Product Advertising

Good evening ladies and gentlemen! My name is Olga Smirnova and we are here today to learn a bit more about product advertising (ad). I plan to take 5-6 minutes of your time and at the end of my talk I’d be glad to answer your questions. Well, let’s start…

I’ve divided my talk in 3 parts. First of all I’ll brief you on the aims and functions of advertising. Then I’ll touch upon ethical considerations in product advertising. And finally I’ll describe the Benetton Group as an example of shocking advertising.

Well… Have you ever thought about the role of advertising in our life? As you can see.. at present ads are almost everywhere: we see or hear a lot of advertisements on the TV, on the Radio, telephone and mobiles, on billboards, in newspapers and in the public transport. Today it's almost impossible to imagine our life without advertising. Don't you think so? We all love to hate advertising but it is as necessary as air we breathe! In other words…Ignore advertising or hate it…but you can’t deny that you need it!

The purpose of advertising is to sell something - a product, a service or an idea. But its real objective is effective communication between producers and consumers. The main aim of advertisers is to attract your attention and then to make you buy this or that product whether you like it or not. There are intrusive advertisements for example those on the TV; in such a case you understand the aims of advertisers and it's more difficult for them to make you buy their products. The only way to make you buy is to persuade you by means of logical arguments that you really need these products.

Still there is another type of advertising, I mean camouflaged advertising. Have you ever paid attention to a great amount of sweeties and other small and more often unnecessary things near the cash desks in supermarkets? It goes without saying that while standing in a long queue and examining all these goods you will certainly buy at least one. As experiments show this trick works with 97 % of customers, including me!

Now I am going to talk about different types of advertising based on functional aspects. Informative advertising This type of advertising informs customers about the products, services or ideas. Example: Every Friday METRO offers 2 kg of sugar with 50 % discount. Persuasive advertising This type of advertising persuades or motivates the prospective buyers to take quick actions to buy the products or services. Example: “Buy one, get one free”. Reminder advertising This genre of advertising forces customers to become heavy users of the firm’s products or services that have been purchased by them at least once. This type of advertising exercise helps to keep the brand name in the minds of the existing customers. Negative advertising This type of advertising dissuades target audience from purchasing such products and services which would harm not only them but also the society in general. Examples: Advertisements of various civic authorities against alcohol, tobacco and narcotics.

Generally, the upbuilding process of advertising is enough difficult thing and editors have to not only help to increase the profit but to follow an ethical considerations of society. I mean, it’s forbidden to use vexed questions of race, religion, diseases and ect and they suppose to be really careful with advertising, which would influence on children and, telling the truth and about health, especially, shocking advertising.

Now it’s worth speaking about shocking ad which is the simplest way to get additional media coverage, and if the media coverage is negative, it can still help to sell the product as advertisers like Benetton, Sisley have already proved. The very first mention about Benetton was in 1955. When Giuliana and Luciano Benetton bought their first knitting machine and began selling Giuliana's woolen sweaters. In 1965: The Benetton family formed a partnership.

In the middle of 80-s the photographer Oliviero Toscani was offered to lead an ad department of the company. Oliviero Toscani invented a new name - "United Сolors of Benetton" (Объединённые цвета «Бенеттона»), which became a brand of Benetton in the late 90-s. Since then the ads of Benetton have often been strange, shocking, attention-getting and quite simple and beautiful at the same time. At first sight, these ads seem to be intolerable … but just try to keep your attention for 2 seconds more and catch the idea of it. You will definitely distinguish the real idea, which will catch your mind – the grand idea is – It doesn’t matter who you are, what color of skin you have, what your religion is or country you live in. There are no differences between us.

That covers all I wanted to say today. Thank you for your attention. If you have any questions, please, feel free to ask them.