Summary of Propaganda Techniques in Advertising By "Ann McClintok"

Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising:

According to Ann McClintok, in her article “Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising” she discusses that every day, we are overloaded and seduced by the advertisements we see in newspapers, magazines, TV, etc. The advertisers brainwash us and let their messages get stucked into our subconscious by the repetition and non-stop pop-ups everywhere at anytime. Propaganda is the most commonly used technique in today’s advertising. It is the dissemination of info aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of people. Moreover, propaganda isn’t only concerned with politics, but with the way products are sold in advertising. The average of the forms of propaganda each one faces a day is expected to increase in the future even though it is 500/day.

There Are Several Types of Propaganda Techniques:

The testimonial is the most-loved and most-used. It deals with using celebrity faces and names for an ad of a certain product. This technique works by selling films & books. It can as well be used for political issues. For example:
-Barbra Streisand for Bill Clinton
-Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed George Bush
-Michael Jackson for soft drinks
It is an effective propaganda. If we like the celebrity, we’ll immediately like the product.
Examples in Lebanon:
-for Pepsi : Haifa Wehbe and Elissa (Singers)
-for Vogue sunglasses : Elissa (Singer)
-for Sony Ericsson and Jewelry : Nancy Ajram (Singer)

Plain folks deal mostly with the warm hearted scenes which affect us. It encourages us. As for politicians too, they are photographed usually mingling with citizens in the streets to show us that they are like the rest of the population. This also affects us in a way or another.
Examples in Lebanon:
-Political parties and candidates are photographed with the elections to show how they are involved in the populations.
-Regina Fenianos (Charity person) and the "Miss Lebanon" involvement in charity.
-Sanita advertisement showing the workers during work in the factory
-In some TV talk show, ministers are invited to live for one day with a poor family, just like they live.

Posted by (S.S.)

Advertising (Plain Folks)

In the previous post, we were able to get to know a type of advertising, which was "testimonials." Right now, we're going to deal with another type which is the "plain folks;" one that includes famous personalities acting as if they were just like everyone else, coping with people of lower life standards. Such kinds of ads can be seen including political personalities, or maybe even ones from the world of entertainment (Singers, actors, etc.).

For instance, and in what concerns politics, an advertising campaign once took place in the 1990s in order to encourage people on the consumption of Lebanese products, especially apples. The idea of this campaign was for the Lebanese president to run the country, from village to village, eating one apple from every merchant trying to sell his own products. This campaign, in the publicist's eyes, was a total failure because it didn't really affect the consumers; haters of the president didn't really care if he ate an apple or not. Yet, such an ad shows us how products can sometimes become more demanded when celebrities interfere in advertising them. And what is even more beneficial is when these personalities tend to behave as if they were regular people, allowing us, the audience, to feel more confortable seeing them advertise for things that might matter to us. But of course, a successful ad comes from a well developed concept and a strong team behind it.

And in addition to what has been mentioned above, no one can deny the fact that many famous people were able to attract people's attention by doing charity work all over the world, like adopting children from other countries and helping ill or poor people. An example to that would be Angelina Jolie who has adopted more than one kid, and the Queen of Jordan who never stops doing charity work and is always present among the citizens of her country.

Of course, plain folks don't always work for we can't deny that the personality present in the ad has supporters and opponents. This is why, the agency working on the ad has to find a clever strategy in order to succeed in pleasing both sides, or at least, get done with the campaign with least number of opposers.

Posted by (E.M.)

Advertising (Testimonials)

How many of us get distracted daily by hundreds of billboards posted on the streets, ones advertising a certain product? How many of us see their favorite stars and celebrities posted in such advertisements? In fact, such ads are called testimonials, where we can find famous people posing to introduce a certain product, even if it doesn't relate to them in any way.

After we were asked to bring examples of testimonials found on Billboards on our streets, in Lebanon, and including Lebanese celebrities, our group, Letter Warriors, travelled the highways in order to photograph some of them. Eventually, we were able to photograph only a couple of examples, since some shops didn't let us capture the ones they hung.

One of the photos we got represented Nancy Ajram, a Lebanese female singer, posing in a frame where she wore DAMAS jewelry items. The other example was of Nada Bou Farhat, a Lebanese female actress, being photographed in an ad for an association called KAFA that defends female rights in Lebanon, and the topic was more related to female rights during the elections.

Moreover, our group even decided to get some pictures from magzines. We were able to find many, but decided to post a photo that represented the ad starred by Haifa Wehbe in which she advertised the make-up artist Bassam Fattouh; the man behind her well-known beauty. This ad has also been displayed on a very huge building on the highway.

After analyzing these ads, and many others, our group found out the great importance of testimonials in our life. Such kinds of ads help in attracting people's attention towards a certain product, by seducing them using their favorite celebrity.



Posted by (E.M.)