On Saturday night, I was walking to a Halloween party and ran into two guys dressed up as characters from the movie "Suicide Squad.” We somehow started talking, the usual small talk — What year are you? What school are you in? What do you plan on majoring in? Etc. They said they wanted to go into engineering, and I told them I wanted to go into marketing and advertising to which they replied: “You are going to make more money than both of us combined!” I refuted this statement, saying that they are the ones that they are the ones that make new products and technology, and I’m just the one that convinces people to buy what they make. “Exactly,” they said.
Every year, advertisers spend millions and millions of dollars on merely selling products. As these two potential engineers pointed out to me, without marketing a product the product itself is irrelevant to society. Thus, ultimately, advertisers’ primary objective is to make something that wasn’t a part of your life relevant to you and your needs. This is difficult to accomplish, yet advertisements and marketing campaigns succeed in doing this numerous times to millions of people every single day. The role the advertising industry plays in our society is perhaps the most substantial of all social institutions, yet it is somehow so discrete and subtle that we fail to realize how easily we buy into what they are selling.
Personally, I believe successful marketing campaign involve two things: Firstly, appeal to the masses, and secondly, capitalize on societal stereotypes. Without being able to communicate effectively to intrigue and communicate a message to a target audience, the ad fails. Similarly, the more relevant the ad is to the social context in which it lives, the more powerful it will be in its aim to grab peoples’ attention and linger in their memory. We touched upon this in class this past week, and I’m looking forward to discussing it further and analyzing it while working on the next essay assignment.
Hi Bella,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your perspective on advertisements and how they make, or break, the sales of a product. I know that throughout the week we have focused on advertisements that were often misogynistic and queerphobic. However, the job of an advertiser, despite what we see in our media, is quite difficult. The smallest details in a billboard ad or a commercial are often vital towards making sales for a product. An advertiser must remain up-to-date into what their audience now desires and feeds into. Sadly though, this may also involve feeding into patriarchal societies.
Bella- That's so cool that you want to go into advertising! I also think that advertising is fascinating, especially after discussing it in our class. I really like your interpretation of the objective of advertising is "to make something that wasn't a part of your life relevant to you and your needs." I think that advertising is more than just selling a product, its about selling you a story, a lifestyle, a bigger picture. However I think that it is unfortunate that this often involves playing off of stereotypes.
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