What is Advertising?

And what would disqualify something from being considered true advertising?

Advertising is a form of communication that is comprised of the moral components of persuasion as well as artistic and creative messaging.

It is unique as compared to other forms of communication such as journalism due to it being creative in nature. Also, relating advertising to entertainment because it can choose to include truthful information.

Advertisements utilize persuasive tactics to convince individuals to either buy products, alter their behavior, change their beliefs or contribute to the advertiser’s cause. When persuading consumers, advertisers must comply with regulations that are set in place by the government (FTC). According to the Federal Trade Commission, “advertisements must be truthful, cannot be deceptive or unfair, and [all claims] must be evidence-based” (FTC). This component separates advertising from other forms of communication such as entertainment, which has no obligation to contain any truthful or factual material in its content (FTC). Entertainment’s sole purpose is to capture the audience’s attention while advertising seeks to increase their audience’s desire for their product or philosophy. Another rule of advertising is to show, not tell, “the more you try to tell people something, the less effective you will be” and people “have come to be suspicious of claims that lack concrete support” (Filak 235-236). Showing is also beneficial to humans since we have a bias towards demonstrated behavior and will be more susceptible to an advertisement when seeing the product in action (American Research Group). The inclusion of visual and story-like content connects the communication styles of advertising to entertainment. For example, an advertisement for a non-stick frying pan may include staged footage of an individual struggling to clean food residue from a standard frying pan. This situation is not real but is used to demonstrate the need for the advertiser’s product. Entertainment media such as the show “Friends” utilizes a plausible yet made up story of 6, young and attractive friends living in Manhattan for the purpose of capturing the audience’s attention, not to share a factual story.

Advertising content permits the use of creative contexts with the delivery of a factual message.

For example, when airing a commercial for a tissue that is designed to be extra soft to prevent your nose from drying up when using it. It is acceptable to include people that are upset in the commercial because their noses are dry and irritated from “other tissue brands”. This is only acceptable as long as the extra soft tissue company is not making any direct false claims about their products capabilities or another company’s product capabilities. By saying “other tissue brands” instead of calling out another company by name, the extra soft tissue company is not making any claim that can be proven as false information. They are instead implying that their product is superior and leaving the direct message up for interpretation by the audience. This creative license distinguishes advertisement communication from other areas such as journalistic communication which relies completely on factual information and does not allow for the use of hyperbole. Everyone tries to “sell things as ‘the biggest’ or ‘the most amazing’” with their miracle claims, but what people “tend to want is to see how something works and understand why it will benefit them” (Filak 236).

Though advertising, entertainment and journalism all share many similarities. Advertising is the most complicated as it relies on changing the attitudes of individuals and them acting on their change in attitude in order to be successful. Journalism does not need to change attitudes to inform, and entertainment writing does not need to change any attitudes to captivate either. Advertising is complex due to the need for it to be targeted and strategic in order to accomplish its goal.