CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1

BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Advertising
The English word advertise is originated from the Latin advertere which
directly translates to notify someone about something, to create awareness
or to attract concern to something, etc. (Goddard, 1998). According to this
abstract definition, a road sign can also be an advertisement because it is
supposed to get peoples attention. Yet, an advertisement as what it is rooted in
our minds is something more than just a mere object which attracts attention.
The main difference between a road sign and an advertisement is that the aim of
the latter is a financial benefit, enhancement of status or image (Goddard, 1998).
The definition given only indicated the main purpose of advertising is to sell.
However, that specific definition is inappropriate to be used in general.
Advertisements can have many other main purposes other than to sell.
According to Harris & Heldon (1962), an advertisement may be defined as a
common note created for the dissemination of messages with a purpose to
promote the business (products and/or services) devised to disseminate
messages for the purpose of promoting the products and services. This also
shows that advertisement is a crucial means of marketing as well as a strong
force of communication. Another definition of advertising is the non-personal
communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature
about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various
media (American Marketing Association, 1992). Various interpretations of
advertising have surfaced over the years. Abert Lasker, who was known as the
father of modern advertising, stated that advertising was indeed salesmanship
in print (Nida, 1992). Advertisements are created for the purpose of seducing
the audience by creating a certain illusion. Although there are many ways of how
advertising can be defined, it can be simplified as a form of far-reaching
communication of messages that are generally influential in nature.
The advertising industry is made of a few components. There are companies that
advertise their brands, products or even themselves as the organization,
agencies that create the advertisements, media that carries the advertisements,
and a host of people like editors, brand or marketing managers, researchers,
creative heads and designers who take the last mile to the customer or receiver.
1

A company that needs to advertise itself or its products hires an advertising

agency. Provided the company briefs the agency on the brand, the ideals and
values behind it, the target markets and so on. Then, the agencies convert the
ideas and concepts to create the visuals, text, layouts and themes to
communicate with the user. Lastly, the advertisements will go on air or printed
once the advertisement produced is approved by the client.
As a matter of fact, there are various kinds of advertisement tactics used in
advertising industry. One of them is print advertising. Print media has always
been a popular advertising option. Advertising products via newspapers or
magazines is a common practice. In addition to this, the print media also offers
options like promotional brochures and fliers for advertising purposes. Besides
that, advertising also makes use of several tools and techniques to attract the
customers outdoors. The most common examples of outdoor advertising are
billboards, kiosks, and also events and trade-shows organized by a company.
Billboard advertising has to be really terse and catchy, in order to grab the
attention of passersby. Kiosks not only provide an easy outlet for the company's
products, but also make for an effective advertising tool to promote the
company's products. Other than that, radio advertising is one of the oldest forms
of advertising. Businesses could use this medium to reach a huge audience for
their products, and not merely rely on print media. The holy grail of advertising
for more than 50 years will be television advertising. It reaches the maximum
number of target customers, and has a variety of programming schedules which
can be effectively used for the insertion of ad content. Lastly, online advertising.
Being on the internet can be a cost-effective way to attract new customers. A
global audience can be reached at a low cost and many customers will make
research on businesses online before deciding whom to buy from. However, this
study will only focuses in term of print advertising.
Visual advertisement in printed form
In advertising, the use of images is very effectual. Advertisements whether in
magazine, online, in television, or any other medium, mostly include images. In
advertisements, the visual components are usually the fundamental to their
effectiveness. In order to create vivacity in the advertisement, this is when
images play its role. We are aware with so many advertisements trying to
compete for consumers attention and make the messages in the advertisement
difficult to be noticed among the crowd. Putting only a chunk of words without
2

any visual aids can make the advertisement to be uninteresting, dry or dull and
not persuasive enough. For the reason of time limitation and in need of less
burden of information processing, people today are giving their attention more
toward advertisements with visual images. The right choice of visual image
surely can capture the readers attention even though the visual image used
sometimes is rhetorical or a resemblance, but it can indirectly influence the
readers emotion. These are the key to achievement and success of the product
and service advertising messages and make the advertisement memorable and
attention-getter.
In addition, advertisers prefer to seek and maximize the attention and recall of
their advertisements messages (Batra et al.; 1986). They considered that good
advertisements are the key to overtake the concurrence (Pierters et al; 2002). An
original advertisement use different techniques of defamiliarization; to push the
audience to receive familiar elements with an unexpected perspective (Scott,
1994a). It is a combination of familiar elements in a non-familiar manner
(McQuarrie and Mick, 1999). Original visual stimuli tend to work best in attracting
the attention (Mitchell, 1987). They challenge the consumer to understand the
purpose of advertising and direct attention to the brand and message. Recall
depends on semantic channels activated by the advertising stimulus (Childers
and Houston 1984). The image of a product represented in consumers memory
may be the one he or she uses in certain situations. Staging the latter is likely to
evoke the image of the product in consumers memory. The interaction between
the consumer and the deviation encountered in the image will generate a
greater number of associations (elaboration). Memorizing the message will be
thus made easier. A favorable attitude toward the message has an effect on the
attitude toward the brand. It influences the purchasing intention (Gardner, 1981).
Advertisements, whether on television, in a magazine, online, or some other
medium, feature images. The visual components of such advertisements are
often the key to their effectiveness. In addition, to use vivid imagery, advertisers
also seek to create positive associations between their brands and idealized
images or lifestyles. Some of the most common associations that advertiser try
to manufacture are social status (luxury cars, wines, jewelry etc.), sex (perfume,
hair care products, lingerie etc), power, speed and strength (tools, trucks, SUVs,
computers etc), safety and security (banking, insurance, etc.), cause-related
(donation campaign, awareness campaign, etc) sense of place and belongings
3

(foods, restaurants, furniture, etc). This approach is known as image-oriented or

image-based advertising and it is the bread and butter of modern advertising
Visual persuasion
Persuasion is a main aspect of every range of human communication. Persuasion
is an essential part of peoples career or profession.

In fact it is something

important that ever exist in our daily interactions with friends, family, coworkers
and even strangers. There are a lot of styles or approaches to persuade than
ever before. Persuasion can be performed through words; verbal or written and
also through visual; moving or still image. It can be said that image represents
everything since we are living progressively in a visual society. We can observe in
magazine

advertisements,

flyers,

brochures,

billboards

and

television

commercials, images are fundamental aspect of the advertisements and the

secondary aspect is words. All forms of advertising are abounding with images.
Not to mention, even oral communication depends on images, too. It can be said
that in the millennium century and might up to the next century, visual images
have become a superior means or way in disseminating information. It is
undeniable that images are very effective and they can affect us in ways that
words cannot. Image has the capability to perceive genuineness and has its own
superiority effect. Other than that, pictures are more easily to be noticed and
recalled than words.
Paul Messaris had his own conceptualization of the role of images in persuasion.
He stated that images persuade in three basic ways: through iconicity,
indexicality

and

syntactic

indeterminacy.

These

three

are

the

main

characteristics of visual persuasion. Messaris (as cited in Suh, 1999) summarized

the elements properties of persuasive visual images are iconicity, indexicality
and syntactic indeterminancy. It is advantageous, if the advertisement builds
associations which create a certain appeal to the audience (Messaris, 1997).
The first characteristic of visual persuasion is iconicity. One way images persuade
is by operating as icons, which plainly means that they resemble the things they
represent. An image can represent for an idea or summarize a concept.
Examples of iconic visuals are representations of things, events, or people. As
long as people understand what they represent it does not matter whether the
representations are accurate or not. As Messaris (1997) noted, the property of
iconicity is iconic images clearly differentiates pictures from language and other
4

kinds of communication. Another role of iconic images is that they can mislead
the reality they represent. With an aid of image, something can look real even
though it is not. Iconicity indicates to the capability of images to imitate the
appearance of reality. For example, a busy mother who has her hands full doing
the laundry, cooking dinner, cleaning house, and taking care of kids could be
pictured with four arms rather than two.
The second characteristic of visual persuasion is indexicality (Messaris, 1997).
This indicates to the capability of images in particular photos and video, to
document that an event or something happened. As an example, a fingerprint
lifted from a crime scene is a sign that the defendant was in fact there. Or a diet
advertisement might show a person holding up his or her old pants. The pants
demonstrate how obese the person before and the audience can observe how
much weight the person has lost since. Indexical images frequently function as a
style of sign reasoning or circumstantial evidence. Besides that, indexicality also
refers to photographic images and indicates that such images are physical
symbols of visual reality.
Syntactic indeterminacy is the third characteristic in visual persuasion. It means
here, unlike words, pictures cannot transmit accurate relationships between
things. As a matter of fact, images lack of logical operators. The fact images
cannot convey logical relationships can be both, a blessing or a curse. The
blessing is that the pictures can be used to equate one thing with another via
association of images. For example, an advertiser can equate a product with
being cool, sexy or conferring social status simply by pairing the product with
cool, sexy or classy images. The curse is the precise nature of relationships can
never be suggested through images, so it is up to the observer to speculate or
guess what the relationship is. Advertisers know how to manipulate the lighting,
camera angle, color and other aspects of images to achieve the results they
want. Truthfully, advertisers also use words when they want to make a point
explicitly whereas images when they want to make a point implicitly.
I will take several printed

visual

advertisements for exploration of persuasive

elements and effect on the audience. My interests lay in the way images are
crafted to have the biggest persuasive appeal. To reach this goal I will attempt to
do the analysis within the framework of meaning of messages intended (what)
and the way it is communicated (how). I seek to find out what is being said by
5

the chosen images in the advertisement and how it is being said and in which
category they belong to in visual persuasion.

1.1 Statement of problems

As we all know there are so many products and services marketed or advertised
to the consumers and this has become one of the major problems for marketers
and advertisers because. This phenomenon is called advertising clutter or
marketing clutter. Each day, the society is disclosed with new products and
services advertising messages and results the market to be overloaded with
them thus producing huge competition between marketers and advertisers. This
is also one of the factors that make words-oriented advertisement to be less
interesting and not memorable for the consumers.
Visual components can make or aid advertisements to be different from one
another. Besides, complex information is easier to convey and societys interest
towards the product and service advertisements can be triggered. In line with all
facts stated above, this study will explore in depth on the characteristics of visual
persuasion and the effectiveness of it in persuasive communication specifically in
printed advertisements. This will enable us to have full understanding on means
of visual persuasion in advertising.

1.2

Objectives of the study

This study aims to fulfill these objectives:

1. To determine the characteristics of persuasive visual images and in

advertising.
2. To determine the effects of visual persuasion in advertising.
3. To investigate what visual persuasion in advertising means.

1.3

Research questions
This study aims to answer these questions:

1.

What are the characteristics of persuasive visual images and in

2.
3.
4.

advertising?
How do advertisers utilize all the characteristics in advertising?
What are the effects of visual persuasion in advertising?
What is visual persuasion and the relation of it with advertising?

1.4 Significance of the Study

This

study

provides

significant

contributions

in

the

area

of

marketing

communication which is advertising. With the phenomenon of advertising clutter,

it is beneficial to look into how effective visual in persuasive communication. We
know in advertising, visual image is the bread and butter of todays modern
means

of

advertising.

Theoretically,

this

study

attempts

to

justify

the

effectiveness image-oriented advertising compared to word-oriented advertising.

This study is intended to analyze how the visual applied in advertisements can
make one advertisement to be eye catching and different from another
advertisement by using certain elements of visual persuasion. This study also
intends to focus and explore in details on the three characteristics of persuasive
visual images (iconicity, indexicality and syntactic indeterminacy) besides
looking at its effectiveness in persuasive communication of advertising.