1. Advertising Strategies Discussion and overview of strategies Small group Activity Share findings with the class

2. Thoughts on advertising Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they dont have for something they dont need. Will Rogers 3. Common Advertising Strategies Advertisers want to sell you stuff and they will stop at nothing to reach their goal! They manipulate us, convince us that we need their products and even lure us into believing the unbelievable. To do this, they use the following strategies 4. Strategy #1 5. Strategy #1: Ideal Kids The kids in commercials are often a little older and a little more perfect than the target audience of the ad. They are, in other words, role models for what the advertiser wants children in the target audience to think they want to be like. A commercial that is targeting eight year- olds, for instance, will show 11 or 12 year- old models playing with an eight year- old's toy. 6. Strategy #2 7. Strategy #2: Family Fun "This is something the whole family can do together!" or "This is something Mom will be glad to buy for you." Many commercials show parents enjoying their children's fun as if the toy or eating at McDonalds will bring more family togetherness. 8. Strategy #3 9. Strategy #3: Heart Strings Commercials often create an emotional ambience that draws you into the advertisement and makes you feel good. The McDonald's commercials featuring father and daughter eating out together, or the AT&T Reach Out and Touch Someone ads are good examples. We are more attracted by products that make us feel good. 10. Strategy #4 11. Strategy #4: Excitement Watch the expressions on children's faces. Never a dull moment, never boring. "This toy is the most fun since fried bananas!" they seem to say. How can your child help thinking the toy's great? 12. Strategy #5 13. Strategy #5: Amazing Toys Many toy commercials show their toys in life-like fashion, doing incredible things. Airplanes do loop-the-loops and cars do wheelies, dolls cry and spring- loaded missiles hit gorillas dead in the chest. This would be fine if the toys really did these things. 14. Strategy #6 15. Strategy #6: Star Power Sports heroes, movie stars, and teenage heart throbs tell our children what to eat and what to wear. Children listen, not realizing that the star is paid a lot of money for the endorsement. 16. Strategy #7 17. Strategy #7: Scale Making a product bigger or smaller by juxtaposing it to another image and thus, changing the scale. 18. Strategy #8 19. Strategy #8: Put downs Put downs are when you put down your competition's product to make your own product seem better. Great examples of that are in the Pepsi or Coca Cola ads 20. Strategy #8: Put downs 21. Strategy #9 22. Strategy #9: Facts and Figures Using facts, testimonies and statistics to enhance your product's credibility. 23. Strategy #10 24. Strategy #10: Repetition Saying the price, a phone number, an address or a key item of information again and again so that consumers will remember it when the time comes. 25. Strategy #11 26. Strategy #11: Sounds Good Music and other sound effects add to the excitement of commercials. Sound can make toys seem more life-like or less life-like, as in a music video. Either way, they help set the mood advertisers want. 27. Strategy #12 28. Strategy #12: Cartoon Characters Tony the Tiger sells cereal and the Nestl Quick Bunny sells chocolate milk. Cartoons like these make kids identify with products. All of these are ways of helping children identify with products either now or for the future. 29. Strategy #13 30. Strategy #13: Weasel Words A promise is implied by using words like "usually, "chances are, contains some, partly, etc. 31. Strategy #14 32. Strategy #14: Omission Facts about the product or about the contents of the ad are not told. 33. Strategy #15 34. Strategy #15: Are you cool enough? This is when advertisers try to convince you that if you don't use their products, you are a nerd, you are not cool. Advertisers can do this by showing people that look uncool before buying their product and then suddenly becoming hip-looking and doing cool things after buying their product. 35. Can you think of more strategies? 36. Strategy #16: Sex Sells Think of all the beer commercials, perfume ads, cigarette ads, etc. Advertisers use sexual inuendos or sexual situations to sell a product which often has nothing to do with sex. 37. Strategy #17: Selective Editing Selective editing is used in all commercials, but especially in commercials for athletic toys like frisbees or footballs. Commercials show only brilliant catches and perfect throws. Unfortunately, that's not the way most children experience these toys. 38. Strategy #18: Gift with Purchase Companies try to convince you to buy your product by offering free extras, a discount or gifts with purchase. 39. Ad Analysis in Teams O In teams of 3 or 4, find an ad using YoutTube. O Identify all of the advertising strategies used in the ad. There is often more than one. O Do you think that the advertising strategies used are effective? Explain. O Be prepared to share your findings with the class 40. Ad Analysis in Teams *This activity will serve as a preparation for an individual ad analysis that you will have to complete so be sure to be thorough and thoughtful in your findings!