ABSTRACT
We limit ourselves in this chapter to theorizing about commercial advertising-paid media with a profit motive. The question now becomes: What defines a given communication attempt as an advertisement? Answer: the conjunction of (1) purpose, (2) form, and (3) reception environment constitute an advertisement. A message must have a particular purpose, form, and reception to be considered an advertisement (see Chapter 1). If the message under examination has some other purpose, form, or reception, it is probably some other phenomenon that requires some other theory. As an example of ad purpose, consider the magazine advertisement in Figure 15.1. As with any commercial advertisement, its fundamental purpose is to
predispose a consumer to buy. It may have other, more immediate purposes such as instilling a particular belief about the brand, facilitating recognition of the brand at the point of purchase, associating the brand with positive emotions, and so on, through the whole catalogue of immediate purposes proper to the domain of commercial advertising. These immediate purposes, while numerous, are a finite list. A message that is not part of an effort to predispose the recipient to buy, and does not seek one of the limited number of more immediate goals that can support that ultimate sales goal, is not a commercial advertisement. For this reason, we deny that political advertising and commercial advertising are a single phenomenon explainable by a single theory. Both political and commercial advertising represent communication, and both are persuasion, but, theoretically, they are different. Political advertisements are always distinct in purpose, often distinct in form, and sometimes distinct in reception environment. The typical purpose of a political advertisement is to secure a vote. Voting behavior is much more restricted in range than buying behavior. Voting consists of blackening a circle, punching a card, or clicking on a screen. There is no direct economic cost to voting and no immediate economic benefit. Voting is not the same behavior as buying. In terms of the form of commercial advertisements, note that the ad in Figure 15.1 is short: a single page. In general, every medium that contains ads requires a fresh specification of the forms that distinguish ad content from the remainder of the material that appears in that medium. Billboards have a form that distinguishes them from other roadside signs. Banner ads on the Web have a form that distinguishes them from other content that might appear on a Web page. Nonetheless, some formal properties are reasonably widespread across media, the most notable of which is that ads, regardless of medium, tend to be short. A theory of advertisement is likely a theory of short communications. In terms of reception environment, the fundamental fact about mass media advertisements is that they are secondary. Some other content in the surrounding medium in which the ad is embedded is the primary focus of the consumer who encounters ads there. There are a few important exceptions where advertisements may share primary status: hobby magazines generally, and fashion magazines in particular. Even here, no individual ad is the primary object or goal of the consumer. I may open a magazine to a particular page to read the story trumpeted on the cover, but I will not pick up a magazine hunting for this month’s Tide advertisement. Advertisements are encountered in passing. The consumer does not usually intend to attend to any individual ad. A second, related aspect of advertising reception is dismissal. Consumers are ready to dismiss any ads that do come to their notice. To dismiss is to fail to approach; we say “fail to approach” because “avoid” is too strong and active a
term. In most cases ads aren’t important or consequential enough to require active avoidance; consumers simply do not give an ad any more attention than it obtains by happenstance. Thus, if one is reading an article that begins on the left side of an opened magazine and that article continues following an ad on the right side of the spread, it is difficult to get to the remainder of the article without seeing some part of that intervening ad, but that passing glance is all the consumer can be expected to give. Alternatively, if one is browsing through the magazine, turning it page by page, then an encountered ad may receive a longer glance and some portion of its words may even be read. However, the consumer will feel no obligation to complete the processing of the ad. Dismissal is the prototypical state of advertisement reception. Exceptions to the norm of dismissal can be found. A particularly intrusive broadcast ad may trigger active avoidance, using the remote control or the radio station button. Conversely, when ads share primary focus, as in fashion magazines, the consumer does not dismiss ads per se, but nonetheless does dismiss most individual ads encountered. The baseline is always that individual ads are not chosen. Most ads are passed by, but specific ads may break through dismissal and engage the consumer. A third aspect of the reception environment is distance. The purchase or intermediate action (e.g., store visit) that an advertisement is designed to affect is distant in time and space. When there is no distance, as when “operators are standing by,” or when one peruses online advertising with the goal of immediate purchase, this is a distinct subcategory of advertisement (“direct response”), sufficiently distinct to demand its own theory, which we will not attempt here. We intend only a theory of typical mass media ads, which are secondary, dismissed, distant messages. A fourth aspect of advertising reception is cumulation. Advertisements are one of the few kinds of human messages that are repeated, and repeated again. It would be at least a faux pas if I told my children at dinner the same story tomorrow as today; and if I told it at dinner after telling it at lunch, and did that again the next day, and the next, I would be certifiable. But individual advertisements will be repeated far more often than that, and ad components-a brand logo or a tagline-may be exposed dozens or hundreds of times within the span of a month or two, and thousands of times over a period of a year or more. Cumulation, of course, is the twin to distance; when actions will occur far in the future, messages have to be repeated over and over to make sure they are not forgotten. A fifth aspect of the reception environment is competition. It is extremely unusual in day-to-day human communication to receive two (or three or four) diametrically opposed messages. But the norm in advertising is that no advertisement has the floor to itself; most advertisements are opposed by competitors.
