EXTENSION CHORDS
Advertising makes magazines possible. The cost of the advertising space helps pay for printing, staff salaries, writers, photographers and cost of circulation and distribution. Some readers find the advertising annoying; others read the ads first, then read the articles.
EXTENSION CHORDS
DEPARTMENTS
SEX IN ADVERTISING
by
Allen Hester
Advertising makes magazines possible. The cost of the advertising space helps pay for printing, staff salaries, writers, photo graphers and cost of circulation and distribution. Some readers find the advertising annoying; others read the ads first, then read the articles. Most of us are probably somewhere in between, reading whatever catches our attention as we
thumb through this or any other magazine. And there's the key: How do advertisers "Catch our attention" in an ad? What methods do they use to set themselves apart from the crowd, to insure that their ad will be read?
Some would say it is by ruthless psychological manipulation, by subliminal messages, by reaching the unconscious desires of the reader and demanding that he buy the product. Whether that is true is for scholars to debate; ever since Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders (1957) people have been arguing over the "ethics" of advertising, and will continue to do so as long as advertising is around. In other words, from now on.