COT and Advertising.

Advertising, which is in general any openly sponsored offering of goods, services or ideas through any medium of public communication, constitutes an intrinsic feature of the English-speaking peoples’ culture and at least some of its aspects can hardly be ignored in culture oriented teaching of English (COT). Some advertising information about goods, services, etc. being promoted on a national level pervades the mind of an average native speaker to such an extent that it becomes part and parcel of his background knowledge which in fact makes up the subject-matter of COT. Dealing with the role of advertising in the contemporary American society S.I.Hayakawa writes: “Because advertising is both so powerful and so widespread, it influences more than our choice of products; it also influences our patterns of evaluation. It can either increase the degree of sanity with which people respond to words”.

According to Mario Pei the advertising campaign technique boils down to the following: “By its repetitious, propagandistic nature, this tongue (Madison Square Language) is designed to reach the masses, make them “conscious” of something or other, induce them to ask for a product by name or slogan or jingle”.

We shall deal here primarily with trademarks, the spoken synonym of which being brand names. A trademark or a brand name is an essential element of an advertising text, which is a complex and many-sided linguistic phenomenon. Many other names, such as trade names, house marks, service marks, certification marks, etc. are widely used in ad texts, too.

A trademark or a brand name is any symbol, sign, word, name, device or combination of these, that tells who makes a product or who sells it, distinguishing that product from those made or sold by others. It invariably consists of, or includes, a word or name by which people can speak of a product (e.g. Do you have Dutch Boy paint?).

It is the brand name on which much responsibility for distinguishing one product of family from any and all others rests; it makes a given product (or “line”) stand out above the mass of competitive goods or services – in the soap field, for instance, any new name competes with “Ivory”, “Dial”, “Lux”, and the numerous other soaps now being manufactured in the USA.

Though many types of meats, fruit, cheeses and vegetables must still be called for by their generic names, the greatest authority of goods are asked for by their brand names, such as the brand names of the following cereals: “Wheaties”, “Total Cereal”, “Cheerios”, “Kellogg’s Raisin’ Bran”, “Post Grape-Nut Cereal”, “Wheat Chex”, etc.

Quite a lot of former brand names, such as Coca-Cola or Coke, Studebaker, Kodak, Vaseline, Celluloid, Mimeograph, Eskimo Pie, Aspirin, Zipper, Cellophane, Linoleum, Kerosene, Lanolin, Escalator, etc. have become so firmly associated with the product they advertised that they have also become generic and are given full standing in American English.

Using language in new and untried ways the advertisers endeavor to “poetisize” or glamourize the object they wish to sell by giving them brand names and investing them with all sorts of desirable affective connotations suggestive of health, wealth, popularity with the other sex, social prominence, domestic bliss, fashion and elegance. The process is one of creating intentional orientations toward brand names. S.I.Hayakawa writes: “…An advertising writer cannot permit a cake of soap to remain a cake of soap and “nothing more”. Whatever the object of sale is, the copywriter, like the poet, must invest it with significance so that it becomes symbolic of something beyond itself – symbolic of domestic happiness (like Van Camp’s pork and beans), of aristocratic elegance (like Chanel #5), of rugged masculinity (like Marlboro), or of solid traditional American virtues (like Log Cabin syrup). Whether he writes about toothpaste or tires, convertibles or colas, the task of the copywriter is the poeticizing of consumer goods”.

The number of active trademarks listed with the US Patent Office reaches the incredible total of 330000. However, it doesn’t mean that the target language learner is supposed to familiarize himself with all of them. For this purpose only the most commonly used ones, i.e. brand names prevailing in the mind of the average native speaker, should be selected. The latter undoubtedly constitute a part of the native speaker’s background knowledge and can be legally attributed to cultural realia, to be more specific practically all of them are ethnographical realia.

At this point it is advisable to deal with the question of interaction between the general language and brand name formation. The overwhelming majority of brand names are coined words but it doesn’t mean that copywriters do not make use of dictionary words. Keeping in mind the fact that some brand names can ultimately penetrate into the literary language we can assert that brand name formation may be regarded as a source of language enrichment. An approximate classification of brand names or trademarks may be as follows:

Coined Words. The prolific source of trademark ideas is words made up of a new combination of consonants and vowels. Kodak is the classic example. There are also Kleenex, Xerox, Norelco, Exxon – the list is long. Tab (a brand name of a soft drink), for example, was found by a computer. Dealing with this linguistic phenomenon, Mario Pei writes: “The coining of trade names is a fairly ancient practice, and even before Madison Avenue existed as an institution, there were always enough publicity-minded individuals on hand to coin such catchy names as “Kodak”, “sanforrized”, and “cellophane”. There is no question that some of the coinages are both legitimate and clever. “Homemaker”, for instance, was created to get away from the drudgery connotations of “housewife”.” Wedding white” (what lovely imagery!), “planned community” (this is simply a real estate development), “slimnastics”(gymnastics that slim you down), “problem skin”(this does away with eczema, psoriasis, and other loathsome names of skin diseases) are samples. Coinages of the type of “power-pak” are a dime a dozen; they sound so dynamic and go-go-ish!”

Dictionary Words. Many trademarks of familiar dictionary words are used in an arbitrary, suggestive, or fanciful manner. Among good examples of such brand names we can enumerate Dial Soap, Glad Plastic Bags, Sunbeam toasters, Shell oil, Rise Shaving Cream, etc.

Initials and Numbers. This refers to trademarks, such as RCA Television (Radio Corporation of America), AC Spark Plugs (alternating current), J&B Whisky (Justerini and Brooks), A.1 Sauce (1^st class rate, superior), etc.

Geographical Names. A geographical name is really a “place” name: Hashua Blankets, Palm Beach Cloth, Pittsburgh Paints, etc. These names are old trademarks, and have acquired secondary meanings.

Personal Names. This group of trademarks can be subdivided into: a) family names: more numerous, perhaps, than those in other classifications are products named after the founder or owner of the company marketing them: Lipton’s Tea, Heinz Foods, Campbell’s Soups, etc.; b) fictional, historical, or heroic names: this subgroup of trademarks seems to be the most interesting one as it serves as a good illustration of some pragmatic aspects of brand-name formation: they are supposed to be attention-attractive fulfilling the requirements of distinctiveness, ease of recall, of pronunciation and pleasant associations. To meet these requirements most of them must be familiar to the average native speaker. From this point of view they may be of interest for COT approach. Among such brand names we can present the following: Chesterfield (a large, overstuffed sofa with upright armrests), named after the Earl of Chesterfield in the XIX century; Pontiac (a trademark of a car) – after an American Indian chief of the Ottawa province; Flying Dutch (tobacco flavor) – after a legendary mariner condemned to sail the seas against the winds until Judgement Day; Peter Pan (widely used for bakeries, clothing stores, cleaning establishments, peanut butter and soft drinks) – after a character from M.Barrie’s play for children; Ajax (cleanse) – after the Greek hero of the Trojan War who goes mad when the armor of Achilles is awarded to Ulysses instead of to him.

When copywriters use the slogan-logotype approach, they do so with one of two ideas in mind. First, they feel that the name of the product is in itself, their most important attention attracter, or they are willing to sacrifice a potentially more intensive reading to pound home a name or an idea. It might be well to point out that a great many successful advertising campaigns have been planned and executed upon the principles of name emphasis. Well-known slogans have become so synonymous with the products they represent that they gain prompt attention and identification. The Seven-Up Company, throughout its successful existence, has featured the slogan “Fresh Up With Seven-Up” (Seven-Up – a brand name of a soft drink) in every advertising campaign it has run. By constant impact, both the name and the idea are impressed upon the public, with resultant sales response. Here are some more popular slogans: “Nothing Does It Like Seven-Up”, “Let White Horse Carry You Smoothly”(White Horse –a brand name of whisky), “Good Looking. Good Tasting. Good Smoking Pall Mall”(Pall Mall – a cigarette brand), etc.

Thus, advertising in the modern society is a very important aspect of the people’s life, and hence an essential element of their culture and language.

Answer the questions:

1. Why can COT hardly be ignored concerning advertising?

2. What is trademark (brand name)?

3. How can you characterize coined words?

4. Are dictionary words used in advertising? How?

5. What about initials and numbers?

6. A geographical name is really a ”place” name”, isn’t it?

7. How can personal names be subdivided concerning advertising?

8. Which two ideas do copywriters have in mind using the slogan-logotype approach?

9. What have well-known slogans become?

10. Is modern advertising an essential element of culture and language?