Name: Ashley Chen
Class: A
Date: 25 July, 2012
Assignment 4
Food advertising Advertising is a form of communication used to encourage or persuade a prospect to be a customer and to continue or take some new action. The first food advertisement, which produced in 1901 by Force Food Company, using a popular cartoon figure called Sunny Jim, was the first commercially successful wheat flake cereal as "The Food That is all Food." In order to stimulate consumers’ desire to purchase food, a successful food advertisement considers three main factors. These are the media; AIDA, as developed by ELMO Lewis; and the claims of food. First of all, the advertisement of foods, which is exposed to customers by media, has different purposes to appeal customers as comparing before. Advertising, which has been around for thousands of years, were used to promote events such as plays and recruiting for the military. For example, in 1798, the captain of an American ship, the USS Constitution, advertised for a crew. After two thousand years, signs hanging outside shops advertised services. (Ediger and Cheryl 11) For instance, a cheese shop would hang a sign outside their shops. These signs told customers where to buy cheeses. In these two cases, it was service advertising. The purpose of the advertising was to gather people, as audience, as workers, as customers.(Ediger and Cheryl 12) In contrast, at the beginning of the 19th century that product advertising began due to the first time mass-produced products by media as TV, newspapers, magazines, internet, radio, media, etc. Moreover, the 1940’s and 50’s was the era of the hard-sell, particularly repetitive television commercials. More specifically, “most of hard-sell ads did not think consumers as intelligent people, “ Ediger and Cheryl said, “and many advertisers believed that consumers think about more than one point at a time. “ However, they also said that advertisers in the 1960’s changed to a new approach, soft –sell advertising that depends less on describing the product and more on how the product will make the consumer feel.“ By highlighting product characteristics in advertising, firms can attract consumers to purchase products. To illustrate, the advertising claims that low-fat milk appeals more consumer to purchase. The advertisement of foods affects consumers’ purchasing choices. AIDA describes the steps that a prospective customer goes through before deciding to buy which is developed in 1898 by advertising pioneer E. St. Elm o. Lewis. The first stage of the buying process is “attention” which means catching the prospect’s attention well enough to get them to buy possibly. For example, if food advertising on a bulletin board which is placed in a high-traffic zone, more people will see it. However, increasing the likelihood that members of the target market will be exposed to it, which means more prospects possibly become buyers. Secondly, companies wish to put a new product on the market, they must develop the prospects’ “interest” in the product. For instance, companies might offer free trials to get prospects to give the company a chance and make them interested. Thirdly, prospects realize the product’s ingredient and consider weather the foods meet their “ desire” such like nutritional value. Finally, if prospects’ desire has been satisfied, they will take “action” on purchasing and become a customer. Besides, Macgillivray and Yancey said that advertisements aim to keep existing customers from switching to the competition and to create brand loyalty. Therefore, they also stated that brand-switching is a way to make the customers of the competition be targeted. Besides, if companies convince customers that they will get the best value by switching to a particular brand, it means that company do a successful “switchback”. Additionally, making customers feel satisfied and become brand-loyal people is the goal for every company want to get.(“The World of Advertising,”