Advertising is a tool to lure a consumer into purchasing a product in a very persuasive way. Ads are seen everywhere, on television, magazines, newspapers,and billboards, they are carefully placed in locations where they can be heavily viewed. A lot of thought and effort is put into effective advertising, in fact according to the Advertising and the Idea of Mass Society, "To know consumers, one had to do more than speculate about their psyches or observe them in hardware stores: one had to count them, categorize them by income, neighborhood, ethnicity, and religion." This method of market research is used to effectively determine advertisement techniques.
Advertisers attempt to bring out specific personalities within a person to make a sale. Some people may often feel as though they live differently than the way they would like to. Some people may live alone without a family, and view an advertisement that shows a happy family together for dinner. Advertisers hope that a person will purchase their product to feel closer to their dream.
As I was flipping through the athletic magazine known as "outside." I noticed a very interesting advertisement for a new Adidas cologne. The full page image showed a strong man rock climbing and only a few feet from the top . The climber was up very high with a beautiful view of mountains and trees thousands of feet below. The hard red rock was nearly straight up with very little crevices to grab on to, and the man could easily slip and fall to his death. What made the advertisement complete was the name of the cologne in big letters at the bottom of the page, "DARE, the new fragrance for men."
The methodology of the advertisement has a good approach. The Adidas company knew that most of the readers of this magazine are athletic males who are or wish to be athletic, thus the bold adventurous rock climber in the image maybe a goal of some of the readers. Perhaps a reader has always wanted to go rock climbing or just be adventurous and out of the ordinary. This new Adidas cologne wants the consumer to believe that by purchasing the cologne will inspire them to be more Daring.
Advertisers seek a specific type of person in hope to make the ad more appealing and persuading to the consumer. Advertising companies hope that their ad may inspire a new thought or idea which may lead a person to the purchase the product because,"To know consumers, one had to do more than speculate about their psyches or observe them in hardware stores,"(Advertising and the Idea of Mass Society) and categorize them into certain groups for a specific consumer.
