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How to Read an Ad: Learning to Read between the Lies Précis

Advertisements are a huge part of present day culture. The average adult in the United States is exposed to over five hundred advertising messages daily, and is conscious of about seventy-five percent of those. However, even though people are bombarded with catchy phrases, cheesy commercials, and misleading information every day, most Americans still can’t see through the gimmicks and the lies. While children are taught to analyze books and interpret poetry, they are never shown how to recognize the many tricks advertisers use to convince consumers to buy their product. It is the duty of English teachers to show their students how to view advertisements with a critical, but not necessarily cynical, eye.

There are four kinds of reading – guessing (making assumptions of words based on pictures), stumbling (fragmented understanding), skipping (getting the main idea of what is being said), and skimming (getting through the material swiftly and understanding the general idea). There are also four levels to reading – elementary/rudimentary/basic/initial reading, inspectional reading, analytical reading, and syntopical/comparative reading. Elementary reading is a combination of guessing and stumbling, and is most advantageous to advertisers because it allows for false generalizations and half-truths, and it appeals to the subconscious mind. Inspectional reading, a combination of stumbling and skimming, is a type of reading in which the reader seeks to answer questions formed purely out of curiosity. Analytical reading is a careful, systematic analysis of the entire work and its symbols in which the reader asks more in depth questions. Syntopical reading is in depth analysis in which the reader compares the devices used in the ad he or she is reading, and the devices used in other ads.

While many people would feel that taking the time to analyze each ad one encounters is unnecessarily cumbersome and pointless, without taking such measures, one condemns oneself to remaining a slave to the “hamster wheel of consumerism,” in which one is eternally obligated to buy the next “hot” thing. Consumers are asked to “read closer,” but, in fact, most advertisements neither want nor facilitate their reading. Advertisers use three major techniques: pseudovoice, pseudopurpose, and pseudologic. Many advertisements hire celebrities and attractive people to divert the attention of the consumer from the true nature of the product to the false image created, an example of pseudovoice. Another common appeal the advertiser makes to the consumer is one of providing welfare and concern for the consumer (pseudopurpose). Finally, there is pseudologic, the technique by which the advertiser justifies a product using illogical reasoning, but does it in a way that sounds good to the undiscerning consumer. Two other techniques that are occasionally used, often in combination, are Cow and Bull. Cow advertisements try to overawe or intimidate the reader with impressive, technical, and often manipulated (and uncited) information and statistics. This type of advertisement plays on fears and through innuendos. The Bull technique, on the other hand, involves the advertiser giving no factual data, but instead tries to persuade the consumer through blather and overstatement. All these techniques require that the consumer fail to understand the deeper meaning.

To counter such tactics, the consumer must employ a system of discounts, in which they analyze the advertiser’s tricks in order to discredit them and discern the empty promises from the facts. Many experts, like Leo Spitzer and John Berryman, say that language has been so devalued through misuse that people already do not accept words at face value. However, as the saying goes, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” While the advertiser acknowledges that the consumer will not accept the advertisement completely at face value, the overall success of advertising reflects the lack of scrutiny on the part of the consumer. The consumer must read between the lines and realize that the narrator/speaker is not to be trusted. One suggested method is to refer to the acronym VAPID – voice, audience, purpose, idea, and devices. The consumer first must identify who the speaker of the ad is, and whether the speaker is credible or not. Next, the consumer needs to determine the audience of the advertisement in order to identify whether the advertiser has reason to employ such techniques as reverse psychology or to take an unfair advantage by targeting vulnerable consumers (i.e. children). The consumer should also analyze the purpose of the ad to recognize what the advertisement is saying. Take, for instance, the “public service” ads put out by gas companies in relation to the energy crisis. It is crucial that the consumer understands the main idea of the advertisement, for then they will be able to see through it. Finally, the consumer must recognize the specific devices used by the advertisers – attention-getting ploys and non-verbal symbols. By employing these techniques, consumers will no longer allow advertisers to exploit their own insecurities in order to take their money.