Marketing Advertising and Branding
A Critical Analysis of Commercial Advertising Strategies
May 18, 2007
A typical American is exposed to a conservatively estimated 1500 advertisements each day.
While most people consider advertising to be extremely annoying, it is a necessary evil in modern society. Advertising revenue pays for the bulk of the media Americans love so much. Radio for example, wouldn't be free for long without the commercials to pay for the service. Happy Meal toys finance the movies we take our kids to see and if you think you pay too much for cable WITH the commercials...
As consumers, maybe we are so scornful of advertising because we are aware of how well it works. Advertisers spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars studying media in order to perfect way of influencing consumers to buy their products. Product branding being the major tactic of choice for advertising.
Branding: Creating an “image” and attaching it to a product to form an association in people’s minds.
In a recent ad for Godiva's new chocolate coffee drink, (April Issue of People Magazine), coffee isn't the only thing being sold. Godiva Chocolatiers have long been associated with the image of luxury and affluence. The subtext being that this is not your common, everyday cup of coffee. Godiva coffee is fit for only the richest most discriminating coffee consumer. This approach is designed to promote the idea or belief that consumers of Godiva coffee are somehow "higher class" and more "tasteful" than most people.
Advertisers often use psychology to tempt us into buying products. Humanities and human sciences professor Jib Fowles discovered 15 human "needs", such as "need for attention" and "need for sex", that advertisers routinely use to design ad campaigns. The Godiva ad uses the "need for prominence" as its lure. The bottle, the graphics and the luminous golden radiance of the color scheme present the coffee as if it were fine wine or expensive jewelry.
Psychographics
Psychographic segmentation groups customers according to their lifestyle. Activities, interests, and opinions (AIO) surveys are one tool for measuring lifestyle.
The psychographics of this Godiva ad are aimed at the Strivers/Acheivers group. According to the VALS system of classifying people by their primary motivations, Striver/Achievers are primarily interested in image, money and status. Some psychographic variables include:
- Activities
- Interests
- Opinions
- Attitudes
- Values
"In the broader realm of marketing and advertising, psychographic segmentation focuses on identifying the likes, opinions and attitudes of a particular group of people and creating messages that cause people to identify with those ideas." (VALS website)
Demographics
Demographics are different from psychographics and consist of data collected about a target audience's sex, age, income level, marital status, geographic location and occupation. Returning to the Godiva ad, according to People's website, their target demographics are adult women of the Striver/Achiever group. People's media kit boasts of capturing 1 out of every 4 women as regular readers. This explains the text in the coffee ad claiming that coffee, chocolate and men should all be "rich", as well as the fancy scroll work art in the shape of a giant diamond surrounded by phallic shaped objects.
Constant exposure to these messages and images have been shown to have a negative impact on attitudes and behaviors. Advertising messages are largely unattainable ideals and repeated exposure causes disappointment and a general dissatisfaction with life. No one is immune to the effects of advertising. Deliberate and conscious efforts to limit our exposure is necessary for positive self image and general life satisfaction.
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