This file is copyright of Jens Schriver (c) It originates from the Evil House of Cheat More essays can always be found at: --- http://www.CheatHouse.com --- ... and contact can always be made to: Webmaster@cheathouse.com -------------------------------------------------------------- Essay Name : 1476.txt Uploader : Email Address : Language : English Subject : Economics Title : What's The Point? Grade : 88 School System : Tulane University Country : USA Author Comments : based on fall 1996 Asics shoe ad Teacher Comments : Date : 10/18/96 Site found at : surfed in -------------------------------------------------------------- Advertising is the number one way to let the public know that a product is on the market. People and companies advertise everything from toothbrushes to two week vacations. Buying, selling, and trading are what keeps the free market system in America flourishing. Americans have the freedom to buy almost anything as long as they hear about it and decide that they want the product. Advertisements are everywhere. In or on magazines, newspapers, televisions, billboards, radios, and even on the sides of busses and cars, advertisements can be found. Advertising is a mode for companies to explain what they sell and why they believe the consumer should buy their product or service. Advertisers try to convince consumers that they need the product and that the services that the product supplies will make life easier and better. An advertisement combines many different artistic and linguistic elements. Advertisers try to display an image that they wish to portray with their art work and slogans. The image that the advertiser uses will be based on which target market the advertiser attempts to attract. The target audience is made up of a group of consumers that the company believes will most likely purchase the product. This target market will determine when and where the advertisements are seen. The most frequent place that target markets are reached is in print media. Examples of print media include magazines and newspapers. The average American receives at least one newspaper or magazine on a daily basis. Magazines are directed to a specific audience and therefore the readers who pick up periodicals will most likely be apart of the demographics which make up the target audience. Many major companies, such as Asics athletic ware, can afford to advertise in several different magazines. Asics pays close attention in their advertisements on the image that the company feels that the target market wants. The company’s goal is to attract the attention of the serious runners, while at the same time they attempt to play on their competitors' advertisements, such as Nike. They look to sell the idea that their shoe has the ability to endure the miles that the runner will put on the shoes and that the style of the shoe should be secondary. The slogan Asics uses, "Shoe buying RULE number one: the image wears off after the first six miles," combined with the pictures used, the placement of the different parts of the ad, and the color scheme is what makes this ad effective. An important point to analyze in an advertisement is in which periodical is the ad released in and why is this so important. The specific ad that I found was issued in the November, 1996 issue of Men’s Health. Asics knows that primarily males will be reading the magazine and in November many high school athletes will purchase shoes for the upcoming winter season as well. Asics realizes that this group of male athletes covers a large part of their target market. Asics wants as many consumers to see the ad and therefore they have derived an ad that will appear attractive to the male eye. The main slogan of the advertisement is the first aspect of the ad that the eye most likely visualizes. The slogan that Asics uses is a suggestion to the reader. It suggests that the customer should not worry about the way the shoe will look but instead of its durability. Asics wants the consumers to realize that although the GEL-Zapata shoe is not as slick looking as others on the market, the shoes will last longer and take the runner farther. The slogan is a response to the Nike ads that suggest the way a person looks in their shoe is one of the more important parts of a shoe. The Nike ads pay close attention to the fact that if a person is willing to spend money on a pair of shoes than they should be satisfied with the way that he or she looks. Asics does not directly fight this point in their ad, but they do state that they believe the first aspect in purchasing a shoe should be the quality that one will receive from the product and not the image that the shoe will portray. Asics however deceives the market with their own portrayal of the term image. By downplaying the importance of the image that the shoe will portray, Asics has opened up and said that their shoes will generate the image of the average athlete audience. All shoes demonstrate some sort of image. Asics wants their image to be the rough and rugged type. They want the shoe to be known not for being on the foot of some superstar but instead on the foot of the average athlete who trains five days a week for nothing but self satisfaction in many cases. They want their shoe to be recognized as the brand that athletes wear in the rain and mud. Asics’s slogan suggests that their competitors shoes are built for the good looks image and that after a relatively short distance the image is worn off and all that remains of the shoe is a dirty piece of material. Asics believes that after the shoe has been broken in a person should expect the same performance out of the shoe as when the shoe was brand new; no matter how far the runner travels. The comparison to Nike and many other major competitors is underlined in the words that are used in the slogan. The slogan uses strong fighting words that attack people’s general knowledge about shoe buying. The word, "Rule," is larger than the rest of the print, because Asics knows that people like to follow guidelines in life. People generally like to know how to go about doing things well before they ever actually attack the task at hand. A suggestion is made to a person that he or she go and look for a shoe that may not look as good but is more durable. Then when the time comes to actually purchase a pair of shoes the consumer will remember the suggestion and look for quality instead of looks. Therefore the consumer possibly will look for the Asics shoes over the Nike shoes. Just below the slogan, where the readers eye will most likely go next, is a photograph of the shoe itself. The picture is an effective method of selling because it is unlike the rest of the ad. The shoe is on a bright background that highlights the sole of the shoe. If the reader sees this picture they will most likely ask the question, "What makes this shoe different from others that I can buy?" Asics strategically places the explanation to this question next to the picture where a consumer can quickly read a brief overview of the shoe. Some general scientific background is given about the shoe and an important feature to the ad also appears here. A phone number and web page are given if the reader wants more information. This little line is given so that the consumer can feel safe about the product that they are buying. This allows the consumer to see that the shoe is more than just material but that there are real reasons why the Asics shoe is different from the competition. Asics knows that if the reader has read the ad thoroughly enough to get to the small print then there must be a possible sale involved. The final part of the ad that a reader is likely to see is anything above the main caption or slogan. In the case of the Asics ad, the last object seen is the picture of a runner who is trudging through rain and mud. This picture can be viewed as a summary to the entire message that Asics wants to send to the consumers. Asics wants the consumer to see that the shoe is durable, and to be taken seriously. The fact that the photograph is from a rear view means that the part of the shoe that Asics believes is the focal point of the shoe is the sole which is mentioned in the small description of the shoe on the bottom of the page as well. The advertiser wants to reestablish that the sole makes the shoe better by showing the shoe in action from a rear view. The final part of the ad that makes it effective is the most important. The reason that ads are effective is because they are seen. If the ad is not seen then it can not be successful. The reason why the Asics ad is effective is because it makes the reader stop flipping through the magazine or newspaper and see what is on the page. Because the ad reverses the general, black print on white paper, color scheme of a magazine, the ad stands out and attracts the reader’s eye. The reader then will look to see what the ad is about and at this point the reader has no choice but to see what the ad is selling. This in itself is considered a victory for the advertiser. As long as the reader notices who is selling the product then the ad has done well for the company. The reason for this is that people remember things for a short term weather they want to or not. Since the ad is remembered then it is successful. A successful ad is an ad that raised a companies profits. Therefore the only true method of testing the success of an ad is to see weather or not the profits increased. Advertisers attempt to directly inform consumers through their ads. The ad is trying to sell a product. In order to achieve the goal of increasing profits the advertiser creates an ad that will be attractive and send a message to the reader so that the consumer will then buy the product. --------------------------------------------------------------