Goodwill Advertising

By Author: Amandda
Total Articles: 59
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The ads we have described are clearly intent on selling something—a product, a product line, or a service. One type of ad is noteworthy for the absence of a specific sales pitch for a tangible profit-making item.

In the late 1970s, it was difficult to find an ad for a gas company that was selling gasoline or the services a gas station provides. Instead, oil companies were selling their concern for the environment, their conviction that we ought to conserve energy, or their safe driving tips. These ads were an attempt to alter the public image of the oil companies in the wake of rising gasoline prices, the long lines Breitling Bentley Replica at the pumps, the oil spills that had endangered wildlife in the United States and abroad, and accusations of influence peddling that had pervaded the political climate during the Watergate investigations.

This type of ad falls under the general heading of "image advertising." Related forms are more specific in connecting their appeals to a product. IBM, for example, does not want ...
... to be associated with the notion that computers are dehumanizing and threatening. Consequently, ads for IBM show the humane uses of computers. IBM computers are instrumental in saving lives, argues one ad. Weyerhaeuser, "the tree-growing people," shows planned tree planting that, the ads argue, will make it possible for today's children to build houses tomorrow.

Such image advertising can produce substantial results. After sponsoring the 1984 coast-to-coast Olympic torch relay, AT&T conducted a survey to assess the relay's results. Every potential long-distance customer in this crucial time of divestiture was aware of the relay. Half were aware of AT&T's sponsorship. More important for the phone company, those who recognized that AT&T had sponsored the event were, by a statistically significant margin, more disposed to choose AT&T as their long-distance phone company.

In 1986, the growing awareness of such potential rewards prompted major companies, from Eastman Kodak to American Express, to tie their corporate identities to the reconstruction of the Statue of Liberty.

In 199.0, the images with which products tended to be identified were environmental. Crest toothpaste's print ad read: "Turn this page back into a tree. Simply send in this certificate with proofs-of-purchase from two Crest cartons. And, together with The National Arbor Day Foundation, we'll plant a seedling in a Yellowstone-area National Forest on your behalf." An IBM spot emphasized the ways that the corporation was working with the United Nations to solve environmental problems. The spot contrasted gridlocked traffic with a swarm of beetles. Pictures of nature were intercut with topographic maps on computer screens. We saw nature, then nature through the computer. IBM and nature were conjoined.

The causes to which goodwill advertising are tied are noncontroversial. No one opposes use of a designated driver to reduce traffic fatalities. Accordingly, Coca-Cola distributes free products to those identified as designated drivers who attend the home games of the Milwaukee Brewers. And because beer companies do not want to be associated with traffic fatalities, it is not surprising that one of the corporate sponsors of the baseball team's Designated Driver Program is the Miller Brewing Company of Milwaukee.

Image advertising is designed to identify a company and its products with a positive image and to dissociate them from any negative images that may have been created in news channels.

Companies that sponsor programming on Public Broadcasting Service stations are also engaging in image advertising. Instead of linking the company's name with some socially approved idea (conservation, for example), sponsorship links the company with bringing culture or quality programming at no direct Cartier Replica Watches cost to U.S. homes. Such sponsorship argues that the company is a good citizen of the community. We are less likely to believe evil of a good citizen. Consequently, such sponsorship insulates the company from criticism and creates positive associations for the company's products.

The benefits of event sponsorship were dramatically illustrated by the results of a survey conducted in summer 1995 on the 1996 Summer Olympics, held in Atlanta. The surveyors found that "23% of consumers would definitely or probably switch from their current brand to a brand offered by an Olympic Sponsor. And of the 64% who will be following the Olympic Games, 29% said they would definitely or probably switch to an Olympic-sponsored brand