AdvertisingA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWadvertising – health warnings, for example.
(6) Charity advertising, seeking donations for
worthwhile causes at home and abroad. (7)
Advertising through sponsorship, mainly of
sports, leisure and the arts. Th is indirect form of
advertising has been a major development; the
risk is that recipients of sponsorship come to rely
more and more heavily on commercial support.
Sponsors want quick publicity and prestige for
their money and their loyalties to recipients are
very often short-term.
Th e eff ect of advertising upon newspaper and
broadcasting editorial and programme content is
rarely overt; rather it is a process of media people
‘internalizing’ advertisers’ demands. Ad-related
newspaper features have grown enormously in
the post-Second World War period, especially in
the ‘quality press’, such as, in the UK, Th e Times,
Guardian, Independent and Daily Telegraph,
which derive over half their revenue from adver-
tising. In press advertising, numbers count for
less than the estimated purchasing power of the
target readership. Th is explains why two major
UK newspapers with big circulations – the Daily
Herald (see miracle of fleet street) and the
News Chronicle – were closed down in the 1960s.
Th ey simply did not appeal to the advertisers.
Advertising has suffused our culture and
our language, helping to form a consumer
culture (see culture: consumer culture).
Its infl uence has been felt in modern art move-
ments such as pop art; its snappy techniques as
developed for TV have been widely adopted in
the cinema. It has drawn into its service actors,
celebrities, artists, photographers, writers,
designers and fi lm makers. It is often said that on
TV the adverts are better than the programmes;
there is a grain of truth here, as there is in the
claim that it is because of the adverts, and the
goals of those who commission and make
them, that the programmes are not better, more
original or more challenging. See advertising
standards authority (uk); advertis-
ing: targeted advertising; aida model;
commercial radio (uk); brand: graphic
revolution; harmonious interaction;
product placement; sponsorship; spon-
sorship of broadcast programmes (uk);
subliminal.
▶Anne M. Cronin, Advertising and Consumer
Citizenship: Gender, Images and Rights (Routledge,
2000); John Tullock, Watching Television Audiences:
Cultural Theories and Methods (Arnold, 2000);
Peter N. Stearns, Consumerism in World History:
The Global Transformation of Desire (Routledge,
2001); Sean Brierley, The Advertising Handbookbecomes a substitute for the genuine develop-
ment of self: appearance replaces essence’.
Self-actualization is ‘packaged and distributed
according to market criteria. Mediated experi-
ence is centrally involved here. Th e mass media
routinely present modes of life to which, it is
implied, everyone should aspire’. For Don Slater
in Consumer Culture and Modernity (Polity
Press, 1997), ‘Consumer culture “technicizes” the
project of self by treating all problems as solvable
through various commodities.’
Not all would agree with such criticisms. Th ose
subscribing to the doctrines of nineteenth-
century Liberalism, for example, would argue
that consumer culture, of which advertising is an
integral element, liberates rather than oppresses,
in providing the individual with many opportu-
nities to rationally pursue his/her self-interest.
Th e range of choices off ered by consumer culture
and post-traditional society is to be celebrated
rather than seen as a cause for concern – to be
able to choose being seen as the essence of being
human. It should also be borne in mind that the
messages of advertising have to compete with a
range of other infl uences on behaviour in their
battle for hearts, minds and identities.
Tony Yeshin in Advertising (Thomson
Learning, 2006) reminds us of the important
economic role played by advertising. ‘Although
it is widely criticised, it can be argued that adver-
tising, particularly within a capitalist society,
provides the means for encouraging competi-
tion. By making information about competing
products and services widely available, it ensures
that no single product can, ordinarily, dominate
a market.’ Arguably, advertising has speeded
the introduction of useful inventions to a wide
as distinct from a select circle of consumers; it
has spread markets, reduced the price of goods,
accelerated turnover and kept people in employ-
ment. It also funds a diverse range of media.
The many modes of advertising may be
categorized as follows: (1) Commercial consumer
advertising, with its target the mass audience
and its channel the mass media. Latterly, of
course, the Internet has become the new fron-
tier for commercial advertising. (2) Trade and
technical advertising, such as ads in specialist
magazines. (3) Prestige advertising, particularly
that of big business and large institutions, gener-
ally selling image and good name rather than
specifi c products (see pr: public relations).
(4) Small ads, directly informational, which are
the bedrock support of local periodicals and the
basis of the many giveaway papers which have
been published in recent years. (5) Government