Language as a means of manipulation in advertising

Rudyard Kipling once said, “Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind.” This statement is true within all aspects of life especially in the advertising industry. Creators of advertisements make use of powerful words in unusual combinations, sometimes with visuals, to inhabit and manipulate the people’s minds. Advertisers use the manipulation of language to create claims that suggest something about their products without directly claiming it to be true. Companies rely heavily on their slogans, jingles, and advertisements to make a profit, and the language used in these various forms of media has a huge impact on the consumer.

Many companies rely on advertising tricks to attract consumers because many of today’s goods are parity products, i.e. products in which all or most of the brands available are nearly identical. Since no one brand in these products transcends the rest, ads are needed to create an illusion of superiority. There are several techniques commonly used to make products seem superior to other products. They are meant to make consumers believe something about the product that is not true. The claims are legal because when studied grammatically, they do not actually provide any false information – people just make unconscious assumptions about the products based on how the ads are worded. The first two claims are the Weasel Claim and the Unfinished Claim (J. Schrank).

The Weasel Claim involves a modifier, the “weasel word,” that negates the claim that follows it. Some of the most common weasel words include “helps,” “virtually,” “acts,” “can be,” “up to,” “refreshes,” “comforts,” “fights,” “the feel of,” “the look of,” “fortified,” “enriched,” and “strengthened.” The weasel words give the idea that they are reinforcing the claims that follow them, but they actually detract from the claim by rendering them less significant or even completely worthless. When the word’s literal meaning is taken into account, we realize that the weasel word is the most important word in the whole claim. It takes the meaning away from the rest of the claim. If, for example, the claim is “Helps control dandruff,” the word “helps” acts as a weasel word so the actual claim is no longer that it controls dandruff but that it helps you control dandruff – like a good friend might.

The Unfinished Claim states that the product has more, or is better than something, but does not say what that “something” is. “Peterson’s gives you more” is an Unfinished Claim because it claims that by using the product the consumer gets more of something – but doesn’t explain what. In this claim, the word “more” classifies as the indirect object, not an adjective, as the advertisers want consumers to think. Because we usually hear the word “more” used as an adjective, the advertisers can use it at the end of this claim to give the feeling of there being “more” to come.

Manipulation of language succeeds because people believe they are immune to the advertisements that surround them. This illusion of immunity makes them even more vulnerable to the various techniques advertisers use to target exactly those people. They infuse advertisements for parity products with Weasel Claims, Unfinished Claims and other tricks to attract consumers to their products, and consumers think they are buying a superior product when, in fact, they are not. The grammatical structure of the English language makes this kind of advertising especially lucrative, because of people’s tendency to only register those parts of the ad that they want to be true.

Kryshtalik Ganna

(Kam’ianets-Podilsky)