Advertising design is the planning and production of advertising expressions to inform a wide range of audiences about the products and services offered by the advertiser (client), or about the advertiser itself. It refers to the overall design of communication that works on the audience’s consciousness through various media expressions based on design technology, such as copy (words of advertising expression), images, movies, sound, and in some cases, naming and packaging.

The creative director organizes the advertiser’s issues, clarifies where the problems lie, formulates concepts, and directs the entire advertising communication. At the same time as planning the advertising expression that will be the final output, it is necessary to think concretely about the situations in which the target audience will come into contact with that expression. Media planning is conducted to determine how best to influence the audience’s consciousness, and the production staff for each medium (such as copywriters, planners, art directors, designers, cinematographers, and photographers) are selected. In many cases, the creative director is also responsible for several of these tasks.

A varied rhetoric is used in advertising expression. The main purpose of copy, video, and all other forms of expression is to generate what Roland Barthes called “connotations” (secondary or implied meanings) that are beneficial to the product or service. For example, the denotation (primary meaning, explicit meaning) of the word “sports drink” itself is “a drink with osmotic pressure close to that of body fluid to promote hydration during exercise.” However, the commercial video, posters, and even the product naming and package design can generate various connotations such as “coolness,” “youth,” “security,” and “friendship.

Companies conduct marketing activities to determine product design and sales policies and to promote the distribution of their products and services. Although advertising has a great impact on marketing activities, advertising design is not directly derived from the results of marketing research. The purpose of advertising is not to explain the specifics of a product or service but rather to express a certain scene, scenario, or story of the product or service, and to work on the market of “audience consciousness” rather than the market of the product itself. However, from the standpoint of communication in society as a whole, the purpose of advertising is to create a relationship between the product or service and the audience, including hesitation and wondering before buying or not buying. In other words, the purpose is to establish communication.

It is through communication with the audience that a brand is fostered. A brand is a name, a symbol, a design, or a combination of these that is intended to distinguish and differentiate a product, service, or advertiser from its competitors, and it includes the reputation and trust formed in the relationship with the audience. Perception of a brand is an important factor for audiences to make decisions based on trust and credibility. Advertising design plays a major role in brand building, as well as in the maintenance and management of the fostered brand.

Advertisers can be corporations, national and local governments, non-profit organizations, and so on, and in some cases, individuals. Advertisers pay media fees to place their advertisements on paid media. When shared media such as social networking sites and news sites publish information about a product in the form of articles, it is called public relations (PR) or publicity, and the media in which it is published is called earned media.

The word “earned” means that trust has already been earned, but articles in traditional newspapers and magazines, as well as TV and radio news also have the same “earned” characteristics for the public because they are conducted on their own initiative. In other words, media companies, which bear social responsibility as organizations, transmit information as a third party that is different from advertisers, and this is why they are trusted by audiences.

However, the reliability and credibility of articles on personal social networking sites have often become an issue in recent years. Shared media, which allow anyone to easily share, transmit, and spread information, are extremely effective for public relations, but the credibility of that information is also an issue, as seen with the recent rise of “fake news.”

To achieve good PR, it is important to send out press releases summarizing information on new products and businesses, provide information on related topics, and update advertisers’ official websites so that reporters can easily cover them as news materials. Advertising methods such as paid publicity and article advertising, which follow the style of public relations, have been common for a long time, and advertising communication comprises both advertising media for which media fees are paid and public relations media provided voluntarily by third parties.

Advertising expressions are posted through various advertising media such as the Internet, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, outdoor advertising, events, sales promotion tools, and direct mail. In contrast to the unidirectional transmission of information through the four mass media (television, radio, newspapers, and magazines), the Internet facilitates interactive actions with the audience. In addition, advertising methods such as events, sales campaigns, and outdoor advertising (out-of-home advertising), which used to be considered secondary to the four mass media, are being reevaluated. With the rapid spread of social networking sites, the general public will voluntarily spread any expression that catches their interest, or “bae-ru (looks good).” As a result of the evolution of online technology, the “live and real” appeal has been reevaluated.

Media planning based on audience demographics and history and the evolution of digital marketing have created a variety of media evaluation metrics, but they tend to become a means to an end: how to raise the score. Just because a medium is finely segmented does not necessarily mean that good communication will be established there. The fact that the evolution of technology is creating a gap between marketing research and evaluation indicators and communication is a major challenge for future advertising design.

The evolution of applications and tools has made it possible for anyone to edit video and create graphics easily and at low cost, and this is certainly a welcome development that will expand the scope of advertising creators. However, it is not the point of this article to discuss what kind of advertising expression is superior, but we must avoid many expressions that lack concept and creativity, that merely imitate conventional forms without any content, and that cause discomfort even though they do not violate the law. The morality of creators and advertising creators as individuals is being questioned.

Advertising design focuses on whether the audience knows it is an advertisement and will still interact with it. Naturally, this is not the same as a pure entertainment or artistic experience, but if the audience is interested, they will interact with the expression and share it, regardless of whether it is an advertisement.

Branded entertainment (branded content) is an empathetic advertising method that effectively conveys brand value by utilizing the context of the story and worldview of entertainment content such as movies and dramas. Short film-style video content is the mainstream and is characterized by its high quality as content compared with conventional long commercials. It is generally released on owned media such as the advertiser’s official website, social media, channels, and other media owned and developed by the advertiser. The use of owned media has advantages such as cost reduction and the ability to archive content as one’s own assets, but it also requires the advertiser’s own creativity in its operation and content creation.

Product placement, in which a specific product is displayed in a movie or drama, is already a classic advertising method. In this case as well, it is constructive to think about the social meaning of products and services by considering how the inclusion of actual products in the production of content contributes to the reality of the scene and can serve as advertising, rather than focusing on how to sneak products into the story. It would be constructive to consider the social meaning of products and services.

(SAITO Toshifumi)

References

• Barthes, Roland (1953), Le degré zéro de l’écriture, Seuil. （ロラン・バルト（1971）『零度のエクリチュール 付・記号学の原理』渡辺淳・沢村昂一訳、みすず書房）