Advertising Effectiveness in the Twentieth Century Essay

Introduction

Advertisement media offers a wide range of communication tools that ride on the social dimension of client experience. The communicative power of the advertisement media has essentially replaced much of the traditional tools particularly in the world of traditional communication such as word of mouth during the 20^th century.

In order to increase credibility and maintain professionalism, the advertisement media channels often encompass processes and features that flawlessly facilitate healthy and lifetime relationships between an organization and its clients. This analytical treatise will examine effectiveness of advertising in the twentieth century as part of the American media development history. Specifically, the treatise will present the argument that advertising was very effective during the twentieth century in the US.

Advertising in the twentieth century within the US

Twentieth century was the period between the year 1901 and the year 2000. The main forms of advertisement media during this period included the traditional print media, television, and later social media¹. Advertisers in the US used these modes to pass information on products and services to the clients, in the most effective ways within the dynamics of the society.

Effectiveness of the 20^th century advertising

According to behavioral psychologists, behaviors and attitudes can be changed through conditioning. Repetition of an act followed by either punishment or rewards leads to behavioral changes. This indicates how the media can, and has been used to reinforce consumer behaviors. Imitation of authority figures form the basis on which most of the behaviors develop. Moreover, socialization process forms the basis through which learning takes place among members of a community.

With the increase in globalization and emergence of a global village, print media took the front seat in directing the product acceptance in the 20^th century². This is because of the aspect of validity, that is associated with written materials, can be easily assimilated in the written information template to fulfill the intended purpose as was created by the advertisers in the US.

When choosing the approach to promoting a product, care should be taken to ensure that the ideal approach, that will best communicate the intended message to the target population, is adopted.

The characteristic of each approach, together with their benefits and drawbacks, should be investigated in order to ensure that the best alternative is chosen within the choices available in the particular environment.

Since written media is intrinsic of the behavior persuasion notes, it formed the focal point of decode-encode relationship between the Americans and the advertisement messages. Print media advertisements were very manipulative and used tactics that directly and involuntarily appeal to the mind of the targeted Americans during the 20^th century³.

Despite ignorance of the same and disbelief in their effects, print media advertisements remain complex and significant in choice of products owned by an individual. In fact, despite the internet invasion, print media has managed to survive due to trust it earned in the US during the 20^th century. Usually, print media advertisements appeal to memory or emotional response. As a result, it created an intrinsic motivation response that triggered the minds to activate affiliation, self acceptance, and feign community feeling.

In the end, the advertisements in the 20^th century succeed in appealing to emotions through capitalization on biases and prejudices of people. For instance, the introduction of classified ad section in newspapers did not only increase the visibility of different products, but also created a cult like following for such products. The sex, cigarettes, and soap companies were among the major beneficiaries of print media advertisement in the 20^th century⁴.

Reflectively, the successes of advertisement messages are deeply entrenched in the principle of keeping reliable and professional reputation in exchanging ideas and convincing customers. Through timely appeal to emotions and self prejudice, the development of television and radio advertisements during the 20^th century was very effective in convincing many Americans to embrace different products.

Television and radio advertisements were very effective in convincing the targeted clients to embrace the ‘perceived goodness’ and identify with ‘the ideal’ through the well thought messages. Interestingly, these aspects were clearly painted as perfect in the various advertisements about products and services through use of bright and powerful visual and audio communication themes that appealed to the developing market in the US⁵.

Perception of the mind is often ignited through series of propaganda initiatives aimed at awakening involuntary desire to posses or associate with a product or service. Advertising through the social media, in the year 1990s involved building friendly partnership and working relationship with a market segment without necessarily having physical contact with it in the US⁶.

In fact, the main source of exchanging information and advertising products was through written words in a social media. Use of glittering generalities on a product or service in social media was successful in influencing the involuntary urge in the mind to identify with attractiveness or glittery of the product as painted in colorful internet advertisement. This made the general population embrace social media as an equal product promotion mode in the late 20^th century.

Often, an average mind would easily be influenced by brightness and attractive presentation. In the process of decoding this message, mind is actually tuned towards accepting the rather imperfect product as perfect and very attractive. As a result, the customer would purchase such as product based on influence of the glittery on the mind. Through envision creation of a simultaneous but independently functioning need to identify with attractiveness, a customer is easily swayed into buying the advertiser’s appeal when purchasing.

Often, the attractiveness is displayed in tonal variation and language affirmativeness that directly appeal to positives emotions among target audience of the pitched idea.

The 20^th century was characterized by excessively decorated advertisement language in the television, print, and social media since there were minimal rules regulating the difference between the message and the reality. For instance, the Embassy cigarette advertisement in the early 1980s doubled the US market share since every one male gauchos wanted to be associated with coolness⁷.

Reflectively, the advertisements in the twenty century experienced metamorphosis with the introduction of endorsement messages as part of marketing strategies by companies. Many multinational companies such as Uniliver, Nescafe, and McDonalds introduced the celebrity endorsement in the late 20^th century. These companies capitalized on endorsements through testimonials from outstanding figures to promote sales. Factually, the subtle difference makes image stereotyping a perfect situation in minds of target persons.

Basically, what makes a product more salient than others is its ability to get noticed. For instance, when shopping for a product during the era of emergence of the US, it was almost certain that customers would be wooed by display that resembles their mental position. Through celebrity endorsements, advertisements doubled the salience and product acceptance since the print media; social media, television, and audio mode of advertising were perfected in the 20th century⁸.

The success of marketing communication depends on proper alignment of a functional idea into creation of flexible, involuntary, and quantifiable measurement of perception among the target audience in the advertisement message. Reflectively, this idea should have essential elements that can easily sway the mind, either positively or negatively. Therefore, advertisement is pronounced successful when it creates a reliable, informed, and passionate appeal to perception of the target.

This was achieved by advertisers during the 20^th century era through presentation of exaggerated testimonials of the product or idea to target audience in the visual, audio, print, and social media channels in the spirit of Americanization⁹.

Conclusion

Conclusively, it is tasking to unmask quantifiable successes that advertisements had on the perception of the Americans during the 20^th century. However, it is apparent that advertisements had direct influence on involuntary response effects and the order in which they occurred. The main effects that advertisements had on the minds of the Americans included active salience, cueing, perception, and association with products considered Americanized.

The higher the salience and cueing, the more effects advertisements have on the mental attitude and behavior. The twentieth century was characterized by perfection of print media, visual, and audio advertisements. Since the audio and visual advertisement were relatively new during this era, they become very effective as people across the US started to relate to the messages carried out in these advertisements, as part of the developing American culture.

Advertisers in the US used these modes to pass information on products and services to the clients in the most effective ways within the dynamics of the society. In fact, even the current social media advertisement frenzy was developed and perfected in the US during the late twentieth century.

Bibliography

Blanchard, Margret. History of the Mass Media in the United States. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Henretta, James, Rebecca Edwards and Robert Self. America: A Concise History, Volume Two: Since 1865. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012.

Newman, Kathy. Radio Active: Advertising and Consumer Activism, 1935-1947. California: University of California Press, 2004.

Parish, Peter. Reader’s Guide to American History. New York: Routledge.

Sivulka, Juliann. Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising. Alabama: Cengage Learning, 2011.

Sloan, David. Perspectives on Mass Communication History. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Footnotes

1 Peter Parish, Reader’s Guide to American History (New York: Routledge, 2013), 125-150.

2 David Sloan, Perspectives on Mass Communication History (New York: Routledge, 2013) 230-241

3 Margret Blanchard, History of the Mass Media in the United States (New York: Routledge, 2013).

4 Juliann Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising (Alabama: Cengage Learning, 2011), 117-243.

5 Peter Parish, Reader’s Guide to American History (New York: Routledge, 2013), 125-150.

6 James Henretta, Rebecca Edwards and Robert Self, America: A Concise History, Volume Two: Since 1865 (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012) 45-67.

7 Peter Parish, Reader’s Guide to American History (New York: Routledge, 2013), 125-150.

8 Juliann Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising (Alabama: Cengage Learning, 2011), 117-243.

9 Kathy Newman, Radio Active: Advertising and Consumer Activism, 1935-1947 (California: University of California Press, 2004), 137-150.