An investigation Into The Different Marketing Language of Holiday Brochures For Different Age Groups.

An investigation Into The Different Marketing Language of Holiday Brochures For Different Age Groups

Introduction:

In my language investigation I will be looking into the similarities and differences between the ways in which holidays for young people (Club 18-30), families (First Choice Summer Sun) and the more mature couples (Forever Young) are marketed toward their specific target audience. I will be researching the different linguistic ideals, which are attached to each holiday. A holiday is after all more than just a product; it is a set of ideals and principles that reflect life-style choices. This makes the linguistic analysis for each catalogue interesting. Each potential buyer will only buy holidays that boast the interests and expectations of the buyer; for example, a sun worshipper would look for beaches and a sightseer will look for views. So different brochures are for different markets. I am expecting that the brochures will have differences in graphology, lexis, and pragmatics. Each target audience will exhibit different principles and look for different aspects within their ideal holiday. I am interested in brochures that are aimed at different age groups.

The brochures offer holidays to the same towns around Gran Canaria, Costa Blanca in Spain and Cyprus. To ensure control, I will only be looking into hotels that have been granted the same star ratings (2-3 star) in the same resort, and if possible the exact same hotels. In rare situations, despite their different clientele the travel companies surprisingly use the same hotels. I will then be able to investigate further into the descriptions of same towns and same star hotels (and possibly the same hotels), but which are aimed at different age groups. When the same hotel appears in more than one brochure, I shall linguistically scrutinize the different unique selling points the travel agent has used. I will compare the brochures descriptions in detail and see how the same place is targeting different audiences linguistically as well as graphologically.

Glossy magazines and brochures tend to lend themselves to the study of graphology quite openly, thus the frameworks that I expect to use consist of investigations into this area. I would not expect a family brochure to include photographs with sexual or explicit connotations, where as Club 18-30 might decide this appropriate. Lexis also plays a major part in holiday brochures targeted to different groups of people. I would expect to find that brochures for the older tourists would use more polysyllabic words, pre and post modifications and similes antithetical to that of a more phonetically youthful and slang inclusive approach of Club 18-30’s brochure. Grammar and sentence structures may also differ. Family holiday brochures may have a safety conscious tone rather than an alcohol, party orientated holiday offered by Club 18-30. The pragmatics will be interesting to investigate as this deals with purpose, culture, set of values and implicit and explicit messages. Such ideological features can be portrayed through either words or pictures to an intended audience that differs in their social groupings. Semantic fields will also be looked into with detail, as it involves subject specific lexis, facts and opinions. I will look at the implications of the vocabulary used.

So, I am investigating the distinctive features of language used in holiday brochures published for different age groups and I will test the idea that advertisers use language differently when aiming at specific social groups.

Hypothesis:

I hypothesise that the three brochures, Club 18-30, Summer Sun and Forever Young will be different in pragmatics, but that the discourse structure not too dissimilar. The way in which the brochures graphology is presented on the page will be similar because they should be subject specific and focus on individuals who are all interested in buying holidays. When describing the discourse of the brochures it is easy to assume that one will be more sophisticated than the others and may be superior in lexis and pragmatics. I am expecting to find Forever Young the most sophisticated brochure because it is aimed at the more mature audience, the over 50’s. I am expecting Summer Sun to be less so as it is aimed at families and Club 18-30 the least sophisticated because it is aimed at the youngest audience. However, the groups being targeted are expected to have different interests so attention might be drawn to different services and attractions for a particular audience. These ideas make a good starting point for my investigation. I will consider what makes the distinction between one style of writing in a holiday brochure and another and what affect it has from a frameworks perspective.

Methodology:

I collected some holiday brochures. These were picked up from travel agents in Nottingham. I chose ones for older people, some for families and some for young people; the brochures must use the same destinations. I sifted through them to see which ones had the same rated hotels, or even the same hotels. I picked my three brochures on the differences with in the frameworks. This ensured that pragmatically, semantically and lexically, there would be plenty of literature and comparisons, which I could use as talking points. In the end I selected Club 18-30, First Choice Summer Sun and Thomas Cook Forever Young. None of the brochures are at the top end of the market, so I am comparing similar price categories at the same month of year, same destinations but for different age groups.

The frameworks I have decided to use will be useful for my hypothesis. Graphologically, pragmatically and semantically the investigation will be interesting because there are so many reasons why the brochures could and should be different. However, discourse structure may not differ, as this would be expected to be similar, describing the holiday locations.

Analysis:

The tone of Forever Young and Summer Sun is not dissimilar. They both set out to entice the holidaymaker with descriptions of picturesque places, warm weather, good food and scenery and excellent service. The tone of Club 18-30 is different from the other two, as it tries to entice holidaymakers with the promise of sex, alcohol and nightclubs along with good weather and good beaches; locations are incidental.

Forever Young, Summer Sun and Club 18-30 are targeted at people in different stages of their lives. Forever young, as implied by the title is for an aging population who still want to think of themselves as being active. Summer Sun is aimed mainly at families with children at any age. Club 18-30 is for the age group in the title but without the encumbrance of children and to offer a party atmosphere and a chance to meet like-minded people, often of the opposite sex.

The purpose of all brochures is to persuade people to buy a holiday and ...

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The purpose of all brochures is to persuade people to buy a holiday and to give some information. In all the chosen holiday brochures, graphology plays an important part of the advertising, especially in Club 18-30.

The overall presentation of Forever Young and Summer Sun is different from that of Club18-30. Forever Young and Summer Sun uses dense text whereas the text of Club 18-30 is broken up. All three brochures use boxed sections, coloured sub headings and photographs to grab reader’s attention. Club 18-30 uses an informal font to reflect the informality of the holiday. Forever Young and Summer Sun use capital letters for the proper nouns where as Club 18-30 use lower casement for its list of locations. All brochures use their own logo on every page. Forever Young has a Thomas Cook logo; Summer Sun has First Choice and Club 18-30 its own individual logo. Forever Young and Summer Sun similarly use maps to show road routes of the specified locations and colourful climate graphs. Club 18-30 uses lots of exclamation marks and punctuation marks and photographs are modified with scribble and graffiti for a comic effect. For example, a man standing in his swimming trunks has a penis drawn over it! This is also on a full page spread. Club 18-30 makes use of juxtaposition by placing provocative words next to provocative pictures. For example “rise” is super-imposed onto the page over a picture of a man lying back and daydreaming, with a super-imposed bulge on his trousers. The text in Club 18-30 adopts the layout conventions of a recipe. For example, there are lots of lists. e.g.

“lust (one line gap) rise (one line gap) hunt(one line gap)want…” etc.

The typeface of Forever Young and Summer Sun is clear to read and conventional. Sub headings for facilities and activities are in a bolder font for easy reference for the reader. The sub headings for Club 18-30 are roughly five times larger than the actual informative text. The sub-headings in Club18-30 refer to topics such as “bars, clubs & music” and “on the beach” but then add little information about these. This is significant also as “On the Beach” is a title of a well known dance track, which may be used to entice the reader to come on the holiday.

Similarities between all three brochures are the use of a table format to give prices and flight times. They also use bullet points, asterisks and arrows for general information on general issues, e.g. “fun for all the family” in Summer Sun; “commitment to the highest standards of safety” in Forever Young; “free birthday cocktail” in Club 18-30.

To make a fair comparison between Forever Young and Summer Sun and Club 18-30, I have chosen an introductory paragraph from each brochure as an appropriate example to compare the discourse.

Forever Young has its text sequenced in a logical, chronological order. That is, firstly information about packing luggage, then pre-booking seats and it gives information on short haul flights. After this introduction, detailed information is given for requesting dietary requirements, how to pre-book champagne on the flight and asking for assistance. The reader is given clear instructions on how to ask for services along with a phone number. The text then goes on to give some general information about Thomas Cooke’s representatives and how they have been trained. The introductory discourse is concluded with information about excursions that will be available on arrival at your destination.

The discourse structure of the introduction to Summer Sun begins with a description of a holiday complex. It then goes on to inform you that there will be holiday representatives to guide you in your holiday entertainment, it then goes on to say why you, the buyer, should choose this holiday village. There is a description of types of hotels available. The conclusion of this discourse goes on to tell you what is included in the price.

The discourse structure of the Club 18-30 introductory page is of a fun first orientation and is very uninformative; for example “ if you’re up for it during the day, then your club rep will show you all the best places…” leaving it to the reader’s imagination what “it” actually refers to, and “Get ready for wet and wild parties, sun kissed cruises and BBQ’s a plenty.” After this information on party events, you are told the price of these excursions and how to book them. It concludes with a section on how much spending money to take on holiday. This could indicate what the editor thinks the clientele value first and foremost. The discourse has no information on location; it is divided up into four small, simple paragraphs and is then split up via the graphology, to make barely any writing fill two sides.

The editors of the brochures expect us to react to their language in a certain way. That is of course to make sense of it. In Summer Sun and Forever Young it is easy to make sense of the language as it is cohesive, the pronouns refer to the same things throughout the paragraph. In Club 18-30, the pronoun “it” alludes to a party or sex as well as an excursion. Also, “show us yer birthday suit” alludes to nudity without actually telling you to take your clothes off.

The implications are that Forever Young readers will be concerned with the practicalities of their holiday first and foremost, Summer Sun readers will want to know where they are being located and Club 18-30 readers will be mainly concerned about their entertainment.

Studying my holiday brochures, I have decided to create a pie chart displaying the semantic field of “Holiday” and how many words associated to this semantic field are involved in the introductory paragraphs. I have taken the mean average of the semantic field and I have showed it via a pie chart. The data was gathered by counting the words involved e.g. “luggage” and “hotels”, for each destination, then adding up the total amount of words, then dividing by 3 (number of paragraphs used). This then gave me an average of the amount of words used in the semantic field of “holiday”. The results are as shown.

Here are some examples of the words, which I used to compose my pie chart:

Summer Sun: complex, peaceful, bustling, beautiful, great, comfortable, easy, picturesque, luggage, facilities, accommodation.

Forever young: Stunning, excellent, lively, welcoming, accommodation, hire-car, lush, tropical.

Club 18-30: golden, well-equipped, volcanic, attractive, delights.

For this part of my analysis I am looking at the pages that introduce Cyprus as a holiday resort, in all three brochures. Encoded in the description of Cyprus in Forever Young, is a mental picture of warmth, light and health. For example “Golden evenings, invigorated countryside… which is a riot of colour “ the objective here is to conjure up an idyllic location for the target audience intended. The other adjectives are “picturesque”, “scenic”, “warm”, “rich”, “unique” and “friendly”. It is interesting to note the choice of the word warm (comfortably high temperature) used as it could also be implying cordiality.” Rich” is used to refer to the fertile countryside but as the word also means wealth the connotations of warmth and richness are very desirable.

Summer Sun introduces Cyprus as the birthplace of “The legendary goddess of love, an island of immense natural beauty… clear blue seas”. The connotations here are surprisingly of a romantic nature. This is shown by the semantic field of romance. Within the quotation we can see the words “love” and “beauty” portraying this. This could be to appeal to couples that still want to recapture the mood of days gone by despite having families.

Club 18-30 has a paragraph which gives no description of location, but of nightlife, for example “Massive dance scene… 5kms of golden sands and crystal clear waters.”, This could be because the target audience are more bothered about the nightlife than the surroundings of the accommodation.

In their introductions to Cyprus, the objectives of Forever Young and Summer Sun are to describe the features of the island and its ambience in hope that the language will sell a holiday. The connotations are of peace and tranquillity e.g. In Summer Sun “Gently shelving safe sands” and “the cool pine clad Troodos Mountains” and in Forever Young “Picturesque coastal resorts” and “Superb beaches and offers tranquillity”

However in club 18-30, the connotations are of fun and sex! Phrases such as “gagging with excitement” are used to entice the reader. Gagging literally means choking, but it is a modern slang term and in this context, the editor expects the reader to think of “gagging” as anticipating something uncontrollably.

Below, I have made a table showing how I have calculated the average paragraph length with the amount of adjectives per sentence. This can then indicate which brochure relies upon descriptions and mental imagery the most to sell the holidays on offer.

The lexis for Forever Young and Summer Sun is associated with climate, views and holiday activities. If I compare the lexis of these two brochures with that of Club 18-30,I find that the lexis is not associated specifically with holidays. I chose the pages advertising Costa Blanca in each of the brochures to make a fair comparison. Then I selected the descriptive paragraphs on the relevant page. The semantic fields of the lexis are very different as already established. The table below shows the nouns and proper nouns used by each brochure.

Nouns

Forever Young Summer Sun Club 18-30

beaches scenery city

scenery holiday weather

sun families markets

resort water sports shops

facilities couples disco

region area bar

dunes promenade night

shops beach festival

restaurants marina noise

Proper Nouns

Gran Canaria Maspalomas Playa Del Ingle

Las Palmas Gran Canaria Maspalomas

Maspalomas Canary Islands Puerto Rico

Columbus Puerto Rico Nellies Bar

Lawrence of Arabia Zig-Zags

Hippodrome

Harley Rock

Titanic Bar

Sport Legends

Supernova

Booze Cruise

The lexis in the Club 18-30 “noun” category of the table could be referring to any city centre across the globe; it is not specifically the semantic field of a holiday. Forever Young and Summer Sun are quite clearly referring to holiday resorts in both their “Nouns” and “Proper nouns”. The list of proper nouns in Club 18-30 refers to three locations and eight bars, which again shows that the target audience are expected to be concerned about the nightlife.

In the brochures, literary devices are used to try to gain the readers attention. Calming sounds are introduced into the text to create a calm mental atmosphere for the reader. This is shown by Summer Sun, e.g. “Shelving safe sands”, The alliteration of the fricative consonant “S” creates the feeling of tranquillity, which the reader could also feel if they were to go on the holiday advertised.

Club 18-30 also successfully uses alliteration e.g. “Hardened, happy and hotter” which is a description of how you would feel if you went on one of their holidays. I have also noticed that Club 18-30 don’t use superlatives as often as Summer Sun and Forever Young. For instance the hotel Las Margaritas is “stylish” in Summer Sun and “Superb and decorative” in Forever Young. However the apartments near by used by Club 18-30 are described more modestly as “good”, “standard” and “traditional”.

In the pragmatics of the introduction in the Club 18-30 brochure for Cyprus the situation is very different from the other brochure choices. The situation involved with Club 18-30 is to entice the target audience to come on holiday with them, using sex, DJ’s and alcohol as a unique selling point. This is shown by the graphology (drunk person) and the dual meanings of words and the intertextuality, e.g. “ Come again? We’d like to keep you coming again and again!” This shows that there are implicit and explicit messages which inter-links coming on the holiday again (explicit) and having sex again on the holiday (implicit), arguably both meanings of the phrase are the explicit meanings. This suits the culture ties that the holiday brochure offers, which is binge drinking and sex.

The pragmatics of the introduction for Summer Sun holidays in Cyprus is unsurprisingly different. The situation again is to sell the holiday to the prospective buyers, using views and scenery, entertainment and family activities (like swimming and scuba diving) for unique selling points. The purpose, like all marketing brochures is to entice the holidaymaker to come on holiday using their travel agent. Summer Sun offers holidays that are family orientated. The point of view of the brochure is of a safety conscious, family orientated one.

Forever Young is a brochure with holiday descriptions designed around the older persons potential interests, as the target audience is for older, more mature couples. The situation once again is an attempt to entice a holidaymaker to buy a holiday in Cyprus using landscapes, descriptions of sunsets and detailed mental images of old towns around the island. In Forever Young, there are lots of pre-modifiers such as “picturesque” and “pleasantly”, with reference to “unique European cultures”. It also makes reference to the fact that locals can speak English and prices in shops have British equivalents “People speak English and the prices are in pounds!” This suggests that the intended audience will not need to be intimidated by a foreign language nor will they want the trouble of converting foreign currency into pounds sterling. The purpose of this brochures introduction to Cyprus is like the others, using the good points about Cyprus that the reader would value, in order to sell the holiday. This makes pragmatic analysis interesting as despite the overview of the resort each referring to Cyprus, a different angle is given to the description in each of the brochures. e.g. alcohol in Club 18-30. Summer Sun promotes activities and Forever Young is orientated around views, good food and “quaint villages” They all attempt to bring the availability of mass-marketed holidays to a large group of people. However Forever Young attempts to make the holidays that they offer seem to be a unique holiday (not a package) and offer it to an exclusive audience. For instance, they say, “The friendly management at this hotel ensure that their guests enjoy their stay and will want to return year after year” Yet the graphology of tower blocks pictured above this some how tells us otherwise.

In the Summer Sun catalogue there is a temperature graph of average daily temperatures throughout the summer months (from April to October) in degrees centigrade, where as in Forever Young there is a similar graph but the temperatures are recorded in degrees Fahrenheit in Forever Young. This gives a clue to the difference in age between the target audiences of Summer Sun and Forever Young, as older generations are not always accustomed to thinking in degrees centigrade. It is remarkable how different the descriptions of the same place can be, “vibrant” for Summer Sun travellers and yet “quaint” for Forever Young holiday- makers.

I found that Club 18-30 was straight forward in its descriptions of hotels. The pragmatics and semantics portrayed this, and the graphology backed up the statements. A description of one hotel says, “ This hotel is well situated with everything at your fingertips. Pool here for those serious bathing sessions. Great bar that serves food with a massive T.V. thrown in. All rooms are simply furnished with private facilities and balcony.” I notice that it refers to a great bar serving food and not a bar serving great food! The description is plain and mentions that the rooms are simply furnished. In the descriptions of the hotels and apartments in Ayia Napa, Club 18-30 uses vast amounts of slang. As according to research done by Kegan Paul, slang is used mainly to reduce seriousness, to produce close contact with audience and to exclude others by using “private talk”. e.g. “Slap-bang in the centre of all the action – Nuff said.” And “Wicked location for the nightlife”. This brings the reader closer to the information by the means stated by Kegan Paul. The pictures of the nudity and alcohol may disgust some holiday makers, but this is acceptable for the intended audience as the younger readers expect this from Club 18-30, and they will find this sort of graphology acceptable given the brochures reputation. This graphology does coincide with the lexis and semantics and the brochure expectations. Club 18-30 is the most honest in its advertising as there are very few differences in what is being shown to the audience and what the audience are told via the text. Forever Young, however, is supposed to be for an upmarket ageing holidaymaker seeking individuality. The graphology within the catalogue whilst describing the hotels is not truthful to the descriptions given. The descriptions are economical with the truth offered by the Forever Young travel agents. e.g. “Cyprus is an island of picturesque coastal resorts and quaint mountain villages.” This may be true, but this paragraph is surrounded by photos of high-rise tower blocks, swimming pools enclosed by beer advertisements and hordes of people, showing the differences between the graphology, pragmatics and the expectations of the brochure. The clientele are somewhat different to that that the graphology suggests is the target audience.

Within the Costa Blanca resort, there is a hotel called Hotel Poseidon Playa, which is used in the First Choice Summer Sun brochure and the Forever Young brochure. This illustrates how the hotel seems to change clientele with travel agents; the pragmatics, semantics and graphology will vary somewhat to suit the intended target audiences.

In the Summer Sun brochure, this hotel is described as “cosmopolitan”, as opposed to being called “comfortable, relaxing and quiet.” In Forever Young. The pragmatics and semantics of the word “cosmopolitan” are rather similar. Its direct meaning refers to the city and being varied and lively. But the pragmatics in this context means that the hotel is of a modern, busy and desirable location. So if we can compare this to the word “quiet”, the semantics and pragmatics are very similar. But, the words “quiet” and “cosmopolitan” both being used to describe the same place seems to tell us that either one travel agent is being unrealistic, or the hotel itself has changed atmosphere and location. We can accept that the clientele are different, but this is hardly an excuse to put such a different slant on a hotel. Another point of interest is that Summer Sun boasts that the hotel is “within walking distance from the resort”. Forever Young describes the same hotel as being “away from the heart of the resort”. They are both used as positive selling points; good that you are able to walk to the centre of town, and the latter, it is good to be well away from the centre of town. The Summer Sun editors expect the clientele to want to be close to the town, so they are made to think they are near the town. However, the editors of Forever Young feel that the clientele would not want to be near the town centre, therefore they have made it seem like the hotel isn’t near the town. The hotel doesn’t move location; it is the editors making the best of an attribute of the hotel to suit each target audience, to make the hotel sound more desirable.

Within the Summer Sun and Forever Young catalogues, the writers have given descriptions of the hotel and the rooms available. In the Forever Young brochure, there is only one sentence on each of the issues. Yet the Summer Sun brochure has two sentences about the hotel and four sentences about the rooms available and both brochures use a lot of bullet points to grab the reader’s attention. The possible reason for using a lot of bullet points is because the information doesn’t have to be separated, from a specific text, it can easily be accessible.

As a holiday consumer I know that the more information given, the more trusting the holidaymaker is of the brochure, that is why so much information is given.

The Hotel Poseidon is offered at the same price in the same week of the year in Summer Sun and Forever Young; £359 for 7 nights in a twin room. Club 18-30 offer a different hotel at the same resort, at the same time of year and this too is £359 for 7 nights in a twin room. The Hotel Poseidon appears to be a 3-star hotel in both brochures. The accommodation for Club 18-30 was also a 3-star rating.

Conclusion

I conclude that the style of advertising in my three chosen holiday brochures,

that is lexis, graphology and pragmatics produce different styles and thereby different effects. This is far more noticeable between Club 18-30 and the other two brochures. The editor of Club 18-30 expects that intertextual allusions will be perceived by their readers and seen as an attraction. On the whole the choices of language and expression create a particular style inspired by the contextual circumstances. Club 18-30 is dominated by photographic images, which may be seen as more enticing to younger generations. Forever Young and Summer Sun rely more on a combination of text and image.

It is surprising to find out that in Club 18-30, the association between the company’s reputation, the photographs and the text is very close. Club 18-30 are not trying to hide anything or show any misleading factors about the holidays offered. Literally, what you see is what you get, and the company accepts that. Summer Sun and Forever Young are being presented by reputable companies (First Choice and Thomas Cook) with large market shares. This is then surprising that the photos on the front covers appear not to correspond with the photographs of the accommodation, or with the descriptive texts.

I conclude that all brochures do meet the requirements of all the target audiences, but Forever Young isn’t as exclusive as it thinks that it is. No single brochure was superior to the other in design. Each brochure addressed its target audience effectively. However, the target audience for one brochure may think that the brochure targeted at them is superior, but that is only from their personal point of view e.g. the Forever Young target audience may be offended by Club 18-30’s brochure. Colloquial expressions are commonly used in Club 18-30, but this would just not be accepted in the Forever Young brochure, as it is far more formal. But linguistically, all the brochures are on a par and are effective for their audience.

This to me is proof that the editors of the brochures have expectations of their target audiences; their knowledge, hopes and aspirations.