Understanding Advertising: NCERT 7 Class SST Civics Ch 7

Understanding Advertising: NCERT 7th CBSE Social Studies Civics Chapter 07

Question: What do you understand by the word brand? List two reasons why building brands is central to advertising?

Answer: By ‘brand’ we mean that a particular product is marked with a name and logo which differentiate it from other products in the market. Building a brand is central to advertising so that buyers don’t get confused among the various products in the market. But just naming the product is not enough; the buyers have to be convinced that a particular brand is better than others.

Question: Choose two of your favorite print advertisements. Now, look at each of these and answer the following questions:

1. What visuals and test is being used in these advertisements to attract my attention?
2. What values are being promoted in these advertisements?
3. Who is this advertisement speaking to and who is it leaving out?
4. If you could not afford the brand that is being advertised how would you feel?

Understanding Advertising – Answer: Attempt this question on your own.

Question: Can you explain two ways in which you think advertising affects issues of equality in a democracy?

Answer: Advertising focuses on the lives of the rich and famous and makes us forget issues of poverty and discrimination. It makes us take decisions by conditioning our minds and has a potential to create discontent if a certain product is not affordable.

Question: Making an advertisement requires a lot of creativity. Let us imagine a situation in which a manufacturer has just made a new watch. She says that she wants to sell this watch to school children. She comes to your class and asks you all to create a brand name as well as an advertisement for the watch. Divide the class into small groups and each group create an advertisement for this watch. Share it with the class.

Answer: Once your group is decided, start working on the name of the brand. More often than not, the name of a brand plays an important role in building its reputation. Once that is done, you can make teams of two within your group and start thinking about the advertisement. While you are doing this, make sure that you know what you want the advertisement to focus on. After all, your advertisement should be good enough to connect with the consumers, which in this case, are school children. Your being a student will be of tremendous help as you would know the kind of watch you would want for yourself. Once all teams in your group have come up with some thoughts, come together as a group and consolidate on the best idea and discuss it with your teacher and the other groups.

Question: What do advertisements do?

Understanding Advertising – Answer: They attract people’s attention to their products.

Question: What do you mean by the word branding?

Answer: The naming of a product is called branding.

Question: Why is the consumer confused? Or What makes the consumer confused?

Answer: Sometimes there are two or more advertisements of a similar product. This makes the consumer confused because it becomes difficult for him to differentiate one product from the other / others.

Question: What do the advertisers do to convince the consumer?

Answer: They start claiming certain special values for their brand.

Question: How are brand values conveyed to us?

Answer: Brand values are conveyed to us through the use of visuals and words.

Question: When products are advertised by cricket heroes and film stars, we feel tempted to buy them. Why?

Answer: It is because persons whom we consider our heroes tell us that those products are worth buying.

Question: ‘Advertisements aim to get people to buy a particular brand’. What does this really mean?

Answer: It means that after we see an advertisement we should want to buy the brand.

Question: Why do companies show the advertisements again and again?

Understanding Advertising – Answer: They do so in order to get it stick in people’s minds.

Question: Under what pressure do companies show the advertisements again and again?

Answer: There are so many advertisements in the market. This creates a pressure on the companies and they start showing the advertisements again and again to make it most popular.

Question: What do you mean by social advertisements?

Answer: Social advertisements are advertisements made by the State or private agencies. These advertisements have a larger message for the society.

Question: What impressions does advertising create on us?

Answer: It creates the impressions that things that are packaged are better than things that are sold loose.

Question: Mention one drawback of advertising.

Answer: It tends to promote a certain lack of respect for the poor.

Question: How do people feel when they fail to afford certain brands?

Understanding Advertising – Answer: They feel bad on their helplessness to buy certain brands.

Question: Why do you think the manufacturer of the daal (pulses) gave his product a specific name?

Answer: Daals (pulses) are usually sold loose in the market. There are different types of daals in the market such as arahar ki daal, masoor ki daal, urad ki daal etc. These names are not brand names. When a company takes a particular daal such as urad ki daal and puts it into a packet, it will need to give the daal a specific name. It needs to do this so that we don’t confuse the daal is that particular packet with the daal that is sold loose.

Question: What do companies do in case there are two brands of a similar product?

Answer: In such a situation the consumer is confused. He cannot decide which product he should buy. The manufacturer, being aware of this has to give the consumer a reason to refer a particular brand of a product. Just naming a product does not help sell it. So, advertisers began claiming certain special values for their brand. In this way, they try to differentiate it from other similar products.

Question: What brand values are used by the two daals namely ‘Top Taste Daal’ and ‘Best Taste Daal’?

Answer: The two daals namely ‘Top Taste Daal‘ and ‘Best Taste Daal‘ are saying two different things. ‘Top Taste Daal‘ is appealing to our social tradition of treating guest extremely well. On the other hand ‘Best Taste Daal‘ is appealing to our concern for our children’s health and that they eat things that are good for them. Values such as treating our guests well and making sure and children get nutritious food are used by brands to create brand values. These brand values are conveyed through the use of visuals and words to give us an overall image that appeals to us.

Question: How is personal emotion being used in the Care Soap advertisement?

Answer: The Care Soap advertisement uses the mother’s concern for her child. It tells the mother that her love and care is best shown through using this particular brand of soap. Because of this, mothers begin to feel that using this soap is a sign of how much they love their child. In this way, the advertisement uses the love of a mother for her child to sell this expensive soap.

Just think about those mothers who cannot afford this soap. They might begin to feel that they are not giving their children the best care.

Understanding Advertising – Question: What role do advertisements play in our lives?

Answer: Advertisements play a major role in our lives. They influence us to a great extent. We watch advertisements, discuss them and often judge people according to the brand products they use. Whenever we see cricket heroes and film stars advertising different products we feel tempted to buy those products. It is because persons whom we consider our heroes tell us that they are worth buying. Advertisements tell us how we should live our lives, what we should aspire and dream for, how we should express our love, what it means to be smart, successful and beautiful. Thus, advertisements have significant role in our lives. In the present scenario, we cannot think of a life without advertisements.

Question: How are small businessmen affected in this age of advertisements?

Answer: Advertising a product is a costly affair no doubt but this is the only way to sell products in the market. Large companies have no dearth to money and therefore they can easily advertise their products. But these are small businessmen also who have no money to show their products on television or national newspapers and magazines. They often have to sell their products in weekly markets and neighborhood shops.

Advertising also makes us believe that packaged and branded things are better than things sold loose. We often forget that the quality of a product has little to do with packaging that it comes in. This shift to packaged products negatively affects the sales of several small business forcing people out of their livelihoods.

Understanding Advertising – Question: Mention the drawbacks of advertising.

Answer: Advertising shows certain drawbacks which are as follow:

1. We are citizens of a democratic country. It means we all are equal. But advertising always focuses on the lives of the rich and influential persons. It tends to promote a certain lack of respect for the poor. They are not the faces we most often see in advertisements and therefore we cease to think about them.
2. Advertising uses personal emotions of the people. Those who are capable to buy certain brands feel exalted but there are many who cannot afford to buy them. The personal emotions of these people are hurt badly.
3. Advertising promotes the sale of packaged products. This negatively affects the sale of things which do not come in packets. This forces many people out of their livelihoods.
4. Advertising by focusing on the lives of the rich and famous helps us forget about issues of poverty, discrimination and dignity, all of which are central to the functioning of equality in a democracy.