Abstract
Advertising looks into every field of the social practice for symbols that, associated to products, help it sell them better. It could not miss the religious symbols. This article examines changes in representations and meanings of angels, devils, Heaven, and Hell confirmed or brought about by advertisements. As the literature indicates, the amount of commercial messages using religious themesAdvertising looks into every field of the social practice for symbols that, associated to products, help it sell them better. It could not miss the religious symbols. This article examines changes in representations and meanings of angels, devils, Heaven, and Hell confirmed or brought about by advertisements. As the literature indicates, the amount of commercial messages using religious themes (especially the amount of advertisements using the four themes) is small. The corpus was created by browsing the 2005 and 2015 issues of four glossy magazines and by collecting advertisements from different media: news magazines, magazines for women, important producers' sites, advertising sites, out-of-home. The componential analysis and the visual semiotics offered the ways to examine the corpus; readings from scientific literature on the four religious themes and a questionnaire whose respondents were graduate students of the Consulting and Expertise in Advertising program, University of Bucharest, helped complete the research. The distinctive features of angels, devils, Heaven, and Hell, as they were presented by researchers of the Christian faith, are compared to features that graduate students, part of popular culture, and advertising ascribe them. Angels and devils have become symbols of high intensity experiences, meant to improve humans' existential condition. Every space where an individual invests subjective energy intended to raise him / her from monotonous life can become Heaven. Hell is matter for irony (we read Hell to understand Heaven) or instrument of blackmails (who does not use the products arrives there). Given the small number of advertisements in the corpus, this research can be qualified as an attempt to answer a difficult question: how to investigate more attentively a process, the use of religious themes in advertising, that everybody notice, but whose breadth and effects are not yet sufficiently determined. (especially the amount of advertisements using the four themes) is small. The corpus was created by browsing the 2005 and 2015 issues of four glossy magazines and by collecting advertisements from different media: news magazines, magazines for women, important producers’ sites, advertising sites, out-of-home. The componential analysis and the visual semiotics offered the ways to examine the corpus; readings from scientific literature on the four religious themes and a questionnaire whose respondents were graduate students of the Consulting and Expertise in Advertising program, University of Bucharest, helped complete the research. The distinctive features of angels, devils, Heaven, and Hell, as they were presented by researchers of the Christian faith, are compared to features that graduate students, part of popular culture, and advertising ascribe them. Angels and devils have become symbols of high intensity experiences, meant to improve humans’ existential condition. Every space where an individual invests subjective energy intended to raise him / her from monotonous life can become Heaven. Hell is matter for irony (we read Hell to understand Heaven) or instrument of blackmails (who does not use the products arrives there). Given the small number of advertisements in the corpus, this research can be qualified as an attempt to answer a difficult question: how to investigate more attentively a process, the use of religious themes in advertising, that everybody notice, but whose breadth and effects are not yet sufficiently determined.
Highlights
The very way books on marketing define the product shows how advertising, in order to sell what it is asked to sell, is inclined to search in every field of social practice for appeals: A product is not just a physical object; it is a bundle of benefits or values that satisfies the needs of consumers
Mallia conducted in 2009 a qualitative study meant to determine the offensive potential of commercials using religious themes
As I initially had found most advertisements in Advances in Economics and Business 6(6): 353-366, 2018 categories of print media, I continued my search by browsing the four aforementioned glossy magazines having circulations among the highest in Romania. These magazines spread advertisements for brands in categories as perfume, cosmetics, cloths, phones, coffee, jewelry, watches, liqueur, bio food, medecines, private hospitals..., categories within which the products’ connotative auras are very rich and the audiences very sensitive to appeals of personal value; so the possibility to resort to our themes is relatively high
Summary
The very way books on marketing define the product shows how advertising, in order to sell what it is asked to sell, is inclined to search in every field of social practice for appeals:. Mallia conducted in 2009 a qualitative study (content and textual analysis) meant to determine the offensive potential of commercials using religious themes She concluded that it is convenient for advertising to attract people’s attention on products by shocking, and that offense is the simplest way to shock. As I initially had found most advertisements in Advances in Economics and Business 6(6): 353-366, 2018 categories of print media, I continued my search by browsing the four aforementioned glossy magazines having circulations among the highest in Romania These magazines spread advertisements for brands in categories as perfume, cosmetics, cloths, phones, coffee, jewelry, watches, liqueur, bio food, medecines, private hospitals..., categories within which the products’ connotative auras are very rich and the audiences very sensitive to appeals of personal value; so the possibility to resort to our themes is relatively high. The questionnaire had 15 questions; they tried to provoke the respondents to tell which sources their knowledge has had on the angels, the devils, Heaven, and Hell, what they do remember from the information received from the sources, how they participate to the circulation in society of the information upon the four themes, what judgments they formulate upon the uses in advertising of angels, devils, Heaven, and Hell and upon the persuasive potential of the themes
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