Creativity and common sense in writing and speaking

Each "Communication Corner" essay is self-contained; however, they build on each other. For best results, before reading this essay and doing the exercise, go to the first essay "How an Ugly Duckling Became a Swan," then read each succeeding essay. A previous essay ("What Advertising Can Teach Us About Effective Writing and Speaking") posited what at first glance may have seemed to be a radical idea. And that is: However superficially it may appear, print advertising copy (text), which is designed to sell things, represents some of the best, most carefully constructed writing you will ever see. It must be, because to achieve its objective, advertising copy must say a world of things to the potential consumer in just a thimbleful of words. With this fundamental idea as a foundation, we can now explore this fruitful subject more deeply.

A history of content marketing

Purpose Contemporary practitioners of content marketing (CM) often suggest their discipline is an ancient one, yet mainly limit its origins to the custom-published magazines of the late 1800s. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize some of the many definitions of CM and to report the first scholarly history of its development and practice. Design/methodology/approach This study’s purposes led to the following research questions: To what extent were CM strategies and tactics used before the 20th century? How have the uses and characteristics of CM changed or remained the same over time? Sources included general histories focusing on the earliest uses of advertising and promotions and edited book chapters and journal articles on the histories of branding and early print advertising, marketing and advertising practices in ancient and medieval periods and the development of consumer cultures around the world. Findings Research findings support three conclusions: CM existed much earlier than often acknowledged; has emerged as a unique marketing discipline, strategically and tactically distinguishable from the others (e.g. advertising and sales promotion); and possesses objectives, strategies and tactics that have remained remarkably consistent in practice across the millennia. Originality/value The research supports several insights to the history of marketing and the practice of CM. Some of the CM strategies and tactics identified in this paper, for instance, have previously been concluded to be part of advertising’s history. Findings also reveal that many of advertising’s American pioneers actually used CM to persuade 19th-century businessmen to adopt widespread advertising. In addition, the emphasis on interactive, digital media in CM definitions offers a likely explanation for the recent enthusiasm behind CM as a response to global trends in consumer preferences and global competition, as well as why contemporary CM practitioners have often failed to recognize they are practicing a “new” discipline that has actually been in use for thousands of years.

ARTISTIC AND GRAPHIC DESIGN OF ADVERTISEMENTS OF THE LATE XIX – EARLY XX CENTURY (BASED ON THE MATERIALS OF THE KYIV CALENDARS)

Aim: to explore the means of artistic and graphic design of advertisements in periodicals of the late nineteenth – early twentieth century. Methodology. The historical, analytical, iconographic methods have been used in the research; the methods of formal, figurative-stylistic, and comparative analysis have been used for analyzing the samples of advertisements. Results. The analysis of advertisements of periodicals "Kyiv Calendar" of 1989 and "Kyiv Zemsky Calendar and reference book for 1911" is presented in the work in terms of artistic and graphic means (composition, fonts, stylistic features of fonts, images, the nature of images, graphic decorative elements) and terms of tools influencing consumer motivation. Advertisers have been found to use a variety of fonts, highlighting company and institution names, creating messages with textual information only, and combining text with an image to give a potential customer an associative view of the product. Logos and trademarks in this period in the published messages are almost not observed, the companies provided information with the name of the product, the name of the owner, and address. Scientific novelty. Abilities of print advertising at the end of XIX – the beginning of the XX centuries have been analyzed, the means of artistic and graphic design of advertisements and tools of influencing motivation of potential consumers have been revealed. Practical significance. The revealed peculiarities of artistic and graphic design of advertisements in periodicals of the end of XIX – beginning of XX centuries based on the materials of the Kyiv calendars provide an idea of the approaches and capabilities of artists and printing houses in creating advertising forms for the promotion of goods and services in the market. The analyzed samples of advertising introduce the variety, names, and characteristics of goods and services of the analyzed period.

A method for measuring investigative journalism in local newspapers

Major changes to the operation of local newsrooms—ownership restructuring, layoffs, and a reorientation away from print advertising—have become commonplace in the last few decades. However, there have been few systematic attempts to characterize the impact of these changes on the types of reporting that local newsrooms produce. In this paper, we propose a method to measure the investigative content of news articles based on article text and influence on subsequent articles. We use our method to examine over-time and cross-sectional patterns in news production by local newspapers in the United States over the past decade. We find surprising stability in the quantity of investigative articles produced over most of the time period examined, but a notable decline in the last 2 y of the decade, corresponding to a recent wave of newsroom layoffs.

Outdoor advertising market in conditions of pandemic

The article presents the results of studying the global and Russian advertising market dynamics, in particular, the outdoor advertising market in a pandemic. The crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost all advertising markets. The most stable markets were considered in the USA and China. The media segments of the advertising market in Russia in the period of 2010 - 2020 have been analyzed; advertising on the Internet is recognized as a leading segment, in second and third places are television advertising and UN advertising, respectively. Global ad spend across all media is 4.2% lower in 2020. Outdoor, TV, radio and print advertising revenues amounted to $ 233 billion. The outdoor advertising market was among the first to be negatively affected by the pandemic: the decrease in car and pedestrian traffic led to changes in marketing budgets, a less number of advertisers and high cost of outdoor advertising. Starting from the second half of 2020, the market began to recover, which in the near future will entail an increase in brand spending on outdoor advertising. The relevance of programmatic sales in modern conditions has been proved. The costs of programmatic purchases of digital inventory in outdoor advertising in the USA are illustrated, the slow introduction of programmatic purchases in the UN-company of Russia is noted. The results of a neuromarketing study conducted in 2020 among residents of Belgorod, confirming the problem of low visibility of outdoor advertising, are presented. The main directions of further development of the outdoor advertising market are outlined: short-term planning, reduction of terms and volumes of advertising placement; digitalization of inventory; consolidation of outdoor advertising operators; development of programmatic sales in the regions, etc.

What a Man Wants, What a Man Needs: Markers of Masculinity in Print Advertising

Which advertisements appeal to a male readership? What are the underlying strategies used to target men? With the help of a corpus of adjectives derived from the men's magazine GQ, this study seeks to analyze how masculinity is constructed in print advertising. In doing so, it approaches the phenomenon of 'male language' from a sociolinguistic perspective focused on gender and employs quantitative as well as qualitative evaluation methods to reveal that current advertising campaigns construct 'male lifestyles' around products by using adjectives that convey simplistic and straight-forward messages, but also go beyond that by taking into account non-linear approaches when targeting a male audience. Finally, a comparison with advertisements in the women's magazine Cosmopolitan highlights the emergence of gender-specific features as well as gender-oriented product groups and reveals categories and concepts that are exclusive to their target genders.

The Visual Semiotics of Fragrance Branding: Exploring Jean Paul Gaultier's "Le Male"

This major research paper (MRP) examines the visual semiotics of Jean Paul Gaultier’s “Le Male” fragrance for men and how this brand appeals to gay male audiences. It seeks to address the following questions: How do product packaging, print advertising, and video advertising use visual semiotics to appeal to gay male audiences? What image of masculinity is being communicated? And how is gay male desire being commoditized? To answer these questions the study examined three artefacts through a compositional interpretation and a visual semiotic analysis: the fragrance bottle, a print advertisement, and a video commercial. The research demonstrates that “Le Male” appeals to gay male audiences through three strategies: (1) sexual objectification of the male body; (2) use of gay iconography, especially depictions of homoeroticism among sailors and homage to the illustrated erotica of Tom of Finland; and (3) gay-coded visual polysemy. Furthermore, it depicts attractive men with ambiguous sexual orientation as objects of worship. Jean Paul Gaultier’s “Le Male” integrates the idealized male form into its cologne bottle design, print and video advertisements. Its carefully crafted homoerotic fantasies resonate with a queer aesthetic, but do so within a minimal set of superficial values reflected in the fleetingly beautiful body. This study is relevant to how professional communicators can weave a coherent, visual story through a deeper understanding of rhetorical signs and symbols that resonate with specific subcultures. Findings from this MRP will be discussed along with suggestions for the brand to retain its success among gay consumers. The study also initiates further research in the areas of empirical confirmation, feminist gaze theory, intercultural theory, and multi-sensory branding.