Diploma in Media & Communication

Lecture 3
DPHU1002 Promotional Cultures
PR &
Advertising
Lecturer
Amy Miller
Email: A.Miller@unswcollege.edu.au​
 Live Poll on Moodle
What is a good example of PR and Advertising Communication

Find link
Difference between PR and Advertising summary

Advertising
Advertising
• Paid is PAID;
public
• Buildsrelations is hooks
EARNED.
• Mass media platforms – TV, radio, print, online
exposure, emotional
• Audience can be skeptical
• Guaranteed placement (designed and paid for by the agency)
• Complete creative control
• Ads are mostly visual (plus tag-lines/slogans and strong brand
positioning)
(Okay,• this
Moreisn’t always true, but it’s a useful shorthand to keep in mind…)
expensive
Difference between PR and Advertising summary

Public Relations
Advertising
• Earned / Owned is PAID;
• Uses similar platforms to advertising
public relations
• Builds trust over time is EARNED.
• Media gives 3rd-party validation (by writing articles, sharing news)
• No guarantees, must persuade (the PR pitch needs ot be convincing
for media to cover)
• Media controls final version
• PR mostly uses language – story, trends, conversational
(Okay, thisexpensive
• Less isn’t always
(fortrue,
mediabut it’s a useful
coverage) shorthand
Expense $ comes to keep in mind…)
in with
conferences, media events, stunts, paying influencers etc)
 This week (3)
• Today’s Agenda
• Promotion, Culture & Ideology
• This week, we will look at some different ways of understanding public relations and
advertising, and consider their place within: society, culture and the economy. We will
ask how they arise from and contribute to wider discourses and the social and cultural values
we attach to them.

• Why We Desire Stuff

• We will continue to examine how PR and advertising persuade and communicate across
industries, within organisations, in times of crisis, and to produce commercial, social, and
political outcomes.

• Criticism of Promotional Cultures

• Nike: A Case Study in Promotional Culture

Where are we this week?
1. Welcome & Introducing Public Relations and Advertising 1
2. Introducing Public Relations and Advertising 2 THEORY
3. Promotional Cultures AND
4. PR and Advertising Campaigns & Texts (Quiz 1 – in class)
CONTEXT
5. Elements (I): Briefing and Researching (Quiz 2 in class)
6. Client Brief & Analysing Publics (Quiz 3 in class) PUBLIC RELATIONS
7. A2: DUE
8. Elements (II): Stories, key messages & Objectives & ADVERTISING
9. Elements (III): Strategy & Tactics, Evaluation IN PRACTICE
10. Elements (IV): Media Forms & Media Content

11. Professional Practice (I): How to Pitch

12. Professional Practice (II): Views from the Industry (Guests) (A3 Due) INDUSTRY
Week 3 Lecture – Promotional Cultures
- History of Culture
- Why we desire stuff
- Case Studies

7
History of Culture
The 1989 Polish election - dismantling of the
Soviet Union.

Solidarnosc – a trade union of shipbuilders.

Poster designed featuring "western' Gary

Cooper from a popular movie High Noon

Message - good guys versus the bad

guys…It’s High Noon for
Poland. Solidarnosc signals its anti-communist
credentials and its practical intentions
for privatisation and modernisation!

Ideologically and geographically, the poster

looks west – California as the new Mecca
(Wernick).
History of Culture

 Promotional practices –
originally commercial in
function and inspiration have
made their appearance
beyond the commercial zone.

 Advertising and PR is now

used to promote religion,
Government policy and
education
Promotion: Theoretical Context – The Culture Industry
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno and their notion of the ‘culture
industry’ and critical theory.

• Theory puts forward the argument that popular culture in a

capitalism society functions like an industry in producing
standardized products, which in turn, produce standardized
people.

• They say new cultural products are not only meant for driving
profit, but to also produce consumers that are adapted.

Do you want to be like these characters? Why or why not?

• A ‘critical’ theory reveals and challenges social power structures -

Ipartment It argues that social problems are influenced and created more by
societal structures and cultural assumptions than by
individual and psychological factors.

What do these characters/and show say about how life should

be lived?
Promotional Cultures and Consumption
 Everything we do – what we wear, watch, buy, eat – sends a message about our
identities, values and belonging.

 Think about “lifestyle” – where you shop, eat, buy, what you wear, watch, listen to – these
are part of our identities, our lives, but are also things we make sense of value in relation
to others… and to the advertising, promotion and PR that influences us!

Think about the last thing you purchased, what

influenced you in your decision making?

“Consumer cultures… are those in which there has been a great expansion (some might say a
veritable explosion) of commodity production, leading to societies full of consumer goods and
services and places where these goods and services can be purchased”

(Arthur Asa Berger, Ads, Fads and Consumer Culture, 2011).

Promotional Cultures and Taste
For the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1979/1984), ‘taste’ Which brand do you prefer?
is shaped by those with ‘high cultural capital’ within WHY?
society…

…but this doesn’t mean everyone has the same tastes:

they fracture along class lines and reinforce class

distinctions……

which matters for the what, how and to whom of promotion.

https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=5DBEYiBkgp8
Promotion as Ideology
 Ideology refers to “that level of reality, at once individual and collective, subjective
and objective, at which people orient meaningfully to their world” (Wernick 1991, p.
23)

 All promotion is ideological: it orients us to act (to buy, value or think) in

particular ways.

 This isn’t inherently good or bad: it’s a neutral claim about what promotion does.

 But it raises the question of why it can move us to act in particular ways.
Promotion as Ideology
What cultural values are being used by Coca-Cola?
How would you describe the underlying ideology (or orientation
towards the world)?

Ideological analysis
asks what messages in
the media tell us about
ourselves and our
society?

“What the rise of promotion as a cultural force signals, in fact, is not simply a shift to a new
mode of producing and circulating signs (cultural commodification), but an alteration in the
very relation between culture and economy” (Wernick 1991)
Promotion as Ideology
What is this ad saying about Asian culture?

Paying attention to culture in

advertising is extremely
important for brands that
work on a global scale,
especially if your brand is
working in markets that are
culturally different to where
they are based. Messages,
symbols, rituals and even
colours can have significantly
different meanings and
messages across cultures.
Source
 Promotion as Ideology
Does this ad resonate with you or your culture?

Do all women feel this way at 'that

time of the month'?

It’s important to remember that even

the best advertising in the world don’t
always perform well across borders.

Although Libresse Blood was a

Cannes Gold Lion winner, it had very
different emotional responses in UK,
India and Singapore. Why do you
think that happened?
Why We Desire Stuff? Let's discuss
What helps drive consumption?
1. Desire: THEORY - Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.

 The last – is self actualisation –

how we are in the world, how we
see ourselves

 Then needs to fulfil our esteem

 Then love and belonging

 We need to have our physiological

and safety needs met first.

 We work from the bottom up.

 What helps drive consumption?
1. Desire: THEORY - Social Psychological Model of Promotion

Steps consumers go through prior to consumption This video explains a model called AIDA –
similar to the steps a consumer goes through
when making a purchase - WATCH
Exposure to Promotion

Recall, attitude change, opinion change

Psyche / unconscious exposed to

promotion

Cultural Behaviour
What helps drive consumption?
1. Desire: THEORY - Social Psychological Model of Promotion

Which one
drives the most
purchasing?
How a consumers personality works when buying

Personality structure by Freud composed of:​

​
 Id – unconscious desires, innate needs​

 Ego – considering, careful, conscious of others​

 Superego – ethical component of personality​

 Do you think
Desire: Baumanian 'We need to
consume to be
happy?'
Personality structure composed of:

“Defenders of the market like to depict it as a mechanism for delivering

to consumers – for better or worse – the goods and services they want”
(Wernick 1991, p. 42). But where do our “wants” come from?

According to sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, we’ve always consumed

to “satisfy” certain basic “needs,” but modern consumption is
about perpetuating desire itself.

Bauman calls this the “consuming desire of consuming” (Wharton

2015, p. 184)
Creating Desire – what does Can you think of

consuming products provide? other reasons you

purchase certain
consumer goods?

We can desire something

because it:

• Enhances our social capital

• Gives us pleasure
• Is desired by others
• Develops and/or reinforces our
identity
How do brands build awareness, interest, desire.....then purchase?

Influencer posts
promoting zara
brand – can be
PAID advertising
arrangement or
PR EARNED.
News articles
promoting
festivals, events
– generated
through PR
Outdoor media release.
advertising EARNED
PAID
How do brands build awareness, interest, desire.....then purchase?

Securing bloggers
to create content
on travel . Client:
Hong Kong
Tourism Board in
Sydney. SOCIAL

Advertising
in print
magazines,
or papers.
PAID

Pitching stories that

offers tips to
readers! Or buying
the 'advertorial' to
guarantee coverage
. PR EARNED OR
PAID
How do brands build awareness, interest, desire.....then purchase?

Online banner
advertising on a
news website.
PAID

Posting Creating pop-up events

content on to engage and inspire
OWNED publics! PR EARNED
channels
The Danger of Desire
 Being is reduced to having… No needs or desires are speakable without
a commodity to satisfy them; no commodity without at least an imagined
place for it in our affections” (Wernick 1991, p. 35).

 At the most basic level, then, the nature of desire in contemporary

consumer culture demands ethical promotional practice.

 Galbraith argues that our ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ have been engineered
by advertisers. So called ‘dependence effect’ – wanting stuff they don’t
really need.

Do you want something you don't need? Do you feel advertising

and promotion is engineering your wants and needs?
The Danger of Desire

Do we need
these?
Or do we
WANT them?
What do you think this advertising was trying to
say about advertising?

Article
 Who else criticizes Promotion ?
 Jhally, S (1987) contends that we, as consumers, are working when we
consume promotion, but this goes unpaid.

 Goldman, R (1992) says that promotion only offers consumers false images of
themselves; they act as “opiates” for the pain of the present.

 Klein, N (2000) argues that promotion covers up the harsh, exploitative

conditions experienced by workers producing the goods.

 Williams, R (1980) promotion moves away from the “communal” and to the
interests of the individual.

 Habermas, J (1962) states that promotion leads to the “refeudalization of the

public sphere” whereby the public is discouraged from developing critical
thought.
 Examples?

 False images

 covers up the harsh, exploitative

conditions experienced by
workers producing the goods.

 moves away from the

“communal” and to the interests
of the individual.

 public is discouraged from

developing critical thought.
 Who are you first
Broader Critiques of Promotion loyal to at work –
your employer?
Or the customers
you serve?

• “First, the notion that professional promotion has evolved to assist its employers and
consumer citizens alike makes little sense. Promotional intermediaries, as with any
other profession, serve primarily those who employ them. This takes on some
significance when one returns to the history of the promotional industries. In many of
the detailed accounts (Tulloch, 1993; Marchand, 1998; Cutlip et al., 2000; L’Etang,
2004; Newsom et al., 2007),

• it is clear that advertising, public relations and marketing have really expanded to
fulfil the particular needs of governments and large corporations. Much state
and business promotional activity was, and continues to be, directed at influencing
rather than serving larger publics.”
Davis, A (2013).
Case Study - Nike

32
A Case Study in Promotional Culture
Nike, the early days

 Sophisticated design
 Carefully tested
 High performance
 Athletes (runners) were fans

…but they didn’t sell to the

general public.

The problem wasn’t the shoes

Nike, the early days
 Nike was selling shoes just like the
market giants (Adidas, Reebok,
Tiger, etc.):

 Famous athletes.

 But so what if runners and other

sports stars liked Nike?

 People needed to want to spend

big $$$ on them too!
A World in Flux
 Nike

“Nike used its credibility as a

competitive sports brand to speak
to people during the ideological
tumult generated by the new
economic situation” (Holt &
Cameron 2012, 25)
“Nothing satisfies more than succeeding in situations where you are
not supposed to, which could work for the audience if they adapted the
right mindset” (Holt & Cameron 2012, 32)
 What VALUES or
EMOTIONS do you
associate with Just
Do It?

Agency: Weiden+Kennedy (1988)

Nike’s Just Do It myth “was to create a revolution of the mind that
would allow for personal transcendence, despite the seeming
bleakness of the situation” (Holt & Cameron 2012, 38)

What Nike worked with were cultural codes.

Creating Air Jordan
The Power of the ‘Just Do It’ Myth

 A harsh new world demanded a new kind of individual.

 No one would save you: it was up to you.
 “Just Do It” captured the combative solo willpower necessary to
survive – and to thrive.

Nike and their agency Weiden+Kennedy eventually understood that:

 Ideology shapes our sense of self

 Cultural expressions succeed when they resonate ideologically
 They were selling a myth, not shoes
In Summary
1. “…a clear narrative about the positive
normative effects of promotional culture
on market- and media-dependent
democracies.”

2. “Promotional culture has not simply

enabled markets, democracies and
media to advance but has restricted
and distorted their evolution in
particular ways.”

Davis, A (2013)
Links / Research to campaign examples for our
PADLET board – keep adding ones you like!
Famous campaigns

Mumbrella public relations campaign winners -

Google names of campaigns to find more about each winning
campaign or read Mumbrella about new campaign launches for
both PR and Advertising,

Example of a PR agency that has listed projects/campaigns

Google PR campaigns to find organisations and links to various

examples from the last 1-2 years.

BandT online publication

Adnews online publication

You can also research on the UNSW library database.

 What other

Glossary of Terms words would you

define from this
weeks’ lecture?

• Here are a set of descriptions for terms you’ll come across over the course. All are taken from the
Oxford Dictionary of Media and Communications. However, note that these are dictionary entries
and so have been distilled to their core elements and to that end, lack the depth of academic
definitions.
Theory:
• In natural science and social science, a set of formal, testable hypotheses or propositions designed
to explain some phenomenon.
Ideology:
• A highly contested term most broadly referring to: attitudes , ideas, ideals, beliefs, doctrines,
values , worldviews, moral views, and political philosophies acting as an interpretive frame of
reference. Usually relating to relatively coherent systems of ideas held by social groups or those
in particular social roles within a culture , but sometimes also to the more fragmentary forms of
common sense.
Culture:
• In the social sciences, the entire ‘way of life’ of a society, including: language,
ideas, beliefs, values, norms, knowledge, customs, practices, rituals, patterns of behaviour, dress
codes, political organization, and economic activity.
Next Week (4) – Promotional
Texts & Campaigns

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