Transfer Ad Technique
By: Bret Kaiser
Your watching a commercial. In the commercial you see the American flag waving in the background. Upon seeing the flag you feel a great sense of patriotism and note how great the American flag is. You then see some random product displayed with the flag. You then subconsciously think that the product is as awesome or important as the American flag. You see what happened there? The ad company purposely displayed the American flag with their product to fool you. This is an ad technique called transfer. With this technique ad companies make their product seem better by showing it in association with things that people know, love, or respect. An example of these things would be the American flag or well known celebrities. The ad companies hope that their products will be as popular as the symbols shown with them. Many different ads use this technique, the most popular ones being political ads, that always use the American flag so that the voter will associate the candidate with the American flag, and thus America, and then vote for that candidate
An example of an ad that uses the technique called transfer would be the ad for the dodge challenger. This ad shows off the new dodge challenger car to consumers in hopes that they will buy the car. In the ad it shows our former president George Washington riding around in it waving a flag. It shows him careening over the battlefield gloriously while driving the dodge challenger. The enemy runs away in fear of the awesome car. This ad is all about using the transfer technique. It uses it by showing George Washington and the American flag along with the product, which is the dodge challenger. By seeing the dodge challenger along with these historic symbols the consumer believes that the dodge challenger is just as prestigious as George Washington and the American flag and will go buy it. The consumer doesn't realize that the product is not prestigious or great just because its shown with George Washington or the American flag. Thats why transfer is such a successful propaganda technique and is used in many different ads.
An example of an ad that uses the technique called transfer would be the ad for the dodge challenger. This ad shows off the new dodge challenger car to consumers in hopes that they will buy the car. In the ad it shows our former president George Washington riding around in it waving a flag. It shows him careening over the battlefield gloriously while driving the dodge challenger. The enemy runs away in fear of the awesome car. This ad is all about using the transfer technique. It uses it by showing George Washington and the American flag along with the product, which is the dodge challenger. By seeing the dodge challenger along with these historic symbols the consumer believes that the dodge challenger is just as prestigious as George Washington and the American flag and will go buy it. The consumer doesn't realize that the product is not prestigious or great just because its shown with George Washington or the American flag. Thats why transfer is such a successful propaganda technique and is used in many different ads.
Another example of an ad that uses transfer would be the icy hot commercials. These ads use transfer by associating their product with the famous basketball athlete Shaq. In the ad all you see are videos of Shaq playing basketball. You see him showing off how good he is at being a star athlete. It then shows him rubbing his muscles in pain after playing. The ad concludes by showing Shaq talking about icy hot and how great it is at easing away his muscle pain. This ad clearly uses transfer because by showing a celebrity such as Shaq the consumer believes that the product is just as great as Shaq is. The icy hot company is hoping that some of Shaq’s popularity will rub off onto the icy hot product just because they are in the same commercial. This technique is used in the commercial because this can be considered to be the best way to show the product. This is because there really isn't any other way to advertise icy hot. Icy hot doesn't really have any competition sales wise thats worth mentioning. So instead of looking better by comparison icy hot just uses celebrities in order. This ad technique obviously works for them cause icy hot has very high sales
One ad that really uses the technique called transfer is the political ad for Mike Huckabee. This ad starts off by showing mike Huckabee and having him talk about how he would be a great candidate for whatever position in government he is running for. He then says that Chuck Norris approves his ad. The camera then pans over to Chuck Norris and has him talk about how great Mike is as a candidate. Mike then finishes up by talking again about how great he is and then shows his name with the American flag and colors in the background. This political ad uses transfer in two different ways. It uses the celebrity Chuck Norris and the American flags and colors. The ad first uses Chuck Norris because everybody loves Chuck Norris. He is a super famous actor and everyone believes him to be an all powerful manly man. By using Chuck Norris in his political commercial Mike Huckabee hopes that people will think that he is just as cool as Chuck Norris and will then vote for him. The ad also uses the American flag and colors in the ad. By showing the American colors and flag along with Mike Huckabee’s name, you get the feeling that Mike is very patriotic and has a strong sense of nationalism. People will then vote for him since they think that he is such a great American. The transfer propaganda technique was used in this ad because transfer is the most popular and successful technique to use in political ads. Its very easy to show the American flag and get a celebrity endorsement in order to make a candidate seem better in the eyes of the voters. The use of transfer in the ad was obviously successful because it got Huckabee more votes than he would have gotten if he hadn't used transfer.
The final ad that uses the propaganda technique called transfer is the bank of america commercial. This commercial has bank of America talk about how great its rewards program is and how well it works. It then ends the commercial by showing bank of America's signature symbol, which has the American colors in it. By using this symbol bank of America uses transfer in its ad. The consumer sees the colors of America, red white and blue, in the ad of bank of America and instantly associates bank of America with the success and greatness of the United States of America. By seeing America's colors people will think that bank of America's way of doing things are as successful as say, the constitution. People will think that the rewards program will be great and really successful just because they see the colors of the American flag and instantly think associate the rewards program with the success of America. This technique is being used because bank of America's symbol is very patriotic. So by taking advantage of how patriotic their signature symbol is they can get lots of people who have a strong sense of nationalism to sign up for an account with the bank. Clearly this advertisement technique is very successful for bank of America because it is one of the leading banks in America. People see their ads and flock to the bank because they associate the success of America with the endeavors of the bank due to their signature symbol using the colors of the American flag.
Overall, transfer is a very successful ad technique that is used quite often in the advertisement world. Transfer is done by using popular symbols such as celebrities and well know objects in a commercial with product being sold. The consumer sees the product being sold along with the popular symbol and assumes that the product is just as good, or desirable, or famous as the popular symbol. This technique is obviously successful because you cant watch a single ad without seeing transfer being used in some way shape or form, and for good reason, because transfer works.
Work Cited
1. "Bank of America - My Rewards - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mweZ3kQYWMs>.
2. "Dodge Challenger Freedom Commercial - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezk0e1VL80o>.
3. "Mike Huckabee Ad: "Chuck Norris Approved" - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8>.
4. "Recognizing Types of Propaganda in Advertising - Lesson Plans - HSJ.org." HSJ.org - High School Journalism from ASNE. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.hsj.org/modules/lesson_plans/detail.cfm?LessonPlanId=335>.
5. "Shaq - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCmh_EvjeRc>.
2. "Dodge Challenger Freedom Commercial - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezk0e1VL80o>.
3. "Mike Huckabee Ad: "Chuck Norris Approved" - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8>.
4. "Recognizing Types of Propaganda in Advertising - Lesson Plans - HSJ.org." HSJ.org - High School Journalism from ASNE. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.hsj.org/modules/lesson_plans/detail.cfm?LessonPlanId=335>.
5. "Shaq - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCmh_EvjeRc>.