Advertising: Initial research

     During week two of Digital Arts classes, we are talking about advertising and we are making our own advertisements. I decided to start my work with an initial research about advertising in general and color psychology, because I think it is very important to understand the basics before starting to create my project. 

    Firstly, I think it is critical to understand the definition of advertising. "The techniques and practices used to bring products, services, opinions, or causes to public notice for the purpose of persuading the public to respond in a certain way toward what is advertised." (Encyclopaedia Britannica) This definition can be understood, that advertising is taking an action to make people respond in for example buying a product or a service. Advertisements are not only being created for retail and services but also for social campaigns or non-profit organizations. People are surrounded by ads every single day, we can see billboards, leaflets or flyers, banners online, short video advertisements on social media, commercials on TV, daily, therefore I believe that I have a good understanding of how they work and how they are supposed to manipulate me into doing something. 

Another thing that is very important to understand is color psychology in advertising. It is not difficult to connect colors with particular emotions or situations, every adult can do that, even if they have never studied what exactly colors mean, it is something humans do unconsciously. 

Image source: New Design Group 

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Red - If I was asked, what this color reminds me of, I would think of anger. Since I can remember, I was told that the color red makes children angry, it is why walls in elementary schools are not painted red. Red is also a color of love and passion. When people draw a heart, they usually color it red. "Red signifies danger it can be used to good effect in marketing campaigns which need to evoke strong emotions." (New Design Group) 

Green - Green is usually associated with calmness and with the environment. It is why it is often used when advertising medicine. "Green encourages a balance in your brain that leads to decisiveness. However, green may also be perceived negatively when associated with materialism, envy, and possessiveness." (Wharton) Depending on a person, the color green can leave different emotions, but no one would argue that it is strictly connected to nature, so it definitely finds a good use in advertisements about ecology or about environmental issues or nature-based products. 

Blue - Blue is a color that builds trust. "Banks, financial institutions and medical companies can always rely on blue in their advertising campaigns to send out the message that the consumer can trust them implicitly." (New Design Group) Blue is also a very calm color and it reminds me of wisdom. It is why many companies use blue in their logos. 

Pink - Pink is strictly connected to any products or services for females. It is a young, fun and fresh color, often used in campaigns for teenage girls. "It will always be associated with femininity at a subconscious level making it a hard colour to use in advertising if the target market is anything but female." (New Design Group)

Brown - Personally, I do not know many people who would say brown is their favorite color, it is not a very exciting and fresh, but it is a cozy color. It is often associated with chocolate or coffee and is a very warm color. 

Black, white and gray - These colors are neutral, there is no intention whether there should be used just for females or males, therefore they are very effective when the target audience is all genders." Organisations which want to portray themselves as completely trustworthy and serious, such as legal firms, may opt for black and white designs in their marketing materials." (New Design Group) These colors are seen as serious but also luxurious. Those are minimalistic colors, and companies that are relying on minimalism are often seen as luxurious or rich. 

I think having knowledge on how colors work and how they affect human brain and human's perception of the world, will really help me with planning my project - my own advertisement. 

I also did research on advertisement language and what got me intrigued is that element of surprise is a very desired element to have in an advertisement. According to Scott Reddick, "Surprise is addictive. Surprise is like crack for your brain." (Reddick) Also "Thinking in terms of desired consumer behavior can unlock innovative strategies. When developing an advertising campaign we are often too focused on the question of “What do we need to say?” Instead, we should focus on the question of “What expectations do our customers and prospects hold, and how can we turn those on their head?”"(Reddick) Understanding from all the reading I did, surprises change behavior and they affect the part of brain that is responsible for when we are happy or feeling joy, this is why it is important to try to incorporate element of surprise in the advertisement. 

This made me think about how to add a surprise element onto an advertisement which is not a video, but just a picture. I did some more research on that and found a paper, written by Mihaela Vasiloaia from George Bacovia University  in Romania, on "Linguistic Features of the Language of Advertising", and in that paper, there is a section about graphic aspect of the text. Possibilities mentioned tie really well with adding the element of surprise, "Unpredictable spelling of words (“Beanz Meanz Heinz”, “4ever”, “Bar B Q”, “süper”, etc.) Higher frequency of low-frequent letters that produce outstanding sounds (‘X’ is very popular: “Xerox”, “Botox” and use of palato-alveolar consonants /tƒ/, /ƒ/, /d_/). Unexpected print of letters - whether the size or their shape is similar to some object and this object replaces the letter. "(Vasiloaia) According to that, sounds or spellings can also be a factor of surprise, and that can be easily added to my final project. 

I am really happy with my research. I think learned a lot and everything I learned will help me create a good advertisement on my own, using color psychology and trying to incorporate an element of surprise. 

   

Works Cited

Encyclopaedia Brytannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica,"Advertising" 

Date published: 13 Nov 2019

URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/advertising

Date accessed: 14 Oct 2020

New Design Group, "The Psychology of Colour in Advertising"

Date published: n.d.

URL: https://www.newdesigngroup.ca/graphic-design/psychology-colour-advertising/

Date accessed: 14 Oct 2020

Wharton Christi, Impact, "The Psychology of Design: The Color Green"

Date published: 17 Apr 2019

URL: https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/the-psychology-of-design-the-color-green

Date accessed: 14 Oct 2020

Reddick Scott, Harvard Business Review, "Surprise Is Still the Most Powerful Marketing Tool"

Date published: 10 May 2013

URL: https://hbr.org/2013/05/surprise-is-still-the-most-powerful

Date accessed: 14 Oct 2020

Vasiloaia Mihaela, "Linguistic Features of the Language of Advertising" 

1.1. Linguistic Means Used in Advertising Language

Date published: n.d.

URL: http://www.ugb.ro/etc/etc2009no1/s0804%20(2).pdf 

Date accessed: 14 Oct 2020