Propaganda T echniques in T oday's Advertising
by Ann McClintock
1. Americans, adults and children alike, are being seduced. They are being brainwashed. And few of us protest. Why? Because the seducers and the brainwashers are the advertisers we willingly invite into our homes. We are victims content – even eager –to be victimized. We read advertisers‟ propaganda messages in newspapers and magazines; we watch their alluring images on television. We absorb their messages and images into our subconscious. We all do it –even those of us who claim to see through advertisers‟ tricks and therefore feel immune to advertising‟s charm. Advertiser s learn heavily on propaganda to sell products, whether the “product s” are a brand of toothpaste, a candidate for office, or a particular political viewpoint.
2. Propaganda is a systematic effort to influence people‟s opinions, to win them to a certain view or side. Propaganda is not necessarily concerned with what is true or false, good or bad. Propagandas simply want people to believe the massage being sent. Often, propaganda will use outright lies or more subtle deceptions to sway people‟s opinions. In a propaganda war, any tactic is considered fair.
3. When we hear the word “propaganda”, we usually think of a foreign menace: anti-American radio pr
ograms broadcast by a totalitarian regime or brainwashing tactics practiced on hostages. Although propaganda may seem relevant only in the political arena, the concept can be applied fruitfully to the way products and ideas are sold in advertising. Indeed, the vast majority of us are targets in advertisers‟ propaganda war. Every da y, we are bombarded with slogans, print and internet pop-up ads, commercials, packaging claims, billboards, trademarks, logos, and designer brands –all forms of propaganda. One study reports that each of us, during an average day, is exposed to over five hundred advertising claims of various types. This saturation may even increase in the future, since current trends include ads on movie screens, shopping carts, videocassettes, and even pu blic televisi on.
4. What kind of propaganda techniques do advertisers use? There are seven basic ty pes.
5. (1).Name Calling. Name calling is a propaganda tactic in which negatively charged names are hurled against the opposing side or competitor. By using such names, propagandists try to arouse feelings of mistrust, fear, and hate in their audiences. For example, a political advertisement may label an opposing candidate a “loser,” “fence-sitter,” or “warmonger.” Depending on the advertiser‟s target market, labels such as “a friend of big business” or “a dues-paying member of the party in the power” can be the epithets that damage an opponent. Ads for products may also use name calling. A
n American manufacturer may refer, for instance, to a “foreign car” in its com mercial –not an “imported” one. The label of foreignness will have unpleasant connotations in many people‟s minds. A childhood rhyme claims that “names can never hurt me,” but name calling is an effective way to damage the opposition, whether it is another car maker or a congressional candidate.
6. (2). Glittering Generalities.Using glittering generalities is the opposite of name calling. In this case, advertisers surround their products with attractive – and slippery – words and phrases. They use vague terms that are difficult to define and that may have different meaning to different people: freedom, democratic, all-American, progressive, Christian, and justice. Many such words have strong affirmative overtones. This kind o f language stirs positive feelings in people, feelings that may spill over to the product or idea being pitched. As with name calling, the emotional response may overwhelm logic. Target audiences accept the product without thinking very much about what the glittering generalities mean –or whether they even apply to the product. After all, how can anyone oppose “truth, justice and the American way”?
7. The ads for politicians and political causes often use glittering generalities because such “buzzwords” can influence votes. Election slogans include high sounding but basically empty phrases like the following:
“He cares about people.” (That‟s nice, but is he a better candidate than his opponent?)
●“V ote for progress.” (Progress by whose standards?)
●“They‟ll make this country great again.” (What does “great” mean? Does “great”
mean the same thing to others as it does to me?)
●“V ote for the future.” (What kind of future?)
●“If you love America, vote for Phyllis Smith.” (If I don‟t vote for Smith, does that
mean I don‟t love America?)
8. Ads for consumer goods are also sprinkled with glittering generalities. Product names, for instance, are supposed to evoke good feelings: Luvs diapers, Stayfree feminine hygiene products, Joy liquid detergent, Loving Care hair color, Almost Home cookies, Yankee Doodle pastries. Product slogans lean heavily on vague but comforting phrases: … General Electric “brings good things to life,” and Dow Chemical “lets you do great things.” Chevrolet, we are told, is the “heartbeat of America,” and Chrysler boasts cars that are “built by Americans for Americans.”
9. (3). Transfer. In transfer, advertisers try to improve the image of a product by associating it with a symbol most people respect, like the American flag or Uncle Sam. The advertisers hope that the prestige attached to the symbol will carry over to the product. Many companies use transfer devices to identify their products: Lincoln Insurance shows a profile of the President; Continental Insurance portrays a Revolutionary War minuteman; Amtrak‟s log o is red, white, and blue; Liberty Mutual‟s corporate symbol is the Statue of Liberty; Allstate‟s name is cradled by a pair of protective, fatherly hands.
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10. Corporations also use the transfer technique when they sponsor prestigious shows on radio and television. These shows function as symbols of dignity and class. Kraft Corporation, for instance, sponsored a “Leonard Bernstein Conducts Beethoven” concert, while Gulf Oil is the sponsor of National Geographic specials and Mobi l supports public television‟s Masterpiece Theater. In this way, corporations can reach an educated, influential audience and, perhaps, improve their public image by associating themselves with quality prog ramming.
11. Political ads, of course, practically wrap themselves in the flag. Ads for a political candidate often show either the Washington Monument, a Fourth of July parade, the Stars and Stripes, a bald eagle soaring over the mountains, or a white-steepled church on the village
green. The national anthem or “America the Beautiful” may play in the background. Such appeals to Americans‟ love of country can surround the candidate with an aura of patriotism and integrity.
12. (4). Testimonial.T he testimonial is one of advertisers‟ most-loved and most-used propaganda techniques. Similar to the transfer device, the testimonial capitalizes on the admiration people have for a celebrity to make the product shine more brightly – even though the celebrity is not an expert on the product being sold.
13. Print and television ads offer a nonstop parade of testimonials: here‟s William Shatner for Priceline; here‟s basketball star Michael Jordan eating Wheaties; a slew of well-known people (including pop star Madonna) advertise clothing from the Gap; and Jerry Seinfeld assures us he never goes anywhere without his American Express card. Testimonials can sell movies, too; newspaper ads for films often feature favorable comments by well-known reviewers. And, in recent years, testimonials have played an important role in pitching books; the backs of paperbacks frequently list complimentary blurbs by celebrities.
14. Political candidates, as well as their ad agencies, know the value of testimonials. Barbra Streisand lent her star appeal to the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, while Arnold Schwarzeneg
ger endorsed George Bush. Even controversial social issues are debated by celebrities. The nuclear freeze, for instance, starred Paul Newman for the pro side and Charlton Heston for the con.
15. As illogical as testimonials sometimes are (Pepsi‟s Michael Jackson, for instance, is a health-food adherent who does not drink soft drinks), they are effective propaganda. We like the person so much that we like the product too.
16.(5). Plain Folks.The plain folks approach says, in effect, “Buy me or vote for me. I‟m just like you.” Regular folks will surely like Bob Evan‟s Down on the Farm Country Sausage or good old-fashioned Countrytime Lemonade. Some ads emphasize the idea that “we‟re all in the same boat.” We see people making long-distance calls for just the reasons we do – to put the baby on the phone to Grandma or to tell Mom we love her. And how do these
folksy, warmhearted (usually saccharine) scenes affect us? They are supposed to make us feel that AT&T – the multinational corporate giant – has the same values we do. Similarly, we are introduced to the little people at Ford, the ordinary folks who work on the assemble line, not to bigwigs in their executive offices. What‟s the purpose of such an approach? To encourage us to buy a car built by these honest, hardworking “everyday Joes” who car e about quality as much as we do.
17. Political advertisements make almost as much use of the “plain folks” appeal as they do of transfer devices. Candidates wear hard hat s, farmer‟s caps, and assembly-line coveralls. They jog around the block and carry their own luggage through the airport. The idea is to convince voters that the candidates are average people, not the elite – not wealthy lawyers or executives but common citizens.
18.(6). Card Stacking.When people say that “the cards were stacked again me,” they mean that they were never given a fair chance. Applied to propaganda, card stacking means that one side may suppress or distort evidence, tell half-truths, oversimplify the facts, or set up a “straw man”–a false target – to divert attention from the issue at hand. Card stacking is a difficult form of propaganda both to detect and to combat. When a candidate claims that an opponent has …changed his mind five times on this important issue,” we tend to accept the claim without investigating whether the candidate had good reasons for changing his mind. Many people are simply swayed by the distorted claim that the candidate is “waffling” on the issue.
19. Advertisers often stack the cards in favor of the products they are pushing. They may, for instance, use what are called “weasel words.” These are small words that usually slip right past us, but that make the difference between reality and illusion. The weasel words are underlined in the foll
owing claims.
●“Helps control dandruff symptoms.” (The audience usually interprets this as stops
dandruff.”)
●“Most dentists surveyed recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew
gum.” (We hear the “most dentist s” and “for their patients.” But we don‟t think about how many were surveyed or whether or not the dentists first recommended that the patients not chew gum at all.)

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