Advertisements Final

When advertisers promise something highly unlikely or a TV show uses a specific type of dialogue or style of humor don’t think it is simply when it comes to purchasing almost any product most people really only care about the product and only want to know what the item offers them. But yet advertisers spend billions of dollars throwing images not dealing with what the actual product has to offer the customer at all. This is because the advertising companies have broken this down to a science of breaking down the way people interpret and visualize advertisements. The image is all a thoroughly thought through and calculated science in knowing what it is people are interested in at a particular time. Knowing that every person is part of a demographic is the key for businesses to be able to advertise their products effectively to a broader audience. As well as knowing what catches the audience’s eye such as flashy words and or bright images as well as extravagant backgrounds and the use of “beautiful people”. These along with a TV show using somewhat controversial topics and racial humor to bring in audiences in and increase viewers who want to watch show are examples of the media having an impact on society as a whole.
Flashy words saying buy me I will make you pretty or I will make you cool or set yourself apart from the crowd buy this product and be an individual. And images showing insane colors that through the science of tricking your mind convince you that happiness will come from purchasing this product are seen in advertisements all around the world because they are effective. The use of crazy locations that entice buyers with but the truth is you’re not setting yourself apart in anyway what the page is saying is simply the word that the consumer wants to hear in relation to the product being better than all other competition. In essence people know that they are lying but they choose to accept it as the truth. The first thing people notice about any advertisement is the colors. Especially in print ads where there is nothing moving, the colors and design are the only things holding the ad together. So clearly colors are one of the things that advertising experts study. Psychologically and using the right colors plays one of the most important parts when it comes to good advertising by using the right colors advertisers can display the perfect signal to people and the colors they use will send drastically different signals that for car companies could mean the difference between connecting with an audience or not. When it come to advertising one of the most important things advertisers need to understand is which demographic they wish to display their product for and this is equally true in the auto industry where the more research the better this research is made in order to decide on where to put their advertisements to apply to a particular demographic of individuals who would be most interested in purchasing the product a company is selling. This is due to many different reasons the first being your image in the eye of the public audience because studies show people decide whether they want a product within ten seconds of a commercial it is important to put as much into the first ten seconds of an advertisement as possible to apply to a particular audience. This is the case because a vehicle can be portrayed as many different things such as a perfect family car, a single guy car, a teenage girls dream car, a tough guy truck you get the idea. Another reason understanding your audience is so important is because without having a target audience you might as well be throwing a dart at the wall and hope you hit the bulls eye. This explains why you don’t see family cars in teen people or teenagers driving a Prius in hotrod magazines, they will be overlooked and then a car company would have just wasted millions of dollars on an advertisement that enticed nobody into purchasing a product.
The use of people in advertisements, more specifically beautiful people is another big thing advertising companies love to use. When the public sees a beautiful person in an advertisement this tricks the brain subconsciously and says that if a beautiful person is using that product then anyone who also uses that product that is beautiful. And big companies know this which is why many times you never see any “normal” looking people in car ads. The people who are used in these advertisements are experienced actors who make a living off of looking good. But this is for a reason many people would be less inclined to purchase a minivan if they saw an advertisement featuring a stressed out soccer mom in sweatpants and not wearing any makeup but throw in a hot 30 something woman who is just pretending to be the perfect soccer mom and you have a group of moms very much wanting that life despite the fact that the only thing they are buying is a minivan. It is just another form of social propaganda that just shows how powerful advertising can be.
When watching television most people can pretty clearly see the presented images and believe they understand what TV shows are trying to say and most people believe they completely understand the dialogue the characters are trying to say but the truth is television and indeed all video media sources have underlying messages that many people will tend to miss. These items include presented jokes that include somewhat racially biased material for example in an episode of the Cosby show there is a scene in which. Dr. Huxtable is helping several women who happened to be pregnant with understanding how important prenatal exercises are the women are upset saying that they are hard. All of a sudden a women stands up who happens to be an Asian American, her attitude is the same as the other women that the exercises are hard to do but where it gets interesting is when the woman tells Dr. Huxtable that in the past keeping her shape has been quite easy. This was followed by rants by the other women clearly upset that this woman is able to stay in shape without much work. Now this is really important to understanding stereotypes at this time. Many people believed and still do believe that Asian women carry a trait that makes them inherently skinny and attractive this was and still is a racial stereotype that is seen as perhaps being rather taboo.
In the first thirty seconds of this episode we see Dr. Huxtable in a tough situation facing questioning from his wife concerning their anniversary of his proposal to her and the events that took place. His wife begins the conversation recalling a sweater that she wore the night her soon to be husband proposed to her she began asking about the sweater she wore seeing if her husband remembered the day like she did. “She asks do you remember what color the sweater was”. To which he responds Purple she says no it was white. So at this point we see Mrs.Cosby upset at the fact that her husband forgot something that to her was a very important event. The next question she asks concerns what Dr. Huxtable wore to which he responds “a purple sweater” clearly desperately recycling the old idea he had from before which of course was wrong this clearly upset his wife who remembered the night quite fondly and eventually told her husband that he was wearing a green tweed jacket. She is truly curious how her husband forgot such an important night. He responded by saying It is not that I don’t remember it’s just that I remember only the important things. Later in the scene his wife asks if he remembered the song playing on the radio that night to which he boldly responds “Ray Charles I Can’t Stop Loving You 1962, sold 14 million copies, now deal with that”. The scene ends with his wife smiling that her husband at least remembered that. A number of things happen in this scene to make it so important fist off the anniversary have such deep rooted meaning in the daily lives of so many couples and this is perpetuating the stereotype that most husbands will forget their anniversary or at least details about it and according to a recent poll by mail online Men under 25 were most forgetful, with 62 per cent in the study of 2,000 unable to remember the date they met or wed their partner, while a third of men over 55 can't remember. So it appears the show had some ground to stand on when it comes to men forgetting important dates.
When we see the media for what it truly is this is when this is when society will understand what is truly happening in the media and then we will be able to understand the true ideas being presented by the advertisements we watch and the TV shows we enjoy. I believe once this is achieved we will see a change in how advertisements and TV shows present the messages they wish to send to viewers. I believe that advertisers as well as media directors will understand that subliminal messages are not necessarily the way to go instead simply using the information that customers and viewers wish to see.