Cherryflava

Make your own ads – choose one of the 12 types of advertising available

Posted on 25. Jul, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry in Advertising

Could is be that an entire industry is built on just 12 variations on a theme? It’s an interesting concept and frankly relatedsinto a 5-minute crash course in human psychology. Advertising is designed to brainwash you into thinking that your life is lacking without the advertised product. These 12 techniques are clearly restricted to TV advertising only.
In our opinion, another more recent ad trend can be added – being the ‘shock technique‘. That is the outrageous use of shocking imagery or language to create a stir about a product or brand.

There’s the ‘demo’, the old favourite ‘show the need or problem‘, ooohh – then it get a bit more higher grade with the ’symbol, analogy or exaggerated graphic‘, then the ‘comparison‘ (which is not allowed in South African advertising law). The lesson goes forward with the ‘exemplary story‘, the ‘benefit causes story‘, the tacky ‘testimonial‘ and like our own much-loved Mo the Meerkat there’s the ‘ongoing characters and celebrities‘.
Finally there’s another ‘symbol, analogy or exaggerated graphic‘,  the old favourite of Nike ads the ‘associated user imagery‘, the dangerous ‘unique personality property‘ technique and finally the ‘parody or borrowed format’ of other ads or in our case political figures.

Now that you know this – you can make your own, or at least know how you’re being conned into buying something. [thanks Faranaaz]

[via Slate]