Don’t Skip This Ad: Advertising Theories and How They Work

A 5 year old recognises the cartoon she watches on TV and insists on buying themed merchandise. A 65 year old wants the Garnier hair colour she notices between ad breaks of her favourite show. A 23 year old looks up “flared denim” on Google, and is flooded with ads. A 17 year old taps on the banner that says “offer lasts until midnight”. What ties these instances together? What is advertising anyway?

The world today is phenomenally different from Edison’s, but what’s striking is the relevance of his maxim even today; in fact, even more so today. One of the few practices that have travelled with us over time is that of advertising. It started off in the form of persuasive messages on papyrus by the early Babylonians and stands at one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world today. Though it has evolved in form, type, reach and medium, the core idea of advertising remains the same - paid promotion to draw in potential customers for an idea using persuasive messaging and marketing. Though advertising is a ubiquitous part of our content consumption, we seldom realise its presence or its effect on us; consciously or subconsciously. So how do advertisers and marketers work around this passive consumption of advertising? Do they make use of underlying ideas or theories to help create impactful and memorable advertisements? If so, what are these ideas and how can they help an aspiring advertiser or marketer? These are some of the questions we’ll be answering in this blog based on the five popular, and hugely effective theories of advertising- each backed with real-life illustrations. For just this once, don’t switch the channel when the ad comes on, let’s pause and see what this ad is all about!

We’ve all experienced a turn in life where we would’ve liked to escape reality. The advertising equivalent of that is the theory of Mediation of Reality. To explain this better, let’s take a recent example. Most of us would have seen the new Lloyd Air Conditioner ad (if not, watch it here), that features actor-couple Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone in the ad-film.

While the advertisement is about the AC and its features, it comes along with the depiction of a loving couple taunting each other about their relationship and pulling each others’ leg in a playful way. What helps is that this loving couple happen to be one of India’s most beloved celebrity couples with an immense net worth and a huge fan following attached to them. It is intriguing to examine why this advertisement works. Popular culture is often seen as a quick escape from reality; it serves as a respite from the drudging realities of one’s daily life either in the form of movies, shows, music, art or books. A similar logic can be extended to advertisements. It is not the mere presence of the object being advertised that entices the consumer, it is the lifestyle that comes with owning the product. Advertisements are successful when they are integrated with other media and environments in which they are completely submerged. Apart from the product, there exists a fictional representation of media which the consumer is made to desire. At no point in the ad do the advertisers claim that a Lloyd AC will make you a Deepika or Ranveer, but to the ordinary consumer, the ad has painted a rosy picture of companionship, love and the safe space of one’s home that comes along with the ‘accidental’ presence of the Lloyd AC. But the depiction of an ‘ideal’ scenario in the ad blurs reality and sits in on the consumer’s brain in a memorable manner.

Secondly, we have the ever-relevant Magic of the Meaning theory. It has always been known that art reflects the world around us. Most of the art around us is, in some way or the other, a dialogue about the times we live in. Advertising, too, is an art form, so why would it stay behind? Advertisements with a meaning and a message are increasingly becoming the most popular form of ads. These are ads that don’t just sell their product, they attach their product to a social, cultural, political or national ideal and advance it as a value system. Way back in 1963, a cultural theorist by the name of Raymond Willaims laid out how advertising has moved beyond its basic goal of selling products but rather, associated itself with depicting social and personal values. Ariel’s ‘Share the Load’ campaign is a good example of the application of this theory.

It shows a mother on call with her married daughter who has just told her that she wants to quit her job because she’s unable to manage work and home together. Her mother tries hard to convince her not to and asks her to get her husband to help her. The daughter tells her that her husband doesn’t know how to do any of the housework to which the mother perplexedly asks, ‘What do you mean he doesn’t know how to do it?’ While the mother-daughter duo are conversing, the mother’s second child - her son, is traversing in the background littering the room, unfolding clothes and leaving them there, dirtying the bed with snacks and throwing his things around left, right and centre. It is at this moment that the mother looks at him and realises - why don't we teach our sons the same things that we teach our daughters? The ad-film ends with the mother teaching her son how to run a washing machine load using Ariel. Throughout the ad, there was not a single mention of the product being advertised. But the ad leaves you feeling good and, most importantly, makes you remember that Ariel made an ad about breaking gender stereotypes. The organised magic of placing the product in the middle of a social stereotype can work wonders for the ad’s digital engagement which is the marker that makes or breaks advertisements these days.

Now come the more dangerous aspects of advertising - The Hidden Message Theory. While advertising holds the potential to act as a medium of communication to the masses, it also holds a threatening power to misinform, misguide and propagate. We’re more likely to believe in an idea if it is put forth as an emotionally loaded message, with subtle undertones or if it is attached to a figure of authority. This is the reason why many soap, toothpaste and similar hygiene product ads frequently make use of a doctor or dentist figure (almost invariably practicing in the US or the UK) who advocate the said brand by highlighting its ‘scientific’ and ‘medical’ benefits. The age old, 9 out of 10 dentists believe that this seemingly ordinary product will absolutely change your life! Here, advertisers make use of complex sounding terms that seemingly highlight the superiority of their product over that of their competitors. The factual accuracy of these claims are seldom verified. For the common consumer, a doctor recommending a soap gives a sense of surety and reassurance, albeit unconsciously. Packard postulated that such ads play on the consumer’s psychology to put across hidden messages through social constructs and authority figures. These are expected to work well as the viewer’s resistance is already minimal while consuming it.

Loyalty and Desire are two ideas that are constantly examined in ads, implicitly or explicitly. In line with that are two advertising theories- Shifting Loyalties and Imitative Desire. The former talks about the style, tone and voice of advertisements that mirror the dynamic consumer’s ever-changing loyalties. While we’ve all seen ads that promote strong brand loyalty, ads that follow the shifting loyalties theories strongly recommend that their target audience shift over to a relatively new brand in the market. Comparative advertising, which was followed heavily by Pepsi and Coke in the 1970s, is an altered form of this theory. Every time Pepsi came up with a commercial stating it was the consumer’s favourite beverage, Coke would create an ad that highlighted how and why Coke was actually the better drink- and more than once, these two giants have undermined each other in their bid to emerge as the consumer’s first choice.

The latter, that is Imitative Desire, touches upon our imminent need to be someone ‘better’, someone ‘more beautiful’, someone ‘richer’. These advertisements trigger this aspect of the consumer’s mind by showcasing a famous personality, amidst glamour, pomp and power. While most know that this is an impossible ideal for us to achieve, we still enjoy consuming it as content. People live their ‘normal’ life through an imaginative projection of this ‘glamorous life’. This pattern has recently been observed in paan-masala ads that feature some of the biggest acting names in the country - Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Ajay Devgan. While the probability of Shah Rukh using Vimal Pan Masala, the product he endorses, is less than that of humankind tackling climate change effectively, his presence in the ad is a head turner for many and a good reason to start consuming the product for some.

These theories were formulated based on a single medium of advertising - television ads. Today, advertising occupies every conceivable space - billboards, banners, digital space, social media, workplaces, trains and buses, e-commerce sites and several mediums that are yet to be discovered. As advertisements evolve, these theories will have to adapt too. While a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach has never done anyone much good historically, it will be interesting to see whether these existing theories will find their place in today’s rapidly moving advertising world or whether advertisers and marketers will drop them and pave the way for newer, more inclusive and updated theories. You’ll only find out when you pay close attention to your next TV ad or the next YouTube ad before pressing the skip button.