Advertising Theories

Advertising TheoriesBy Emma Knowles

Uses and Gratification – Blumer and Katz

Diversion - escape

Personal Relationship - emotional interaction

Personal Identity  - finding yourself within the text

Surveillance - information that is useful

Reception Theory – David Morley

Dominant Reading - Audience shares the encoded meaning

Negotiated Reading - Audience shares some of the meaning

Oppositional Reading - Audience rejects the meaning, or takes something different

Moral Panic - Cohen

"an intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.”

According to Stanley Cohen, a moral panic occurs when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.”

For a moral panic to be recognised these five things happen:

Concern – There must be awareness that the behavior of the is likely to have a negative impact on society.

Hostility –A clear division forms between "them" and "us".

Consensus – Widespread acceptance that the group in question poses a very real threat to society.

Disproportionality – The action taken is disproportionate to the actual threat posed by the accused group.

Volatility – Moral panics are highly volatile and tend to disappear as quickly as they appeared due to a wane in public interest or news reports changing to another topic.

Hierarchy of Needs

Means-End theory

This approach suggests that an advertisement should contain a message that leads the consumer to a desired end

state.

Leverage Points

It is designed to move the consumer from understanding a product's

benefits to linking those benefits with personal values.

Marketing Mix Professor E. Jerome McCarthy in the 1960s and is

considered to be the key concept to advertising.

Four basic elements called the four P’s.

P for representing the actual product.

Price for the process of determining the value of a product.

Place for the variables of getting the product to the consumer.

Promotion which is the process of reaching the target market and convincing them to go out and buy the product

Hierarchy of EffectsIt clarifies the objectives of an advertising campaign and for

each individual advertisement. The model suggests that there are six steps a consumer or a business buyer moves through

when making a purchase

Semiotics

Consumers and marketers have shared meanings.

semiotics is the study of how these signs are interpreted.

There can be hidden signs within brand names, logos, package designs, print advertisements, and television advertisements.

Two levels of interpretation

Surface level The surface level uses signs creatively to

create an image or personality for their product. These signs can be images, words, fonts, colours, or slogan.

Underlying level The underlying level is made up of hidden

meanings. The combination of images, words, colours, and slogan must be interpreted by the audience or consumer.

Signifier

The signifier is the colour, brand name, logo design,

and technology.

Signified

The signified has two meanings known as denotative and connotative.

The denotative meaning is the meaning of the product.

The connotative meaning is the product’s deep and hidden meaning. A connotative meaning of a television would be that it is top of the line

Semiotics of gender Certain characteristics of object may enhance or

decrease the elaboration of the message such as, the product being perceived as feminine.

Second, the characteristics of individuals can affect attention and elaboration of the message (traditional or non-traditional gender role orientation).

Lastly, situational factors may be important to influence the elaboration of the message.

Marketing communication claims

Objective

The extent to which the claim associates the brand with a tangible product or service feature.

Subjective

Emotional, subjective and impressions of intangible aspects of a product or service. They are non-physical features of a product or service that cannot be directly perceived, as they have no physical reality.

Males tend to respond better to objective marketing communications claims while females tend to respond better to subjective marketing communications claims.