be amazing

morning

seduction: beware of deception

Red Red lips….

Red red lips glowing from the lip glows

Dripping and shiny from the sparkling effect of the brush

Ooh sweet words they whisper

Hot magic they work out

Red like a rose they are seductive

Bt there is no rose without thorns.

Red red lips they promise a confectionery

But in the end they threaten to sue your life into the forest of confusion

And leave you for the incinerator

Where the hyenas lie in wait to devour

They promise a 4^th heaven

But six feet under they will leave you in hell fire.

Red red lips sweet words they chant

Like an enchantress they whisper soft words on ice chiseled on marble

Their song so seductive like the gypsies’ dance

The sweet words uttered..ooh they begin their seductive dance

Sending my heart out of its regular rhythm

But fast music is bad music.

Red red lips eye lashes red and long like a barbie doll

Curved and semi circular complementing the painted face but be careful its not a colour book

 thighs in short, red mini skirts because

Short is good..

Starky  yellow legs all broadcast for all to see beside the club entrance..

But your family they will destroy.

Red red lips like red wine they leave you dizzy

Your head spinning you wont understand

Their product so sweet and melodious a sound to the tongue

They leave it twisted between sweet and sour

But because of age they become sweeter with time and second by second they

Drag you down the philosophical corridor of wine

Where the new reasoning capacity is the only reasoning

But it is blurred reasoning.

Red red lips their intention is to drink your wine out

So big and so red they steal from your pockets and are never filled

So big they are the tunnel to a greediness that melts steal

Red red lips they dig deep into your pouch and leave with a large chunk

Red red lips are out to drink you out dry because their thirst is insatiable

Your kegs and tankards will soon run out and so will they.

Red red lips so soft, so ripe, so juicy, so appetizing

So red, so ready and so smooth they are a reservoir for the Lincolns

They will cast a spell on you as they move round and round ear to ear whispering

Whispering  a hissing so hoarse sweet but full of poison

Like the sun they are bright but directly to the eye they are blinding

Like a python they wear beautiful colors to draw you close but when within reach they strike.

Red red lips so smooth, so soft, so juicy, so ripe and so appetizing

But take a wet cloth and wipe them..they are cracked, white lips, so wrinkled like washen linen.

They will leave you for the urn.

advertising defined

This presentation seeks to define advertising from various theoretical perspectives. The presentation will move on to discuss the implications of the definitions from each perspective, the strengths and the flaws of the definitions in light of advertising.

From a Marxian perspective advertising is an ideological tool that is used to perpetuate capitalism. Ewen (1976:81) defines advertising as “… a cultural apparatus deliberately developed by big corporate world engaged in the imperialist world of the consumerist psyche of the ordinary people.” Marx alludes to this when he says in Stevenson (2004), “without production there is no consumption, without consumption there is no production.” To them advertising is a pivotal tool to maintain the status quo of capitalism. Ewen further states that there is interpellation of the subject of the system according to the Marxian definitions advertising thus is laden with captive social meaning and ideas that are required by the capitalist to reproduce itself. The implication of this then is that advertising has some immediate effect on the audience who immediately accept it as it is. However the Marxian perspective can be criticized for pacifying the audience. Audience are active and do not just accept the advertising message as it is. Audience or consumers are active citizens and possess the power to interpret a text and make a choice.

Williams (1980:184) defines advertising as the official art of modern capitalist society. As an art he portrays it as protecting capitalism and as a noble way of life. The Birmingham school of thought sees advertising as retaining magical powers and therefore has some magical effect on the audience. According to this then advertising is the lifeblood of capitalism. Thus according to Williams and the Birmingham scholars if a coca-cola advert appears on television everyone should consume the beverage because of the somewhat magical powers advertising retains. Williams (1980:14),

                …commercial systems often obscure the distinction between human                                           wants for goods and services and the need for democratic self government.                            Advertising is able to play this particular ideological trick by offering  magical                                 solutions to the more authentic problems…

This is fallacy according to Wallace (1992) in McCabe (2012) when he disqualifies advertising in the realm of magic. Wallace (1992) argues that art is a gift given to the audience by the artist, an advertising however is trying to extract something out of the audience. For example the purpose of the Pepsi advert is to extract brand loyalty and money from the consumer’s pocket. The Birmingham school atomizes  audiences. It is not about what the adverts does to people but what the people does with advertising. It is about the uses and gratifications of advertising by audiences. According to McDonald (1965) in Joyce (1967) an advertisement value is that which the consumer gives it. Advertising is not a powerful force as exaggerated by Williams because there are different types of readings including negotiated reading, opposite reading and dominant reading.

From the Frankfurt perspective advertising is the force that homogenizes and atomifies society resulting in the formation of a mass culture. Their view is that the homogeneity created by advertising towards a product creates a one dimensional society where behavior and thinking are uniform. For example the fashion trends at Midlands State University are followed by everyone. Advertising carries symbolic standardized information rather than being unique. Uniqueness of the individual is crashed. Adorno (1993) criticizes advertising for its commodity fetishism and the extinction of individual uniqueness. Mc Quail (1992) states that advertising reifies people’s minds and create consumerism. The major weakness of the Frankfurt perspective is that it also views the audience as being unable to resist advertising. Audience make value judgement of adverts and decide on the product to use from the characteristics of products presented to them by advertising.

According to the Free Market point of view advertising is a linking device that connects consumers to products on the market. Kotler (1990)defines advertising as, “…any paid form of non personal presentation of ideas goods and services by an identified sponsor, addressed to selected target groups with the objective of selling, influencing and persuading people to buy…” thus to the free market theory advertising is a simple economic activity aimed at developing free business. It is just an economic activity for selling commodities. Advertising as the definition implies tries to raise awareness within a targeted group for a commodity without any ideological weight hence it is just a bridge linking manufacturers of products and consumers. Advertising tells the tale of a commodity to an audience. Arguing from a Marxist point of view we can say the definition is flawed because advertising is always value laden and therefore one cannot possibly rule out ideological content. When two unrelated things like a car and a girl are put side by side then certainly there is some ideology.

Economists however argue that advertising is a selling cost because producers incur the cost in order to sell. They take a pro-marketing stance as they suggest that it is part of the selling strategy. Economic analysis shows that ceteris paribus (all else being equal) advertising is a cost that leads to lower prices if there are significant economies of scale in production. According to Nielsen if brand loyalty is created it can lead to higher costs. Advertising to them does not only influence people but is also influenced by liquidity (the higher the volume of buyers and sellers the higher the prospects of advertising). In this case adverts become the demand curve shifter. The main weakness of this theory is that advertising does not mean a product is going to sell thus it cannot be a selling cost if the good does not sell. People now employ marketing research to search for quality not just because they see an advert.

Feminism defines advertising as a tool that is used by patriarchy to perpetuate dominance over women. According to this definition everything to do with advertising seeks to perpetuate female subordination. Leis argue that images that are totally divorced from reality are advertised in order to stereotype the role and functions of women and men in society. Women are vulgarized, commoditized and presented as sex objects in ways which have nothing to do with the actual product. This is true for example the ripe n’ ready advert on ZTV where women sing the slogan of ripe n’ ready suggesting that they are ready, yet this has nothing to do with the original product. The herald reporter Jeke Fact argues that gender has got nothing to do with cars. However the case not all adverts are a tool of patriarchy as feminists exaggerate. Most other adverts do not involve any gender stereotyping

According to Post Modernists advertising is an activity of information transfer and system of communication preceding product sale. This means that advertising is the primary vehicle that transforms the sphere of culture into new territories for reproducing the commodity sing. In simple this definition is explained by Baudrillard (1988:23) in Stevenson (2004;153) who says, “…before goods can be consumed they must become signs. The meaning of objects is established through the organization of signs into codes. It is only through these codes that humans come to realize their sense of self and their need.” Baudrillard further argues that coded discourse that becomes attached to the product has no relation to reality, there by agreeing with feminists. However advertising is not without ideology, for instance Tommy Hilfiger’s fragrance comes with the statement, ‘the real American fragrance’ and with an American flag. There is the challenge of patriotism that if you do not buy it you are not American.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

In conclusion one can see that the term advertising as narrow as it may seem has many definitions that each contains some very important aspect of advertising. Some theoretical perspectives just advertising as a form of communication with the consumers yet others argue that there is ideology in adverts and hidden meanings. Thus advertising is a broad subject that can only be understood if its disected and analysed singular definitions.

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