Winston's advertising - Term Paper Example

?Advertising Introduction Advertisements involve a number of techniques to attract consumers. Some advertisers focus on a particular age group and design the advertisement on their perception about what the people of that age group would like to see (Haase, 1931 pp 67-80). On the other hand, other advertisers use a different approach to target their customers. They make up a plan to target their customers by dividing them in the gender groups. Some also target the customers using a cultural diversification approach and target people belonging to a particular culture. There is a wide range of techniques which are used to target audience for different products. The common theme of those advertisements is the use of texts and visuals to attract the customers. Designing an advertisement campaign for children would require the marketers to use cartoon characters, colourful pictures and creative art work to attract them, whereas, such an advertisement would fail to grab the attention of professional people to sale machinery or equipments (Macleod, 2009 pp. 23-45; Phillips, 1986 pp15-20). Hence, the use of symbols, language and illustrations is of immense importance in targeting audience and increasing sales. This paper aims to analyze the advertisement of Winston Cigarette. The advertisement under consideration is published in various magazines like Popular Mechanics, Times Magazines and so on. The advertisement targets the teenagers and males aged between 20 and 30. The symbols, metaphors and textual details are all attractive to the male counterparts of these age ranges. The Role of the Media Used: The advertisement is published in Popular Mechanics magazine November 2004 (p. 41). Magazines are a great source of profit for the companies as they help in gaining and retaining customers. People like reading magazines in their spare time and go through the creative advertisements and try to avail the best product in the available resources. Moreover the promotional campaigns make the most of magazine advertisements which allow the consumers to avail their desired product with favourable packages or discounts. Magazine advertisements further help in directly targeting the target groups. For instance, if a business requires a marketing plan which is mostly encountered by children, children magazines and books may be successful in achieving this goal. Hence we can say that magazine advertisements are highly targeted to the desired population and may reduce the likelihood of being unsuccessful. If the advertisement is not creative enough to capture a large population it is still safe as it will reach to the targets view. The next advertisement may help reducing the losses of the existing marketing campaign. The advertisements by media are very important to get the message of the manufacturer to the consumers. Semiotic Analysis The semiotic analysis is helpful in evaluating the success of advertisements in capturing the attention of consumers by the use of symbolic and textual information. The symbolic features of an advertisement also give some information about the product. The advertisement under consideration carry many features that worth an in depth semiotic analysis. Firstly the advertisements contain eye-catching pictures and excellent colour contacts to grab the attention of the consumers. The advertisement has made use of different font styles and sizes to make it look more unique. The use of font sizes and styles greatly depend on what the advertiser really wants to tell the customer and what is necessary or obligatory to include but not desired by the advertiser. The advertisement is designed for the marketing of Winston, a cigarette brand. This advertisement involves more textual features than the visual ones. It contains a number of creative and clever sentences that provide a sense of winning and uniqueness. Underneath the product image in this advertisement are the words “Additive free – Naturally smooth”. These tricky words do not mean that it is safe to smoke these cigarettes or they are not harmful as other cigarettes are. Here comes the part the marketer needed to add in this advertisement to abide by the laws. The advertisement then states “No additive in our tobacco does NOT mean a safer cigarette”. It must be noted that the font size and text place of these different messages vary dramatically (Arnett 114, 1994). One is placed in a prominent place with more prominent colours and notable place than the other. The message that would be most prominent to the viewer or reader of the magazine is “The only additive is the fire you light them with”. This constitutes a rather diplomatic approach. Of course, the reader of a magazine or a smoker would assume that it is less harmful than other brands if not perfectly harmless. Being the most prominent message, it carries some importance to the reader or viewer (Armstrong & Yu, 1996 pp. 29-40). The main thing observed from the advertisement is the fact that textual feature of semiotics help in increasing the sales of the product. A successful advertiser may include such textual messages to make the brand most trustworthy and show that it benefits the consumer. However, the legal and ethical implications must be viewed. The advertisements carrying messages or illustrations that prove cigarettes or alcohol as healthy are not much popular among the public because of their probable results on death and disease rate. It must be kept in view that these are not the only factors that require advertisers to be creative and diplomatic. They must have some evidence or response to the criticisms against their advertisements. The use of the caution in the advertisement and the explanation of main message in relatively smaller fonts do provide a supportive argument to the advertiser and the brand owners. The use of images is different in all advertisements. The Winston captures a strong bodied male character for its advertisement. These characters basically point towards the targeted audience. The passion to win slogan “leave the bull behind” and the strong bodied person is also more likely to attract teenagers and age groups between 20 and 30. It is however clear that Winston advertisement is more inclined towards targeting male group. Winston provides a message of freedom, independence and physically power, which is more probable to gather profits from the teenage boys. The male model shows his independence and freedom by standing stranded in a calm place lighting cigarette. The use of a beautiful but cut off place in the background is also giving a sense of self and personal choice in the Winston’s advertisement. There is a balance between textual and imagery message in the Winston’s advertisement. The Winston’s advertisement is, however, placing a wrong image of the product being advertised. Cigarettes are known for their devastating effects on people’s health and Winston’s advertisement shows a strong built and autonomous person hence, creative negative image of its effects. Hence the semiotic analysis of the advertisements reveals that although all advertisements are aimed to promote sales of a product of the same category, the way of advertisement differs greatly. The target audience may be of the same age group but of different gender group in different advertisements. Advertisements have their powerful influence on the readers and viewers yet lack in some aspects. Effectiveness of the Ads in Relation to Theories of Marketing Communication: Advertisements are made in such a way that they become effective enough so as to attract the customers. They are made in a way that they should specifically communicate with the consumers and urge them to buy the products which are being advertised (Grimaldi, 2003, p. 23). For an advertisement to be effective several factors should be kept in mind, which are related to the field of marketing communications. All these factors together would help the advertisement to be effective enough to grasp the attention of the consumers (S.I., 2007). Cigarettes have increasingly become famous in the world today and to keep the flow of purchases in this world the manufacturers have to advertise their products. The advertisements of cigarettes are hard to make which is only because of the fact that cigarettes are supposed to be harmful to human life. In this case the manufacturers have to be very careful when advertising for their products. The Winston’s advertisement is based on the elaboration likelihood model of decision making (Petty et al., 1983). The marketers of this brand believe that there is likelihood that the consumers would not pay any heed to the health factors involved in using their product. In other words, the marketers believe that the consumers have little knowledge about the health risking factors involved with smoking. For this reason they use the peripheral route of elaboration likelihood model to communicate their message. The advertisement of Winston exposes the product as less lethal by asserting that “The only additive is the fire you light them with” and “Additive free – Naturally Smooth”. The exposure of this product as being pure and additive free makes the consumer more confident about its use. A less aware consumer may rely on this information and shift to this brand from any other brand as he will perceive it to be less dangerous. Such statements on the advertisement lead to psychological satisfaction of the consumer and they perceive that they are using a less unhealthy product. They satisfy their mind and thoughts by the very notion that they are using a better product. Since smoking is highly addictive in line with other such products as alcoholic beverages, the marketers need to attract the consumer for the first consumption practice. Once they experience the taste and outcomes of the product they are more likely to consume it again (Ehrenberg, 1988). The peripheral route of elaboration likelihood model in the Winston’s advertisement is used to satisfy that psychological distress of consumers who cannot leave smoking but want to minimize the risks associated with this addiction. On the other hand, the Winston’s advertisement used a central route approach for the consumers who are thoughtful because of the nature of the product. The explanation of their statement about non additive nature of the cigarettes is an example of this approach in the advertisement. Conclusion: Marketing is undoubtedly of crucial importance for the successful running of the business. Advertising and other marketing techniques help in making the products and services known to the consumers. The marketing strategies for different products and services, however, need to be different. In conclusion, we can say that although there are many marketing techniques, the choice of marketing technique depends on the targeted audience and nature of the product (Turley & Kelly, 1997). The analyses of the two advertisements reveal the competition in the market and explain how different advertisements affect the audience. Marketing is a tool for the success of the business but may be costly and inefficient if not designed creatively and thoughtfully (Pennock 2006 620-626). Bibliography (2007). Business ethics truth in advertising. [S.l.], Films For Humanities. Arnett JJ. (1999). Winston's "No Additives" campaign: "straight up"? "no bull"? Public Health Reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974). 114 (6). ARMSTRONG, D., & YU, K. W. (1996). The persona principle: how to succeed in business with image-marketing. New York, Simon & Schuster. EHRENBERG, A. S. C. (1988). Advertising: Reinforcing Not Persuading? GRIMALDI, J. (2003). 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A Comparison of Advertising Content: Business to Business Versus Consumer Services. Journal of Advertising. 26, 39. (2004 November) Popular Mechanics Magazine. Available at Read More