Advertisement: An Illusion

The Illusion of Advertisements Advertisements are pieces of art or literary work that are meant to make the viewer or reader associate to the activity or product represented on the advertisement. According to Kurtz and Dave (2010), in so doing, they aim at either increasing the demand of the product, to inform the consumer of the existence, or to differentiate that product from other existing one in the market. Therefore, the advertiser's aim should at all times try as much as possible to stay relevant and to the point. The advert alongside is simple and straight to the point. It contains very few details but extremely large content by the choice of words and graphics. At a glance, one can know, without reading the text, what the...show more content...

According to Robert Bly the shadow is a section of our lives that we do not expose to the public. It is that aspect of our life that we struggle with so much that we would not allow even our closest friends to about it. He calls it ―the long bag we drag behind us. This shows that it is a heavy part of our life. He adds that this part of our life is heavy with our actions, thoughts and behaviors that neither our parents nor the community around us would not appreciate or approve. This is also applied in advertisements to hide some information that would otherwise change the mind of the targeted viewer of the advertisement. In the advertisement above, we are not told of the side effects of the change that takes place in 40 days. This is completely hidden from the viewer and the viewer is not able to even imagine of such side effects that come by taking the actions represented on the advertisement. This concept helps the advertisers to lure the viewers with the guise of providing excellent services without flaws yet a "shadow" exists that the viewer is not able to know. Presumably, the only products that the advertisers include their so called shadows are those marked by the government as harmful like alcohol and tobacco. From Bly's point of view, advertisers hide their

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Advertising and Promotion

Advertising is a collective term for public announcements designed to promote the sale of specific commodities or services. Advertising is a form of mass selling, employed when the use of direct, person–to–person selling is impractical, impossible, or simply inefficient. It is to be distinguished from other activities intended to persuade the public, such as propaganda, publicity, and public relations.Advertising techniques range in complexity from the publishing of simple, straightforward notices in the classified–advertising columns of newspapers to the concerted use of newspapers, magazines, television, radio, direct mail, and other communications media in the...show more content...

Г Adverts that compare one product with another.

Г Adverts that use sex to sell the product.

I can use this method of advertising to tell people about my product in such a way that the customers are persuaded to actually buy the product, or change their opinion and behaviour.

Public relations

Public relations is the department that try's to promote the product and show the good side of the company to the public. I can use this form of promotion to bring my name and products to the attention of the public and potential consumers. It's an advantage of creating a good image of my business and this may be done by issuing new stories of events surrounding itself to the press, or by associating my business with an event, such as sporting or celebrity event (rarely used). Other opportunities for Public relations in general include: open days where potential customers are invited into an organisation to see how it operates, in the hose newspapers that are circulated among employees and customers and getting celebrities to endorse a business or product. I will not take this option of having a celebrity to promote my product, as it is very expensive to hire a celebrity and also they wouldn't be even interested to visit my shop because its not a major large organisation, and there are many retail business like mine situated all over the