Introduction
Commercial advertising involves portraying an image of high quality of manufactured products of an organization in order to create a highly visible impact to the general public, whose attitude is however expected to change. This is an effective means for an organization to win more clients in a more competitive environment. The company does so through promotional campaigns which involve advertising and creates a unique identity against competitors and thus gain a competitive edge over them. Since commercial advertising is intended to influence the perception of the audience towards a particular product, it can be related to propaganda where exaggerations may be mixed with facts to create an emotional response from the audience.
The propaganda system is a commonly used tool of winning the attention of the audience and is mostly used in political circles although it has of late gained popularity in the business environment. Generally, propaganda may be viewed as a process of manipulation of symbols and people’s minds to influence them towards a particular product or agenda. According to Jowett and O’Donnell (p. 5), Propaganda is a “deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.” In addition, commercial advertising has been of great influence in fueling business propaganda to win the appeals of the consumers. This paper will discuss the use of commercial advertising as a propaganda system.
The link between commercial advertising and propaganda
Commercial advertising is used as a tool for enhancing and promoting the products of an organization through persuasion to win over the appeals of the audience. In this case, communication prowess is very important bearing in mind that the process involves playing around with the psychology of the audience. This means that commercial advertising forms systematic propaganda and has been commonly used in the contemporary business environment as a marketing strategy to influence people towards consuming a certain product by portraying it as more superior to others even though the case may not be so (Jowett and O’Donnell 7). For example, most pharmaceutical companies have won their market share by presenting their drugs to the public as more superior to any related drug thus fighting off generic drugs. There are various shapes that advertising may take including broadcast media, print media, billboards, and the most recent roadshow advertising.
In a business environment, a great number of entrepreneurs analyze the cost-benefit of various advertising modes and most of them view that T.V and Radio advertising can be very expensive to manage, but have a very great impact in persuading and influencing the emotions of people through an effective mix of symbols and oral communication. Indeed, when an enterprise is armed with the right information it may find that the broadcast model of advertising seems to deliver more as compared to other types of the propaganda system. The most important thing is to have a better understanding of the market to ensure that there is no waste of funds in the campaigns given that advertising is a very expensive affair. Proper planning before deciding to jump-start the campaign is important.
Commercial advertisement is not new; it was used in the fueling political propaganda in the early political alignments, the most notable being the era of Hitler in Germany where the Nazi party used the symbol of the swastika and the image of Hitler in order to capture the largest audience (Spicka 9). This means that commercial advertising was used to sell the party amid intense competition from other parties and was used as a deliberate means of hoodwinking people to believe that the party was strong. This also applies to the business environment where some companies associate themselves with influential personalities or reputable enterprises to create an impression to the audience that the company is in the class of the portrayed image yet the contrary could be true (Marlin 23). For instance, a company may use the image of a US president or a prominent footballer in order to deceive the public that those personalities approve of the company as high class. This strategy is also abused by some companies to inflate prices as they understand that people’s perception will be that high prices imply high and superior quality.
The media of adverting plays a key role in fueling propaganda. Advertising, in general, has become the norm in society such that the society is always bombarded with numerous commercials and messages trying to divert their interests towards a certain direction or phenomenon, a phenomenon that has been labeled institutional propaganda. The wealth of the advertiser also is influential, for instance, where the advertiser has a lot of money available for disposal that will be used to create the impression that he is successful may lead to the fueling of propaganda (Thomas 41). The ad propaganda has been in recent times been associated with major image and price wars especially where the players in the industry are few (since depicting one product as superior will be seen as targeting a specific rival product. A cost-benefit analysis should be a priority in placing a commercial ad to ensure the business enhances its profitability trend and careful selection of media is very important; for instance, T.V advertising, if wrongly used may lead to loss of customers and reputation damage of the business, thus failure of the propaganda campaign. A well-executed plan will impact positively the performance and profitability as customers will pay attention to the kind of graphics used, the headlines used, and the appealing nature of words used in the advertisement. Therefore, the placement of commercial advertising should try to grab the viewers’ attention using a concise, clear, and simple communication format that stresses the benefits of the products being advertised bearing in mind that people will most likely remember much of what stimulates their ego or emotions
The connection between commercial advertising and propaganda comes in through the element of persuasion. In most cases, persuasion has been used in political propaganda but in business, companies conceal their intentions by pretending that they are placing commercials in the media to provide news or information to the audience while in the real sense, what comes out is an element of persuasion. Since propaganda aims to divert the perception of the audience as well as influence a change in their actions and expectations to a desired direction of the mover, it can be seen as an ‘effective tool’ for business enterprises to change the perceptions of consumers towards the company’s products. The use of deception and ambiguity through commercial advertisement leads to confusion of the audience and misleading attitudes thus making commercial advertisement form of propaganda a delicate and risky move since it can ruin the reputation of the company when otherwise the consumers get the facts clear that what they have been forced to believe is actually not true.
Importance of commercial advertising
Due to the competition in the market today, it is obvious that without advertising, goods cannot be well made known publicly, and similarly, without consumers’ knowledge, goods cannot be sold to the target market. Better commercial advertising takes the production approach where priority is given to the consumer’s viewpoint and then the company constructs the advertisement from the perspective of what the consumers want to hear thus leading to business improvement.
Clear communication and delivery of messages to the targeted audience is important in advertising and choosing a medium that combines both visual and oral communication is paramount, for instance, television is more likely to capture attention and influence putting in mind that people tend to grasp to a higher degree what they see than what the hear. The message delivered should be relationship-oriented and should communicate a high degree of trust; as the audience will prefer to be associated with the products they can trust or products that are described as trustworthy.
However, there are side effects of commercial advertising, especially where the products being advertised are sensitive or crucial for personal survival, for instance, manipulating the information about the strength of a drug that is meant to save the life of a person. In addition, some exaggerated advertisements may not influence the behavior of people (considering that commercial advertisements affect the attitudes of people) especially the young ones. For example, advertising cigarettes will hoodwink the youth to believe that smoking will make them appear like images they view in the advertisement.
Conclusion
Commercial advertising has been one of the major influences of propaganda not only in the political arena but also in the business field. Through deception and exaggerations, commercial advertising propaganda has been used by major business enterprises as a marketing strategy to gain market dominance. Propaganda leads to wrong decision making and therefore, commercial advertising should be vetted to ensure the information provided is factual.
Works Cited
Jowett, Garth and O’Donnell, Victoria. Propaganda and persuasion. SAGE. 2006. Web.
Marlin, Randal. Propaganda and the ethics of persuasion. NY, Broadview Press. 2002.
Thomas, Russell. Commercial Advertising. BiblioBazaar, LLC. 2009. Web.
Spicka, Mark E. Selling the economic miracle: economic reconstruction and politics in West Germany. Berghahn Books. 2007. Web.