The Game of Advertising

The Game of Advertising

Advertising is a tricky game, and advertisers are a group of tricky individuals. Their whole job is to find some new way of making you think that their product is better than the next guys. They will throw out tricky little catch words that make you think that you are receiving a deal or that you are special. These are all techniques that advertisers call weasel words. Advertisers want to trick you into buying their product. By knowing how they try and trick you, you can save yourself from being fooled.

The first thing that you see in this ad is a face of a female. You might first think that this would be a sex theme advertisement. I got this ad out of a female magazine and I think that it is saying "Hey, you could have skin like this." She has blonde hair and blue eyes, and looks as though she just came out of the shower.

One of the next things that will catch your attention would be the bolded text under the picture. It states, "Dry, Red, uncomfortable skin doesn't have to be anymore." Just reading that sentence makes me itch my arms, and rub my face. That is exactly what the advertiser's want you to do, make you fell like you need to go out and buy their product.

The bottle will catch your eye next. It does not look any different than any other bottle except that this one is "new". Why is it new? Did they ad a new ingredient? No. The only thing that they did was flip the bottle from upside-down to right-side up. That is all that it takes to make a product "new".

After the photos draw you in and get you interested in the product you are going to read the words in the ad. Advertisers try and keep the words small because the consumer is to busy to focus on the large words. The advertisers use a formula to determine the reading level. This is called the fog index. This advertisements fog index is 17.22. This is an extremely high fog index. There are 13 three-syllable words, which will make the fog index high.

The advertisers also use words that make it seem that they make a specific claim when really they don't say a thing. These words are called weasel words. In the first sentence the advertisement states, "Ð'...it actively manages sensitive skin so it looks and feels healthier." This type of deception is called unfinished words. The want you to finish their thought with, it