Symbol for Advertising Essay Example for Free

Symbol for Advertising Essay In communicating, advertisers have a thought to share with their audiences. The exact thought or message can only be shared if oneness of thought is achieved. The difficulty is that thought cannot simply be picked up and placed in another persons head. Thus, a communicator must select some symbols or sign that both sender and receiver can understand the same thing. Businesses, groups and individuals use trademarks, logos and symbols to generate brand awareness in public forums. It will easier for people to recognize a product, business or individual by simply associating them with their trademark. Sign, symbols, and Logos are a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition. Sign, symbols, or Logos are either purely graphic or are composed of the name of the organization. Sign, symbols, and Logos have been used for thousands of years all around the world. Numerous inventions and techniques have contributed to the contemporary logo, including cylinder seals (c. 2300 BCE), coins (c. 600 BCE), trans-cultural diffusion of logographic languages, coats of arms, watermarks, silver hallmarks and the development of printing technology. The most successful logos are best described as being ones where the actual sign doesn’t even need to be specifically noticed, because when people see a product or group they will instantly associate that product or group with their trademark or symbol within their own minds. However, for an emblem to be considered as one of the most recognizable marks, it would have to be easily identifiable by people the world over. While there are millions of symbols being used worldwide, only a handful of them can be considered truly universal and recognizable by individuals from around the world. The example of advertising uses sign or symbols to communicate advertising massage is Nike. In 1964, Nike originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports, was founded by partners Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman in order to distribute a line of Japanese track shoes called Onitsuka Tiger, but as this relationship was drawing to an end the company’s name was changed to the world famous Nike. By 1971, Nike was preparing to open its first store baring its new name and the famous Swoosh logo that was designed by J. B. Strasser. Through a well-managed combination of advertising, marketing and endorsement deals, Nike’s Swoosh became known throughout the world as the leader in sport’s apparel and sports equipment the world over. Nike swoosh logo is one of the most popular logo in the world. People just see the swoosh logo and they will know that is Nike because they put many advertisement that speak to the entire genre. In Nike’s advertisement, they usually have famous athletes using Nike equipment such as shoes, shirt, and shorts. For example, they choose Tiger Woods to be a presenter of Nike golf, or choose Torres to be presenter of Nike football. However, Nike’s advertisement can impact consumer because they will think that they will play sports better if they are using Nike product. This is because they saw their favorite athlete using Nike product and said that these products make them better. They might miss understand that to be a great athlete must work hard not just have goo equipment. Nike’s advertisement comes with a nice slogan â€Å"Just do it†. This slogan is a well know slogan and usually comes with Nike swoosh logo. This slogan affects people around the world. The good thing is that this slogan inspires people to do something that they never do it before or want to do it but scare to do. This slogan can change consumer mind and make them start to do something benefit for them. It is a good thing for society and inspires many people. Nikes advertisement like any other business’s that requires interpretation. Some of this reading goes on at the conscious level, some unconsciously. As opposed to extremists on either side of the interpretative question, I fall most nearly to the constructivist point of view in that I view meaning as interplay between text and the reader. Chandler writes, Texts are full of indeterminacies which require the readers active interpretation. We must draw not only on our knowledge of language, but on our knowledge of the world. Thus, readers of advertisements bring with them a surface knowledge of the language as well as a set of preconceived ideas about how to relate the ad to them. Advertising work on a variety of different levels including, but not limited to sign typology, paradigmatic meaning, psychological appeals, emotion, roles, values/beliefs, and knowledge. The impact of an advertisement comes from the interplay between these various aspects of make-up and the readers own notions about them and the world. For example, the stamen â€Å"Test Your Faith in Nike advertisement, the readers find themselves thrust into the schema of religious worship. Not only must the viewer literally look up to the runner, but also they receive the imperative to Test your faith. The runner pictured appears in the midst of a run and rests easy in the knowledge of his own god-like attention to fitness. Likewise, the runner has no identity beyond his role in the ad. We cannot see his face but it giving him an added element of the unknown divine. People feel cowed looking from a subordinate position at the figure of the runner in his element. The text implies a direct connection between exercising and religious questioning. The writers seem to suggest an element of transcendence possible in exercise, as well as the need to continually question who we are in relation to our gods and what we hold most sacred. For the runner in the ad, exercise is the object of sanctity. The reader might inhabit a different role by placing themselves as the runners in the ad itself. Transported from reading a magazine to the middle of a run, filled with the sensual pleasure of using ones body. The readers identify themselves as the taster of faith and finding the purity of exercise within the soul. They can accept a measure of hearty self-congratulation. With the statement that Nike tries to capture the passion and even the moral force of sport and reify it in Nike’s product, consumers can begin to understand the ideology that goes toward selling Nike’s product. Tying into the religious matrix once more, Nikes become iconic signifiers of faith, personal health, and social inclusion. Nike proffers cultural belonging, the promise of individual athletic achievement, and dreams of parity with the worlds greatest athletes. Operating on a series of different levels of human understanding, Nikes advertisements actively seek the emotional response necessary to sell shoes, but more importantly, to propagate and sustain the fitness culture. What Nike did with their advertisement is clever because they can both selling products and inspiring people in the same time. However, there are many products that use this technique of advertising in the wrong way by making consumer change their mind misunderstand the ability of the products. For example, some coffee products in Thailand said in their advertisement that if you want to have a good shape, drinks our coffee. Consumer will think that this coffee can make them thinner and have a good shape, so they will buy these products. This is one kind of advertising fraud and the government should stop these kind of advertisement that make people misunderstand about the product. What these coffees can do when people drink it is only to make people defecate and make them full. So, it might help people to have a good shape but people needs to know that in the advertisement no only know that drinking these coffee will make them in a better shape. Moreover, they needs to tell consumer that people cannot have a good shape by drinking these coffees without exercise and control their eating. The government should focus more about the deep meaning of the advertisement so people in Thailand will not misunderstand by this type of advertisement.