Humanistic Advertising: A Holistic Cultural Perspective
- ISSN: 02650487
Abstract
Advertising can be designed and evaluated in a holistic cultural way that yields information about how people use advertising. This perspective is opposed to the traditional models that measure how advertising affects people. Brands have practical, rational values, but their symbolic values make them distinctive and unique. Class, youth, sex, science, adventure, and wisdom are among the images or symbolism used in advertising. Advertising works best at the intuitive, or symbolic, level of consciousness. Some of the methods for tapping intuition for both pre- and post-advertising evaluation include: 1. role-playing, 2. personal analogies, 3. direct and symbolic analogies, 4. fantasy solutions/future scenarios, 5. psychodoodle/psychodrawings, 6. adjectivization, 7. personification, 8. projective techniques, and 9. group conflict/competition. In group conflict, members compete to sell products and advocate ideas. While the methods are largely qualitative, they allow the advertiser to see the world as consumers experience it. In contrast, the traditional linear sequential models view consumers as passive and manipulable. The easily measurable indices of these models support organizational continuity, curb creativity, and reduce individual accountability.
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