The Evolution of Advertising

Posters and wall inscriptions promoting goods and services are ancient, dating back to the early civilizations. Given widespread illiteracy, most were visual signs, utilizing the symbols of a trade (swords, horseshoes, and so on) to announce the location or availability of a product or service. Also, so-called town criers were hired to walk through streets to announce orally the arrival and availability of goods at a port or from the countryside. The slim archeological evidence available does, however, indicate that the posters and the criers employed rhetorical strategies to announce the availability of certain goods, not purely informational techniques (Danesi, 2006). Thus, a product could be presented as available only for a short period of time or as having desirable qualities (freshness, strength, and so on). These posters thus present early examples of persuasive discourse, albeit at a low level of persuasion.

One of the shrewdest showmen and early advertisers was P. T. Barnum (1810–1891). To promote his attractions, Barnum relied on colorful language, using exaggeration, hyperbole, and other rhetorical techniques to create interest in his shows and exhibits. He used expressions such as the following, which have become standard constructs in the lexicon of advertising, remaining part of advertising discourse to this day:

• Don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
• Limited edition at an unbelievably low price!
• All items must go!
• Not to be missed!

Barnum realized that rhetorical language is a basic technique for creating a “fanfare mood” in people. The mood would then purportedly attract people to attend spectacles or purchase products. Barnum was prophetic, since studies have shown that rhetorical language is indeed the key to advertising success (Goddard, 1998).

The modern period of advertising began after the invention of the printing press in the late 1400s. Fliers and posters could be printed quickly and inexpensively and thus displayed abundantly in public places or inserted in books and pamphlets far and wide. The messages etched into these print texts started constructing a compact form of language that became a central component of the “Gutenberg Galaxy,” as the Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan (1962) named the new social order that ensued from the arrival of mass print communication. By the latter part of the 17th century, when newspapers started circulating widely, print advertisements started appearing regularly. The London Gazette was the first newspaper to reserve a section devoted exclusively to advertising for a fee. The advertisements in this ever-expanding Galaxy became more and more “telegraphic,” that is, inclined to compress information in order to relay only the essential ideas, much like telegrams and text messages today. The reason was, needless to say, to cut down expenses in buying print space. But the style used became attractive in itself, since, like poetry, it was pleasing and effective. Dyer (1982, pp. 16–17) provides an example of a very modern-sounding newspaper advertisement for toothpaste that dates back to 1660 England:

Most excellent and proved Dentifrice to scour and cleanse the Teeth, making them white as ivory, preserves the Tooth-ach; so that being constantly used, the Parties using it are never troubled with the Tooth-ach. It fastens the Teeth, sweetens the Breath, and preserves the Gums and Mouth from cankers and Impothumes, and the right are only to be had at Thomas Rookes, Stationer.

Rhetorical techniques abound. For example, it claims that the “Dentifrice” is unique among products, being “excellent” and “proved.” It not only helps with toothache, but also cleanses the teeth and sweetens the breath. The spread of such stylistic elements to mainstream discourse impelled some critics, like writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, to make the following statement: “Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promise and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic” (quoted in Panati, 1984, p. 168). In the subsequent 19th century, advertisement creators started to pay more attention to the design and layout of advertisement texts, rendering them truly multimodal. The words and phrases were set out in blocks, shorter sentences were used, and contrasting type fonts became the norm. The art of coining and inventing new slang forms to fit the advertisement text were becoming part of the advertising code. Psychologically effective techniques such as repetitions of the firm's name or product, the use of visual images, the creation of neologisms, and the invention of slogans became the fixtures of advertising discourse. As Dyer (1982, p. 32) points out, advertisements started using “more colloquial, personal and informal language to address the customer.”

By the early decades of the 20th century, not only the linguistic and visual mode of presentation became persuasive, but also the implicit content of advertisements. The idea was to get the customer to associate a product with some aspect of lifestyle, personal amelioration, need, or significant life event (for example, romance) rather than just with what it was capable of doing. So a toothpaste would clean your teeth, but it also would make your breath fresher for kissing and thus enhance romance. Many social critics of the era saw this new “slogan style” as leading to a deterioration of language and of social communication generally, which they claimed was becoming more trendy and in synch with advertising style. In his 1922 book Public Opinion, US journalist Walter Lippmann argued that the growth of a mass media advertising culture had a powerful detrimental effect on people's minds, adversely affecting politics, familial relations, interpersonal relations, and general worldview. The rise of consumerism in the 1920s was due to a mix of socioeconomic factors, but one cannot underestimate the role of advertising in that mix, as works by Lippmann and others contended. In the same decade, the growth of electrical technologies provided advertising with new powerful modes and media for conveying its messages. Electricity made possible the illuminated outdoor poster, and photoengraving technologies helped advertisers create truly effective illustrative material that could be incorporated into advertising texts. The advent of radio led to the invention and widespread use of a new form of advertising, known as the commercial—a mininarrative or musical jingle revolving around a product or service and its uses. Since it could reach masses of potential customers, print-literate or not, radio commercials became even more influential than print advertisements as vehicles for disseminating advertising discourse throughout society. People would be more familiar with slogans and jingles (“Mr. Clean, he fights dirt in just a minute;” “Plop, plop, oh what a relief it is”) than any other kind of discourse. Some of these jingles jumped from the advertising domain to the pop culture one, becoming hit songs on their own. This has happened throughout the history of modern-day advertising. The example of the Coca-Cola jingle “I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony” is a case in point.

With the arrival of television after World War II, the commercial was adapted to the new visual medium, further enhancing the multimedial and multimodal features of advertising messages. In the 1950s, television commercials became so familiar to mass audiences that the perception of the products themselves became inextricably intertwined with the styles of the commercials created to promote them. Fictitious cartoon product characters had a high recognition factor and were as well known as Hollywood celebrities.

The Internet has emerged to complement and supplement print, radio, and television media as a channel for disseminating advertising discourse styles even more broadly, affecting larger and larger segments of the human population. Cyberspace is becoming a dominant and ever-evolving advertising medium, even though it has not altered the basic psychology behind offline advertising discourse styles. The Internet provides graphics, audio, and various visual techniques to enhance the effectiveness of advertisement texts cheaply. The same kinds of advantages are offered by mobile device advertising. In effect, the new technologies are changing the ways in which advertising is delivered, but they have not changed its basic persuasive strategies.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 853