The Oxford dictionary definition of ‘advertise’ is: “To promote (goods or services) publicly to increase sales.” But is it more than that? I think that the meaning of advertising is forever changing, as the consumer becomes more demanding and the producer becomes more ‘devious’ in the ways they promote the product they are trying to sell. Now, I believe that advertising means: trying to sell products to people whether or not they set out to buy them in the first place. I think that advertising often glorifies the product so people are almost ‘tricked’ into buying it, thinking that they are buying much more than they actually are.
Advertising is the most successful way of selling a product, mainly because adverts are found everywhere these days. No-one can escape from the haunting of adverts everywhere – in magazines, papers, trains, even in books – anywhere they can be fitted, so the publisher of the book, for instance, can make as much money as possible for the amount of money going into publishing it. Many papers now make the majority of their profits from the advertising costs they charge the companies to advertise in their paper for.
There are many types of adverts used now, for instance, in magazines aimed at teenagers, adverts will mainly be promoting products such as spot cream, or a new fragrance out from a high-street company, such as ‘Rimmel’ or a stores own brand, such as ‘Boots 17’. However, in a Sunday paper, such as the Sunday Times where there are many different supplements, you might find adverts for travel agents in the Travel sections and adverts for cars in the Magazine section. This means that people reading about things that they want to read about, like cars, will see adverts for cars. It really could change peoples decisions.
My chosen adverts are by Citroen and Alfa Romeo. I think that they both fit into the image of their publication, but the Alfa advert more than the Citroen advert, because the main