Printed Advertisements: Main Forms and General Features.

The art of advertising is to persuade people to buy products or services. This requires a basic understanding of psychology, the needs of human beings and how these needs can be satisfied. There is a number of points to consider while communicating with public by means of advertising. These should be: 1) ideas must be clearly and specifically expressed, with certain authority and impact; 2) ideas must be so distinctive as to impinge themselves in memory; 3) ideas must be presented at the right time and at the right place. A person should be made aware of a product or service and understand its advantages, be convinced of its value – this should then bring a response or action to look at or to take steps to purchase.

The main common forms of advertising are:

1. Direct Mail. Information is sent directlyto prospective customers. It can be used as the main advertising method. Mailing lists can be compiled from certain directories and year books; or the aid of certain professional organizations, which provide the lists of firms in particular trades, graded in size and status, can be obtained.

2. Press. This includes all newspapers, journals and specialized magazines. The payment is made by the vertical column inch and varies according to circulation or net sales, position in a paper, status of a paper, use of colour, etc. It should be noted that readership is more important than circulation figures, e.g. newspapers may be read by a few people, magazines may be read by many in a family.

3. Posters. Sites are mainly in the hands of bill-posting contractors who grade their sites according to position. A bill-posting contract is rentally-based, this includes fixing, inspecting and renewing if necessary. This method is over a period. It also allows concentration of advertising in a particular area, e.g. on transport vehicles.

4. Cinema and Television. Costs are heavy, especially on TV, but displays are “live” and seen by many in a favourable environment. They are very popular among adult and youth audiences.

5. Other Methods. Special displays and exhibitions, e.g. motor shows, local radio and TV, trade journals.

To reach its target an advertising message needs some communication carriers. These carriers are called advertising media (or in the singular, medium). A particular advertising medium is also referred to as a vehicle. Advertisers can produce their own medium, such as direct advertising (broadsides, catalogues and handbills) or point-of-purchase advertising (signs, posters or displays). Or advertisers can make use of the various commercial mass communication media, including press (both consumer and business publications), TV, radio, out-of-home media (outdoor and transit), directories and films.

Media are dynamic. Over the years, new advertising media have appeared – some of them successful, others not. Radio brought the voice of an advertiser into nearly every American home and become the glamorous medium during the 1930-1940s. Then, after World War II, a new medium – television – took the limelight to revolutionize the American way of life and become a major one. But the older media have not remained static. Newspapers developed run-of-paper colours for advertisers. Magazines, once thought to be strictly national media, developed regional editions. And every so often, someone comes up with a new advertising medium idea – from skywriting to Beetle Boards (advertising painted on the bodies of privately owned Volkswagen Beetles).

In the late 1890s, advertisers became possessed with a craze for presenting messages where the public would least expect to find them. Bald-headed men were seated in the front row of the theatre or cinema, each with one letter of a famous trade name painted on his shining dome. Processions of costumed advertising characters paraded the avenues. Sign wagons, ringing bells and drawn by mules, dogs or ostriches, toured the residential areas of cities. At the circus, space was sold on the side of elephants and camels. Clowns made vocal announcements. Men with carts on which phonographs were mounted played music and gave spelling spiels. At night, slide projection apparatus was used to throw captions and pictures on the screen of low-hanging clouds. Surprised clients of barbershops looked up from their semi-reclined chairs to find advertising messages on the ceiling. Sailboats cruised back and forth in front of crowded bathing beaches with signs painted on their sails. Fans and canvas caps were distributed for advertising at parades and picnics. Free advertising postcards, some of them perfumed, were handed out to willing takers. The John H.Woodbury soap started the “Facial Purity League”, with buttons for all its members. Soon buttons became a nation-wide fad; decorated with all kinds of slang phrases and jokes, they blossomed out on the lapels of men, women and children everywhere. Advertising rhymes and jingles earned equal popularity. Sheet music for advertising songs was distributed. Trading stamps were issued by department stores with each purchase and by saloons with each drink. They became so widely accepted that for a time counterfeiters even imitated them.

So, printed advertisements did not appear in one day. Their development and history are very long and came from ancient times to nowadays. Oral advertisements were of great help for printed ones.

Advertisements are persuasive communication. Advertisers must therefore understand how people learn in order to “teach” them to respond to their advertising strategies. Thus, if advertisements are to be learned, there is a need for substantial repetition. It should be noted, however, that too much repetition can result in consumer fatigue as the message falls on “deaf ears”. An advertiser can avoid this problem by eventually changing the message.

That’s why it is easy to understand, that the language used in advertisements is very carefully chosen to have special effects. The words will create images as well as convey information and often there will be more than one meaning to some expressions. Cultural knowledge is also important for gaining the full impact. The questions accompanying each advertisement try to give you some idea of that cultural background and focus on a few examples of the language usage.

In printed advertisements language is used as a vehicle for the exchange of information and attracting people’s attention, and you need to develop certain basic skills to participate successfully in this exchange.

While writing advertisements their authors are thinking mainly about how to attract their readers’ attention and persuade them to buy their goods or use some services. So, in order to achieve this aim, printed advertisements should be:

1) brief and laconic: if the adverts are very long and difficult for reading and understanding, people will not be interested in even looking them through; that’s why elliptical structures, abbreviations and shortened words are very often used in printed advertisements;

2) written in capital (big) letters: in such a way, this printed press can attract people’s attention quicker and make them truly interested in it; Very often different kinds of frames are used as well;

3) consisted of intriguing structures and words or rhetorical questions in the end, such as “Do you want to know more? Then phone us immediately!”

Bringing information to readers and at the same time to potential customers is an important task for advertisers. While making and printing advertisements, it should be kept in mind that they have to inform people about goods and services but it has to be done simply and take less space. Adverts shouldn’t take a whole page in a newspaper.

Answer the questions:

1. What is the art of advertising?

2. Is there a number of points to consider in ad communication? Enumerate them.

3. How many common forms are there in advertising?

4. What is direct mail?

5. What can you say about modern press?

6. How can posters be used in advertising?

7. Costs are heavy on TV and cinema, aren’t they? Why?

8. Advertisements are persuasive communication, aren’ t they? Give examples.

9. Which are the characteristic features of printed advertisements?

10. What is an important task for advertisers?