Name : Reska Susanti
Class : 4SA02
NPM : 10607046
Advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, ideas, or services. It includes the name of a product or service and how that product or service could benefit the consumer, to persuade a target market to purchase or to consume that particular brand. These messages are usually paid for by sponsors and viewed via various media. Advertising can also serve to communicate an idea to a large number of people in an attempt to convince them to take a certain action. Usually, advertising communicates information in three types: audio, visual, and language. It is a more common case that an advertisement is a mixture of the three. In radio advertisements, music is always accompanied by language; on TV and motion pictures, music and language illustration are mixed with each other. In magazines and newspapers, advertisements are a combination of pictures and language of written information. Although music and pictures can provide some hints, or create a kind of atmosphere, the information about the product is limited. Even worse, it may lead to misunderstanding. Thus, we may say that language in a way provides more exact, detailed and dependable information whereas music and pictures only act as a supplementary means in advertising. Advertising language, playing a role of communication and persuasion, has developed its own features. Apart from the illustrations, the formal components of a print advertisement are: (1) headline, (2) body copy, (3) signature line and (4) standing details. The headline usually appears on the top of the advertisement and it is printed in bold types of different sizes. The message is conveyed with maximum brevity and preciseness and in an attractive manner. The readers mostly rely on the headline for the relevant information. The body copy includes the main part of the advertising message often divided into various sections under sub-heads. The signature line mentions the brand name, which is accompanied by a price tag, slogan and trademark. The standing details include cut out coupons, address of the firms etc.
Components of a print advertisement
We can factor an advertisement into three components:
The advertisement has some Text, which provides information about the product, and more importantly, provides anchorage for the Image. Under the general category of Text, there may be descriptive information about the product, other text that serves the purpose of catching the readers's attention, as well as (typically) short phrases that act as a kind of slogan, and finally the name of the company and/or the name of the product. In the Organization part of this unit, we will look briefly at the physical placement of text. We also look at the physical properties of the text (size, font, etc.)
-Image
The advertisement has an Image component, which is typically a scene which provides the background for the entire advertisement.
The Image may or may not feature a representation of the product, and the product may or may not be "in use" (for example, imagine an image of a tube of toothpaste as opposed to some toothpaste on a brush, or some beer in a glass as opposed to a bottle of beer). The Image component may be more than just one scene, as is often found in the "before-after" type of advertisement (for example, 69 Allegra), or if there are other symbols or visual features that are superimposed on the original scene (such as 05 Europcar or 15 Dunhill, or, taking an odder example, 23 Max Factor). The original scene in the Image may lend itself to a variety of interpretations. Look at sunset5a (right), and think about what kind of advertisement you could create, based on this image.
An Image usually has some interpretational component which guides the reader to certain aspects of meaning, possibly in conjunction with the Text. Some examples of this are discussed in the page on Organization.
-Organization of Elements
The Image and Text are put together in some Organization, which is an important component of the overall advertisement. The Organization can suggest coherence, some kind of order in which the parts are interpreted, and relevance, which determines the particular kind of meaning that the advertisement has. Analyze an advertisement
In our opinion, there are drawbacks to thinking too hard about the interpretation of an advertisement, or too hard about what kind of sense the advertisement makes. We refer to them as drawbacks, for they may obscure the most simple features of the advertisement, the very features that we are trying to uncover here: simply, how is the advertisement put together? And why is each element the way it is?
Not all advertisements make perfect sense. Not all of them promote or imply acceptance of social values that everyone would agree are what we should hope for, in an enlightened and civilized society. Some advertisements appear to degrade our images of ourselves, our language, and appear to move the emphasis of interaction in our society to (even more) consumerism. There may even be a dark, seamy, or seedy side to advertising. This is hardly surprising, as our society is indeed a consumer society, and it is highly capitalistic in the simplest sense ("If someone will buy it, someone will produce it."). There is no doubt that advertising promotes a consumer culture, and helps create and perpetuate the ideology that creates the apparent need for the products it markets.
For our purposes here, none of this matters. Our task is to analyze advertisements, and to see if we can understand how they do what they do. We will leave the task of how we interpret our findings in the larger social, moral and cultural contexts for another occasion.
It is often said that advertising is irrational, and, again, that may well be true. But this is where the crossover between information and persuasion becomes important; an advertisement does not have to be factually informative (but it cannot be factually misleading). For example, what is the factual information presented in 15dunhill (on the right)? There appears to be very little information present, but it is nevertheless possible that the advertisement is quite effective in promoting the fragrance.
In a discussion of what kind of benefit an advertisement might offer to a consumer, Jim Aitchison (1999) provides the following quote from Gary Goldsmith of Lowe & Partners, New York. It sums up perfectly what it is that one should look for in an advertisement. The question posed is "Is advertising more powerful if it offers a rational benefit?" Here is Goldsmith's answer:
"I don't think you need to offer a rational benefit. I think you need to offer a benefit that a rational person can understand." Aitchison (1999, 49)
The section on the practice of BBDO in Unit 14 suggests a similar strategy. Our approach to advertising is that it is presented as rational communcation, even if not all aspects of it seem rational (see the next section, on processing). Our emphasis will not be so much "Does this advertisement make sense?", but "If you are presented with this advertisement, what sense of it do you make?". Advertising theory
Hierarchy of effects model[9]
It clarifies the objectives of an advertising campaign and for each individual advertisement. The model suggests that there are six steps a consumer or a business buyer moves through when making a purchase. The steps are:
Awareness
Knowledge
Liking
Preference
Conviction
Purchase
This approach suggests that an advertisement should contain a message or means that leads the consumer to a desired end state.
It is designed to move the consumer from understanding a product's benefits to linking those benefits with personal values.
Words and phrases used in advertising
The main copy of advertising language probably uses words from a restricted sub-set of English---common words, often with some emotional as well as literal value. In advertisements aimed at teenagers, the pronouns "you" and "he/him" (for advertisements aimed at girls) are highly frequent. In other advertising domains, we can find some interesting contrasts in the use of pronouns (see Unit 7). Leech (1966) provides a thorough overview from the point of view of a practicising linguist of how language is used in advertising.
It is probably more useful to look at word usage and statistics in restricted domains of advertising, as we do in Unit 7, rather than to generalize across all cases. However, to give an indication of what we typically find, here is what Leech found out about the frequency of words in a sample of television advertisements (from the 1960s).
The twenty most frequent adjectives:
1. new
2. good/better/best
3. free
4. fresh
5. delicious
6. full
6. sure
8. clean
8. wonderful
10. special
11. crisp
12. fine
13. big
14. great
15. real
16. easy
16. bright
18. extra
18. safe
20. rich
The twenty most frequent verbs:
1. make
2. get
3. give
4. have
5. see
6. buy
7. come
8. go
9. know
10. keep
10. look
12. need
13. love
14. use
15. feel
15. like
17. choose
18. take
19. start
19. taste
Names used in advertising
Needless to say, a powerful aspect of product marketing is the product name itself. Consequently, choosing a name for a product is very important, and companies which specialize in naming products find their services in high demand. A name can have up to three functions:
- to proclaim a benefit: DieHard, EasyOff, Inspiron, Achieva, Aspire
- to distinguish the company/product from the competition: Zest, fatbrain.com, Amazon
- to offer a new vision: Pentium, Swiffer, Yahoo
Rhetorical Features in Advertising
Since advertisers are in the business of persuasion and have developed a vast array of devices for their purposes, advertising is the most obvious place we might expect to find the practice of rhetoric today. Advertising deliberately set out to attract ad retain the attention of its audience, and it’s obvious that every element in an ad has been carefully selected and placed for maximum effect. In the work of McQuarrie and Mick (1996), advertising language is placed in the context of the study of rhetoric and the rhetorical approach to ad language rests on three premises. It says:
Rhetoricians maintain that any statement can be expressed in a variety of ways, and that in any given situation one of these ways will be the most effective in persuading its audience. Hence, when persuasion is the ultimate goal, the rhetorical perspective suggests that the “manner” in which a statement is addressed may be more important than its intended content. Thus, a rhetorical approach to advertising language will rest on three premises: 1) Variations of how the message is expressed, in particular the presence of rhetorical figures, can be expected to have important consequences for how the ad messages is decoded; 2) These consequences can in turn be resulted from the formal properties of the rhetorical figures themselves; and 3) that these formal properties are closely interrelated.
Many famous scholars have given definitions to rhetoric. Plato said, “rhetoric is the art of winning the soul by discourse”, while George Campbell remarked “rhetoric is that art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its end. The four ends of discourse are to enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passion, and influence the will.” These four ends are just the admen’s desire and the standard of a good advertisement.
Rhetoric is not simply a matter of how thoughts are presented but is itself an influence on ways of thinking which deserves serious attention. Attending to rhetoric can assist us in deconstructing almost all kinds of discourse, especially advertising language. Rhetorical devices such as metaphor, simile, exaggeration etc. are frequently used consciously in advertising. “A rhetorical figure has traditionally been defined as an artful deviation (Corbett 1990). More formally, a rhetorical figure occurs when an expression deviates from expectation, the expression is not rejected as nonsensical or faulty, the deviation occurs at the level of form rather than content, and the deviation conforms to a template that is invariant across a variety of content and contexts.” (McQuarrie and Mick 1996) To have a full view about the influencing power of advertising language at the level of form, I will present several samples from the corpus to illustrate the rhetoric features.
PENULISAN BAHASA IKLAN
COPYWRITER, COPYWRITING, DAN BAHASA
Hasil kerja seorang copywriter disebut dengan copywriting.Copywriting merupakan rancangan bahasa dalam pembuatan iklan.Copywriting sering diartikan sebagai hasil kerja gabungan antara sastrawi dan intelektual. Sehingga syarat utama menjadi copywriteradalah penguasaan bahasa.
Dalam hal ini terdapat unsur mencipta, menyajikan kebenaran yang faktual menggunakan bahasa — sangatlah dipentingkan.
Copywriting adalah benda abstrak berstruktur kata-kata yang membangun emosi dan membentuk imajinasi sehingga mempengaruhi pembaca maupun pendengarnya untuk berbuat seperti yang diharapkan si pembuat teks. Daya pengaruh ini begitu kuat, bahkan seperti bisa menghipnotis.
Oleh karena itu, bahasa dalam iklan dituntut mampu menggugah, menarik, mengidentifikasi, menggalang kebersamaan, dan mengkombinasikan pesan dengan komparatif kepada khalayak (Stan Rapp & Tom Collins, 1995: 152). Dengan demikian, struktur kata dalam iklan:
1. Menggugah: mencermati kebutuhan konsumen, memberikan solusi, dan memberikan perhatian.
2. Informatif: kata-katanya harus jelas, bersahabat, komunikatif. Tidak bertele-tele apalagi sampai mengabaikan durasi penayangan.
3. Persuasif: rangkaian kalimatnya membuat konsumen nyaman, senang, tentram, menghibur.
4. Bertenaga gerak: komposisi kata-katanya menghargai waktu selama masa penawaran/masa promosi berlangsung.
Untuk menyampaikan gagasan pikiran dalam suatu bahasa seorang penulis iklan harus mengetahui aturan-aturan bahasa tersebut, seperti tata bahasa, kaidah-kaidahnya, idiom-idiomnya, nuansa atau konotasi sebuah kata, dan sebagainya. Syarat ini adalah syarat yang mutlak.
“Bermain-main” dengan bahasa atau sesekali melanggar peraturan baku, boleh-boleh saja. Tetapi aturan bakunya, harus kita kuasai dulu. Dan ini justru dipakai oleh para copywriter demi kreativitasnya untuk memancing perhatian.
Untuk penulis naskah dengan menggunakan bahasa Indonesia, mereka harus menguasai EYD. Hal ini dipakai untuk menjelaskan hal yang sangat gamblang, misalnya “di” awalan harus disambung, dan “di” kata depan harus dipisah.
Bahkan menurut Agustrijanto ( 2004:75) seringkas apa pun sebuah kalimat pada copywriting, ia harus mempunyai subjek dan predikat. Tanpa itu gugur sudah kekuatan copywriting. Pengertian subjek predikat ini tidak boleh diartikan kaku seperti halnya kita mempelajari tata bahasa karena materi teks periklanan sangat tergantung di media mana iklan diterapkan.
Panduan bagi seorang copywriter untuk menulis iklan adalah Brief Kreatif. Dengan demikian, gaya berbahasa dan jenis kata dalam iklan yang dibuatnya untuk surat kabar tentu berbeda dengan iklan yang ditayangkan di radio atau televisi. Sebab surat kabar mementingkan mata dan dapat diamati orang dengan lama. Sementara radio mementingkan telinga dan televisi mementingkan mata dan telinga. Kedua yang terakhir ini bersifat sekelebat.
Selain itu, bahasa yang dipakai dalam copywriting harus mampu mengarahkan target audience untuk membeli, menggunakan, atau beralih ke produk jasa yang diiklankan. Tentu saja, perlu jugadiperhatikan apakah produk yang diiklankan baru ataukah sudah lama.
Gaya dan jenis bahasa yang dipakai pun harus sesuai dengantarget audience. Seorang copywriter seharusnya mengetahui dengan siapa dia berbicara, bagaimana kebiasaan perilaku mereka, dan di mana mereka berada. Sebagai contoh sederhana dalam kehidupan sehari-hari, kita akan berbicara secara berbeda dengan teman, kuliah, sahabat, pacar, penjual di kantin. Bahkan secara lebih spesifik kita akan berbeda melakukan penbicaraan dengan teman kita yang berasal dari Jawa dan dari Batak, akan berbeda berbicara dengan orang tua dan orang yang sebaya.
Efektivitas Kata dalam Iklan
Sebuah atau beberapa kata namun memiliki sifat menjual itulah efetivitas kata dalam copywriting. Di sini terdapat kekuatan narasi, teks, atau diksi dari sebuah iklan dapat membuat orang terpengaruh untuk berbuat seperti yang dikehendaki pesan iklan tersebut. Sehingga memang benar sangat diperlukan kata-kata yang memadai.
Bahasa dalam iklan selain memperhatikan masalah ide yang diwujudkan dalam bentuk kat-kata, dalam penghadirannya bahasa iklan menurut Goddard
(2003:13-16) juga memperhatikan hal-hal “paralanguage” yang merupakan pakaian yang dipilih copywriter dan art director untuk membungkus idenya. Paralanguage itu berupa layout, jenis huruf, visual dan media, untuk membentuk iklan secara menyeluruh.
Dengan demikian ,jika unsur paralangue tersebut diolah secara maksimal, efektivitas iklan akan tercapai. Efekivitas ini, secara substansi didukung oleh efektivitas kata.
Penggunaan bahasa dalam iklan terkadang dipandang menarik, jika bersifat main-main, atau menurut Hakim (2006) bersifat “lanturan”. Menurutnya lanturan berbeda dengan kata melantur yang artinya ngawur, tidak nyambung dengan topik yang sedang dibahas. Sementara lanturan adalah sengaja melantur atau melantur dengan tujuan. Namun, lanturan yang dibuat tersebut harus selalu dijaga relevannya. Karena itu, carilah lanturan yang sejauh-jauhnya, namun bawalah relevansi sedekat-dekatnya (Hakim, 2006: 78-79).
Hal yang paling dekat dengan lanturan adalah plesetan. Orang muda saat ini tidak terasa gaul jika tidak banyak berplesesetan dalam bercanda. Orang tertawa ketika mendengar plesetan karena relevansinya. Relevansi dalam konteks ini adalah kata asli yang diplesetinya. Jika orang tidak tertawa berarti tidak relevan. Tidak ada korelasi kata asli dengan plesetannya.
Untuk berpandai-pandai dalam membuat lanturan, seorang copywriterharus menguasai gaya bahasa, baik itu personifikasi, analogi,kontradiksi, metafora, sinisme, sarkasme, hiperbola, paradoks dan masih banyak lagi.
Perhatikanlah iklan rokok A-Mild dalam seri “tanya kenapa”. Iklan tersebut dipasang di sepanjang jalan-jalan tol di Jabodetabek. Iklan tersebut bertuliskan “terhambat di jalan bebas hambatan” dengan visual yang dilatari oleh kemacetan mobil. Karena itu dipasang di sepanjang jalan tol Jabodetabek, dapat kita pastikan bahwa target audience adalah para sopir, penumpang kendaraan yang melewati jalan tersebut. Hanya masalahnya, apa kaitan kata-kata itu dengan rokok A-Mild? Di sinilah berlaku sifat lanturan. Namun, apakah itu relevan?
Yang jelas iklan tersebut masuk dalam seri iklan A-Mild “tanya kenapa”. Kita tahu bahwa iklan-iklan dalam seri tersebut selalu berisi kritik sosial. Dalam konteks ini, iklan rokok A-Mild mengusung brandbahwa dia adalah rokok yang cerdas dan kritis terhadap kondisi masyarakat. Kemudian, orang akan bertanya “apa hubungannya semua itu dengan A-Mild sebagai rokok?” Untuk menjawab hal itu memang diperlukan penjelasan tentang sejarah A-Mild.
Ketika awal peluncuran produk tersebut, A-Mild mengusung brandrokok yang rendah tar dan rendah nikotin. Dengan kata lain, rokok ini adalah rokok sehat, sebuah produk yang tentu saja mendukung kampanye anti nikotin. Dengan demikian, sebenarnya tak masalah orang-orang tetap mentradisikan merokok dengan tetap memperhatikan kesehatan karena A-Mild telah dapat memenuhi kebutuhan tersebut. Namun, tata krama beriklan di Indonesia menerapkan aturan yang tegas untuk rokok. Antara lain iklan tidak boleh menayangkan atau menvisualkan bentuk rokok dan orang merokok. Dan lebih ekstrim lagi, iklan rokok selalu harus memuat tulisan “rokok dapat menggangu kesehatan, serangan jangtung, gangguan kemailan dan janin”. Cobalah lihat contoh rokok A-Mild berikut ini.
Sebuah kritik yang diusung oleh iklan rokok ini: Mengapa pihak-pihak tertentu mengatur secara “ketat” produk rokok sehat ini. Padahal di masyarakat terdapat banyak sekali PR yang masih harus diselesaikan, seperti banjir di ibu kota, macet di jalan tol, sikap petugas pemerintah yang sulit sekali memberi tanda stempel, mentaati peraturan kalau ada yang melihat, dan lain-lain. Nah, dalam konteks ini iklan tersebut sangatlah relevan.
RINGKASAN
Hasil kerja seorang copywriter disebut dengan copywriting.Copywriting adalah benda abstrak berstruktur kata-kata yang membangun emosi dan membentuk imajinasi sehingga mempengaruhi pembaca maupun pendengarnya untuk berbuat seperti yang diharapkan si pembuat teks. Oleh karena itu, bahasa dalam iklan dituntut mampu menggugah, informatif, persuasif, bertenaga gerak.
Untuk menyampaikan gagaan pikiran dalam suatu bahasa seorang penulis iklan harus mengetahui aturan-aturan dalam sebuah bahasa. Tentu saja, “bermain-main” dengan bahasa atau sesekali melanggar peraturan baku diperbolehkan asalkan hal itu memang menjadi konsep kreatif dan terdapat dalam Kreatif Brief.
Keefektivan bahasa dalam iklan harus memiliki sifat menjual serta memperhatikan media iklan, target audience , serta rencana pemasaran: apakah produk baru ataukah lama. Hal ini harus didukung oleh “paralanguage” yang berupa layout, jenis huruf, visual dan media.
Terkadang penggunaan bahasa dalam iklan dipandang menarik, jika bersifat bersifat lanturan. Lanturan adalah sengaja melantur, dengan selalu menjaga sifat relevan dari lanturan tersebut. Syarat untuk membuat lanturan adalah penguasaan gaya bahasa, baik itu personifikasi, analogi, kontradiksi, metafora, sinisme, sarkasme, hiperbola, maupun paradoks.
References :
Goddard,Angela.2003. Language of Advertising. Second Edition. London: Routledge.
Aitchison, Jim (1999). Cutting Edge Advertising. Prentice Hall, Singapore.
Dunhill, Rolling Stone, June 20, 2002, p. 16
Sunset image. Ideas for Great Windows and Doors. Sunset Books, Menlo Park, CA. 1996, p. 51.
Rapp, Stan & Tom Collins. 1995.Terobosan Baru dalam Strategi Promosi, Periklanan,
