Introduction to advertising

“Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20 th century”. (Marshall McLuhan, Canadian communication guru).

“Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it”. (Stephen Leacock, Canadian political scientist and humorist).

Advertisements are one of the most important cultural factors which reflect our life today and this introduction to advertising tries to capture the complexity of this industry. The reason for choosing to talk about this subject is that ads are an inevitable part of everyone's lives, because even if we do not read a newspaper or watch television, the images posted over the urban surroundings are inescapable. If we look around us, we will find our world filled with advertising - on huge billboards in the streets, on the pages of magazines, between the tracks played on the radio, on the walls of the subway, on the pages of Internet sites, at the bottom of emails, on the backs of cinema tickets, on the shirts of football players. It seems that any surface that will hold still long enough to be read is considered a potential advertising medium. The fact that there is so much advertising out there means that it is part of our daily cultural experience, so it is almost impossible to avoid it. Therefore the study of advertising is not just about what manufacturers say to consumers, but also about how it is said.

Quick introduction to advertising

So, in its most basic form, advertising is something we are all involved in all the time. The way that we dress, talk and behave sends a message to other people. We promote ourselves by the image we present, in just the same way that an advertising agency promotes a client's product. As stated before, everyone is exposed to advertisements every day; these advertisements encourage people to purchase new products, switch from products already used, visit specific outlets, take advantage of special offers or even warn people about the dangers associated with the use of certain products. In short, advertising has become part of our daily life and has assumed the role of a major information service within society, considering the number of products and services we get to know every day through advertisements.

The world of advertising

This paper has four chapters structured as follows. The first one, entitled: “A Focus on Advertising” presents the history and the evolution of advertising, since it first appeared, until today and, at the same time, it tries to define advertising. In this chapter it is also presented the way in which advertising works. Chapter Two describes the most frequently encountered creative tactics used for creating an advertisement. It also talks about the VisCAP model of source effectiveness, which is an acronym for visibility, credibility, attractiveness and power, the main source characteristics in communication. In Chapter Three there are presented the most important media channels, with their advantages and disadvantages and also the reasons why to choose a certain media channel. The Fourth Chapter describes the importance and the role of advertising and it also contains a case study, which consists in the analysis of four advertisements; this analysis is based, of course, on what has been said in this paper. So, the aim of this paper is to facilitate the understanding of advertisements through pointing out the main concepts, tactics and devices used in advertising .