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The Power of Words: Advertising Tricks
The effect that words can have is incredible: to inform, persuade, hurt or ease pain, end war or start one killing thousands or even millions of people. They can get your point across, or destroy any hope of your ideas ever being understood. A major element of advertising is the words, which ones and in what order. The following is several of the specific tricks that are commonly used in advertising.
Black/White Trick
The black/white, or either/or, trick is making a statement that provides insufficient options to your argument. "Love it or leave it" was a big slogan of the 1960s, and it sounds logical. Nevertheless, it provides no other possible options, such as" Love it, or don’t love it, stay or not, you don’t have to agree with me if you don’t want to. "
The reason this fallacy is often called the black/white fallacy is that it denies any other choices on an issue or idea. Using it gives the impression that everything can be seen in terms of yes or no, true or false, on or off, with no maybes or both true and false depending on circumstances allowed. This fallacy is particularly popular and effective in slogans like" Love it or leave it", "If you’re not for me, you’re against me", "My country, right or wrong". Note that all of the above actually have other options, but the statements do not allow for them.
A common way in which this trick is used in advertising is by presenting two situations, one with the product and ’the other without. The one with the product shows circumstances that the advertiser presumes the target audience would like to be in, and vice versa for the situation without the product. For example, you have two groups of people: the first is young, beautiful, fit, happy, fun-loving and active; the second is old, ugly, miserable, and passive. The first uses the product; the second doesn’t. The assumption is that the purchase of the product makes you a member of the first, that the absence of the product makes you the second. Since most people would rather be the first, and the product is a part of being the first, then people should buy the product. And they do.
Genetic Fallacy
The genetic fallacy makes a prediction about something based on where it came from or its origins. For example, saying" He wouldn’t do that--he’s from a good family" is making a genetic fallacy. "You can’t expect any better from her--she’s from the slums" is also using a genetic fallacy. Note that in neither case is there any reference to the individual’s personal abilities or lack thereof; only to where they came from. In advertising, this fallacy is used often: "If it’s made by [company],it must be good" is an example.
Weasel(含糊其辞的)Words
Weasel words are those words that are tossed into a sentence that change the actual meaning of the sentence while leaving an impression that is different. It’s the easiest way to avoid having to take any responsibility for anything you say, or seem to say. For example, the sentence "Our canned corn is as good as fresh cooked corn". The impression given is that the canned corn is as good (whatever that means) as corn on the cob(玉米穗轴) right off the stalk. However, the phrase contains a weasel word:" cooked". Thus, the sentence actually says that the canned corn is as good as corn that has been cooked; now you need to cook it again to serve it. Note the sentence does not say that the canned corn is as good as fresh corn; it’s as good as fresh cooked corn.
A favorite weasel word is one of the shortest: if. "If the whole wide world can enjoy [use, buy, desire, etc.] [whatever the product is], then so can you" says absolutely nothing about the product, or even if anyone at all enjoys [uses, buys, desires, etc.] the product. It simply says "if", applied to a totally hypothetical, nonexistent state of being.
Another common way of using weasel words is using passive verb phrases. For example, instead of saying" I think that"(active verb phrase), you can say "It would seem that"( passive verb phrase). In the first instance, ff anyone challenges your statement, you need to defend your position. In the second, however, if anyone challenges you, you can avoid any responsibility for defending the statement by explaining that you only said" it would seem that" ,not that you agree or that the statement had any validity in the first place. You can duck responsibility since you never actually said it’s what you think, even if, at the time, it was.
Dangling Comparative
A dangling comparative is a statement which seems to be comparing one thing to another, but in actuality never actually states what the thing being compared is being compared to. What generally happens is that the comparison is left up to the audience to complete. For example," Our tires stop 25% faster". Note that the statement never says what the tires stop faster than. The audience would naturally expect it to be other tires, and would mentally finish the statement" Our tires stop 25% faster than other tires". However, that is not what was said. The comparison is left open, and could be other tires (in which case, it would be strong6r to actually say so), but it probably isn’t other tires. It could just as easily be doughnuts.
Complex Question
A complex question is one that appears to be asking for a yes or no answer, but is in reality two yes-or-no questions that are usually contradictory. A well-known example is, "Are you still beating your wife "It seems to be asking for a yes or no answer, but no matter how it’s answered, it condemns the respondent. Answer yes, and he’s still beating his wife; say no, and he used to. Another example is, "Are you still cheating’ on your income tax" Again, no matter how you answer, you can’t win.
Buzz Words
Buzz words are words that seem to say something, but what They are extremely popular in advertising. For example," natural" is a big buzz word, particularly applied to food and drink. However, what exactly is" natural" Definitions of the word include" produced by nature"," not artificial", or "not cultivated or civilized". Thus what does the word mean when applied to, say, beer If a beer is natural, is it produced by nature That somewhere in the Amazon forest, there exists a beer tree that need merely be tapped and bottled Unlikely; beer is produced in breweries and does not exist in nature. Is natural beer not artificial Artificial means" made by humans". Since :humans make the beer in breweries(啤酒厂) ,then beer is definitely artificial. Is natural beer not cultivated or civilized The behavior of beer drinkers is occasionally not cultivated or civilized, but beer is one of the first achievements of civilization. Then what exactly does it mean for beer to be natural In effect, the word natural applied to any product that doesn’t exist in a finished state in nature is a buzz word.
Thus we can see that buzz words have little or no meaning in and of themselves. What meaning they do have is based on the connotations(言外之意)people give them (which often come from the way the people using them give them) rather than their actual denotative meanings. The comparison in a dangling comparative is often left ______.