people. Ads help you make wise choices by presenting information
about products, services and trends. Even the sale of a product or service
ends up benefiting more than just the business. It promotes economic
growth and improves the standard of living by encouraging spending,
increasing mass production, creating jobs and, ultimately, leading to the
manufacture of less expensive products and services.
Furthermore, advertising is influencing the direction of the “informa-
tion superhighway.” As other nations and cultures are exposed to more
and more U.S. media and entertainment, our products and services,
introduced through advertising, are finding growing markets outside
this country.
Occasionally, a business’s enthusiasm for these new markets, coupled
with its commitment to U.S. advertising campaigns that have already
proved successful, can add up to one big communications problem.
According to author Robert W. Woodruff, when Coca-Cola brought its
product to China, it had to make some last-minute changes. Originally,
company officials had chosen the Chinese characters that most closely
resemble the logo Coca-Cola, but those characters translated into “bite
the wax tadpole.” Instead, Coca-Cola officials finally settled on Chinese
characters that mean “can mouth, can happy.”
KFC also had image problems in China, because its advertising
campaign translated into Chinese, suggested “eat your fingers off.” Of
course, changing a company’s image to please an international audience
is only one of many challenges that face advertisers. Ads must reflect an
audience’s style, needs and desires. Those that do not are easy to spot
because they seem so immediately out of place.
Similar miscommunication can affect your school newspaper.
Sometimes businesses that clearly do not count teenagers among their
consumers nonetheless advertise in a school publication. The ads, if
noticed at all, may draw giggles or confused looks. They generally won’t
draw business, however. In the case of misplaced ads, the business usu-
ally has some personal connection to the school. Perhaps a staff mem-
ber’s uncle owns it, and the owner views the cost of the ad as more of a
contribution to the publication than a wise investment.
In contrast, the Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, by Jane and Michael Stern,
includes numerous references to products that succeeded by under-
standing the style of potential customers and creating a desire within
these people for the products themselves. How else can we explain the
relative, if sometimes short-lived, success of aerosol cheese, fish sticks,
lava lamps, candied fruit sheets, pet clothing or TV dinners?The Meaning of the Message
In a conversation in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,
Humpty Dumpty told Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what
I choose it to mean—nothing more or less.” Indeed, determining the
meaning of a message can be a highly personal matter. That’s why it’s
so important for everyone, not only advertisers, to choose words care-
fully. After all, if you say “I love you” to a person, who subsequently(^378) PRODUCING THE NEWS
LONDON, 1614—Decora tive
signs attached to buildings
or swinging over doorways
identified local inns and
taverns. These signs were
the forerunners of modern
billboards. Because few people
could read, the shopkeepers
created logos, or artwork that
represented the names of their
establishments: The Three
Squirrels, The Ape, A Hole in
the Wall, Man in the Moon, a
Hog In Armour and so on.
In 1614, England passed the
first laws regulating advertis-
ing. One law prohibited signs
from projecting more than
eight feet out from a building.
Another said signs must be high
enough to allow a man wearing
armor and riding a horse to
pass beneath them.