Significant role of advertising in America

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Rhymes - brand name mention

A fall-back position is to use a rhyme and mention the brand name without it actually rhyming. It is not so effective, perhaps, because the brand name is not highlighted. The slogan is likely to lose its identity, because similar products can use the same ad slogan with a simple change of the product name.

Viakal: It's the Viakal fizz that does the bizz!

Jaguar: Grace, space, pace.

Use of alliteration.

Alliteration can help the slogans achieve the strong beating rhythm needed to make it an repeatable sentence. By so doing, the sentences are more slogan-styled. They can be easily remembered by the audience. Alliteration can also achieve an emphatic effect of the meaning.

Allied Irish Bank: Britain's best business bank.

Greyhound: Greyhound going great.

Fila: Functional... Fashionable... Formidable...

3.2 At the lexical level

Common uses of second person addressee “you”, “we”, “us”.

The use of second person addressee “you” tends to shorten the distance between the product or the producer and consumers, as if the producer or the ad is speaking to you face to face, making sincere promises, honest recommendations.

In so doing, the ad slogans stand a better chance to move the receiver or customers to action, because the receiver feels that he is being thought of and taken care of and he is the center point of the producers.

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For example,

HYUNDAI: Always there for you.

Nestle Milo: Bring out the champion in you.

The use of first person addresser “we” and “us” is the most direct way to tell the receiver what the sponsor of an ad slogan stands for, his idea, his view, and his credit. It’s a little bit like a self-introduction to the potential customers to let them know you, recognize you, believe you and trust you.

For example,

Avis Rent A Car: We try harder.

Fed ex: We live to deliver.

Use of unqualified comparison.

Admen have to abide by the code of commercial practice and stick to the rules of advertising. They should not advertise their product at the expense of others. So they resort to unqualified comparison to avoid defaming other products. They can not say: “Brand X is better than brand Y.” Otherwise, unpleasant lawsuits will inevitably occur. They can say:

For example,

Coleman footgear: Better choice, better joys.

Use of “every”, “always” etc.

These words are often used in ads to indicate the universal application of the product or to include as many potential customers as possible or to achieve the emphasis of the product’s utility or the company’s unswerving commitment. 

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For example,

Always Coca-Cola.

Mitsubishi: Technically, everything is possible.

Use of “no”, “none”, etc.

Negatives tend to be used very sparingly because the purpose of all ad slogans is to strengthen the positive side. But when negatives do occur, they are usually placed in an emphatic position to highlight the special the positive side.

For example,

Mercedes Benz: The pursuit for perfection has no finish line.

M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand.

Use of coined words.

Coined words are both new and memorable. Coined words are kind of smart words have a special meaning in the specified context. They can raise the interests of the ad slogan receivers, make them ponder upon the meaning and marvel at the smart idea of the admen. By so doing, they recognized the brand.

Louis Vuitton: Epileather.

Burton Menswear: Everywear.

Gordon's & Tonic: Innervigoration. 
 
 

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3.3 At the syntactic level.

Use of short simple sentences.

The slogan must be short and simple; it can not afford to be complicated and clumsy. Short simple sentences are easy to remember, while one main aim of an ad slogan is to be memorable and recited. So short and simple sentences serve advertising slogans right.

For example,

Sumsung Digitall-Everyone is invited.

GE: We bring good things to life.

Use of everyday sentences.

Every day sentences tend to be overly used in day life, but it can be very forceful when used in an ad slogan. These sentences travel very fast, because anyone can remember it without any effort. It can just hang upon people’s lips. It’s something popularized without much publicity.

For example,

Nike: Just do it

Nestle: It’s the taste!

Use of phrases.

Slogans are a kind of special writing form. They can almost do without subjects. Phrases may be better than if not as good as sentences. All kind of phrases can be put into use: noun phrase, verb phrase, preposition phrase, adjective phrase, etc. They are so concise and to the point that they are beyond our power to do any addition or subtraction.

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For example,

Apple computer: think different

Malaysia Airlines: Beyond expectation.

Maxwell House: Good to the last drop.

Use of questions.

In ad headlines questions are often used to attract attention by mentioning the matter that concerns the customers most. They help to arouse the curiosity of the customers and entice them to read on to find the solution to the problem. Many slogans (also called themeline or tagline) begin as successful headlines. (Arens, William F. & Bovée, Courtland L. 1994: p.289) So it is not surprising that the slogan can use questions too for the same purpose.

For example,

Ford: Have you driven a Ford lately?

Volkswagen Polo: R u Polo?

Use of imperative sentences.

In an ad, the slogan is the last few words said. Although it’s just a few words, the admen don’t let it go at that. They use every opportunity to exhort the potential customers to act, to buy and to consume. The slogan is their last battle field to get people moved. It is not surprising that they would use imperative sentences to make a slogan while this kind of sentence is the most direct way to achieve the ideal effect.

For example,

Express card: Don’t leave home without it.

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United Airlines: Life is a journey, travel it well.

Use of tense.

Almost all the ad slogans use simple present tense to satisfy the customer’s desire to know the present state of the product he wants to buy. But there is another aspect of the simple present: its implication of universality and timelessness.

For example,

DeBeers: A diamond is forever.

Rossini: Time always follows me

Use of idioms or proverbs

Idioms and proverbs are familiar to most potential customers in a society and have no difficulty to be popularized. The creative use of the idioms and proverbs can give them new meaning while making them memorable and campainable.

For example,

Financial Times: No FT, no comment.

IBM: I think, therefore IBM.

3.4 At the semantic level.

Semantic ambiguity

Ad slogans have to conform to the code of commercial practice. Semantic ambiguity is needed to avoid any possible legal liability.

For example,

Philips: let’s make things better.

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Use of puns

A really good pun can work miracles. However note the lack of brand identity in these otherwise excellent examples. Almost any competing brand could use these lines. Although they are good, they have no specific identity of their own.

Moss Security: Alarmed? You should be.

Pioneer: Everything you hear is true.

Range Rover: It's how the smooth take the rough.

In these lines, the brand name appears, but as the solution or promise rather than part of the pun. These slogans with brand name in it can help the name be remembered while offer a two layered meaning to the slogan. The second layer of meaning can interest and impress the people with its smartness and its novelty.

Kenco Really Rich Coffee: Get Rich quick.

Finish Detergent: Brilliant cleaning starts with Finish.

Here the brand goes to work, as inextricably part of the pun.

Citibank: Because the Citi never sleeps.

Quavers Snacks: Do me a Quaver.

All the above-mentioned stylistic features of ad slogans are necessary to make them neat, simple, original, strategic, memorable and campainable. The slogans are also a kind of poetic language, which we should pay attention to. After a study of 103 ad slogans of large to medium sized companies in recent years, I did a little summarizing. The reason why I choose large to medium sized companies is that good ad slogans always come form them and they can represent the trend in ad slogans.

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From this chart we can see that three-worded slogan and four-worded slogan are the most favored in the creation of a slogan with 25 and 33 slogans for each type, and five or six worded slogans are also widely used. Two worded and eight worded slogans still occupy a share. But the number of other length slogans decreased dramatically. The longest ad slogan in study has 13 words which is a rare case,because it is too lengthy to be a slogan. And one worded slogan can not express fully the rich and multi-layered meaning that a slogan wants to convey. The eight worded slogans are preferred than the seven worded ones is because the former generally uses a parallel or contrasted structure, so for each small sentence of the structure the length is just four words which is the most preferred length. The average length of an ad slogan is 4.447 words. It is the trend for the slogan to be short, about 2 to 6 words long. This is just my general analysis of the results. It is useful to conduct a more detailed study of the slogans; because more and more Chinese companies are going abroad to do their business and they need a good English slogan to establish their image in the world business arena. This study will also help the development of the Chinese ad slogans in China. Good ad slogans are forever.

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4. Words and phrases used in advertising 
Words

The main copy of advertising language probably uses words from a restricted sub-set of English---common words, often with some emotional as well as literal value. In advertisements aimed at teenagers, the pronouns "you" and "he/him" (for advertisements aimed at girls) are highly frequent. In other advertising domains, we can find some interesting contrasts in the use of pronouns (see Unit 7). Leech (1966) provides a thorough overview from the point of view of a practicising linguist of how language is used in advertising. It is probably more useful to look at word usage and statistics in restricted domains of advertising, as we do in Unit 7, rather than to generalize across all cases. However, to give an indication of what we typically find, here is what Leech found out about the frequency of words in a sample of television advertisements (from the 1960s).

The twenty most frequent adjectives:

1. new 
2. good/better/best 
3. free 
4. fresh 
5. delicious 
6. full 
6. sure 
8. clean 
8. wonderful 
10. special 
11. crisp 
12. fine 
13. big 

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14. great 
15. real 
16. easy 
16. bright 
18. extra 
18. safe 
20. rich

The twenty most frequent verbs:

1. make 
2. get 
3. give 
4. have 
5. see 
6. buy 
7. come 
8. go 
9. know 
10. keep 
10. look 
12. need 
13. love 
14. use 
15. feel 
15. like 
17. choose 
18. take 
19. start 
19. taste

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Novel words and phrases

It is quite easy to find examples of novel words, phrases and constructions in advertisements. But these are not really different in character from examples we can find in other uses of English.

Given and new

It is commonplace in the analysis of the meaning contribution of a linguistic unit such as a sentence to split the information into Given information and New information (e.g. "Today for my breakfast I had ... waffles", in which only "waffles" is New information). It is possible for a sentence to be all-New, but all-Given sentences are (by definition) uninformative, and therefore have only specialized or restricted usages. Each sentence has an opportunity to present new information, or at least highlighted information. A common strategy in advertising language is to use very short potential utterances as sentences, to maximize the amount of highlighted information that is being presented.

5. Presupposition

An important aspect of any communication involves the presuppositions that are present. Presuppositions may be even more critical in television advertising (see Geis 1982) than in print advertising. However, even in print advertising, presuppositions are an important component of the overall message. As the name implies, a presupposition is a necessary precondition for the processing of any communication. Presuppositions typically involve the existence of some object or idea about “Herbal Essences”, that “We can’t keep something this juicy a secret”. This presupposes that there is something that is "this juicy", and then makes an assertion about that thing. One important function of the presupposition here is to promote a kind of ideology within advertising, in this case, the idea that "juiciness" is somehow related to shampoo and hair.  

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Most product ranges have some cultural values imposed on them in this way, and advertising is the main mechanism for achieving this. Presuppositions hold constant under what linguists call the Negation Test: negating the part of the sentence above P still leads to the necessity of assuming P to be true. Consider the examples in (1) and (2):

(1) a. It is your fault that I am lazy. 
(1) b. It is not your fault that I am lazy.

(2) a. It is your belief that I am lazy. 
(2) b. It is not your belief that I am lazy.

In the examples in (1), whether the positive or negative version, it is presupposed that I am lazy. On the other hand, in (2), my laziness is the object of someone's belief, but there is no hidden factual claim. Due to this difference, (1)c is non-sensual, while (2)c is perfectly natural.

(1) c. It is your fault that I am lazy, but in fact I am not lazy (non-sensual). 
(2) c. It is your belief that I am lazy, but in fact I am not lazy.

Returning to the Apple text above, the words do not directly assert that Windows does not work properly, but they presuppose this. And, given the Negation Test, we can see if that if text had been "It wasn't my fault that Windows didn't work properly", the presupposition would still be there. To summarize, presuppositions are a crucial part of advertising as they can cause the reader to consider the existence of objects, propositions, and culturally defined behavioral properties: for example, "Have you had your daily vitamins?" presupposes that you take or need "daily vitamins", thereby creating and perpetuating the idea that the behavior of taking vitamins daily is part of our culture. Similarly, "What's great about Chuck Wagon dog food?" (Geis 1982, 45) presupposes that there is something great about the dog food---though exactly what is left open. The concept of a sign is fundamental to understanding the meaningful elements in an advertisement.