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 meaning of buzz words, if they have, is based on connotations instead of ______.