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persuading people to do response. It indicates that advertisement is a form of communication, and it further points out that advertisement is different from other forms of communication in that the advertiser pays the media to deliver the message.
In this study, I shall use the definition put forward by William F. Arenas and Courtland L.Bovee, which is a quite comprehensive one: “Advertisement is the no personal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about products (goods and services) of ideas by identified sponsors through various media."
We should comprehend this definition as below:
(1)Advertisement is directed to groups of people rather than individuals (no personal). The groups of people are the intended or the target audience of the advertisement communication.
(2)Most advertisement is paid for by sponsors, except some public service ads.
(3)Most advertisement is intended to be persuasive —to convince people to buy products or services, but some ads promote the images of enterprises.
(4)The sponsor must be identified. It appears as trademark, brand name of products or services, or the name of an enterprise in the advertisement.
(5)Advertisement reaches us through media.
In China, the authoritative definition of advertisement is in the Advertisement Law of the People’s Republic of China. “Advertisement” refers to “Any commercial advertisement, which a commodity operator or service provider pays for, through certain media or forms, directly or indirectly introducing their commodities being sold or services being provided”
B. The Functions of Advertisement
Generally speaking, the functions of advertisement fall into two categories: the economic functions and the ideological functions.
The economic role of advertisement may be its primary role. It bridges markets, products and consumer goods to the public and thus to support the free economy. It can help the consumers to identify and differentiate products and build brand preference and loyalty.
To make an in-depth study, we find that advertisement involves social values and attitudes. Nowadays, more and more advertisement adopts the style of emotion appeal. They suggest our concerns about relationship, our sense of social status, happiness and contentment and many others. It may be said that advertisement is a mirror of ideology and culture. By imposing images on the products and services, advertisement can influence our attitudes and feelings and meet our ideological needs so as to persuade us to act. For instance, some advertisers claim that the consumption of their products will give youth, love, social acceptance etc.
C. The Classifications of Advertisement
Advertisement can be classified by media (newspaper, magazine, radio, television, internet), by target audience (consumer, business), by geography (local, international), or by purpose (product advertising, non commercial advertisement, action advertisement).
In this study, because of the limitations of materials, I will deal exclusively with print advertisement from the media of English and Chinese magazines and newspapers. And because consumer ads play an important role in all kinds of ads, and are most visible in our society, I mainly aim at the study of consumer advertisement.
II. The Effects of Culture and Language
With the development and deepen of specialization, and globe incorporate tendency, the product cir