Advertising Shapes Social Trends - Research Paper Example

? Advertising Shapes Social Trends The essay uses three advertisement campaigns from two different genres to demonstrate the power of advertisement in shaping social trends in the society. Student Name Supervisor Name Test Assignment 1 Date Advertising Shapes Social Trends I. Introduction In today’s society, advertisements play a big role in the decision making of the consumers. The trends and the case studies on advertising and promotion showed that if the advertisement of a product or service has big impact, it generates more sales. Advertising is basically a communication process, which influences a person or a group of people to take decision on purchasing a product or service. Media Awareness Network states that the typical US citizen on average will see 3000 ads per day (Media Awareness, 2010). With such a high level of advertising around consumers every day, is it most likely that advertising shapes society. Since the number is high in terms of viewing the advertisements, now the question arises whether the advertising industry shapes and creates social trends or it just mirrors the pre-existing social trends. When one delves deep into the topic, it is witnessed that majority of the advertisements – whether it is print or digital – modern day advertisement shapes and creates social trends and not just follows the pre-existing social trends. It is important for the advertisement industry to play a big role in the well-being of the society when one debates whether advertisements shape the social trends in modern days. The messages and behaviours that the advertisers are trying to achieve also should revolve around the ethical issues of the society. Advertising is the vehicle through which the brand, product or service reach the target audience or consumers, sometimes by creating the demand of the product in the society (Edwards, Li & Lee, 2002). Some of the advertisements have certain self-benefits as well. II. Role of Advertising in Shaping Trends in the US a) Print Advertising It is a well-known fact that with the process of advertising, the companies create equity of brands and also in turn generates sale (Butters, 1977). The ultimate result of this is generating wealth. According to the data from the Fortune magazine, as per the World Bank in the year 2005, out of 150 largest economic entities in the world, only 55 are countries and 95 are large corporations. It is seen from the trends that the big corporations are always ready to spend billions of dollars in print advertising in order to bring behavioural change in the society – and they are doing that as well (Ambrus & Resinger, 2006). The intention of creating this behavioural change in the society through advertisement is to increase the market share of the product in the society. In other words, it can be said that print advertising makes more and more people to use their product or service. These advertisements offer the organizations the potential to alter the market. In some aspects, the advertisements also have the potential to alter various social norms and perceptions (Anderson, 2006). Though most of the western countries have banned the advertisement of tobacco, it is not necessary that there is complete shutdown in advertising tobacco products. In the modern day advertising, most of the cigarette companies spend a big amount of their budget in advertising, which focuses on the exposure of the brand unconsciously to the broader audience (Bhat, Bevans & Sengupta, 2002). The Marlboro Man campaign was conceived by Leo Burnett and was run from 1954 on print media and as hoardings. The use of rugged cowboys to promote filtered cigarettes and replace the earlier feminine tagline of ‘Mild as May’ was an instant hit in the US. The trend of smoking increased manifold and people started smoking at a younger age. The Marlboro Man advertisements were a true trendsetter, which catapulted cigarette sales in the US and made Marlboro the number one cigarette brand by 1972 (Moellinger & Craig, 2001). The impact the print ad created spilled to other spheres of the US population too. For example, Richard Prince's Cowboys artwork series, the references of the Marlboro Man in movies such as Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991) as well as Fargo (1996), novels like Angels in America (1993), the music band Alabama and television serials such as Seinfeld’s "The Abstinence" episode (Brandt, 2006). Hence, the Marlboro Man ad has created the demand in the society and then placed their brand in the market so that more people use the brand (Chandra & Kaiser, 2010). Presently, because of the association of Marlboro with Ferrari and Formula 1, the company keeps displaying the brand in the form of barcode in the cars of the Formula 1 race. The barcode is made in such a way that resembles the logo of the brand and shape, size of the barcode resembles the cigarette packet (Cho, Lee & Tharp, 2001). In this marketing strategy, Marlboro used the brain mapping procedure in order to create the awareness about the product without displaying the actual product. This process is known as neuro-marketing. Hence, it is seen here that the strong representation of the product in the form of the logo of the company has influenced consumers to use the product. Thus, just one advertisement – Marlboro Man, has helped build such an enduring and strong presence of the brand Marlboro, which is allowing the company after almost half a century to retain market share and increase sales. The Marlboro Man was a trendsetting ad which unfortunately promoted the use of cigarettes without assessing the ethical aspect of the same (Moellinger & Craig, 2001). They did it for their own interest of maximizing the profitability. It is evident here that advertising of Marlboro brand had shaped the society in a particular way. It increased the illness cases pertaining to smoking, increased the demand for the healthcare system to take care of the patients, it also increased the amount of wastes in the form of cigarette butts and finally, added to the income of the government in the form of heavy taxes. (Gallaghar, Fosters & Parsons, 2001). Hence, Leo Burnett’s legendary Marlboro Man print campaign affected several facets of the American society and economy. b) Digital Advertising It is believed by the critics that advertising has the power to mould and shape the social trend. They believe that powerful advertisement has the capacity to change the way people think and act (Wen & Maddox, 2003). Digital media has emerged a long way in the recent past. In today’s world “hashtag”, “trending” and “tweeting” are the common part of the vocabulary, which were not common terms a decade ago. Till the time Facebook, Twitter and YouTube being launched, social life was in a different track. As soon as these social media launched less than a decade ago, it h changed the life of the people all over the world (Hollis & Briggs, 1997). Social media has changed the meaning of social life of the people all over the world. The recent survey has showed that if the worldwide users of all the social media are combined together it will come up to 2.3 billion, which is one third of the world’s population (De Corniere, 2010). It can be said that a decade ago, no one had thought that social media would have such an impact in the social lives and culture of the people all over the world (Metha, 2000). Because of the high visibility and wide reach, the marketers are leveraging the opportunity to exploit the social media in order to reach wider audience and also play an influential role in shaping up the social trends (Dukes, 2004). In advertising term, it is believed that “Visual is King”. The two most popular social media websites, Facebook and Twitter, were text-heavy platform when launched. As the time passed, both the social media has changed made it easy for the users to upload photos and videos and share them with friends. The visual content plays the most important role in influencing the behaviour of people in making purchase decision (Sheeshan & Doherty, 2001). When it comes to advertising, the traditional online ads such as auto-play and banners are replaced by advertising that more likely serves as entertainment. For example, sports brands such as Nike, Reebok, Adidas and others joined Twitter for hashtag marketing. The hashtag marketing eventually reached a wide array of audience and created a trend in the online media, which has the capacity to influence the mindset of people in making purchase decision Recent example that can be cited here is the sports brand Nike having a dedicated product page on Facebook. When a new sports product concept is being promoted by a name brand such as Nike, chances are high that social media will transform that campaign into a social trend. The Chosen campaign on Facebook by Nike was launched in 2011 and it successfully ran for another year. It was Nike’s first campaign in the social media conceptualized and designed exclusively for social media (New York Times, 2011). A 90 second advertisement appeared as a prelude on TV, to pull in more audiences from the television media to the electronic media. The video focused on alternative or niche sports such as snowboarding, skating and BMX. The campaign was such a success, that youngsters, who were not interested in these sports, developed an immediate interest and started submitting their own skating, BMX and snowboarding videos (New York Times, 2011). The Nike ads such as “The Chosen” on Facebook creates hype among people and the likes on Facebook pages of Nike, creating a trend and subsequently marketing their product to a wide forum. In fact, rivals of Nike such as Reebok (its Butt Revolution campaign encouraging women to jump into the fitness bandwagon) and Adidas (the trendsetting Adidas Basketball campaign) also occasionally launch campaigns on Facebook and Twitter pages and share those links as a marketing vehicle to promote the products. As the pages are trending around the media with more likes on the pages, a tangible social trend is created, shaping public mindset and creating the need for the product, which reflects on the sales of the product and revenue generation (De Corniere, 2010). c) Electronic Media The information in an advertisement is the blend of new information along with some pre-existing information about the product or service (Esteban, Gill & Hernandez, 2001). Electronic media is the one that engages audience more than the print media. Television and radio are the two most common examples of the electronic media devices. In modern days, the advertisers make the most use of this media for promoting their products and services (Dukes, 2004). As it’s said earlier that visual is king, the advertisements on television make a great impact in shaping the social trends. The best example that can be cited here is the advertisements regarding social awareness and donations such as the initiatives by UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund). Especially the recent campaign on Swedish television named as “‘Likes’ Don’t Save Lives” is definitely worth a mention. The campaign directly puts forward the question whether watching ads and commenting and “Liking” UNICEF ads on Facebook will actually help the people in need (The Independent, 2013). In other words, the hard hitting television advertisement calls to action viewer donations. The “‘Likes’ Don’t Save Lives” advertisement was aired every now and then during the intervals of television programs. According to the UNICEF Sweden director, Facebook Likes does not pay for the vaccines to save children’s lives (The Independent, 2013). Post this campaign, a trend was definitely created as Swedish division of UNICEF started receiving more donations. Also, the Facebook Likes in its UNICEF Sweden page touched almost 200,000 (The Independent, 2013). Hence it is evident here that these advertisements are creating a social trend and a feeling of responsibility among the people towards the society. In fact, UNICEF television campaigns such as this has made television viewers aware of underprivileged people and has stirred their conscience to consider donations as a part of their spending regimen. III. Conclusion It can be concluded here that trendsetting ads such as the ones mentioned above, can change people’s mindsets, lifestyles and preferences (Ambrus and Reisinger, 2006). Though advertisements have the capacity to create the need for the product or service in the society, if consumers feel that the quality of the product is not up to their expectations, then it is possible that re-purchase of the product or service may not happen and the performance of the product in the market may fall sharply. Promotions and advertisements help companies achieving business objectives. In many cases, it is evidenced that companies achieve their business objectives by creating or shaping the need for the product in the society, thus reaping twin benefits – first, creating the trend, and next helping the sale of their product rise, once a trend is created. Hence, trendsetting advertisements serve as the vehicle for companies to reach the targeted market and help them promote their product or service and create prospective consumers (Johnson, 2010). Trendsetting ads generally carry a social message, utilize the voids that exist in a particular social fabric, and make the viewers think deeply about the product promoted. It’s one of the greatest achievements of an advertiser to create a social trend for a particular product, and organizations such as Nike, Marlboro and UNICEF have succeeded in doing so. Works Cited Ambrus, A. and Reisinger, M. Exclusive vs. Overlapping Viewers in Media Markets. 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