Deck 11: Advertising and Commercial Culture

Question 1

WPP is one of the four mega-agencies that control over half the world's advertising revenues.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

One twentieth-century trend associated with advertising was the transition from a producer to a consumer society.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

In the advertising industry, there are about fourteen thousand mega-agencies in the United
States.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The amount spent on Internet advertising still lags behind the amount spent to advertise in newspapers.

Question 5

It costs large-volume advertisers much more money to use an ad agency than to use their own staff to create an ad.

Question 6

Because of the backlash against social networking Web sites, advertisers are moving their advertising dollars back to traditional media outlets like television and radio.

Question 7

Mega-agencies are not seen as a threat to the independence of smaller advertising firms.

Question 8

In an attempt to minimize government oversight of advertising practices, the advertising industry established the Better Business Bureau in 1913.

Question 9

Even though boutique agencies give creative people the freedom to do good work, they haven't been able to attract any major clients.

Question 10

The Ad Council produces public service announcements (PSAs) at no cost to the client.

Question 11

Patent medicines marketed in the late 1800s were generally harmless, since they consisted mostly of flavored water.

Question 12

One of the benefits of online advertising is that it tends to protect the privacy of consumers who use the Internet.

Question 13

About 80 percent of early newspaper and magazine advertisements covered three subjects:
land sales, transportation announcements, and runaway slaves.

Question 14

In an effort to attract more viewers, the four major TV networks have reduced the number of commercials aired during prime time.

Question 15

Some of the first American advertising agencies were space brokers, who bought space in newspapers and sold it to their clients.

Question 16

Psychographics attempts to categorize consumers by their age, gender, occupation, ethnicity, and income.

Question 17

Google earns the most online advertising revenue.

Question 18

Before the 1830s, there was little need for advertising in America because there were few goods available for sale and virtually no consumer market.

Question 19

According to historians, advertising has existed since 3000 BCE, when wooden or stone signs were placed outside shops in ancient Babylon.

Question 20

Internet advertising is growing at a relatively slow pace of only 1 to 2 percent a year.

Question 21

The Children's Television Act of 1990 severely limits program-length commercials and ads promoting sugar-coated cereal.

Question 22

Under the 1998 tobacco settlement, all of the major cigarette companies agreed to pull their advertising from general audience magazines that had young readers.

Question 23

Unlike tobacco ads, alcohol ads have yet to target minority populations.

Question 24

Ads that portray women as sex objects exemplify the association principle.

Question 25

Most advertisements provide little information about how a product was made or how it compares with similar brands.

Question 26

Advertising has been increasingly targeted at children and teenagers because they influence roughly $500 billion in family spending every year.

Question 27

Television networks have been known to refuse to air issue-based advertising that might upset their traditional advertisers.

Question 28

Commercial speech is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Question 29

Tobacco ads disappeared from American television in 1971.

Question 30

Ad agencies rarely use irritation advertising to sell products because people hate it and it doesn't work.

Question 31

After agreeing to a costly settlement with several states in 1998, the tobacco industry reduced its advertising spending to almost zero that year.

Question 32

The Federal Trade Commission can require advertisers to run spots correcting their deceptive ads.

Question 33

The Edsel car is proof that effective advertising can sell anything.

Question 34

According to myth analysis, most ads are composed of mini-stories involving conflict between people or values.

Question 35

The disassociation corollary in advertising plays off the public's skepticism regarding large, impersonal corporations.

Question 36

Ads featuring the Marlboro cowboy use a persuasive strategy based on the association principle.

Question 37

Cigarette companies have had difficulty advertising and selling their product in foreign countries.

Question 38

The Marlboro cigarette brand was originally designed for and targeted at female consumers.

Question 39

Only in recent history have many ads stereotyped women as scatterbrained or helpless or offered them as a man's reward for drinking a particular beer, wearing cool jeans, or smoking the right cigarette.

Question 40

Product placement is an advertising strategy that puts products into movies, television shows, and video games.

Question 41

In the twentieth century, advertising _.

A) influenced the change from a producer-driven to a consumer-driven economy
B) stimulated demand for new products
C) showed how new products improved daily life
D) spread messages about new products across the country
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 42

By the early 1900s, most advertisements were written to appeal to women, who constituted of newspaper and magazine readers.

A) 30 percent
B) 50 to 60 percent
C) 70 to 80 percent
D) 99 percent
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 43

Which of the following statements about boutique advertising agencies is false?

A) Designers and artists might have formed them in order to have more creative freedom.
B) Many have been bought up by larger agencies, but may still operate semi-independently.
C) They cater to large clients like Target and Anheuser-Busch, just like the mega-agencies do.
D) They are too small and don't have the staff to offer their clients personalized service.
E) All of the options are true.

Question 44

How do advertisers direct targeted ads to specific Web site visitors?

A) They use cookies to watch a user's Web activity.
B) They send surveys in the mail.
C) They ask for permission to use targeted ads.
D) They conduct psychographic surveys by phone.
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 45

The public became increasingly cynical about advertising in the late 1890s and early 1900s because .

A) manufactured products always cost more than their advertised price
B) advertised products were frequently not available
C) advertisers forced newspapers to omit stories about their competitors
D) patent medicines made outrageous claims about what they could cure
E) society had become more urban and more trusting

Question 46

Which of the following was an early brand name in the United States?

A) Eastman Kodak
B) Levi Strauss
C) Quaker Oats
D) Campbell Soup
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 47

Psychographics involves the study of _.

A) sex
B) age
C) socioeconomic class
D) attitudes, beliefs, interests, and motivations
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 48

In advertising, coordinate the views and needs of clients, the creative team, and consumers to create an overall marketing strategy.

A) writers
B) space brokers
C) account planners
D) media doctors
E) media buyers

Question 49

Which of the following is one of the WPP Group's top competitors?

A) Omnicom
B) Ogilvy & Mather
C) Wieden & Kennedy
D) Peterson Milla Hooks
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 50

Along with patent medicine companies, what was another prominent newspaper advertiser in the 1890s?

A) Auto manufacturers
B) Travel agents
C) Department stores
D) Movie theaters
E) Labor unions

Question 51

Only wealthy political candidates can afford to have a significant advertising presence on television.

Question 52

Which of the following are the three primary consumer motivations that the VALS strategy considers when grouping consumers into types?

A) Ideals, achievement, and self-expression
B) Strivers, survivors, and thinkers
C) Achievers, strivers, and survivors
D) Ideals, achievers, experiencers
E) Achievement, self-expression, morals

Question 53

About 80 percent of ads in colonial newspapers concerned land sales, transportation announcements, and .

A) restaurants and pubs
B) runaway slaves
C) job notices
D) pistols and other firearms
E) patent medicines

Question 54

What advantage does mobile advertising have over Internet advertising?

A) The ads are smaller so advertisers don't have to write as much copy.
B) People will definitely see a mobile ad because they are always checking their phones.
C) Mobile ads can be tailored to a specific geographic location or user demographic.
D) Mobile ads need to be more general.
E) None of the options is correct.

Question 55

The high price of such consumer products as designer jeans and breakfast cereal can be attributed primarily to .

A) the cost of raw materials
B) manufacturing costs
C) distribution expenses
D) advertising
E) a dramatic improvement in quality of materials and manufacturing

Question 56

Which of the following statements is true about the unsolicited commercial e-mail known as spam?

A) Most companies have stopped using it because consumers find it annoying.
B) It now accounts for more than 85 percent of e-mail messages.
C) It is the only way advertisers can use the Internet to attract customers.
D) It is the dominant format of Web advertising.
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 57

The is the blueprint or roughly drawn comic strip of a potential ad.

A) focus group
B) storyboard
C) VALS strategy
D) PSA
E) space broker

Question 58

Hidden or disguised print or visual messages are called _.

A) subliminal advertising
B) slogans
C) public service announcements
D) saturation advertising
E) spam

Question 59

Online advertising has taken the form of .

A) banner ads that lead across the top or side of a Web page
B) pop-under ads
C) interstitials and flash multimedia
D) paid search engine advertising
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 60

The dominant form of Web advertising is .

A) interstitials
B) pop-up and pop-under ads
C) paid search advertising
D) spam
E) viral videos

Question 61

In the 1990s, GM sold its Saturn products via which of the following advertising techniques?

A) Plain-folks pitch
B) Bandwagon effect
C) Disassociation corollary
D) Hidden-fear appeal
E) Subliminal seduction

Question 62

From the perspective of myth analysis, many advertisements involve all but which of the following elements?

A) Resolution
B) Disassociation corollary
C) Conflict
D) A narrative
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 63

Which of the following statements about the advertising of prescription drugs is true?

A) Pharmaceutical companies have started direct-to-consumer marketing via text messages and Facebook.
B) Pharmaceutical companies have engaged in ''disease awareness'' campaigns in order to
C) Pharmaceutical companies are spending billions of dollars to advertise their prescription drugs to the public.
D) The United States and New Zealand are the only countries that allow the direct advertisement of prescription drugs to consumers.
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 64

In advertising, association (or the association principle) is .

A) a method of persuasion that links the product with a setting, a person, a cultural concept, or a positive feeling
B) a theory that argues that people associate a product with the feeling they had the first
C) the principle that higher-up associates in the advertising agency make fewer daily decisions
D) the antipersuasion model of linear causality
E) the idea that advertisers need to downplay or hide their corporate identity behind a product

Question 65

An owner of a discount appliance store who dresses in a goofy costume and yells at the camera is making use of _.

A) the plain-folks pitch
B) the hidden-fear appeal
C) subliminal advertising
D) overt advertising
E) irritation advertising

Question 66

Which persuasive technique in advertising involves exploiting a consumer's sense of insecurity?

A) Bandwagon effect
B) Snob-appeal approach
C) Plain-folks pitch
D) Hidden-fear appeal
E) Irritation advertising

Question 67

Which of the following is the form of advertising in which sponsors pay to have their products seen in TV programs and movies?

A) Billboarding
B) Integrated advertising
C) Product placement
D) Program exposure
E) Pseudo-consumerism

Question 68

An obnoxious car dealer or appliance salesman yelling at the camera in a TV commercial is using which questionable persuasive strategy?

A) Hidden-fear appeal
B) Irritation advertising
C) Plain-folks pitch
D) Snob-appeal approach
E) Product placement

Question 69

Which of the following is a side effect of the growth of Internet advertising?

A) More and more advertisers are moving ad spending away from traditional media to the
B) Search engines like Google are becoming leading advertising companies.
C) E-mail inboxes are bombarded with spam.
D) Social networking sites gather user information for advertising purposes.
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 70

In an ad showing a salesman talking about how his father taught him to be honest and hardworking and to understand the value of treating people fairly, auto manufacturer Ford demonstrates .

A) an appeal to the bandwagon effect
B) propaganda
C) the plain-folks pitch
D) the famous-person testimonial
E) myth analysis

Question 71

Channel One is an example of .

A) an online service that tracks the success and placement of VNRs
B) a campaign finance reform initiative
C) a boutique agency
D) advertising in schools
E) an ABC subsidiary

Question 72

What is an example of earned media on the Internet?

A) The money advertisers earn from selling online ads
B) A paid advertisement on Facebook
C) A click-through advertisement
D) A Facebook user endorsing a product or company by clicking ''Like''
E) A blogger who earns pay and gifts for endorsing a product

Question 73

From the perspective of myth analysis, the primary purpose of most contemporary consumer advertising is to .

A) provide price information
B) compare the product with its competitors
C) describe the product's ingredients
D) reassure buyers that using brand-name products will help them deal with their tensions and problems
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 74

The 1998 tobacco industry settlement in the United States prohibited .

A) the use of cartoon images like Joe Camel in tobacco advertising
B) the use of human images, like the Marlboro man, in tobacco advertising
C) the sale of U.S. tobacco products to Third World nations
D) all chewing tobacco by 2004
E) the tobacco industry's lobbying of Congress

Question 75

Commercial Alert is .

A) a nonprofit watchdog group
B) an ad agency that created the Marlboro man and the Keebler elves
C) a statistical database that ad agencies use to monitor competitors' campaigns
D) an award organization honoring the year's most inventive TV commercials
E) an online service that alerts users about commercials that are specific to their profile

Question 76

Which of the following is not an example of the association principle of advertising at work?

A) A store puts up extra flags and red, white, and blue decorations to create an image of national pride.
B) A commercial shows a man surrounded by attractive women after using a brand of cologne.
C) A noisy, high-powered, gas-guzzling vehicle is shown in a rustic setting.
D) A brand of candy bar made by a major candy company is portrayed as a ''working-class treat'' made by local efforts.
E) An ad for a ''green'' cleaning product shows the bottle in a woodland setting.

Question 77

The Children's Television Act of 1990 mandated that _.

A) product placement be minimized in children's programming
B) networks provide some educational and informational children's programming
C) advertising be banned from children's programming
D) all advertising in children's programming meet strict guidelines
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 78

A company that wants to get consumers to buy a more expensive version of an item, such as fancy bottled water, might try which persuasive technique?

A) Famous-person testimonial
B) Plain-folks pitch
C) Snob-appeal approach
D) Bandwagon effect
E) Irritation advertising

Question 79

Which statement about blogger product reviews is true?

A) You can always trust them to be unbiased.
B) They are the unvarnished truth about products by average people.
C) Some popular bloggers have been paid to give positive reviews.
D) Bloggers always disclose when a product has been sent to them for free by a company
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 80

Historically, one controversial use of the association principle in advertising is .

A) large corporations trying to pretend they are smaller, friendlier companies
B) women being portrayed as sex objects to be awarded to men who use a particular product
C) the use of celebrities to sell products
D) commercials playing on the insecurities of consumers to make them think a product can
E) the placement of brand-name products in television programs and movies