TYPES OF ADVERTISING

Advertising is the promotion of a company’s products and services carried out

primarily to drive sales of the products and services but also to build a brand identity
and communicate changes or new product /services to the customers. Advertising has
become an essential element of the corporate world and hence the companies allot a
considerable amount of revenues as their advertising budget. There are several
reasons for advertising some of which are as follows:

 Increasing the sales of the product/service

 Creating and maintaining a brand identity or brand image.
 Communicating a change in the existing product line.
 Introduction of a new product or service.
 Increasing the buzz-value of the brand or the company.

Thus, several reasons for advertising and similarly there exist various media which
can be effectively used for advertising. Based on these criteria there can be several
branches of advertising. Mentioned below are the various categories or types of
advertising:

Print Advertising – Newspapers, Magazines, Brochures, Fliers

The print media have always been a popular advertising medium. Advertising
products via newspapers or magazines is a common practice. In addition to this, the
print media also offers options like promotional brochures and fliers for advertising
purposes. Often the newspapers and the magazines sell the advertising space
according to the area occupied by the advertisement, the position of the advertisement
(front page/middle page), as well as the readership of the publications. For instance an
advertisement in a relatively new and less popular newspaper would cost far less than
placing an advertisement in a popular newspaper with a high readership. The price of
print ads also depend on the supplement in which they appear, for example an
advertisement in the glossy supplement costs way higher than that in the newspaper
supplement which uses a mediocre quality paper.
Outdoor Advertising – Billboards, Kiosks, Tradeshows and Events

Outdoor advertising is also a very popular form of advertising, which makes use of
several tools and techniques to attract the customers outdoors. The most common
examples of outdoor advertising are billboards, kiosks, and also several events and
tradeshows organized by the company. The billboard advertising is very popular
however has to be really terse and catchy in order to grab the attention of the passers
by. The kiosks not only provide an easy outlet for the company products but also
make for an effective advertising tool to promote the company’s products. Organizing
several events or sponsoring them makes for an excellent advertising opportunity. The
company can organize trade fairs, or even exhibitions for advertising their products. If
not this, the company can organize several events that are closely associated with their
field. For instance a company that manufactures sports utilities can sponsor a sports
tournament to advertise its products.

Broadcast advertising – Television, Radio and the Internet

Broadcast advertising is a very popular advertising medium that constitutes of several

branches like television, radio or the Internet. Television advertisements have been
very popular ever since they have been introduced. The cost of television advertising
often depends on the duration of the advertisement, the time of broadcast (prime
time/peak time), and of course the popularity of the television channel on which the
advertisement is going to be broadcasted. The radio might have lost its charm owing
to the new age media however the radio remains to be the choice of small-scale
advertisers. The radio jingles have been very popular advertising media and have a
large impact on the audience, which is evident in the fact that many people still
remember and enjoy the popular radio jingles.
Covert Advertising – Advertising in Movies

Covert advertising is a unique kind of advertising in which a product or a particular

brand is incorporated in some entertainment and media channels like movies,
television shows or even sports. There is no commercial in the entertainment but the
brand or the product is subtly( or sometimes evidently) showcased in the
entertainment show. Some of the famous examples for this sort of advertising have to
be the appearance of brand Nokia which is displayed on Tom Cruise’s phone in the
movie Minority Report, or the use of Cadillac cars in the movie Matrix Reloaded.

Surrogate Advertising – Advertising Indirectly

Surrogate advertising is prominently seen in cases where advertising a particular

product is banned by law. Advertisement for products like cigarettes or alcohol which
are injurious to heath are prohibited by law in several countries and hence these
companies have to come up with several other products that might have the same
brand name and indirectly remind people of the cigarettes or beer bottles of the same
brand. Common examples include Fosters and Kingfisher beer brands, which are
often seen to promote their brand with the help of surrogate advertising.

Public Service Advertising – Advertising for Social Causes

Public service advertising is a technique that makes use of advertising as an effective

communication medium to convey socially relevant messaged about important
matters and social welfare causes like AIDS, energy conservation, political integrity,
deforestation, illiteracy, poverty and so on .Oglivy once said, "Advertising justifies its
existence when used in the public interest - it is much too powerful a tool to use solely
for commercial purposes.". Today public service advertising has been increasingly
used in a non-commercial fashion in several countries across the world in order to
promote various social causes.
Priyanka Chopra is riding high these days with back-to-back successes and
endorsements and inaugurations and everything else under the sun. However, the
actress makes it a point to keep her feet grounded and do her bit for the society. She
participated in “SAVE CHILDREN” campaign.
Celebrity Advertising

Although the audience is getting smarter and smarter and the modern day consumer
getting immune to the exaggerated claims made in a majority of advertisements, there
exist a section of advertisers that still bank upon celebrities and their popularity for
advertising their products. Using celebrities for advertising involves signing up
celebrities for advertising campaigns, which consist of all sorts of advertising
including, television ads or even print advertisements.
Media and Advertising Approaches

Increasingly, other media are overtaking many of the "traditional" media such as
television, radio and newspaper because of a shift toward consumer's usage of the
Internet for news and music as well as devices like digital video recorders (DVR's)
such as TiVo.

Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based

advertising space are dependent on the "relevance" of the surrounding web content
and the traffic that the website receives.
Digital signage is poised to become a major mass media because of its ability to reach
larger audiences for less money. Digital signage also offer the unique ability to see the
target audience where they are reached by the medium. Technology advances has also
made it possible to control the message on digital signage with much precision,
enabling the messages to be relevant to the target audience at any given time and
location which in turn, gets more response from the advertising. Digital signage is
being successfully employed in supermarkets. Another successful use of digital
signage is in hospitality locations such as restaurants and malls.

E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising

is known as "spam". Spam has been a problem for email users for many years. But
more efficient filters are now available making it relatively easy to control what email
you get.

Some companies have proposed placing messages or corporate logos on the side of
booster rockets and the International Space Station. Controversy exists on the
effectiveness of subliminal advertising (see mind control), and the pervasiveness of
mass messages (see propaganda).

Unpaid advertising (also called "publicity advertising"), can provide good exposure at
minimal cost. Personal recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it"), spreading buzz,
or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun (in the United States,
"Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex" = tissue, "Vaseline" = petroleum jelly, "Hoover"
= vacuum cleaner, "Nintendo" (often used by those exposed to many video games) =
video games, and "Band-Aid" = adhesive bandage) — these can be seen as the
pinnacle of any advertising campaign. However, some companies oppose the use of
their brand name to label an object. Equating a brand with a common noun also risks
turning that brand into a genericized trademark - turning it into a generic term which
means that its legal protection as a trademark is lost.

As the mobile phone became a new mass media in 1998 when the first paid
downloadable content appeared on mobile phones in Finland, it was only a matter of
time until mobile advertising followed, also first launched in Finland in 2000. By
2007 the value of mobile advertising had reached $2.2 billion and providers such as
Admob delivered billions of mobile ads.
More advanced mobile ads include banner ads, coupons, Multimedia Messaging
Service picture and video messages, advergames and various engagement marketing
campaigns. A particular feature driving mobile ads is the 2D Barcode, which replaces
the need to do any typing of web addresses, and uses the camera feature of modern
phones to gain immediate access to web content. 83 percent of Japanese mobile phone
users already are active users of 2D barcodes.

A new form of advertising that is growing rapidly is social network advertising. It is

online advertising with a focus on social networking sites. This is a relatively
immature market, but it has shown a lot of promise as advertisers are able to take
advantage of the demographic information the user has provided to the social
networking site. Friendertising is a more precise advertising term in which people are
able to direct advertisements toward others directly using social network service.

From time to time, The CW Television Network airs short programming breaks called
"Content Wraps," to advertise one company's product during an entire commercial
break. The CW pioneered "content wraps" and some products featured were Herbal
Essences, Crest, Guitar Hero II, CoverGirl, and recently Toyota.

Recently, there appeared a new promotion concept, "ARvertising"; its supported on

Augmented Reality technology.
Criticism of Advertising

While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth, it is not without
social costs. Unsolicited Commercial Email and other forms of spam have become so
prevalent as to have become a major nuisance to users of these services, as well as
being a financial burden on internet service providers. Advertising is increasingly
invading public spaces, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child
exploitation. In addition, advertising frequently uses psychological pressure (for
example, appealing to feelings of inadequacy) on the intended consumer, which may
be harmful.

Advertising and constitutional rights

Advertising is equated with constitutionally guaranteed freedom of opinion and

speech. Therefore criticizing advertising or any attempt to restrict or ban advertising
is almost always considered to be an attack on fundamental rights (First Amendment
in the USA) and meets the combined and concentrated resistance of the business and
especially the advertising community. “Currently or in the near future, any number of
cases are and will be working their way through the court system that would seek to
prohibit any government regulation of ... commercial speech (e. g. advertising or food
labelling) on the grounds that such regulation would violate citizens’ and
corporations’ First Amendment rights to free speech or free press.” An example for
this debate is advertising for tobacco or alcohol but also advertising by mail or fliers
(clogged mail boxes), advertising on the phone, in the internet and advertising for
children. Various legal restrictions concerning spamming, advertising on mobile
phones, addressing children, tobacco, alcohol have been introduced by the US, the EU
and various other countries. Not only the business community resists restrictions of
advertising. Advertising as a means of free expression has firmly established itself in
western society. McChesney argues, that the government deserves constant vigilance
when it comes to such regulations, but that it is certainly not “the only antidemocratic
force in our society. ...corporations and the wealthy enjoy a power every bit as
immense as that enjoyed by the lords and royalty of feudal times” and “markets are
not value-free or neutral; they not only tend to work to the advantage of those with the
most money, but they also by their very nature emphasize profit over all
else….Hence, today the debate is over whether advertising or food labelling, or
campaign contributions are speech...if the rights to be protected by the First
Amendment can only be effectively employed by a fraction of the citizenry, and their
exercise of these rights gives them undue political power and undermines the ability
of the balance of the citizenry to exercise the same rights and/or constitutional rights,
then it is not necessarily legitimately protected by the First Amendment.” In addition,
“those with the capacity to engage in free press are in a position to determine who can
speak to the great mass of citizens and who cannot”. Critics in turn argue, that
advertising invades privacy which is a constitutional right. For, on the one hand,
advertising physically invades privacy, on the other, it increasingly uses relevant,
information-based communication with private data assembled without the knowledge
or consent of consumers or target groups.

For Georg Franck at Vienna University of Technology advertising is part of what he

calls “mental capitalism”, taking up a term (mental) which has been used by groups
concerned with the mental environment, such as Adbusters. Franck blends the
“Economy of Attention” with Christopher Lasch’s culture of narcissm into the mental
capitalism: In his essay „Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse“, Sut Jhally
writes: “20. century advertising is the most powerful and sustained system of
propaganda in human history and its cumulative cultural effects, unless quickly
checked, will be responsible for destroying the world as we know it.

The Price of Attention and Hidden Costs

Advertising has developed into a billion-dollar business on which many depend. In

2006 391 billion US dollars were spent worldwide for advertising. In Germany, for
example, the advertising industry contributes 1.5% of the gross national income; the
figures for other developed countries are similar. Thus, advertising and growth are
directly and causally linked. As far as a growth based economy can be blamed for the
harmful human lifestyle (affluent society) advertising has to be considered in this
aspect concerning its negative impact, because its main purpose is to raise
consumption. “The industry is accused of being one of the engines powering a
convoluted economic mass production system which promotes consumption.”

Attention and attentiveness have become a new commodity for which a market
developed. “The amount of attention that is absorbed by the media and redistributed
in the competition for quotas and reach is not identical with the amount of attention,
that is available in society. The total amount circulating in society is made up of the
attention exchanged among the people themselves and the attention given to media
information. Only the latter is homogenised by quantitative measuring and only the
latter takes on the character of an anonymous currency.”According to Franck, any
surface of presentation that can guarantee a certain degree of attentiveness works as
magnet for attention, e. g. media which are actually meant for information and
entertainment, culture and the arts, public space etc. It is this attraction which is sold
to the advertising business. The German Advertising Association stated that in 2007
30.78 billion Euros were spent on advertising in Germany, 26% in newspapers, 21%
on television, 15% by mail and 15% in magazines. In 2002 there were 360.000 people
employed in the advertising business. The internet revenues for advertising doubled to
almost 1 billion Euros from 2006 to 2007, giving it the highest growth rates.

Spiegel-Online reported that in the USA in 2008 for the first time more money was
spent for advertising on internet (105.3 billion US dollars) than on television (98.5
billion US dollars). The largest amount in 2008 was still spent in the print media (147
billion US dollars). For that same year, Welt-Online reported that the US
pharmaceutical industry spent almost double the amount on advertising (57.7 billion
dollars) than it did on research (31.5 billion dollars). But Marc-André Gagnon und
Joel Lexchin of York University, Toronto, estimate that the actual expenses for
advertising are higher yet, because not all entries are recorded by the research
institutions. Not included are indirect advertising campaigns such as sales, rebates and
price reductions. Few consumers are aware of the fact that they are the ones paying
for every cent spent for public relations, advertisements, rebates, packaging etc. since
they ordinarily get included in the price calculation.

Influencing and Conditioning

Advertising for McDonald's on the Via di Propaganda, Rome, Italy

The most important element of advertising is not information but suggestion more or
less making use of associations, emotions (appeal to emotion) and drives dormant in
the sub-conscience of people, such as sex drive, herd instinct, of desires, such as
happiness, health, fitness, appearance, self-esteem, reputation, belonging, social
status, identity, adventure, distraction, reward, of fears (appeal to fear), such as
illness, weaknesses, loneliness, need, uncertainty, security or of prejudices, learned
opinions and comforts. “All human needs, relationships, and fears – the deepest
recesses of the human psyche – become mere means for the expansion of the
commodity universe under the force of modern marketing. With the rise to
prominence of modern marketing, commercialism – the translation of human relations
into commodity relations – although a phenomenon intrinsic to capitalism, has
expanded exponentially.”Cause-related marketing’ in which advertisers link their
product to some worthy social cause has boomed over the past decade.

Advertising exploits the model role of celebrities or popular figures and makes
deliberate use of humour as well as of associations with colour, tunes, certain names
and terms. Altogether, these are factors of how one perceives himself and one’s self-
worth. In his description of ‘mental capitalism’ Franck says, “the promise of
consumption making someone irresistible is the ideal way of objects and symbols into
a person’s subjective experience. Evidently, in a society in which revenue of attention
moves to the fore, consumption is drawn by one’s self-esteem. As a result,
consumption becomes ‘work’ on a person’s attraction. From the subjective point of
view, this ‘work’ opens fields of unexpected dimensions for advertising. Advertising
takes on the role of a life councillor in matters of attraction. (…) The cult around
one’s own attraction is what Christopher Lasch described as ‘Culture of
Narcissism’.”For advertising critics another serious problem is that “the long standing
notion of separation between advertising and editorial/creative sides of media is
rapidly crumbling” and advertising is increasingly hard to tell apart from news,
information or entertainment. The boundaries between advertising and programming
are becoming blurred. According to the media firms all this commercial involvement
has no influence over actual media content, but, as McChesney puts it, “this claim
fails to pass even the most basic giggle test, it is so preposterous.”

Advertising draws “heavily on psychological theories about how to create subjects,

enabling advertising and marketing to take on a ‘more clearly psychological tinge’
(Miller and Rose, 1997, cited in Thrift, 1999, p. 67). Increasingly, the emphasis in
advertising has switched from providing ‘factual’ information to the symbolic
connotations of commodities, since the crucial cultural premise of advertising is that
the material object being sold is never in itself enough. Even those commodities
providing for the most mundane necessities of daily life must be imbued with
symbolic qualities and culturally endowed meanings via the ‘magic system (Williams,
1980) of advertising. In this way and by altering the context in which advertisements
appear, things ‘can be made to mean "just about anything"’ (McFall, 2002, p. 162)
and the ‘same’ things can be endowed with different intended meanings for different
individuals and groups of people, thereby offering mass produced visions of
individualism.”

Before advertising is done, market research institutions need to know and describe the
target group to exactly plan and implement the advertising campaign and to achieve
the best possible results. A whole array of sciences directly deal with advertising and
marketing or is used to improve its effects. Focus groups, psychologists and cultural
anthropologists are ‘’’de rigueur’’’ in marketing research”. Vast amounts of data on
persons and their shopping habits are collected, accumulated, aggregated and analysed
with the aid of credit cards, bonus cards, raffles and, last but not least, internet
surveying. With increasing accuracy this supplies a picture of behaviour, wishes and
weaknesses of certain sections of a population with which advertisement can be
employed more selectively and effectively. The efficiency of advertising is improved
through advertising research. Universities, of course supported by business and in co-
operation with other disciplines (s. above), mainly Psychiatry, Anthropology,
Neurology and behavioural sciences, are constantly in search for ever more refined,
sophisticated, subtle and crafty methods to make advertising more effective.
“Neuromarketing is a controversial new field of marketing which uses medical
technologies such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) -- not to heal,
but to sell products. Advertising and marketing firms have long used the insights and
research methods of psychology in order to sell products, of course. But today these
practices are reaching epidemic levels, and with a complicity on the part of the
psychological profession that exceeds that of the past. The result is an enormous
advertising and marketing onslaught that comprises, arguably, the largest single
psychological project ever undertaken. Yet, this great undertaking remains largely
ignored by the American Psychological Association.” Robert McChesney calls it "the
greatest concerted attempt at psychological manipulation in all of human history."

The Commercialisation of Culture and Sports

Performances, exhibitions, shows, concerts, conventions and most other events can
hardly take place without sponsoring. The increasing lack arts and culture they buy
the service of attraction. Artists are graded and paid according to their art’s value for
commercial purposes. Corporations promote renown artists, therefore getting
exclusive rights in global advertising campaigns. Broadway shows, like ‘La Bohème’
featured commercial props in its set.

Advertising itself is extensively considered to be a contribution to culture. Advertising

is integrated into fashion. On many pieces of clothing the company logo is the only
design or is an important part of it. There is only little room left outside the
consumption economy, in which culture and art can develop independently and where
alternative values can be expressed. A last important sphere, the universities, is under
strong pressure to open up for business and its interests.

Inflatable billboard in front of a sports stadium

Competitive sports have become unthinkable without sponsoring and there is a mutual
dependency. High income with advertising is only possible with a comparable number
of spectators or viewers. On the other hand, the poor performance of a team or a
sportsman results in less advertising revenues. Jürgen Hüther and Hans-Jörg Stiehler
talk about a ‘Sports/Media Complex which is a complicated mix of media, agencies,
managers, sports promoters, advertising etc. with partially common and partially
diverging interests but in any case with common commercial interests. The media
presumably is at centre stage because it can supply the other parties involved with a
rare commodity, namely (potential) public attention. In sports “the media are able to
generate enormous sales in both circulation and advertising.”

“Sports sponsorship is acknowledged by the tobacco industry to be valuable

advertising. A Tobacco Industry journal in 1994 described the Formula One car as
‘The most powerful advertising space in the world’. …. In a cohort study carried out
in 22 secondary schools in England in 1994 and 1995 boys whose favourite television
sport was motor racing had a 12.8% risk of becoming regular smokers compared to
7.0% of boys who did not follow motor racing.”

Not the sale of tickets but transmission rights, sponsoring and merchandising in the
meantime make up the largest part of sports association’s and sports club’s revenues
with the IOC (International Olympic Committee) taking the lead. The influence of the
media brought many changes in sports including the admittance of new ‘trend sports’
into the Olympic Games, the alteration of competition distances, changes of rules,
animation of spectators, changes of sports facilities, the cult of sports heroes who
quickly establish themselves in the advertising and entertaining business because of
their media value and last but not least, the naming and renaming of sport stadiums
after big companies. “In sports adjustment into the logic of the media can contribute
to the erosion of values such as equal chances or fairness, to excessive demands on
athletes through public pressure and multiple exploitation or to deceit (doping,
manipulation of results …). It is in the very interest of the media and sports to counter
this danger because media sports can only work as long as sport exists.

Occupation and Commercialisation of Public Space

Every visually perceptible place has potential for advertising. Especially urban areas
with their structures but also landscapes in sight of through fares are more and more
turning into media for advertisements. Signs, posters, billboards, flags have become
decisive factors in the urban appearance and their numbers are still on the increase.
“Outdoor advertising has become unavoidable. Traditional billboards and transit
shelters have cleared the way for more pervasive methods such as wrapped vehicles,
sides of buildings, electronic signs, kiosks, taxis, posters, sides of buses, and more.
Digital technologies are used on buildings to sport ‘urban wall displays’. In urban
areas commercial content is placed in our sight and into our consciousness every
moment we are in public space. The German Newspaper ‘Zeit’ called it a new kind of
‘dictatorship that one cannot escape’. Over time, this domination of the surroundings
has become the “natural” state. Through long-term commercial saturation, it has
become implicitly understood by the public that advertising has the right to own,
occupy and control every inch of available space. The steady normalization of
invasive advertising dulls the public’s perception of their surroundings, re-enforcing a
general attitude of powerlessness toward creativity and change, thus a cycle develops
enabling advertisers to slowly and consistently increase the saturation of advertising
with little or no public outcry.”

The massive optical orientation toward advertising changes the function of public
spaces which are utilised by brands. Urban landmarks are turned into trademarks. The
highest pressure is exerted on renown and highly frequented public spaces which are
also important for the identity of a city (e. g. Piccadilly Circus, Times Square,
Alexanderplatz). Urban spaces are public commodities and in this capacity they are
subject to “aesthetical environment protection”, mainly through building regulations,
heritage protection and landscape protection. “It is in this capacity that these spaces
are now being privatised. They are peppered with billboards and signs, they are
remodelled into media for advertising.”

Socio-cultural aspects: Sexism, Discrimination and Stereotyping

“Advertising has an “agenda setting function” which is the ability, with huge sums of
money, to put consumption as the only item on the agenda. In the battle for a share of
the public conscience this amounts to non-treatment (ignorance) of whatever is not
commercial and whatever is not advertised for. Advertising should be reflection of
society norms and give clear picture of target market. Spheres without commerce and
advertising serving the muses and relaxation remain without respect. With increasing
force advertising makes itself comfortable in the private sphere so that the voice of
commerce becomes the dominant way of expression in society.” Advertising critics
see advertising as the leading light in our culture. Sut Jhally and James Twitchell go
beyond considering advertising as kind of religion and that advertising even replaces
religion as a key institution. "Corporate advertising (or is it commercial media?) is the
largest single psychological project ever undertaken by the human race. Yet for all of
that, its impact on us remains unknown and largely ignored. When I think of the
media’s influence over years, over decades, I think of those brainwashing experiments
conducted by Dr. Ewen Cameron in a Montreal psychiatric hospital in the 1950s (see
MKULTRA). The idea of the CIA-sponsored "depatterning" experiments was to
outfit conscious, unconscious or semiconscious subjects with headphones, and flood
their brains with thousands of repetitive "driving" messages that would alter their
behaviour over time….Advertising aims to do the same thing." Advertising is
especially aimed at young people and children and it increasingly reduces young
people to consumers. For Sut Jhally it is not “surprising that something this central
and with so much being expended on it should become an important presence in
social life. Indeed, commercial interests intent on maximizing the consumption of the
immense collection of commodities have colonized more and more of the spaces of
our culture. For instance, almost the entire media system (television and print) has
been developed as a delivery system for marketers its prime function is to produce
audiences for sale to advertisers. Both the advertisements it carries, as well as the
editorial matter that acts as a support for it, celebrate the consumer society. The movie
system, at one time outside the direct influence of the broader marketing system, is
now fully integrated into it through the strategies of licensing, tie-ins and product
placements. The prime function of many Hollywood films today is to aid in the
selling of the immense collection of commodities. As public funds are drained from
the non-commercial cultural sector, art galleries, museums and symphonies bid for
corporate sponsorship.’’ In the same way effected is the education system and
advertising is increasingly penetrating schools and universities. Cities, such as New
York, accept sponsors for public playgrounds. “Even the pope has been
commercialized … The pope’s 4-day visit to Mexico in …1999 was sponsored by
Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. The industry is accused of being one of the engines powering
a convoluted economic mass production system which promotes consumption. As far
as social effects are concerned it does not matter whether advertising fuels
consumption but which values, patterns of behaviour and assignments of meaning it
propagates. Advertising is accused of hijacking the language and means of pop
culture, of protest movements and even of subversive criticism and does not shy away
from scandalizing and breaking taboos (e. g. Benneton). This in turn incites counter
action, what Kalle Lasn in 2001 called ‘’Jamming the Jam of the Jammers’’.
Anything goes. “It is a central social-scientific question what people can be made to
do by suitable design of conditions and of great practical importance. For example,
from a great number of experimental psychological experiments it can be assumed,
that people can be made to do anything they are capable of, when the according social
condition can be created.”

Advertising often uses stereotype gender specific roles of men and women reinforcing
existing clichés and it has been criticized as “inadvertently or even intentionally
promoting sexism, racism, and ageism… At very least, advertising often reinforces
stereotypes by drawing on recognizable "types" in order to tell stories in a single
image or 30 second time frame.” Activities are depicted as typical male or female
(stereotyping). In addition people are reduced to their sexuality or equated with
commodities and gender specific qualities are exaggerated. Sexualized female bodies,
but increasingly also males, serve as eye-catchers. In advertising it is usually a woman
being depicted as

 servants of men and children that react to the demands and complaints of their
loved ones with a bad conscience and the promise for immediate improvement
(wash, food)
 a sexual or emotional play toy for the self-affirmation of men
 a technically totally clueless being that can only manage a childproof operation
 female expert, but stereotype from the fields of fashion, cosmetics, food or at the
most, medicine
 as ultra thin, slim, and very skinny.
 doing ground-work for others, e. g. serving coffee while a journalist interviews a
politician.

A large portion of advertising deals with promotion of products that pertain to the
"ideal body image." This is mainly targeted toward women, and, in the past, this type
of advertising was aimed nearly exclusively at women. Women in advertisements are
generally portrayed as good-looking women who are in good health. This, however, is
not the case of the average woman. Consequently, they give a negative message of
body image to the average woman. Because of the media, girls and women who are
overweight, and otherwise "normal" feel almost obligated to take care of themselves
and stay fit. They feel under high pressure to maintain an acceptable bodyweight and
take care of their health. Consequences of this are low self-esteem,eating disorders,
self mutilations, and beauty operations for those women that just cannot bring
themselves eat right or get the motivation to go to the gym. The EU parliament passed
a resolution in 2008 that advertising may not be discriminating and degrading. This
shows that politicians are increasingly concerned about the negative impacts of
advertising. However, the benefits of promoting overall health and fitness are often
overlooked.

Children and Adolescents as Target Groups

The children’s market, where resistance to advertising is weakest, is the “pioneer for
ad creep”. “Kids are among the most sophisticated observers of ads. They can sing the
jingles and identify the logos, and they often have strong feelings about products.
What they generally don't understand, however, are the issues that underlie how
advertising works. Mass media are used not only to sell goods but also ideas: how we
should behave, what rules are important, who we should respect and what we should
value.” Youth is increasingly reduced to the role of a consumer. Not only the makers
of toys, sweets, ice cream, breakfast food and sport articles prefer to aim their
promotion at children and adolescents. For example, an ad for a breakfast cereal on a
channel aimed at adults will have music that is a soft ballad, whereas on a channel
aimed at children, the same ad will use a catchy rock jingle of the same song to aim at
kids. Advertising for other products preferably uses media with which they can also
reach the next generation of consumers. “Key advertising messages exploit the
emerging independence of young people”. Cigarettes, for example, “are used as a
fashion accessory and appeal to young women. Other influences on young people
include the linking of sporting heroes and smoking through sports sponsorship, the
use of cigarettes by popular characters in television programmes and cigarette
promotions. Research suggests that young people are aware of the most heavily
advertised cigarette brands.”

“Product placements show up everywhere, and children aren't exempt. Far from it.
The animated film, Foodfight, had ‘thousands of products and character icons from
the familiar (items) in a grocery store.’ Children's books also feature branded items
and characters, and millions of them have snack foods as lead characters.“ Business is
interested in children and adolescents because of their buying power and because of
their influence on the shopping habits of their parents. As they are easier to influence
they are especially targeted by the advertising business. “The marketing industry is
facing increased pressure over claimed links between exposure to food advertising
and a range of social problems, especially growing obesity levels.” In 2001, children’s
programming accounted for over 20% of all U.S. television watching. The global
market for children’s licensed products was some 132 billion U.S. dollars in 2002.
Advertisers target children because, e. g. in Canada, they “represent three distinct
markets:

1. Primary Purchasers ($2.9 billion annually)

2. Future Consumers (Brand-loyal adults)
3. Purchase Influencers ($20 billion annually)

Kids will carry forward brand expectations, whether positive, negative or indifferent
Kids are already accustomed to being catered to as consumers. The long term prize:
Loyalty of the kid translates into a brand loyal adult customer”

The average Canadian child sees 350,000 TV commercials before graduating from
high school, spends nearly as much time watching TV as attending classes. In 1980
the Canadian province of Québec banned advertising for children under age 13. “In
upholding the consititutional validity of the Quebec Consumer Protection Act
restrictions on advertising to children under age 13 (in the case of a challenge by a toy
company) the Court held: ‘...advertising directed at young children is per se
manipulative. Such advertising aims to promote products by convincing those who
will always believe.’’ Norway (ads directed at children under age 12), and Sweden
(television ads aimed at children under age 12) also have legislated broad bans on
advertising to children, during child programmes any kind of advertising is forbidden
in Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Flemish Belgium. In Greece there is no advertising
for kids products from 7 to 22 h. An attempt to restrict advertising directed at children
in the USA failed with reference to the First Amendment. In Spain bans are also
considered undemocratic.