Some Remarks on Advertising English.

The magazine “Advertising Age” defined advertising as “the dissemination of information concerning an idea, service or product to compel action in accordance with the intent of the advertiser”. Another definition sounds as follows: “The printed, written, spoken, or pictured representation of a person, product, service, or movement, openly sponsored by the advertiser and at his expence for the purpose of influencing sales, use, votes or endorsements”.

In the report of the Committee on Definitions of the National Association of Teachers of Marketing and Advertising we read the following: “Any paid form of non-personal presentation of goods, services, or ideas to a group – such presentation being openly sponsored by the advertiser. It involves the use of such media: magazines and newspaper space, radio, motion pictures, outdoor media, car cards, catalogues, direct mail, directories, store signs, programs, novelties, circulars, and others”. In order to update the list of the above-mentioned media, TV and computer networks should be included in it by all means.

What is meant by Advertising English or Madison Square Language (US only)? Since many large advertising agencies were once located on Madison Avenue in New York City, the term “Madison Avenue” is frequently used to symbolize the advertising business. Hence the expression “Madison Square Language” stands for Advertising English employed in the USA. The development of the press served as a major prerequisite for the evolution of a written form of the mass communication language. The press propagation gave rise to the formation and development of the newspaper style as an important functional style of modern English. According to Prof. Galperin, advertisements belong to the newspaper style, and we are going to start from this assumption.

In the process of American advertising development the distinctions between advertising in general, and copywriting in particular, have become more obvious. The aim, which is pursued in advertising, is economic. It is attained by a whole complex of operations, among which copywriting is one of the most essential component parts of it. The aim, which is pursued in copywriting, is psychological. It consists of ensuring reliability, stability and effectiveness of the communication process. This aim is attained through making use of linguistic and extralinguistic means of communication in ad copies.

For securing the communication process a copywriter has to take account of a number of functional factors. They are as follows:

1. The communication tasks and purposes.

2. The communication forms.

3. The communication circumstances.

4. The communicated information.

5. The social environment sender.

6. The information recipient.

A combination of functional and communicative factors predetermines the selection and usage of linguistic means as well as the rules of copy design and structure. The selection of linguistic means also depends on the kind of advertising we are dealing with. American advertising can be divided into 3 principal kinds:

1) consumer advertising – directed towards a mass audience with the aim of promoting sales of a commercial product;

2) service advertising – directed towards a mass audience with the aim of promoting sales of different services;

3) “prestige” advertising – seeks to bring about an alignment of public opinion with commercial interests.

Due regard for the constituent parts of the communication process makes it possible for us to understand that a copywriter is interested “not so much in the advertised product itself as in the psychology, interests, mental outlook and aspirations of the potential customer, adapting himself to which enables him (the copywriter) to find the most adequate arguments and motivations”.

For this purpose the factors of prestige, exoticism, extravagance, beauty, nature, etc. are used. In other words, a copywriter tries to create a certain myth about the products advertised or build the necessary brand image. The following quotation speaks for itself: “What a miracle it is when a manufacturer manages to sustain a coherent image in his advertising over a period of years… What guts it takes, what obstinate determination to stick to one coherent policy year after year in the face of all the pressures to come up with something new every six months. But what golden rewards await the advertiser who has the brains to create a favourable brand image – and to stick with it over a long period. Look at Campbell’s Soup! Look at Jell-O! Look at Betty Crocker! Look at Ivory Soap!

The men who have been responsible for the advertising of these immortal brands have understood that every advertisement, every radio program, every TV commercial is not a one-time shot, but a long-term investment on the total personality of their brands”.

Having an idea of this or that specific myth or brand image is quite indispensable for adequate understanding of the advertisement language semantics. Thus, a copywriter cannot simply write “soap” or “a cake of soap. He must by all means strike a note of its belonging to some kind of elite products: “Knight’s Castile – is a descendant of the original Castile soap which was first made for the beauties of the 12^th century!” The main task of the author of such an advertising copy is to convince the person informed (that is the customer) of the necessity of taking certain actions. Those actions? As a kind of feed-back, will be indicative of the communication process effectiveness. Consequently, the selection of linguistic means in an advertising copy depends on certain extralinguistic factors.

The dependability of the advertising language on extralinguistic factors can easily be traced if we cast a glance at American advertising history. In this connection the most interesting is the stage of the advertising development when copywriting was rather determined by the factor of informativeness, than that of psychology.

One of the AE investigators writes the following: “In comparing modern press copy with that used prior to 1850, we need to remember that most advertising of those days was conducted on the lines of the classifields of today, that its readership was comparatively small and select, and that its initiators were mainly small merchants and private individuals”. It means that advertising copies of those days were written in a factual manner that is information for the sake of information. They contained neither attention-getting devices nor memorability-ensuring tricks. Those copies were designed for the people who sought for the information given in them.

The period of 1850-1910 in America was one of remarkable expansion in advertising volume, and of the rise of the advertising industry as such. It was a period of stunts and experiments in copywriting and in advertising technique generally.

As the growth of advertising volume continued, there developed a type of copy primarily adapted to providing a consumer with a motive for buying. Perhaps its most influential champion was the American copywriter John E.Powers, who worked by a principle which would be generally accepted today as fundamental to the art of copywriting: “to say the right things to the right people in an acceptable way”.

Although a copywriter is concerned with writing the sales messages that appear in advertisements, he must think in terms of total communication as applied to advertising. Not only does an advertiser communicate in terms of the printed and spoken word but also in terms of pictures, colours, and sound effects. It is generally recognized that in modern advertising a copy should accomplish some or all of the following objectives:

1) gain or help gain attention for an advertisement;

2) arouse interest so that all or most of the sale messages will be read, listened to, or viewed;

3) obtain acceptance of the story told as a trustful presentation;

4) stimulate a desire on the part of a reader, listener or viewer to own the advertised product;

5) create a preference for the advertised brand so that a reader, listener or viewer will not be satisfied with competing products;

6) obtain action in the form of a purchase of the advertised brand.

Some writers of advertising texts have simplified this list to include only attention, interest, desire, and action (AIDA).

In other words, a typical advertisement accomplishes 4 things in sequence: 1) draws attention to itself; 2) sustains the interest it has attracted; 3) is remembered, or at any rate recognized as familiar; 4) prompts the desired kind of action.

Thus, many characteristics of ad language can be directly related to one of the 4 principles listed: …attention value, readability (or listenability), memorability, and selling power.

Attention Value. One way of provoking the customer’s attention and curiosity is to present him with something surprising and unexpected, and this can be done as well by the unorthodox use of language as by other means. The copywriter who exploits this fact can be compared to a legendary customer in a crowded restaurant, who stood on his head to attract a waiter’s attention.

Departing from the conventions or rules of language can take many forms. In its grossest form, it is a violation of some obvious rule of the language: perhaps a “wrong” spelling, or a grammatical solecism. Neologisms are another type which requires tactful handling. Playing with the meanings of words is the basis of many linguistic jokes and stylistic devices such as metaphor and paradox. Shifts of meaning occur due to exploiting the incongruity of language means in an inappropriate situation.

Readability. On the psychological plane this might mean “how to keep up suspense, interest, or amusement of the people”. On the linguistic plane, it is more a question of how to make the message easy to grasp and understand. In short, the basic requirements are a simple, personal, and colloquial style, and a familiar vocabulary of an advertisement.

Memorability. Advertising has to make a lasting impression if it is to affect buying behaviour. It is a general principle that if a piece of language is repeated often enough, it will stick. The amount of repetition of both spoken and printed advertising in the USA is phenomenal, and has a bearing on certain peculiarities of advertising syntax. But there are other aids to memory, such as alliteration, metrical rhythm, and rhyme. These are features which make a jingle perhaps the most powerful mnemonic device in advertising.

Selling Power. There is no satisfactory way of finding out what general linguistic features, if any, contribute to this. One of the most striking ones of the grammar of American advertising is an extreme frequency of imperative clauses. A consumer is for ever being told to “get” this, “buy” that, “taste” the other.

It is no wonder, that some of the commonest advertising clichés put emphasis on the uniqueness of the advertised product: “Nothing else”, “No other”, “There’s nothing like”, “The best in the world”, “America’s best”, “The best you can buy”, or simply “The best”. The hyperbolic character of advertising language, such as the use of superlatives, relates to the principle that an ad message should be positive and unreserved.

Answer the questions:

1. Give other U.S. definitions of advertising?

2. What is meant by Madison Square Language? Explain the etymology.

3. What is the difference between advertising and copywriting?

4. What are the main functional factors for a copywriter?

5. How can American advertising be divided?

6. Which general objectives should a modern ad copy realize?

7. What does a typical advertisement accomplish?

8. How can you characterize attention value?

9. What is readability?

10. Characterize the last two principles of ad language.