Are we buying dreams? The ABCs of advertising

Usha Raman

It’s all around us; when we walk down the street, when we open the morning newspaper, when we open a browser window, or in the middle of a television show we’re watching. We are constantly bombarded with messages telling us to buy something, renew something else, try yet another thing, or do something. Fast food, mobile phone connections, mobile phones, clothes, shampoos, life insurance, soft drinks, schools, colleges, cars, movies, ideas…the list goes on.

Children, like the rest of us, spend a large number of hours consuming media of various kinds. Even when they are not in front of a television or reading a magazine, they (and we) are targets of the “hidden persuaders”, as ad makers are sometimes called. The hoardings on the road, the dangling signs at the kirana store, and even the covers of our school notebooks carry the names of consumer brands and command loyalty to them.

Opinions are always divided about whether advertising is a good thing or a bad thing, and many of us end up feeling that it is a necessary evil. Advertisements can be used as an enjoyable and varied teaching tool in and of themselves, and the process of advertising – the entire machinery behind how an ad is created from audience/market research to the creative process – can also be simulated to learn both skills and concepts.

In higher classes, talking about advertisements/advertising can also lead to some interesting debates across subjects and themes in a way that demystifies this media form, equipping children with important critical thinking skills that allow them to resist and question the persuasive power of such messages. The project could be initiated in either the language, economics, or social studies class with links to history and science where possible.

Activity 1
How do we choose what to buy?
Classes 3 to 5: Ask the children to list their favourite brands of biscuits or beverages and get them to discuss why.
Classes 6 to 8: Ask the children to list their favourite brand of clothing or shoes and discuss why.
You can also substitute another consumer product, for instance, one they may not use themselves but have seen used by adults, such as a mobile phone or a common household item such as a television.
Get the children to make a simple table listing the product, their reasons for selecting it, what they think of or know about the product, and from where these ideas have come.

Based on the discussion following Activity 1, ask the children to think about the following questions: Whom do they trust more? Advertisements or people they know? What makes them build trust? What sort of information do they think advertisements provide?

Behind the scenes: how ads are built to make you buy
Once you have laid the ground by discussing some of the questions listed above, you can start getting the children to look at advertisements more critically. Using a familiar ad such as the one for a popular brand of noodles or a breakfast cereal (you can easily find and download most advertisements from YouTube), get the children to “take it apart” by posing the following questions:
• What kind of information is provided in the ad?
• What is the ad telling you to do?
• Are the claims supported with facts/evidence?
• What do you recall about the ad?
• Is it persuasive? Why?

Activity 2
Put together a selection of ads of different kinds to demonstrate to the class the various “appeals” used. Some ads are purely informational, using a logical appeal, while others are emotional, while yet others draw on fear and anxiety (antiseptic lotion, insurance) and some draw upon civic consciousness (a recent appliance ad that emphasized lower energy consumption). Use these ads to show examples of these different appeals. Now ask the children to bring examples of print ads that can be categorized in these ways. Which ones appeal to them the most?

Advertising is a carefully planned process involving the following four-steps:

1. Research: The advertising team, usually working in an agency, tries to understand the needs of the company and the nature of the product. This is an important step where they also do research on the possible competition and the type of people who would buy it (the customer base).
2. Developing the creative brief: Based on the research and the understanding of the product, the agency team, comprising the business development unit (usually is the liaison with the client), will work out a possible strategy to position the product or service.
3. Creating the ad: Once the brief is approved, the agency will work on the scope and ideas provided by proposing several options in both text and photographs. Writing copy can be a highly exacting task, calling for imagination as well as clarity in using words in very specific ways. The end result is often deceptively simple (like Nike’s “Just do it” or the idea of “Hamara Bajaj”).
4. The options are selected by the client, and pretested with a small group of potential viewers/readers before being finalized and sent out to everyone.

If possible, invite an advertising professional to speak to your class about the process, after you have discussed it in class.

Advertising aims to create “mind movies” for the viewer or reader (or listener, in the case of radio), that capture your interest and remind you about the product in specific ways. Ad creators are told never to “sell things” but to “sell dreams”. So, for instance, the idea that is being sold in the insurance ad is not insurance, but a sense of security. The recent ads relating to oats and other breakfast cereals play on the idea of a family’s health and fitness. You can also refer to how certain products or brands play into the sense of nationhood, for example Bajaj or Maruti.

Activity 3
Step 1 – Analyzing advertising: Take another look at the ads you brought in for the previous activity from the point of view of selling ideas. Mobile service provider ads are particularly useful in this regard. Pick three different mobile company television ads (Idea, Airtel, Docomo, Reliance) and play them in the classroom (if you do not have the facility to do this, you could ask the children to watch on television at home). Discuss the story presented in the ad and get the children to think about the underlying ideas. The central idea will also relate to the appeal that the ad makes.

Shoes, cell phones, banking services, chocolate, fruit drinks, cooking oil, detergent, jewelry.

Selling things, selling ideas, selling values
Think about this. What are the products we see advertised? Are there products that are not advertised, ever? What about rice, or sugar, or vegetables? The biggest product that advertising sells is consumption, the idea that we need to buy.

You could set up a debate in the class with students arguing for the benefits and harms of advertising. Is it possible to live in a world without advertising? How is the idea of demand and supply linked with advertising? This is where economics comes in, with theories of the market and capitalist society. While the ideas may be complex and their full understanding beyond the level of schoolchildren, it is never too early to get into questions of need versus want, or of sustainable living and the consumer culture.

Advertising also works to build certain ideas of success, of happiness, or normalcy. Ask the children to examine the ads in terms of the kind of people and families they portray. What sorts of stereotypes do we see? This would be a good point to talk about advertising that consciously aims to change social norms, such as the Havell’s ads relating to patriarchy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4Ix2_-_-sg), the “dark is beautiful” campaign (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKbxLukUzuQ) or the Tata Tea ads about voting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXWdhB1xYic). This leads to the idea that advertising can also be a good force.

The creative process
Creating an ad is a demanding process, as described earlier, requiring one to think logically about the market and its dynamics as well as use imagination to build dreams and feed into the aspirations of the prospective customer. Some of the most creative minds in our society work in advertising. When we watch ads we are also being entertained and engaged, and that is because so much thought has gone into constructing the ad. The children can simulate the creative process by making their own ads.

Activity 4
Divide the class into groups of 6 or 7 students each. In each group, two children will be the client team, and the others will be the creative team. The clients must decide upon a product that they want to advertise. They have to draw up a clear description of the product, do the research on the competition, and decide upon their target audience (who they want to sell it to). The creative team, based on this information, must come up with ideas for an advertisement that draws on everything they have learned about appeals, values and ideas, while also taking into account the market information the client has given them. They present their ideas to the clients, get feedback, and finally create a print ad (with visuals and text) that they will write, design and display. Each team’s output will be displayed in the classroom for feedback from the entire class. You may also have a presentation session where each group explains their ad and the process of coming up with it. If possible, you could invite an advertising professional to comment on the projects.

Signs of the times
If advertising embodies values and dreams, they could be seen as an important source of information about society and contemporary culture. The students can compare advertisements across time (say, the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s), as well as those from different countries to look at what they tell us about the times and values of those cultures/countries. They will probably be surprised at the inherent sexism in some of the ads from the 1960s and 1970s! Advertising is also an interesting way to understand the history of a particular product. Some questions that you could pose to high school students might be the following:
• How have women’s roles changed over time as reflected in advertising?
• What kinds of products were advertised in magazines and newspapers in different decades between the 1960s and now?
• Has the language of advertising changed? What does this say about how language changes over time?
• Has the portrayal of families changed over the years?

Beyond the ad
The advertising industry is not just about creating the ads you see on television or in the newspapers, or even just about designing attractive packaging and displays. A lot more goes into the business of making us buy. Brainstorm with the children about how they hear about products and what gets them interested. Some concepts in advertising and promotion that could generate more discussion and lead to research combining ideas from various disciplines are the following –
• Celebrities and advertising
• Product placement in movies and other entertainment media
• Children’s products and children’s programmes (such as Chhota Bheem)
• Viral marketing
• Advertising online (pop up windows, advertisements on Google)
• Product packaging and placement (display in supermarkets, for example)
• Sports and event sponsorship

Advertising can be studied as a form as well as a process. Creating ads can be a lot of fun, and get students to think differently as well as to use language in very specific and strategic ways. Getting children to understand that ads are designed to produce, to create demand, often to create needs where none existed, can help them become a little more aware of how their persuasion works, and thereby a little more resistant to their seductive powers.

BOX: The ad impact

The American Psychological Association Task Force on Children and Advertising estimated in 2004 that children in the United States watch around 40000 commercials a year. Given the penetration of television as well as internet-based media into Indian households, as well as advertising on mobile media, we can assume that children in India are also exposed to thousands of advertisements each year, across media. There has been a significant amount of research on the impact of advertising on children, particularly advertisements of processed foods, fast foods, fizzy drinks and sweets. Children’s preferences and their behaviour has been shown to be influenced by repetitive media images, particularly when product advertising is embedded within or associated with entertainment such as animated shows or other children’s programming. In addition, advertising also reinforces stereotypical notions of gender, ethnicity, and class, among other things. Media scholars suggest that in the absence of effective advocacy that limits advertising targeting children, it is important to develop media literacy among this vulnerable age group. For more information on the APA Task Force’s recommendations, see: http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/advertising-children.aspx?item=7.