In the contemporary world, a person daily contemplates a lot of advertising and marketing and, accordingly, processing a huge amount of information. Various producers make a lot of effort to pay attention to their brand. A whole series of marketing consultants are assembled to determine the wishes and needs of potential ones, in order to recreate the picture of an incredibly necessary product that ought to be bought. It happens in almost each and every country, regardless of cultural differences. Marketing in the United States certainly deserves special attention. For sure historical reasons, today in America there is a cult of consumption (Rothenberg). In many ways, it is the benefit of competent and effective marketing.
Advertising in the United States
Advertising includes the dissemination of information about products in any form and using any means (“American Advertising: A Brief Histor.”). As a rule, it is addressed to an undefined circle of persons. The object of advertising is, as a rule, the goods, the manufacturer or the seller of the goods, the results of intellectual activity or the event. The main purpose of advertising is to increase the volume of sales of goods and services, and the function is to provide customers with information about goods and services through various information tools. Creating an ideal approach for promoting certain products or services requires a lot of time, information gathering, data analysis and, as a result, creating a clear structured plan for implementing an advertising campaign. There are many different types of advertising strategies, all of which convince consumers to buy a certain product. That is why this paper intends to consider marketing in the US, the main strategies that are used by marketers, with examples and explanations, and with clarifications as to why these approaches are most effective.
American Statistics
This topic is very extensive and, naturally, it is worth starting with the effectiveness of advertising in the US. For example, in 2016, more than 190 billion US dollars were spent on advertising various goods and services (Fuller). Despite this, the market indicators continued to grow and already in the fourth quarter of 2016 it increased by 14% in the annual comparison. Americans spend on advertising more than all other nations in the world. The most advertising is spent in North America. According to analytical studies, by the end of 2017 spending on advertising will amount to more than $ 190 billion. In addition, the cost of contextual advertising in social networks amounted to more than $ 30.2 billion. It was television that has always been the biggest advertising tool in the United States over the past few years. However, it tends to lose its influence on the market. Nevertheless, advertising on television is becoming less and less important and in demand, because there is the Internet and most manufacturers are focusing on this.
How Advertising Affects Human
As it was mentioned before, almost all mass media, transportation, routes and so forth are filled with advertisement. It certainly has an effect on people. It covers absolutely all aspects of a people’s life and affects his or her decisions and desires. Advertising is not used to make a product or service of a company known, but as a tool for shaping a person's need for a given product. It is some kind of method of manipulating people, motivation to do unnecessary things, as well as distraction. It works like this: a certain problem is created, and the right reaction is immediately produced (Berkers). Manufacturers and marketers anticipate the demand by constantly studying consumers, then to produce and offer exactly those goods and services that consumers would like to buy and in which they need. Stimulating demand implies an artificial call in consumers of the desire for what the company offers. An attractive design of the product is being developed, it is wrapped up in a beautiful package, intensively advertised, forcing the buyer in the store to detain the look on her product. In fact, advertising is able to influence consumers at a subconscious level, thereby manipulating their behavior, contrary to their wishes. Advertising speaks of the added value that buyers buy by buying goods. They try to express their individuality by choosing one or another brand of something, and marketers use it. Advertising can make different representations about a firm that advertises some products. They can seem old, new, strange, native or fresh to a consumer. Emotional memory is the strongest thing and it makes more impact on making different decisions than anything else. They cause everything that surrounds a person. From this we can say that advertising is not just information, it is a kind of a few minute video that is emotionally saturated. There are two kinds of emotions, namely positive and negative. So positive have this ability, how to stimulate a person to achieve some goal, and negative ones on the contrary and even avoid all that causes this negative. If, when creating an advertisement, psychological factors are not taken into account, they can on the contrary create repulsive information for the ordinary buyer and cause only negative emotions.
The Main Techniques and Approaches
There is a huge variety of methods and techniques for influencing people’s subconsciousness through advertising. All of them try to “touch” the most secret fears and desires of potential customers in order, naturally, to provide a thing or service that supposedly will satisfy the artificially created need. It is also directly related to neuromarketing. Marketers singled out several main emotions on which one can speculate, creating a variety of “messages” directed at the subconscious to people. First of all, it is happiness. All people dream of being happy. That is why giant companies do everything possible to make their ads associated with happiness and carelessness. Happiness in advertising is usually associated with a kind of “heavenly delight” or a dream. In the advertising messaging, happy moments are usually linked with the pleasure that the promoted product brings. Approval and support is the following that advertising provides a potential consumer. All people like it when they are praised. It is not necessary that they be praised for their great achievements, enough that they simply exist. When one feels the need for approval, he or she is ready to do and say anything to gain the approval of others, adjusting to other people. Trying to please everyone, such a person loses himself or herself and his or her individuality. Such a person is very easy to manipulate. Marketers do it, getting into the minds of potential consumers, and introducing the idea that buying a certain product would help get the approval of the society. Manipulation by fear is another strategy of marketers with the aim of increasing the level of sales. It is not surprising, since fear is one of the most important functions of the human body, developed by nature to adapt a person to dangerous or beyond the scope of his understanding of phenomena. Having studied the psychology of consumers and the role of fear in human life, this method of advertising appeared. The fact is that in the nervous system there is one center of fear, but there are two separate structures in the brain, one of which triggers a reaction of fear, and the other triggers a signal to escape or struggle. Emotion of fear is accompanied by the release of adrenaline into the blood. Because of it, the consequence of fear is the inhibition of thoughts, shackling of activity, insuperable excitement and anxiety. Fear also facilitates memorization of dangerous or unpleasant events, which allows them to be avoided in the future. When information is not enough to make a decision, from fear, a person starts responding to an extended range of signals in search of the desired one. Thus, these effects cause an interest in the emotion of fear on the part of advertising and PR. The use of fear as a tool allows you to achieve the desired reaction to the advertising message: focused attention, better memorability and activation of the mechanism of finding solutions in a problematic situation. Thus, an advertising message can be based on a description of a problematic or dangerous situation and suggest ways out of it. The task of marketers is to cause alarm about the theoretical non-compliance of a person with social standards and norms: dressing is not stylish, look older than your age or use non-popular cosmetics brands, for example. Accordingly, when people feel a sense of guilt or an inferiority complex and the fear of being not “fashionable”, they seek to change the situation as soon as possible. Warning about the possible consequences, producers and marketers manipulate the minds of consumers. The usage of positive emotions is another strategy of advertising campaigns. The bottom line is that in order to convey the emotion to the consumer, one needs to test it by himself or herself (“MSG Management Study Guide”). It implies the identification of a particular product or services with a sense of happiness and full satisfaction. The consumers’ need for positive emotions can bring tremendous success, since there is no person in the world who would not like to be happy. For example, Coca-Cola annually provides its products as a drink that bears happiness and forms an atmosphere of family comfort on Christmas Day. Laugh has the same effect. Funny advertising is one of the most effective ways to make people remember this or that product or service for a long time. If joking is successful, people would want to share it with their friends, so they would tell other people about a certain brand as well.
Advertising Strategies
The most important goal of advertisers and PR-managers is a direct impact on consumers and the transfer of a certain amount of information to people. The goal of affective action is the transformation of an array of transmitted information into a system of attitudes, motives and principles of the recipient of treatment. The tools for forming a relationship are frequent repetition of the same arguments, bringing the logical evidence of the above and formation of favorable associations. In addition, the techniques of suggestion are used. The intention involves the use of both conscious psychological elements and elements of the unconscious. It is due to the fact that a certain part of the advertising message can be assimilated by the addressee, bypassing the sphere of active thinking. The result of suggestion can be conviction obtained without logical evidence. The next type is an “aggressive” strategy. It is an active position of any company in the market, its goal is to win and expand the market share. Each commodity or service market has a so-called optimal market share, which is the provision of effective work and profit the company. In cases where the company’s income is below an acceptable level, then the manager has a choice, which consists either in expanding the company or in withdrawing from the market. This strategy is used if the market share is significantly below the expected level, or if it has not sustained competition significantly decreased and does not reach the required level; the emergence of a new product in the consumer market; as a result of losses of firms-competitors positions there is a chance to increase part on the market. There is also a retention strategy that can maintain its market position. It is used with a firm position of the company, with missing opportunities for an offensive strategy, as a result of caution before committing specific actions. This type of strategy requires a lot of research and attention to firms’ competitors. The last kind is a retreat strategy. It is often a necessary measure and implies that the firm independently reduces its market share. The rules of this strategy presuppose a gradual cessation of business.
Conclusion
Summing it up, it is worth to conclude that marketing “traps” are the inevitable methods of sales in the modern world. Every person faces them and there is no way to avoid them. A high degree of consumption in the US only shows a good performance of all marketing strategies. Americans are influenced by advertising strategies, because they “cling” to them emotionally and give them the opportunity to experience all the emotions they desire, such as happiness, joy or pleasant excitement. People like it and they identify goods with those emotions, and then actively buy them. Undoubtedly, constant consumption is the engine of the American economy. However, constant and senseless consumption will lead to the fact that Americans will constantly replenish their stocks of things that they do not use. It would lead to an even greater sense of unhappiness. This is the way to nowhere. People should make purchases consciously and before buying something, thinking about whether they need it.
Works Cited
“American Advertising: A Brief History.” HISTORY MATTERS - The U.S. Survey Course on the Web. Retrieved from www.historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/ads/amadv.html. Accessed on 6 December, 2017. Berkers, Ewald. “The Influence of Advertising.” The Influence of Advertising | Unenticed.com, Retrieved from www.unenticed.com/english.php?title=influence%2Bof%2Badvertising. Accessed on 6 December, 2017. Fuller, Steve. “Topic: Advertising Industry in the U.S.” Statista. Retrieved from www.statista.com/topics/979/advertising-in-the-us/. Accessed on 6 December, 2017. “MSG Management Study Guide.” Advertising Techniques - 13 Most Common Techniques Used by the Advertisers. Retrieved from www.managementstudyguide.com/advertising-techniques.htm. Accessed on 6 December, 2017. Rothenberg, Randall. “How Powerful Is Advertising?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 26 Sept. 2014. Retrieved from www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/06/how-powerful-is-advertising/376889/. Accessed on 6 December, 2017.
