How do advertising images persuade us to consume?

Visual Communication BAIMS Katie Warren

Advertising images confront us in our everyday lives in an attempt to persuade us to consume their products. They are one of the most important cultural factors moulding and reflecting our life today. They are inescapable and the main aim of any company is to be ‘top of mind’ and on the consumers ‘shopping list’. However, Dyer argues that we usually take adverts for granted because they are so pervasive, but many people claim that they are one of the most important influences in our lives. Advertisements depict a general social image and message in their sales pitch. Dyer argues that the advertising media has the ability to “shape and sometimes change a persons behaviour, opinions and attitudes” (Dyer: 73). He also comments on the fact that an advert sometimes “promotes general ideas and beliefs” (Dyer: 73).

The primary function of advertisements is to introduce us to a wide range of consumer goods and in its simplest sense, advertising means “drawing attention” to something (Dyer: 2). Adverts present images of “things to be desired, people to be envied, and life as it ‘should be’” (Sturken and Cartwright: 2001). A key characteristic of photography within advertising and marketing is the enhancing and altering the meaning of lifeless objects. This then turns them into commodities and companies then use advertisements as a way to entice the viewer into believing what their lives could be like if they were to buy these commodities. This is what is known as “commodity culture” (Sturken and Cartwright: 198). Here commodities are “central to cultural meaning” (Sturken and Cartwright: 198). By buying a certain product, the consumer can be a part of a certain lifestyle and all that goes with that. People are “constructed” through their “consumption and use of commodities” (Sturken and Cartwright: 198). They argue that through these commodities we present ourselves to people around us.

“Advertising encourages consumers to think of commodities as central means through which to convey their personalities” (Sturken and Cartwright: 198). If one wants to become something, they must consume these products. Advertising images allow us to envisage a place where we could get to through consuming these products and creating a new improved lifestyle for ourselves. Photographs are cultural products, which create ideas that then become dominant in society. The images have an ability to project “a look, an image, a world” (Ramamurthy: 170) and by consuming these products, adverts show us a way to escape from the ‘real world’. Advertisements therefore create new identities that are portrayed to viewers as something, which they are able to consume. The idea of living a new lifestyle is a way that advertisements persuade us to consume. Products become ways to literally buy status in the external world. Commodities are given qualities by adverts that portray a status that could be achieved through consumption. Advertising could even be said to be able to sell lifestyles.

It is seen as very difficult to resists the general social images and messages presented by advertisements. There is an overt sales pitch in all advertisements which appeals to consumers for example one could make friends by drinking the right beer or get a look more attractive by using a certain type of hair product. By consuming products, buyers are shown that is a way where one might fit in and avoid becoming a social outcast and adverts use this to persuade us to consume. Adverts ultimately influence some of the general views, values and beliefs of societies.

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“Advertising uses particular codes and conventions to convey messages quickly and succinctly to viewers” (Sturken and Cartwright: 206). The adverts aim to grab the viewers attention and present a new lifestyle to them. They persuade us to consume by adding familiarity to a product. “One of advertisers’ primary strategies is to turn a product into a recognisable brand” (Sturken and Cartwright: 206). We then begin to know and relate to products through this brand and want to own the product.

“Advertisements speak the language of transformation”(Sturken and Cartwright: 212). Adverts promise to improve our lives and satisfy our needs. They present us with enviable glamour figures that have “perfect yet attainable bodies” (Sturken and Cartwright: 213).

Advertisers assume that “any body can be persuaded” to consume if the right techniques are used. Dyer argues that this is quite a narrow view and although it is, all people have needs, wants and desires that products might fulfil. People want goods to improve their style and status and advertisers can easily find target audiences who they can persuade to consume certain products. Children are “particularly vulnerable to persuasion and propaganda” (Dyer: 75) and are therefore targeted to then relay their want for the product back to their parents.

There are differing types of advertisements, which are used to make us consume. The first is a simple advertisement that is usually found in special interest magazines and where there is just a straightforward relationship between the supplier and the consumer. Hall and Whannel in Dyer also suggest a few other types of adverts. The Compound advert uses a subtle approach of persuasion and mainly concentrates on using images to entice consumers. These can be used in ‘easy reading’ magazines where an advert may contain some simple information about where the product may be purchased from, but this is accompanied by a stunning image. When this type of advertising is used to persuade us to consume, it is hoped that the reader would associate the “product” with the “total impression” (Hall and Whannel in Dyer: 89). The next form of advertising used by companies in that of Complex. Here there is an emphasis on the presentation of the luxury and status that the product will provide. A background image will take over and the product merely merges into it. This is mainly used on more expensive consumer products and has been used in a variety of Rolex adverts. There is a concentration on imagery for example a secluded beach, rather than the product itself.

The last type of advertising described by Hall and Whannel is Sophisticated advertising. This is an extension of the complex model but explores the hidden and subconscious feelings within the viewer. Subtle association and persuasion is again used here but products are associated with fantasies. Visual imagery is often blurred to make the advertisement seem like that of a dream. Here the product is then linked to something which is not reality. People are persuaded to consume the products in these types of adverts by using the ideas of buying another lifestyle. Something that without these products would just be a dream not a reality.

Desire is a main factor in persuading consumers to purchase products. “Desire and lack are central motivating forces in our lives” (Sturken and Cartwright: 217). Through consuming products, we aim to fill this lack or desire. Products initially have no meanings and therefore must be given a value by something which will appeal to the consumer and make us want to purchase the objects. Companies will use famous photographers, for example Mercedes have been known to use Rankin in order to glamorise their products. The better the photographer, the better the show casing of the product which companies hope will appeal to ones desires. This is a prestigious and well established organisation and images created by Rankin help to depict this. The consumer therefore develops a desire for the different lifestyle that Mercedes represents.

Models and celebrities can also help to depict a desirable product and therefore lifestyle. The fashion designer Gucci, uses the well known model Kate Moss to appeal to consumer ideals. She represents some thing that many women aspire to; perfect skin, body and fashion. Other companies have followed suit by using other well known celebrities, for example Vodafone using David Beckham and Nestle using Michael Owen. By linking celebrities to products, it creates a meaning for the consumers which they will remember and relate back to the products.

T. S Eliot argues this idea stating that

“The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an ‘objective correlation’- in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events, which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately invoked” (Eliot in Williamson: 30). Advertisements provide us with this “objective correlation” of meanings by linking brands and products with people we can relate to and this is a way they persuade us to consume.

By using the famous in this way, adverts are able to widen their appeal to many and again create the abstraction of another lifestyle. This is based on the mentality that if the multi millionaire David Beckham uses Vodafone then by the every day member of the public using them, they can aspire to have a similar status in society to what he possesses. Certain advertisements present to us what our lives could be like; an almost “enviable world” (Sturken and Cartwright: 214). We want to acquire the attributes that consuming commodities will give us. Adverts persuade consumption by claiming certain lifestyles can be attained through the purchase of these commodities.

The age and gender of people used in adverts can also help to persuade one to consume as it targets certain audiences. There is usually an emphasis on youth in advertising and images are used as symbols of cultural communication. This sis mainly used in adverts targeting women but is increasingly being used more often in men’s adverts. Certain looks, hairstyles and body shapes are seen as the most desirable and products then begin to be linked to these ideals through advertising. People will then consume these products in order to achieve these ideals.

Adverts also “use anxiety to sell products by suggesting to consumers the ways in which they may be not only inadequate but potentially endangered or weakened without a particular product” (Sturken and Cartwright: 216). This is the way in which life assurance persuades one to buy. If an anxiety is created within a person they will consume a certain product in order to combat this anxiety.

The influences of advertising can be attributed to recent technological improvements in production and distribution of visual representations. It has even been called a “graphic revolution” by Daniel Boorstin (Dyer: 82). Advertisements encourage great expectations because they have become more dramatic and vivid themselves. Nowadays, reality cannot even match up to the images portrayed in advertising. They are something out of this world and this relates back to consumers being able to escape into a better life than reality by buying certain products.

We live within a massive consumer society where products are continually being adapted and improved for our consumption. In this Capitalist society, adverts are used to promote these products and highlight the “enormous assortment of goods” (Sturken and Cartwright: 2001), that are available. Media influence in this sense can be said to be like a hypodermic needle that “injects a message into the mind of the audience” (Dyer: 76).

Advertisements use very clever imagery to create the ideal representation of a product. This imagery is used to attract a consumer and appeals to our desires.

Adverts depict a general social message in their sales pitch that has the ability to “shape and sometimes change a person’s behaviour, opinions and attitudes” (Dyer: 75). Ultimately, advertisements appeal to our wants and desires and through this persuade us to consume. They appeal to us by selling “concepts of belonging” (Sturken and Cartwright: 218). By consuming certain products, it seems that we can gain a sense of belonging or even a completely new, improved lifestyle.

Bibliography:

Dyer, G. 1982, Advertising as Communication. London: Routledge.

Ramamurthy, A. 1997. ‘Constructions of illusions: Photography and commodity culture’. In Wells, L., (ed.) 1997. Photography: A critical introduction. London: Routledge.

Sturken, M and Cartwright, L. 2001. Practices of Looking; an introduction to visual culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Williamson, J. 1978. Decoding Advertisements. Ideology and Meaning in Advertising . London: Marion Boyars Ltd.