our economy. Critics worry, however, that the consumer society it

helped create has widened the divisions between the haves and have–nots and that

political advertising has made citizens less informed and has undermined their

confidence in the electoral process.

LECTURE TOPICS

1. Describe the structure of the advertising industry, including the development of mega–

agencies and boutique agencies and the process of doing advertising.

2. Detail the persuasive strategies and techniques in contemporary advertising, using

current print and broadcast examples.

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LECTURE SPIN–OFFS

The First Advertising Agencies

The first full–service modern advertising agency, N. W. Ayer & Son (established in 1869 in

Philadelphia), remained active until 2002. N. W. Ayer & Son’s more famous slogans

include:

• “When it rains it pours.” (Morton Salt, 1912)

• “I’d walk a mile for a Camel.” (Camel cigarettes, 1921)

Patent Medicines: Making Outrageous Claims

• Patent medicines associated themselves with the following appeals: exotica, the medical

knowledge of Native Americans, death, religion, patriotism, mythology, and science.

• Patent medicines for teething or colicky babies often contained morphine and alcohol.

• At the turn of the twentieth century, U.S. cities were reporting an alarming rise in deaths

due to heart, kidney, and liver failure. The powder acetanilide, an ingredient in a

number of patent medicines advertised for headache cures, was linked to the higher

death rates.

• Further Reading:

Visual Design Comes to the Fore

Before the introduction of Dockers pants (a division of Levi Strauss) on television in the

1980s, Americans had never seen handheld, “shaky–cam” camera work in commercials. The

extra movement, derivative of MTV video styles, created a kind of excitement and

suggested the inexperienced “human” camera work of people with camcorders, which were

then becoming popular consumer items. After the Dockers commercials debuted, the shaky–

cam formula was quickly adopted by other agencies, making handheld camera shots

commonplace. Dutch angles (shots with the horizon line askew) have also become

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Persuasive Techniques in Contemporary Advertising

• Product placement has been around since the 1940s, when the diamond company De

Beers supplied jewelry for stars to wear on the screen. Here are some additional

examples:

• In the 1950s, James Dean used an Ace comb in Rebel without a Cause, which

caused sales of the comb to soar.

• A remarkable example of the financial power of product placement occurred

decades ago. The movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) was

entirely funded by Quaker Oats, which used the movie to promote its new Wonka

brand of candy and sweets.

• Here are some more brand partnerships: Snapple is the official beverage of New

York City; Coca–Cola has marketing deals with Huntington Beach, California, and

East Lansing, Michigan; and PepsiCo has deals with San Diego and Fresno,

• One of the earliest uses of a famous pop song for a television advertisement was the

long–running use of Carly Simon’s 1972 hit “Anticipation” for Heinz ketchup. The ad

campaign featured a person waiting for the presumably thick Heinz ketchup to exit the

tilted bottle. Leo Burnett Company was responsible for the 1974–1979 campaign. The

contract for the commercial rights to the song precluded Leo Burnett from using Simon

to sing the TV ad, but the music agency hired by Burnett did such a good job that most

viewers were convinced that they were listening to Simon’s version of the song.

Another famous pop song appropriation is the use of “I Heard It through the Grapevine”

• The years 2005–2007 marked a fascination with cavemen in the advertising industry.

The cavemen were associated with Mr. Every Guy. Geico cavemen worried about their

modern–day portrayals as simpletons; FedEx cavemen worried whether their packages

would arrive the next morning. Geico’s cavemen were also showing up at golf

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tournaments and at Hollywood dinner parties after the Academy Awards. The success

of these commercials prompted ABC to greenlight a 2007 half–hour sitcom based on the

cavemen characters (though the sitcom failed).

(You might want to play a Winston cigarette commercial from the 1960s—widely

available on the Internet—featuring The Flintstones cartoon characters. This early use

of cavemen in advertising provides several interesting comparisons to the Geico

campaign.)

The Burger King mascot is marketed to the same demographic: eighteen– to thirty–

five–year–old men. The Burger King “King” mascot has actually appeared in print and

• In 2015, a short called The Audition, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De

Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio (available on YouTube), was actually a commercial for a

resort and casino. The plot involved actors auditioning for a Scorsese film, but the

setting showcased the amenities of the resort. The $80 million production set a new

record for these types of films.

Targeting Children and Teens

• Exclusive marketing contracts with public schools are increasingly more common,

particularly with soft–drink companies. Pepsi, for example, pays a school a nominal fee

for placing soft–drink machines on school property; schools are asked to encourage soft–

drink consumption and to discourage the consumption of competing beverages. Pepsi

and Coke (as well as other companies) also purchase school property–naming rights.

They’ll supply the school with a football scoreboard, for example, while prominently

displaying the company logo.

Meanwhile, childhood and teenage obesity rates are soaring. Childhood obesity has

more than doubled in younger children and more than quadrupled in adolescents since

the 1980s. More than one in five children or adolescents were overweight or obese in

2017. Advertising of less healthy foods was listed by the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention and one of the reasons for the increase.

Further Reading:

Jonathan McIntosh, “A History of Subversive Remix Video before YouTube: Thirty

• A recent trend in advertising allows consumers to create their own ads and post them on

company Web sites. Chevy tried this tactic but must have regretted it as soon as

someone took the iconic imagery of its SUV advertisements—images showing SUVs

driving through forested terrain—and accompanied it with a negative message track

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MEDIA LITERACY DISCUSSIONS AND EXERCISES

IN BRIEF: ADVERTISING’S EFFECT ON YOUR CAMPUS

As a class, consider the effect of advertising on your college campus. Are any buildings or

sports facilities named after advertisers? Are any on–campus dining facilities run by fast–

food franchises? What company has the soda franchise on your campus, and how much does

it pay? What companies dominate the advertising on your campus, and where do they place

their ads? Should college campuses be free of advertisements? Why or why not? Are any

places in society free of ads and corporate sponsorship?

IN DEPTH: ANALYZING MAGAZINE ADS

From a business perspective, magazine ads function to promote advertisers’ goods or

services over competing brands and to place these goods or services before consumers so

that they can make informed buying decisions. We know, however, that ads mean more than

what advertisers intend because readers form their own opinions. We know, too, that ads

function as popular culture. They operate on a symbolic level to affirm cultural values.

In a three– or four–page analysis, compare and critique three magazine ads. The ads

should all feature the same type of product but should be taken from contrasting magazines

(e.g., three alcohol ads from women’s and men’s magazines or three clothing ads from

various kinds of publications).

1. Description. Take notes on your three choices, laying out what is going on in the ads.

Briefly describe each ad. Is a narrative apparent here (setting, characters, conflict, etc.)?

What different persuasive strategies seem to be at work?

2. Analysis. Figure out common patterns or differences that emerge among the three ads

and then develop an argument that you want to prove. For example, you may notice that

one ad demonstrates more social responsibility than the others or provides better

consumer information. In your critique, use the association principle to deal with the

ads’ cultural meanings. Your analysis should go beyond the issue of whether the ads

successfully market their products.

3. Interpretation. Now think about these questions in regard to the ads you have chosen:

What’s going on? What different sets of values are being sold (e.g., ideas about

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5. Engagement. Examine the advertising—both classified and display—in your school

newspaper. Are any of the ads offensive to students? Do any of the ads promote

unhealthy products or lifestyles? Contact the newspaper if you have suggestions on how

the advertising staff could better serve the campus.

IN DEPTH: YOU ARE WHAT YOU WEAR

Pre–Exercise Question: If you wear a piece of clothing with a logo on it, is it personal

expression or corporate advertising?

This Critical Process exercise is designed to help students rethink the reasons behind

name–brand logos on T–shirts, shoes, baseball caps, jeans, and so on.

1. Description. Prior to the day of this exercise, ask your students to inventory their

wardrobe and identify all the pieces of clothing and footwear that have visible logos.

Make sure students record the logo name as well as the type of clothing the logo is on.

Also have students note where the clothing or footwear came from (e.g., bought it,

received it as a gift).

2. Analysis. In class, chart students’ collective findings. What patterns emerge from these

closet wardrobes in terms of logo wear? Which companies had greater representation?

Did some clothing items have higher levels of logo branding? Did gender matter in the

number and types of logos in wardrobes?

Interpretation. Why have corporate logos become a part of our wardrobes? Why do we

IN DEPTH: MALE STEREOTYPES IN TELEVISION ADS

(Note: A broader version of this activity – Gender Stereotypes in Television Ads – is now

available on LaunchPad for Media Essentials. See the Media Literacy Practice Activity for

this chapter.)

Pre–Exercise Question: Are men like the guys in television ads?

The portrayal of women in advertising has generated a considerable amount of

controversy, but what about the portrayal of men? This critical process exercise is designed

to evaluate the visible stereotyping of men in advertising.

1. In preparation for this exercise ask your students to watch (and record, if they can) all

the commercials during one evening’s prime–time schedule. Ask them to describe the

depictions of men in these commercials and to bring the information to class.

a. Description. What sort of categories do these male characters fall into? For each

category, what are the characters’ typical behaviors? What do they look like,

including their normative body types? What is the range of their actions? If they

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were coupled with a female counterpart, what did she look like? What are the male

characters’ relationships with other men and with women?

b. Analysis. Look for patterns in the descriptions of male characters in prime–time ads,

especially with regard to body type, behaviors, race and ethnicity, social class, and

relationships with other men and women. Is there a certain kind of male character

that predominates in these ads? If so, what is that character?

CLASSROOM MEDIA RESOURCES

VIDEOS/DVDS/CDS

Art and Copy: Inside Advertising’s Creative Revolution (2009, 89 minutes). Documentary

about the advertising industry and the influential personalities behind famous

commercials. Companion web site: www.artandcopyfilm.org.

Big Bucks, Big Pharma (2006, 45 minutes). This video pulls back the curtain on the

multibillion–dollar pharmaceutical industry to expose the insidious ways that illness is

used, manipulated, and in some instances created for capital gain. Distributed by the

Deadly Persuasion: The Advertising of Alcohol & Tobacco (2003, 60 minutes). In this

video, Jean Kilbourne exposes the manipulative marketing strategies and tactics used by

the tobacco and alcohol industries to keep Americans hooked on their dangerous

0089.

Emergence of Advertising in America: Advertising Ephemera (2007, 4–CD set). This set of

CDs has brought together hundreds of examples of early advertisements, dating from

the early 1840s, that appeared in newspapers, in independent publications, as posters,

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The Naked Brand (2013, 57 minutes). Documentary about the influence of corporations,

their ability to persuade, and the consumers’ ability to hold them responsible.

No Logo: Brands, Globalization and Resistance (2003, 42 minutes). Adapted from Naomi

Klein’s book of the same name, the video uses hundreds of media examples to show

how the commercial takeover of public space, destruction of consumer choice, and

replacement of real jobs with temporary work—the dynamics of corporate

globalization—impact everyone, everywhere. Distributed by the Media Education

The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need (2004, 32 minutes). In this

powerful video, Juliet Schor scrutinizes what she calls “the new consumerism,” a

national phenomenon of upscale spending that is shaped and reinforced by a

The Persuaders (2004, 60 minutes). Current analysis of today’s marketing and advertising

The Real Mad Men of Advertising (2017). Four–part Smithsonian series exploring the ad

Sell and Spin: A History of Advertising (2000, 96 minutes). Explores the techniques that

have pushed everything from patent medicines to Volkswagens; revisits the slogans,

WEB SITES

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Professional advertising organization.

Represents marketing communication agencies.

Professional organization for marketers and advertising professionals.

A Web site focused on branding.

International advertising awards.

Publication for professionals in visual communication.

Membership organization for digital media and marketing companies.

Web site for the book No Logo, a look at the history of various multinational

corporations and their brands.

National organization for media literacy.

Association focusing on “out of home” advertising.

Providing public access to documents released by Phillip Morris USA detailing, among

other things, their advertising practices as related to cigarettes.

Serves member radio stations.

A survey designed to determine what kind of groups consumers identify with, which

businesses often use to determine marketing strategies.

Advocacy group for advertisers concentrated on video content.