12 - Essay

WHAT ADVERTISEMENT CAN DO?

What is advertisement? According to the all knowing Wikipedia, it is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, ideas, or services. It includes the name of a product or service and how that product or service could benefit the consumer, to persuade a target market to purchase or to consume that particular brand. In this fast-paced information age, people are constantly looking for a new, unique way to stand out.

Advertisement had somehow become an important form of communication and psychologists began to apply theories and methods of psychology to its study (yeah, even science are interested in their ability); especially to determine the power of ads to attract attention and persuade customers to buy their products. Come on, how many times you complaint when there is too much of ads?

So the first ability of advertisement will be the ability to differentiate a product with other product that both of them may have the same features. For an example, the fast food restaurants around us. They tend to give same service, taste, price and concepts but an advertisement will change the whole thing and cause a sudden attraction towards the fast food restaurants. People will be attracted to buy something from the restaurant just by looking at the images on the banner or maybe listening from radio adverts. In a way, it creates the unique identity or personality of the products. Just like the tagline of Kentucky Fried Chicken which is Finger Lickin’ Good which creates another perception of the taste compared to Marrybrown Fried Chicken’s tagline, Something Different! Furthermore, advertisement can implement the noveltiness of the byproducts which means the purity of the ingredients and the originality of the idea of the byproducts. The advertisement of Kentucky Fried Chicken itself, let us know the originality of the recipes that make the products looks different from others. That’s why advertisement can really make two same things look different.

The second ability of advertisement will be to deliver important messages or community service orders to the mass. Advertisement that being showed on television maybe? Radio? Even newspaper? Internet? Yes, definitely. It could be annoying at times. Well most of the times. The reason why those are being repeated until you got sick of them is that by repeating the ads in various different media can increase the probability that a consumer will be exposed to the ads. In a way, it will create some experience that stuck in our head till we can recognized or remember it just by a glance and gives the effect to us that could make our lifestyle change. For example, by watching Kellogg’s Special K advert, people will be attracted to buy them and change their eating habit from eating heavy meal to a healthy meal during breakfast. Another example would be the advert of Dengue Fever Prevention Campaign. It will makes our community realize about the problems and make an action to prevent it. On the other hand, an advert will attract peoples just by inserting the element of metaphors or familiarity. The sense of familiarity such as their favourite celebrities, humour, slangs and interesting yet at the same time can still connects to the audience. Examples are like Yasmin Ahmad’s Petronas adverts that are able to engage the audience with their own experience and can touch the hearts of many. It gives a little kick to our soul that makes us realize what mistakes that we’ve been done before. But with this, the advertisers must use it carefully as not to touch any sensitive issues, example like the TV3 Aidilfitri ads. Advertisers often refer to characteristics of advertisements that gain attention but distract the viewer from the primary message as “creative clutter.” Without any doubts, advertisement certainly generates a great power to the world because they convey information, subliminal messages and at the same time convince in such subconscious way for the audience to buy their products. Effective advertising is guided by a thorough understanding of its intended audience and how that audience will receive the intended message.

The last and the most powerful ability of advertisement is to persuade the mass community to buy the products or even change their lifestyle. Basically, advertisement often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through branding, which involves the repetition of an image or product name in an effort to associate related qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers. The advertisements will emphasize all the benefits, specialty, and the positive character of the certain products till the consumer attracted to them. This part mostly plays with our psychology, emotion and mindsets. We will mostly attract towards the products that gives more benefit to us, lower price and quantity that worth the price. There are six steps that people make when they want to purchase something; awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction and finally the purchase. These are called the hierarchy of effects model. Besides that theory, there are also means-end theory which suggests that an advertisement should contain a message or means that leads the consumer to a desired end state; and leverage points where it is designed to move the consumer from understanding a product's benefits to linking those benefits with personal values. For example, the advert about buy 1 free 1 item, we probably choose the, compared to other products because it is worth paying two items for the price of single item.

In conclusion, advertisements have its own ability to manipulate our society. That’s why the advertising field seems developing from time to time because this field can makes a lot of profit if you manage to tackle it.

CONCEPT:

Advertisements that create uniqueness of a product and persuade people to buy it.