The Impact of Advertisements on Society

Advertising is a manipulative, powerful, and persuasive tool that many organizations use to control their consumers. As a form of communication, advertisements contain strong elements that convince potential consumers to consume or purchase particular products or service in the market. In the technology age, advertisements in society have had an immense impact on people. The form of communication creates false needs, influences an individual’s consumer habits, and distorts the priorities and values of feminism and sexism in society. Nissan Motor Co. Ltd uses advertisements to ensure they get massive sales on the new products and services they incorporate in their cars. Nissan Motor Co. Ltd successfully uses advertisements to entice their potential consumers and grow their profit margin.

Historical and Financial Information of the Company

Nissan Motor Co. Ltd is among the biggest automotive industries, founded in 1933 as the Jidosha- Seizo Co. Ltd. However, in 1934, Jidosha- Siezo Co. Ltd merged with a Japanese manufacturer and changed the name to Nissan Motor Company. The company sells more than 3.7 million cars in approximately 180 countries across the globe and its headquarters located in Tokyo Japan (Nissan Motor Co. Ltd). In 1999, Nissan had financial difficulties that prompted the formation of an alliance with Renault South Africa of France. In 2018, Nissan Motors Co. Ltd entered in a new partnership with Renault and Daimler, a triple alliance that allowed for development cost and technology sharing (Nissan Motor Co. Ltd). The coalition encouraged mutual development and global cooperation. Currently, Nissan Motors Co. Ltd has factories in 16 countries and is the official sale conduct in close to 190 countries. The company has more than 240,000 employees and its annual revenue totals to $110 billion (Nissan Motor Co. Ltd). Over the last five years, Nissan Motors has recovered an increasing trend in their net yearly income. In 2013, the net income was 3.951, in 2014, it was 4.307, 2015 the revenue increased to 4.718 and dropped in 2016 to 4.513. Conversely, in 2017, the company experienced a 95% increase recorded at 7.354 net incomes ((Nissan a). Since 2013, after experiencing a net income of 3.951 billion, Nissan is slowly rising to experience massive profits each year.

Advertising refers to the non-personal message passed to a specific audience through a mass media. There are different elements in advertising, and they include, Personal selling which is a personal communication that persuades a consumer to buy a firms products (Pride, 379). The element is more direct, has immediate feedback, and is more persuasive. Sales promotion includes the use of materials and activities to induce customers directly. The main aim of the element is to add value to the product or service increases the likelihood of a customer’s purchase.  The final factor is the Public relations that incorporate constant communication activities that maintain internal and external the relationships between public groups and organizations (Pride, 379).

Types of Advertising

Advertising falls into three categories that are selective demand, institutional or primary demand.  Primary demand advertising aims at the creation of orders of all the brands of a product or service in a particular industry (Pride, 379). Selective demand advertising aims at selling a specific brand of a product or service. Selective demand is the most common form of advertising. The method persuades consumers to make their purchase within a short period known as the Immediate Response Advertising. Reminder advertising seeks to promote products and services with immediate appeal to ensure that the public is aware of the product or firm’s name. Comparative advertising is a strategy that uses a comparison to contrast the sponsored brand with one or more competing brands. In this advertisement, the organizations illustrate that the sponsored brand to be as good or superiors than other brands. However, marketers need to present factual and truthful information to avoid presenting distorted or obscured facts. Institutional advertising is designed to improve the image or reputation of a firm. Organizations set aside funds to build goodwill, rather than fuel sales (Pride, 379).

Advertising campaigns undergo several stages that comprise identifying and analyzing the target audience through examining factors like demographics, attitude towards products, competition, and the features of the product (Pride, 381). The second step is to define the advertising objectives, which help identify the specific details, a period for achieving goals, and the plan of achieving the goals. The third stage is to create the advertising platform that contains important selling points and features lacking in competitors products that an advertiser will include in the campaign. The fourth step is to determine the advertising appropriation, which is the total cost of the campaign. Developing a media plan is the next stage that outlines the timetable for advertisements and the target media. The sixth step involves the creation of an advertisement message by choosing meaningful words and illustrations that will attract the audience. The subsequent step entails execution of the campaign, which requires coordination, scheduling, and extensive, planning. In the final stage the advertiser, have to evaluate the effectiveness of the advertisement by comparing the success of the campaign against the initial objectives, changes in the sales, customers attitudes and brand awareness as well as market share (Pride, 383).

Nissan Motor Co. Ltd has experienced little success with its advertisements in the past for example, in 1970, the Datsun advertisements were more popular, and the company spends close to $ 45 million in the production of the advertisement (Nissan a). The particular car brand became one of the leading imported cars n the United States while the African Americans had no idea about the car Datsun. In 1986, Nissan doubled its advertising budget to beat its competitors, and the market share of the company dropped from 5.8% to 4.8% in a year (Nissan a). In 1989, the company introduced the Infiniti model to compete with the Lexus model form Toyota. However, the company still failed to garner any sales from the Infiniti model. By 1991, Nissan Motor Co. had a debt of $ 20 billion, which prompted the company to sell 36% stake of its global operations to Renault French Company (Nissan a). In 2001, Nissan experienced another loss with a 10.1% loss-ranking number 40in the United States. The company introduced changes to the Infiniti model and a new tagline for Nissan, which transformed the model and increased the sale and profits of the vehicle. In 2003, the company earned $4.4 billion and an increase of 9.7% from the previous year (Nissan a).

The advertisement contains an image of a double cabin truck while at the rear part a man skids off with Jet Ski. The back of the car has water, which makes it easy for the man to ski off the vehicle. The setting of the action is at the rear of the car, an aspect that makes the consumer concentrate on the car without any distractions. The advertisement does not have many characters; it limits its characters to one person. The characters seem to be middle age, but it is difficult to determine the gender since the person has covered the whole body. The lack of gender recognition of the character makes it hard for the consumers to decide if the car is suitable for men or women. The camera is positioned at a slightly lower angle than the car, and quite close so that the audience can see external details of the vehicle. Within the frame, the viewers see the car and the character. The audience can also see the body of the car. The second shot is a long shot of the front view of the car. The long shot camera view does not provide many details about the vehicle while the first view gives the audience the details of the rear view. The shots are deliberate to ensure that the reader pays attention to the back part of the car.  The advertisement uses bright white lights providing it is visible even in dark areas, thus reaching a large customer base. Use of bright lights makes the ad effective in attracting the attention of consumers.

The slogan of the Nissan advertisement states, “it works even when you don’t.” The slogan is at the bottom left corner of the advertisement page and contains capital bold type font. The positioning of the slogan at the bottom of the page prompting the audience to read more to understand what the slogan means. The advertisers use a bold type and capital font to ensure that the audience will not miss the phrase. Conversely, the position of the slogan is not useful since it does not draw the reader t look for more details about the car. The phrase means that the car does more even when the driver does not put a lot of effort into the car. The slogan is not effective, as it does not capture the best qualities of the car. While reading the slogan, it is hard to get a direct message and what the advertiser means.

Advertising has a unique language, which is different from other languages (O’Neill, 349). He states that the communication should be purposeful and edited to communicate a clear purpose and trigger a specific response. Sometimes the language is not artful but has to attract the attention of the audience. The slogan ”it works even when you don’t ”use a simple word but does not capture the unique feature about the car that would prompt the audience to buy it. Repetition works as a strategy to arrest the attention of the consumer. Repetition as a principle for adverting relies on exposure and mass saturation to create impact (O’Neill, 352). The advertisement uses the repetition of the images capturing the attention of the audience.

 Simplicity as a principle of advertising refers to the creation of an advertisement using a short tagline that making it easy to read and remember (Moriarty et al.).  Simple advertisement limits the information about the product to the audience. The principle is essential as it makes the reader want to know more about the car thus driving traffic to the companies’ website, the media and other places the advertisement is available. Simplicity ensures that an advertisement is easily accessible through shortening the load time (Moriarty et al.). The advertisement makes use of simplicity through the images on the page; they are creative and capture the essence of the physical aspect of the car. The information in the pages is minimal, hence reducing information overload in the advert. The language is simple, and even children when viewing the advertisement understand that t is a car that is strong, durable and one that can go for holidays too.

The advertisement is successful in attracting the attention of the reader. The images are creative captivating and straightforward. On the other hand, the slogan does not adequately capture the unique feature of the new product, thus making it hard for the audience to understand the main aim of the advertisement. The lighting is sufficient and the second page contains an explanation of the best aspects of the new Nissan Navarra. The images illustrate that the car is a multipurpose vehicle apart from using it for daily errands it is a car that a family can use for weekends fun since it is durable and the body design demonstrates its multipurpose ability. The advertisement is successful in convincing the audience to seek further information.

Conclusion

Before the advertisement for the Nissan Navarra, the annual net income of the company was 3.951 (Nissan a). After the advertisement for the new product in 2014, the revenue increased by a 10. 4% to 4.307% (Nissan b). The sales of the Navarra slave volume increased by 2.7% than the previous year. The company realized an improvement of the market share from 0.1% to 11.5% in 2014 (Nissan b). The sales of the product were high in Japan, China, Europe, and North America. The financial reports of the year indicate that the advertisement was successful. The company experienced significant sales, increased profits, and revenue for the year.

Works Cited

Moriarty, Sandra, et al. Advertising: Principles and practice. Pearson Australia, 2014.

Nissan a. ”Annual Report 2014.” Nissan Motor Company Global Website, 2014, www.nissan-global.com/EN/DOCUMENT/PDF/AR/2014/AR2014_E_All.pdf.

Nissan b. ”Nissan Motor Co.” Advertising & Marketing Industry News - Ad Age, 15 Sept. 2003, adage.com/article/adage-encyclopedia/nissan-motor/98798/.

NISSAN MOTOR Co., Ltd. ”NISSAN | CORPORATE INFORMATION | Outline of Company|Company Development, Heritage | First Half of the History of Nissan.” Nissan Motor Company Global Website, 2018, www.nissan-global.com/EN/COMPANY/PROFILE/HERITAGE/HISTORY/.

O’Neill, Charles A. ”The language of advertising.” Dalam Coshgarin Exploring Language. Canada: Little Brown and Company (1986).

Pride, William M., Robert J. Hughes, and Jack R. Kapoor. Foundations of business. Cengage Learning, 2014.