Advertising in the 21st Century
In today’s world, the market for advertising has much increased. Essentially, today’s marketing techniques aim for the purposes of establishing name recognition, spreading news about a product, Promoting an image, and adding value to a product.
Name Recognition – The basic premise of the name recognition technique is to establish a recognition of product name. This is done in a number of ways – a product can be connected with a catchy phrase or name. One example I can think of was a Seattle dog grooming salon called “High Maintenance B****” – the shop uses the dual meaning of b**** to create a catchy and memorable name association. It can also involve other techniques, like a catchy jingle or tune to make the product last in the heads of the consumer.
Spreading News about a Product – This method of advertising is basically used to promote an old product with a new ingredient or component. It takes the same old product you’ve been buying and claims that through the addition of new and improved doohickey #25, it will make you sleep a full ten hours without interruption. A good example of this were the early days of Arm & Hammer, where the company ran a series of ads to promote the various uses for its product beyond simply baking. Also a good example is the Dr. Pepper 23 Flavors promotion, in which Dr. Pepper promoted its product as having 23 Flavors to tempt your palette. Considering it’s a soda, I doubt that the 23 flavors is much different from any other brand out there.
Promoting an Image – When promoting an image, the company is basically trying to associate the product with a particular image – there’s the the army of Kellogs Cereal characters, the Marlboro Man, and my personal favorite, and the Doublemint Twins commercials. It’s all about connecting the product with a certain image or feeling.
Adding Value to a Product – By projecting a certain image with a product, it can attract a particular crowd. This is where sex appeal and images come into play. One of my favorite commercials that shows this technique is the Volkswagen commercial featuring Slash, the lead guitarist of Velvet Revolver and formerly Guns N Roses (and, for the record, the best guitarist in the world). Slash’s guitar is plugged into a Volkswagen sound system, and the cinematography seems to suggest that the car is really blasting out the crazy jam Slash is playing. It conveys this distinctly bad-ass image because, well, Slash is pretty bad-ass in my opinion. If I wanted to drive a car and be thought of as a Slash-esque character, though, a Volkswagen would not be first on my list…not even on my list, for that matter.
