Advertising: Types, Functions, and Language Techniques
Advertising: An Overview
Advertising is a characteristic feature of industrial societies, serving as a key component of the market. It involves the dissemination of information about products and services, typically financed wholly or partly through communication efforts. Its widespread presence grants it significant social and cultural influence.
Advertising can be defined as a social system that utilizes various means of mass communication and employs a range of techniques aimed at persuading a target audience to take a specific action. Advertising can be classified into three main types:
- Commercial advertising
- Institutional advertising
- Political propaganda
Functions of Elements in Advertising
The key elements involved in advertising include:
- Issuer: The advertiser or agency responsible for creating the advertisement.
- Receiver: The individual targeted by the product or service being advertised.
- Message: The advertisement itself.
- Referent: The product or service being promoted.
- Channel: The mass media used to convey the message.
- Code: The visual, auditory, graphic, iconic, linguistic, and sound elements used in the advertisement. Audiovisual advertisements incorporate all of these elements, including moving images.
Advertising Rates and Media Channels
Advertising is also classified based on the media channels through which it is disseminated. The choice of media depends on the product being promoted and the desired impact. Common advertising channels include:
- Press: Advertisements, advertorials, and infomercials.
- TV: Spots, infomercials, advertising sponsorships, and static ads.
- Radio: Radio spots.
- Exterior: Static or mobile elements outdoors, such as posters, billboards, and banners.
- Direct: Newsletters, brochures, and catalogs sent directly to a defined audience.
- Diverse: Promotions in outlets, giveaways, and other methods of treating the product, which can be direct or indirect advertising.
The Language of Advertising
The primary function of advertising is to persuade the receiver to make a purchase. Advertisements achieve this through short, easily understandable, and memorable messages designed to capture the receiver’s attention.
Relationships Between Image and Word
A key characteristic of advertising is the use of multiple codes. The overall meaning of the message is derived from the combination of all its elements. Images and text are combined, utilizing both their denotative and connotative meanings. The relationships between image and word can be categorized as follows:
- Identification: The text simply identifies the image.
- Anchor: The text defines the meaning of the image.
- Complementary: The text provides a denotative or connotative meaning that complements the image.
The Image in Advertising
Images in advertising possess both denotative and connotative values. The visual impact of an image is also achieved through the expressive manipulation of its components, including:
- Treatment of light and color
- Volume or distortion of dimensions
- Planning or framing
- Angle and focus
The Language in Advertising: Style and Structure
The linguistic message in an advertisement is a text that is brief, concise, and often innovative. The typical argumentative structure includes three parts:
- Headline: Identifies the product. In many cases, it is the result of significant investment.
- Slogan: A brief, attractive, clear, and comprehensible phrase designed to be easily memorized and recalled when making a purchase. The slogan may appear as the headline or closing phrase.
- Body Text: Depending on the type of advertisement, the body text can be more informative or persuasive.
Linguistic and Rhetorical Forms
- Phonic Level: Use of foreign phonemes or graphemes.
- Morphosyntactic Level: Ellipsis of the verb, comparative adjectives, imperative sentences, interrogative sentences, exclamatory sentences, use of the second person, short sentences, and sometimes noun phrases.