Teacher: Dear friends! One of the most difficult problems a young person of your age faces is deciding what to do about a career. There are lots of different professions in the world nowadays. They are all worth trying. But there is one unusual profession among them. Speaking about it I can’t help using the superlative degree of comparison: the most unusual, the most interesting, the most creative, the most glamorous, at last. It gives you the best chance to meet different people, it guarantees varied work life and pleasant working environment. Your services can be greatly appreciated. Money can be quite good. You need great imagination to be in this profession. Can you guess what profession I’m talking about?
Students: (possible answers)
Teacher: It’s a profession of an advertising executive or advertising agent or simply advertiser.
But what’s the image of this person? What does he or she look like?
Students: (every student expresses his or her personal opinion about the images of modern advertisers)
Teacher: Do you really think these people can be prosperous advertisers?
Students: (answer the question supporting their points of view)
Входит рекламный агент с фотокамерой, мобильным телефоном и другими атрибутами рекламного бизнеса.
Teacher: Hi, pal! What are you doing here? What do you want? We are having a serious, almost scientific discussion about the art of advertising.
Advertiser: I want to ask all of you: what are these people doing here? I’m going to make an ad about this school.
Teacher: But I wonder why you chose this school. Let me think… As far as I know nobody ever makes any ads about school nowadays.
Advertiser: I can open my secret. Some time ago I was a pupil of this gymnasium. The teachers are the best, the classrooms are the most modern, the food in the canteen is the tastiest… Shall I continue?
Teacher: No, no, no. I see that you’re very much obliged to this school that’s why you are here. Would you like to start right now?
Advertiser: I’ll be ready to start in a few minutes. (Рекламный агент готовится к своей работе, доставая свою аппаратуру, расставляя ее на свои места)
Teacher: Really we come across advertising everywhere. It’s so powerful and penetrates all spheres of our life that you can’t avoid it. Could you tell me where a person comes across advertising?
Student 1: You come across it everywhere, when you read a newspaper, watch TV, go to a local grocery, take your mail,…etc.
Teacher: Not only does one come across the advertisements everywhere, but everything is advertised. Advertising is a growing tendency in our society, so it seems quite natural to make out at last whether advertising is our friend or foe. So let’s go back to the earliest days of advertising and find out how it all began.
Student 2: In “History of Advertising”, published in 1875, Henry Sampson says of the beginnings of advertising:”…There is little doubt that the desire among tradesmen and merchants to make good their wares has had an existence almost as long as the customs of buying and selling, and it is but natural to suppose that advertisements in some shape or form time immemorial, but almost for all time”.
Student 3: There is evidence that hawkers were shouting their wares as far back as the days of the early Greeks, Romans and Phoenicians.
Teacher: Has this primitive advertising survived till the present day?
Student 4: It sure has. Although hawkers do not roam the streets with their cries, they have entered our home to make their please on the radio and television.
Teacher: So the earliest advertising medium was the spoken word and what else?
Student 5: It was signs, excavated in the ruins of Pompeii. The signs were used for identifying shops: a goat for a dairy, a mull driving a mill for a baker, a boy receiving a whipping for a school.
Student 6: There is also evidence of ads painted on walls- for theatrical performances, sports and gladiatorial exhibitions, ads of houses for rent, and appeals for tourists to visit the local taverns.
Teacher: There is no doubt that advertising flourished in this period. But when did the first written ads appear?
Student 7: Perhaps the first written advertisement was three-thousands-year-old one inscribed on papyrus and found by archaeologists in the ruins of Thebes. Teacher: And what do you know about the early English advertising?
Student 8: Perhaps the oldest relic of advertising among English people is family names referring to the various specialized crafts. Names like Miller, Weaver, Wright, Tailor and Carpenter were the earliest means of product identification the forerunner of the brand name so essential to modern advertising.
Teacher: That’s right. And what events had a great impact on the development of ads?
Student 9: One of the most significant events in the development of advertising was the invention of a system of casting movable type by the German Johan Gutenberg, in 1438. Paper had been invented more than a thousand years earlier by the Chinese and was introduced to Europe by the Turks in the 12th century.
Teacher: So all the necessary components were available for mass printing. And who can be considered the father of the first printed advertisement?
Student 10: William Caxton, an early English printer, made advertising history in 1478 when he printed a handbill English advertisement. It advertised a book he had printed, the Salisburi Pye, rules for the clergy at Easter. The Latin phrase at the end translates “Let this notice stand”.
Teacher: And what events of the 20th century gave a great impetus to modern advertising?
Student 11: The 20th century is rich in such inventions as photography, telephone, telegraph, radio, cinema and especially television.
Teacher: Really the modern advertising has a long impressive history. But I think the oldest type of ads is still the most popular and widespread. Some people say it dates back to Adam and Eve. Everybody engages it. What is it?
Student 12: It’s personal selling. College students use it to get dates, to market themselves to prospective employers. Politicians use it to win votes, and football coaches use it to recruit outstanding players. Entertainers use it to become famous, and promote their careers.
Teacher: To cut a long story short, personal selling is necessary for creating publicity and improving incomes. Speaking about advertising, we can’t but mention some other types of promotion which reinforce and complement advertising.
Student 13: Coupons, cents-off offer, samples, cash rebates, premiums, trading stamps, consumer contests, exhibitions, sweepstakes.
Teacher: Yes, some of them have been in use for over a century. Others come and go but the all serve one objective-to induce a customer to make an actual purchase. Now let’s conduct a short investigation and find out what stands behind advertising. Imagine yourselves advertisers. The aim is to teach your consumer to answer to your strategy, so we must understand how people learn about the future purchases. Maybe out guest will help us?
Advertiser: I know it by my own experience. Every time we see a commercial on TV, there is a strong motivation to learn so that our needs can be satisfied. It’s much easier to learn the message if the commercial shows a hot and thirsty person drinking coke and then falling backwards into cooling, refreshing water.
Teacher: Why do we need to see ads several times?
Student 14: Our experience even with good commercials can only be weak in comparison with the first hand one. That is why if we want people to learn advertisements they should be repeated many times.
Teacher: But I think too much of anything can’t do any good. Have you ever experienced the consumer fatigue?
Student 15: Yes, sometimes I simply feel fed up with this or that advertisement and in that case the message falls on deaf ears. So I think that advertisers should avoid too much repetition.
Teacher: Very often we buy the same brand without even being aware of the learning experience and this habit develops and becomes our second nature. Under such circumstances, it is extremely difficult for advertising to get customers to switch brands. Significant innovation and a heavy level of promotion is usually needed.
Teacher: As we could see advertising is rather persuasive. It tries to persuade you to be for or against something. This is done by using different techniques. What are these kinds of techniques?
Advertiser: They are: testimonial, transfer, repetition, emotional words and textual.
Teacher: Our students know peculiarities of each technique because they’ve already tried to make some ads. More than that, they are ready to share their knowledge with you.
Student 1: One of the favourite advertiser’s techniques is the “TESTIMONIAL”. In using this technique the advertiser tries to get you buy the product being advertised by quoting a favourable statement made about the product by some famous person. Often the famous person’s picture whose statement is being used is shown in the ad. Your decision to buy a certain product should be influenced by the merits of the product itself and not by the fact that a famous person endorses it.
Student 2: Another technique similar to the “TESTIMONIAL” is called “TRANSFER” but unlike the “TESTIMONIAL” the famous person does not make any statement about the product. He or she is pictured with the product being advertised. The advertiser hopes that people who admire this or that person will transfer their admiration to the product and buy one.
Student 3: Another frequently used technique is called “REPETITION”. Certain words are repeated several times. By repeating them again and again the advertiser hopes that you’ll remember them particularly when shopping.
Student 4: Sometimes advertisers use the so-called technique “EMOTIONAL WORDS” that are words which advertisers think will arouse your emotions so that you will feel for or against the subject they write about.
Student 5: I’d like to mention one more technique called knocking copy advertising. It is one in which a manufacturer takes some qualities of his product and runs them against those of a competitor. It can be a potent weapon, giving the consumer more information or poking fun at a rival product. Much of it is related to car advertising.
Advertiser: I see you’ve learned much of advertising. To tell the truth, much in my profession is propaganda. It’s important that you recognize propaganda in advertising and don’t let it mislead you. Decide for yourself if you wish to be influenced by it or not. Think creatively. Anyway, there’s one technique that is not based on propaganda. It’s textual. Do you know about it?
Student 6: It’s based on pure information and it’s free from any emotional words. Most businessmen give their preferences to it.
Advertiser: Really I think you could work as the first-class advertising agents. But Russian advertising is also an exciting subject of discussion. What is the attitude of Russian people towards advertising?
Student 7: I think many Russians find advertising offensive and they say that most commercials should be banned from Russian TV. Television stations are bombarded with letters and calls from viewers because advertisements interrupt our favourite programmes.
Student 8: Parents complain that their children don’t draw their stock phrases from a Pushkin fairy-tale but from an ad. If you visit any Russian school these days, you are likely to hear phrases taken from well-known ads. Many Western ad slogans are translated from English into illiterate Russian.
Advertiser: I can say that advertising in Russia is developing increasingly distinct styles of its own and absorbing some special effects from the West. Let’s hope that Russian advertising will be nourished by Russian art and Russian culture, the power and depth of which give us hopes for a better future.
Teacher: To sum up, let us look at the list of advantages and disadvantages of advertising. Advertising of nowadays is an integral part of our material and spiritual life whether we want it or not.