The attractiveness, inferences and images of written advertisements in Australian Magazines

In real life, advertisements are available everywhere and it is a fact that \ncorporations are able to persuade people to buy their products and have a good \nsale because of their advertisements. Therefore, in this study the writer is eager to \nfind how the verbal and pictorial verbal texts in written advertisements could be \nattractive to and retained by consumers and what inferences and images the verbal \nand pictorial verbal texts of written advertisements convey. \nThis study is focused on the interpretation of the inferences based on \npragmatics theories and the association of the verbal and pictorial verbal texts in \nwritten advertisements so that both the inferences and images of the written \nadvertisements can be found. \nThrough the theory on model of international mass communication \nprocess, it is clear that advertising has objectives set by manufacturer or marketer \nas the advertiser. To inform the messages in the advertisement, advertising agency \nshould encode the message and select mass media to carry the message to the \nviewers or readers who would think, feel and act on the stimulus. To achieve the \nobjectives of selling the product, advertisers should be able to attract people's \nattention to read the advertisements, to convince them that the advertised products \nare the ones they need in their lives and finally to persuade them to buy the \nproduct. To achieve this purpose, the advertisers make use of the verbal and \npictorial verbal texts in written advertisements. \nThrough the use of psychological theory on consumer behavior, it could be \nseen that in order to attract readers' attention, advertisers should pay attention to \ntwo major factors that affect attention, namely: personal or individual \ndeterminants and stimulus determinants. \nThis study is a content analysis and the approach is qualitative approach in \nwhich the researcher acts as the key instrument. The data analysis is based on \ninterpretation. The inferences and images in the advertisements will be identified \nand qualitatively described and analyzed from the point of view of content \nanalysis. \nThe subjects of this study are written colorful advertisements taken from \nvarious Australian magazines - The Australian Women's Weekly, Woman's Day, \nGood Housekeeping, Family Circle, and Seventeen. The advertisements are \nproduct advertisements, concerning the products of cosmetics, food, clothes, and \ndinnerware. \nThe procedures of data analysis involve collecting the data and analyzing \nthe data using qualitative method and through the pragmatics theory, theories on \nRelevance Communication and Cognition, cultural values and advertising, and \npsychological theory on consumer behavior. Through the use of these theories, the \nwriter is able to find out the inferences and images conveyed by the verbal and \npictorial verbal texts of written advertisements. \nTo measure the validity of this study, the researcher uses triangulation \nwhich consists of combined level of triangulation and methodological \ntriangulation, that is, within methods triangulation. \nThrough the analysis, it is found that the analyzed advertisements use \npersonal or individual determinants of attention namely need or motivation, \nattitudes, and span of attention. Moreover, it is found that the advertisements also \nuse stimulus determinants of attention which include the size, color, intensity, \ncontrast, position, and isolation. \nThe aspects of persuasive styles of advertising discourse found in the \nanalyzed advertisements include deviation, pronoun, polysemy / pun, metonymy, \n(pictorial) metaphor, and (pictorial) simile. However, parallelism and cohesive \ndevice could not be found in the analyzed advertisements because not all of the \nadvertising discourse above would be used together in one advertisement; instead \nthe advertisers could choose the appropriate ones based on their product types. \nFrom the ten analyzed advertisements, it is found that the verbal and \npictorial verbal texts of the advertisements could be attractive to and retained by \nthe consumers because all of them had attention and retention getting aspects. \nBased on the findings, including the findings of the triangulagtion, advertisements \ncould easily attract readers' attention and be retained in their memory because of \nthe big size of the advertisement itself as a whole, the verbal texts/letters and the \npictures. To make the advertisements retained in the readers' mind, besides using \npictures, advertisers also used concrete words, mnemonic device and repetition. \nBesides, it is found that all advertisements had inferences and images \nthrough the use of verbal and pictorial verbal texts in the advertisements. The \ninferences consisted of explicature and implicature. The inferences were \nsometimes difficult to find, especially for Indonesian people because of the \ndifferent cultural background. Moreover, people need to have the pragmatics \nknowledge, especially the discourse of advertising in order to understand \ninferences in advertisements. \nThe writer hopes that through this study, students of English Department \nwould realize that advertisements contain a great deal of inferences - explicature \nand implicature and they would have better insights concerning advertisements so \nthat they are able to give the right interpretation of the inferences and images \nfound in the advertisements. \nIt is expected that this study would also give insights to English teachers in \nchoosing materials. They could use advertisements as authentic additional \nmaterials in some classes such as pragmatics, reading, or writing - especially \ncreative writing classes and train students to think critically. \nDue to what has been found in this research, it is suggested that further \nresearch on other written advertisements such as from magazines, newspapers or \nleaflets could be conducted to find the discourse styles and other psychological \nprocesses for attracting attention and for getting retention that are not covered in \nthe analyzed advertisements since it is impossible to find all of the aspects above \nin just a few advertisements. Besides, researches on other types of \nadvertisements, such as leaflets or brochures concerning more on the pictures, \ncolors and language would be advisable, especially on the pictorial metaphor, \npictorial simile or the images. \nIt would also be advisable to conduct a further research on pragmatics to \nfind out the meanings of the written advertisements and other research on \ndiscourse analysis to find out the other types of discourse except what has been \nfound in written advertisements in magazines. \nAnother suggestion would be further research on oral advertisements \nwhich focuses more on the sound or oral language so that the detailed differences \nbetween oral and written advertisements could be compared. \nAs a conclusion, not all which are written or described in advertisements \nare true or really useful since advertisers usually manipulate the verbal texts \nthrough the use of advertising discourse in such a way that what could be seen \nfrom the outside are usually the positive sides of the products as the image only. \nEven the pictorial verbal texts are used to create good images about the product. \nTherefore, readers should be critical in reading advertisements.