Chapter 2 Controversies in Contemporary Advertising Living in a Consumer Culture Advertising s role in encouraging the purchase of products and services can create what some critics call a consumer culture Consumer culture definition o Culture The ideas and activities by which each of us as individuals constructs our world o Consume To ingest To use up To completely destroy o A society in which human values have been grotesquely distorted so that commodities become more important than people or are used as a way to obtain love or friendship Commodification The process of stripping an object of all other values except its value for sale to someone else Flew 2007 argues that media have a central place in globalization for three reasons o Media corporations have increasingly globalized their operations o The global communication infrastructure supports the flow of information around the world o Global media play a key role in how we view events across the world and in creating shared systems of meaning Cultural Globalization The emergence of a specific set of values and beliefs that are largely shared around the planet Emerging global culture operates on three levels o Cosmopolitanism Individuals who are open to the world and are globally fluent across cultures o Hybridized and remixed global culture o Consumerism As entertainment becomes more global the prominence of products in these entertainment vehicles promotes consumption of brands Advertising Informational and Transformational Consumer decision making is a complex phenomenon that involves various degrees of deliberation and contemplation on the part of the consumer People tend to find advertising generally informative and useful in guiding their own decision making Advertising does a good job at communicating what a product can actually do and what kind of performance consumers can expect when they purchase the product Advertising also informs consumers about new products Informational Advertisements Advertisements that provide specific information about a product s attributes Transformational Advertisements Provide information that suggests how we as consumers will feel if we buy the product or service Advertising and Brands The messages of advertisements can often demonstrate the power that Brand The name and or symbol used to identify a product or service and advertising has in creating a brand distinguish it from the competition Brand Equity A product quality based in the mind of consumers tangible and intangible attributes Image If two products do not differ materially they can be made to differ in terms of attributed qualities The process of branding is the assignment of image Satisfactory Products Good enough to do the job the consumer needs them to do Brands become valuable when consumers want or need products that are Brands provide consumers with a range of different benefits that make brand better than satisfactory more than satisfactory o Benefits in terms of product quality o Benefits in terms of perceived value o Defensive benefits tries to prevent consumers who are currently happy with a brand from switching How Branding Works Branding works when advertisers and agencies find images and attributes within the product or service that resonate with target consumers Creating emotional connections between product and purchaser is seen as manipulative and inherently unfair We derive meanings about the world not only from the products we see but also from the message surrounding the products and from our experiences in the world that may or may not include the products Globalizing Advertising and Meaning Advertising transfers meaning from the world to the product The advertising relates to the product properties of the world that are familiar to the consumer This cultural transference must be done in such a way that the consumer easily interprets the connection between the cultural world and the good The advertiser can only suggest the similarity and consumers must create the meaning themselves Active and Passive Consumers advertisement An individual brings his or her own context to an interaction with an Uses and Gratifications Theory Attempts to understand motivation to use different media and captures the idea of motivated consumers when it suggests the consumers seek out media to fulfill a core set of motivation We use products services and their meanings to define and orient ourselves Consumer Generated Media Involves a relationship between customers and businesses consumers and brands Consumer Pathologies Transfer of meaning goes wrong Consumers and Manipulation Biggest criticism Advertising is manipulative Manipulation One entity can use a method to make another entity do something involuntarily Persuasion The advocacy of a specific point of view of one entity provided to another entity for the second entity to debate and evaluate Galbraith suggested that advertising uses two techniques to manipulate consumers o Advertising creates a propensity to consume o Advertising directs the choices that consumers make and some of these choices may be correct but others may be incorrect Manipulative advertisements differs from explicitly deceptive advertisements in that deceptive advertisements clearly state erroneous facts People make decisions based on numerous inputs o A client s marketing activities o Personal experience with a product o Level of dissatisfaction with one s current brands Nonintrusive Advertising Advertising that consumers actively seek or scan when they have a specific need or interest but ignore at other times Much of the advertising that consumers use is nonintrusive Intrusive Advertising Advertising for products and services that you are not currently searching for McDonald suggests that advertising execution will stand out if any of the four following conditions exist o The advertised product or service is different or special o The product or service is advertised in an unusual or striking way o The product s or service s advertisement is personally relevant to the consumer o The consumer is familiar with the advertisement