It could be argued that advertising doesn’t sell a product itself and instead merely changes a person’s perception of happiness in life, in order to make them feel the need to change or better theirs. This essay examines a big part of the advertising market, Alcohol, referencing John Berger and Jeremy Bullmore both of these men see advertising in a completely different way to most people and have some really interesting opinions on how advertising affects the general publics views on life and there selves.
Berger (1972) – Suggests ‘Publicity proposes to each of us in a consumer society, that we change ourselves or our lives by buying something more, this more, publicity persuades us will make us in someway richer even though we will be poorer having spent our money’, in a BBC Documentary on advertising which explores how publicity effects not only our views on our lives but how it affects how we feel about our relationships around us and also other, more important world issues. John Berger believes that publicity uses various different techniques to change people’s opinion on themselves and they’re surroundings.
He states that ‘Without social envy glamour cannot exist’ meaning if nobody were to be envious there wouldn’t be any need to better your own life and it is thought that this is the main problem of advertising, people want to be what there not, an advert will often promote a lot more than just what its selling we find that there is a whole lifestyle to be bought with a product rather than just what it is for instance apple is one of the main culprits for this, if your buying an Apple Mac then your more than likely buying the creative culture that surrounds it, an alternative way of life invented by Apple and not just the computer.
A certain type of advertising that affects a huge part of our society is alcohol; this essay will discuss how the leading brands influence the general publics mind and also how publicity has changed over time.
If we look at an advert from 1954 a ‘Miller High Life Beer’ we see it openly publicises itself to an audience of elegancy and culture that attend stylish, buffet parties, the title is written in a graceful font and reads ‘Traditionally the Finest’, we then find a woman preparing an exquisite buffet with some quite rare foods, surrounded by artistic and cultural ornaments in a modern room, now while the ad is showing a nice smart formal buffet being held by somebody else it is connoting that the brand of beer ‘Miller’ is to be thanked for this and that if you purchase their product you may be able to host or even attend a party like this, thus making your life happier and creating an appearance of sophistication for you.
‘Publicity suggest our life will be different from what it is’ (Berger, 1972)
A lot of alcohol publicity in the 50’s used the same scenarios and situations to sell their alcohol product and a fair bit has changed since then.
The main audience alcohol publicity targets is those throwing parties or having guest, even today’s adverts do the same only the closer to the present we get the more the target audience becomes younger, the aim 30 or 40 years ago was to make the audience want to impress their company, to boast of their richness, elegance or sophistication, even though not alcohol holds non of these characteristics.
If we look at a Smirnoff advert just thirteen years on we find similar connotations within, In ‘Don’t darling me if its not Smirnoff’, we see signified a very elegant, beautiful woman, covered with diamonds and wearing a gorgeous white wedding dress, and straight away this will have attracted both male and female audiences, the males because she’s striking but more importantly the females, Foster (2001) argues that advertising ‘persuades the consumer that they need the product by making them “feel dissatisfied or inadequate”’. The advert makes women want to be in her position, make them want to better their own life and become this rich, beautiful woman they see, there is a quote underneath that reads ‘Don’t darling me if its not Smirnoff’ this connotes that if you buy this brand then you will be as rich and as powerful as the woman in the picture, another interesting part of this advert I found was a paragraph written at the bottom that says ‘your guests expect Smirnoff just as Zsa Zsa does, for a very simple reason, it makes a better drink.’ This is what is known as a social code, or a myth an understanding by a collection of people that by drinking Smirnoff you belong to a group of women that are elegant, beautiful and can demand what they want.
It then goes on to say ‘filtered through 14,000 pounds of charcoal’ non of the general public understands why its filtered through charcoal but the fact they say ‘filtered through charcoal’ and use a great number such as 14,000 the audience assumes that it is incredibly pure and therefore better.
‘We all know what you make – but are you as certain what your customers are buying?’ a question posed to new business men by Jeremy Bullmore – Polishing the apples
When looking at newer ad’s for alcohol we seem to find that they steer away from elegance, grace and sophistication a see that the audience has changed, twenty or thirty years ago the main consumers of alcohol were adults who enjoyed social gatherings with close friends and to enjoy a drink, in more modern times we find that younger and younger people are drinking therefore the alcohol publicity audience has changed to a more youthful, fun point of view, we no longer see adverts showing elegant social gatherings, the once tasteful advert for Smirnoff in the 1970’s has been replaced by an advert of excitement and entertainment, instead of offering grace and complexity its offering adventure and something new.
Taking a look at the new 2009 Smirnoff adverts ‘Be There’; everything just mentioned can be found, the video starts of with a mixed group of males and females in their mid twenties, smiling an having a laugh with each other, already appealing to a younger audience, the video goes on to show them having a very adventures party outside involving a slip and slide, sprinklers an Smirnoff, now the Smirnoff Is only shown once in the entire video, I believe this shows that it is in fact the lifestyle the advert is selling an not just the product, a short quote comes into the video that says ‘I don’t know why we did it I guess we just did it because we were bored’ this is cleverly connoting that Smirnoff will solve your being bored, they use a voice over quote to make the audience feel more involved with the advert as though your questioning as to why there being so adventurous and exciting and they answer it, although they answer with a question it is connoting that Smirnoff is the reason for this amazing night.
To conclude I feel that advertising is in fact selling a better way of life therefore making the audience feel theirs is inadequate thus not selling the product at all just changing the state of the audiences mind, but as long as one brand does it they all will and it all comes down to social envy if there wasn’t any social envy in the world there wouldn’t be any need to better your own life you would accept it and carry on, I wouldn’t go as far to say advertising is evil because it simply has to do what it does to sell its brand
It seems that with adverts never just sell a product and always have to try and give something away with it, i.e. a lifestyle and I do not believe big brands will ever stop this technique of selling because it truly does work too well, almost every person in the world wants to fit into a crowd that wants more. The main way we know this is because if you have any close friends that purchase new items the chances are there going to want you to see them, this shows that they aren’t only buying the way of life but they’re buying the product in fact for the their friends, just to brag of their income or stylishness.
Bibliography
http://xadvertising.blogspot.com/2008/04/denotation-and-connotation.html - Optima Advertise (2008)
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/mff9901.html - Foster, E (2001) - A Semiotic analysis of alcohol commercials
Berger, J (1972), Ways of seeing
Bullmore, J Polished apples
O’ Shaughnessy, J, & O’ Shaughnessy, N.J (2004), ‘Persuasion in Advertising’, Taylor & Francis e-library
- Smirnoff - ‘don’t darling me if its not Smirnoff’ advert.
- Millers advert.
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