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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
VII. Special Topics and
Perspectives
22. Evaluating the Social,
Ethical, & Economic
Aspects of Advtising &
Promotion
The Brave New World of Advertainment
In 1957 social critic Vance Packard wrote his classic
best-seller The Hidden Persuaders, in which he
purported to reveal all of the secret techniques
used by advertisers to dig deeply into the psyches
of consumers and manipulate them. When interviewed
40 years later, Packard was still fuming
over what he saw coming out of Madison
Avenue. Packard was angry not because advertisers
had sharpened their brainwashing skills;
rather, he was puzzled by modern-day advertising
because it seemed to be unrelated to selling
anything at all. He noticed that a change had
taken place in the way marketers advertise their
products, as there is now an obsession with
images and feelings and a lack of concrete claims
about a product and why anyone should buy it.
Packard was indeed correct in his observation
that advertising has changed. However, what he
failed to notice was that marketers have actually
become less dependent on the traditional forms
of mass-media advertising that he felt could be
used to manipulate consumers. In the modernday
world of marketing, the debate is less over
the ads that consumers see and hear and more
about the persuasive messages they receive
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
unknowingly. In recent years marketers have recognized
that consumers are tired of the myriad of
advertisements and other forms of promotion
they are exposed to every day and are becoming
very cynical about the sales pitches. To get around
this problem, many companies are obliterating
the line between marketing communications and
entertainment by creating and delivering ads and
other messages that appear to be part of popular
culture. New-age marketers are redefining the
notion of what advertising and other forms of
marketing communications are and how they can
be used. “Stealth messages” are being woven
into our everyday lives, and as consumers we are
often unaware of their persuasive intent.
Product placements have been around for
years, and branded products are now commonplace
in many movies and TV shows. However,
the concept of paying to have a product or service
promoted covertly has moved into other
arenas, often without consumer awareness.
Celebrities such as Lauren Bacall, Kathleen
Turner, and Rob Lowe have appeared on talk
shows and praised prescription drugs without
revealing that the drug companies were paying
them or making donations to their favorite charities
in return for the endorsement. Producers of
soap operas and sitcoms and even authors of
best-selling books take money to build plots
around certain brands of products such as
makeup or jewelry. And of course marketers are
hiring trendsetters to generate “buzz” for their
products on college campuses and in trendy bars
and nightclubs as well as other places. Many of
the people who recommend products to us are
actually pitchpersons in disguise who are being
paid to deliver subtle promotional messages.
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