Anyways, there is often a debate about whether advertising is an art or a science, or both. Based on what i know of advertising, i feel that while it is definately a mixture of the two, it is the science aspect of the advertising that is dominant. I have a little insight to this because my dad works in the market research business, which more or less means that the company he works for collects research on consumer behaviour. Through seeing some of his work and talking to him about it, i was surprised by how much effort companies put into knowing how their customers act; who buys what, when, and why they do it.
It doesn't seem to matter what the product is, big or small, cheap or expensive, they all go through this process of understanding what the consumer wants, from underwear to luxury cars. For example, today i learned about reinforcement advertising, where advertisements are specifically designed simply to reinforce the buyers decision after they already own the product, as if to convince them that they made the right choice. Supposedly this is common in car commercials.
Either way, our class last week regarding advertising just made me more aware of what i actually see when i see a commercial, and though i am no longer irritated by them, i am definately more intrigued to figure out what the advertisers were thinking when they made the comercial.
2 comments:
I completely agree, Sam! It is funny how companies advertise and manipulate the public. Last semester I took a marketing class and we talked all about commercials and even made our own. The amount of work that goes into making a commercial is crazy! There are surveys and study groups and tons of research that goes into the commercial, which is why I agree that science has a huge part to do with advertisements. Yet, I also feel that it is an art to convince people to buy a product when you often only have 30 seconds to convince the public. Marketing is such an interesting industry and I'm glad you blogged about it.
I agree, the advertisements we looked at were so interesting! I guess I had never really thought about the deeper meaning of commericals before, who they were trying to appeal to, the subliminal message, etc. The one time I did happen to notice the audience commericals were for was when I was watching "The Price is Right" a few years ago, and there were all these ads for Medicare and The Scooter Store. I guess not many people my age were predicted to be watching Bob Barker..
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