As richart Auman said, the most common ideological strategy is to explain how the interests of this group are "really" roughly equal to those of society or human beings. In other words, the most common advertising ideology strategy is to explain how the interests of the advertising role (the interests of advertisers) are "really" equal to the interests of the advertising audience and even the interests of society or human beings. This paper attempts to explore the successful advertising ideology strategy from two aspects: the ideology of advertising language and the imagination subjectivity of advertising audience.
Ideology of advertising language: the relationship between imagination and real world
Marx and Engels' definition of ideology wavered between the two opinions. First, the unique belief system of a certain class; The second is the fantasy belief system that may contradict the real or scientific knowledge, that is, wrong thoughts and wrong consciousness. Althusser, a French structuralist Marxist thinker, believes that there is no truth in ideology, and he defines it as "the reproduction of the imaginary relationship between an individual and his real environment". It is meaningful to understand advertising ideology, because the seemingly virtual advertising world is full of "imaginary relationship with the real world", and on this basis, advertising ideology is more unique.
In its various historical periods, advertisements have never entered the real world beyond the use value of commodities: success, unemployment, struggle, sweet love, China's entry into WTO, the Olympic bid, the Iraqi war, and cultural and sports events. Advertising has attached countless connections with the real world to every product, and its tentacles have penetrated into every corner of social life.
Of course, in the advertising field, "the relationship between imagination and the real world" is different from Althusser's original meaning. He believes that ideology is unconscious, and this "imaginary relationship" with the real world refined or created by advertising ideology is completely conscious and has its clear purpose. When it advocates the new concept of "giving gifts to health", its purpose is directed at "receiving gifts only for XXX"; When the son regretted his neglect of taking care of his parents, he asked the little granddaughter's question: "Why don't you buy XXX for your grandparents?" What this innocent little girl said is like a moral torture, questioning that she is not filial to her parents, but such a big moral problem finally leaves only one sentence: I didn't buy XX oral liquid. Then, according to the advertising logic, its implied theme is: buying XX oral liquid = filial piety. There seems nothing wrong with this proposition. As an audience, it is natural that the thinking and reasoning of an advertisement are illogical. Moreover, more importantly, it points out a way for modern people to show concern and filial piety to the elderly-buying health care products. This is very considerate to find a quick and convenient way to make up for the problem that modern people are too busy to take care of their parents. Other advertisements use the elderly as an excuse to respond to the above proposition from the perspective of the elderly: "Only accept XXX as a gift", further confirming the rationality and correctness of this proposition. Through the wide spread of the media, we have seen such a realistic scene: merchants set up health care products counters in conspicuous places in shopping malls, and the recommendation of promoters further confirmed the above proposition in consumers' minds. Therefore, pedestrians carrying beautifully packaged health care products have almost become a flowing landscape. As Althusser thinks, social people feel that they are directly and freely grasping the reality, but in fact his consciousness is limited by a series of ideological systems and reproduction systems, among which advertising ideology is playing an increasingly important role.
As Post said, advertising occupies a signifier, that is, it occupies a word, which has nothing to do with the object advertised in the traditional sense, but is attached to that object. The product itself is not the primary interest, and a set of meanings unrelated to the product must be grafted on the product before it can be sold. (3) The real world is broken down into various elements in the hands of advertisers. These elements, like signifiers floating in the communication space, are attached to the goods by advertisers at will. These rich and overflowing meanings attached to commodities make mediocre commodities shine with dazzling brilliance, and these external things, selected from traditional virtues and modern fashion, greatly cater to the audience. Because of the imaginary relationship between this layer and the real world, modern people enjoy the spiritual fast food while enjoying the material products quickly, and the advertising scene is therefore happily presented in the real world.
Subjectivity of advertising audience: an imaginary subject without substance
The presentation of advertising scenes in the real world also depends on another strategy of modern advertising: constructing the advertising audience as the main body. As an increasingly clever strategy, the prominent feature of modern advertising is that it blurs the boundaries of advertisers' objects in appearance. After studying and pondering consumers as advertising objects, through various endorsement behaviors and skills in advertising, the "audience-oriented" advertising role can influence and control the psychology and behavior of the audience to the greatest extent through self-talk.
The narrator in the advertisement screen is no longer just a beautiful actor or a beautiful stunner who has no general social role, but is endowed with various identities through their clothes, props, scenes and the way they speak in advertisements, such as workers, farmers, teachers, photographers and other occupations, children, lovers, successful white-collar workers, housewives and other social roles. Coupled with the use of a large number of non-professional (or unknown) actors, their ordinary looks, natural or simple performances, let the audience with multiple social roles unconsciously find their own shadow from the advertising role, and with the joint efforts of advertisers' other skills, they are seated accordingly.
Actors, primary school teachers, photographers and young workers appeared in different versions of TV advertisements of a brand of skin care products. Their speakers include husbands, wives, parents and other social groups. Advertising characters wear ordinary clothes and look ordinary, and they are displayed in actors' dressing rooms, factory dressing rooms, primary school campuses and other ordinary occasions. Everything is showing the audience that "they" are you and you are "them".
In another advertisement for washing powder, the real "housewife" became the protagonist. The advertisement adopts the form of random interview on the street or at home, and chooses to interview housewives in big cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou (with subtitles). They speak fluent Mandarin with a local accent, and they are not fluent in words that seem unprepared. In front of the camera, they are a little stiff and tell the audience directly that "she" is one of you. "She" is not an actress specially selected by us, but an encounter in street interviews or home visits. They are speaking for you, not the company is boasting.
Of course, there are still many familiar faces in advertisements, but even these stars are often covered with a layer of civilian clothes. Like us, they also have troubles and dissatisfaction. Their hair is yellow and dry, and the passage of time has left them with wrinkles, white hair and diseases. They are too busy to be filial in front of their parents. They are faced with the pressure of work and study, the hope of success and the distress of failure.
In this way, consumers seem to have changed from the object of speaking to the speaker, who is both the object and the subject. His rebellious and even hostile psychology, which has always been in the position of a pure preacher, gradually melted away, and they gradually began to believe that advertising was related to themselves rather than the powerful "other".
Advertising seems to be building a wonderful "real world" from life, so that the audience can further confirm their subjective consciousness in the advertising situation. A strange logic arises from this: TV advertising constructs the advertising subject as a concrete "consumer" in the "real world", which makes the advertising audience as consumers play two roles-the subject and the object of advertising discourse, just like the "monologue" of the advertiser and the audience directed by the advertiser. Here, jean baudrillard hit the nail on the head: because the audience is constructed as both an object and a subject, as well as an object and a god, it faces the impossibility of the subject status, that is, the subject is essentially immaterial. ④
This "immaterial" subject, like a doll in the hands of advertisers, is filled into the "flesh and blood" constructed by advertisers under the disguise of consumers' image and shell. The various appearances of the "advertising subject" formed in this way depend on the needs, but they also have their regularity: a "subject" with enough income to choose and buy products freely, and a "demand" without knowing how. In Maslow's view, man is an animal that constantly produces needs and constantly meets them. After meeting their basic physiological and safety needs, they have the needs of belonging and love, as well as respect, including the needs of being loved and loved, being respected and respected by others, belonging to a certain group, and being accepted and recognized by the group. After all the needs are basically met, he has self-realization needs and hopes to succeed in his career. Obviously, advertising knows how to stimulate people's potential needs and desires, and provides the only solution: consuming a product. Of course, such a simple solution, after some dazzling and ingenious decoration, will not be boring and ridiculous. Because in advertising, the "subject" of consumption is not only consuming products, but also enjoying all kinds of spiritual satisfaction brought about by it: family, friendship and love; Filial piety, love and sincerity; Success, glory, pride. This depends on the rich "meaning" given to the product in the advertisement. When people consume products or accept the meaning of these meanings, the ideology of advertising comes into being, and the interests of advertising roles (advertisers) become the interests of the public.