An investigation into the style of the english language used in advertising slogans issued by some world - famous airlines

An investigation into the style of the english language used in advertising slogans issued by some world - famous airlines

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION1.1 Rationale

Nowadays, in a developed world, thousands of new products and services are introducedeach day, which makes advertising become a real art - the art of informing and persuadingcustomers Slogans can be considered the heart of advertisements wherever they appear.Slogans are the most important and condensed messages advertisers would like to send totheir customers Sharp and intelligent slogans can help advertisers leave unforgettableimpressions on their potential customers’ minds However, creating a successful slogan isnever an easy task The use of just a few words in a slogan proves to be harder than itappears It requires a sophisticated linguistic insight of phonology, lexicology, syntax aswell as semantics and pragmatics Hence, the study on some successful slogans promises alot of interesting facts in the art of using language among advertisers.

On the other hand, what can be called a successful slogan is still a question The answerdepends on the area of products and services the slogan is used for, the country orgeographical regions it is used in and maybe the population of its target customers.Therefore, choosing one kind of products or services to study the slogans used in it shouldbring more thorough and detailed results of aspects of language exploited

The advertising slogans of some world-famous airlines are chosen to investigate in this

study for two main reasons First of all, when the airlines can be called famous, they must

be successful in many aspects They may provide services of elegant quality Or they mayhave a long history of building their own prestige and class But one thing that can beensured is their successful advertising campaigns in which slogans play a vital part Theinvestigation into those slogans will hopefully reveal interesting features in language used

in slogans in general and airline slogans in particular Second, world-famous airlines have

a wide scope of activities with customers coming from all over the world and Thus, thelanguage they use must be of common values and highly appreciated by many customers.

There is no case of “accident slogans” which cause failure in advertising campaigns due to

differences in cultural values and perceptions.

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the Study

The objective of this study is to investigate the phonological, lexical, semantic and

syntactic features of airline advertising slogans Basing on this, the study is hopefully

aimed at drawing out some hints for Vietnamese advertisers, especially in airline services,

which may help to improve their effectiveness and professionality

1.3 Scope of the Study

 All the slogans investigated in this study are taken from the advertisements of famous airlines, which include national airlines and the biggest ones of somedeveloped countries.

world- In this study, syntactic, semantic, phonological, and lexical features of the slogans areextensively discussed.

1.4 Significance of the Study

The values of the study lie in both theoretical and practical aspects Theoretically, the studyhelps to find out linguistic features used in airlines slogans in particular and in our sociallife in general Practically, it helps to find out the effectiveness of those linguistic featureswhen applying to the act of advertising and hopefully suggests some ways of achievinggreat impression on customers’ minds through the art of using words by advertisers.

1.5 Design of the study

The study consists of five chapters Chapter 1, entitled “INTRODUCTION”, outlines thebackground of the study In this chapter, a brief account of relevant information is providedabout the rationale, aims, scopes, method, and design of the study.

Chapter 2, with the title “LITERATURE REVIEW”, can be considered a slight overview ofsome previous researches on the same subject both in English and Vietnamese At the sametime, it gives a theoretical background to this study with theoretical preliminaries directlyrelated to the investigation of English employed in airlines’ advertising slogans, namelydiscourse, context, genre, register as well as the definitions of advertising and advertisingslogans.

Chapter 3 – RESEARCH METHODOLOGY – refers to the researching approach of thestudy and the method to collect and analyze the collected data to help the author achieve thebest results in the study.

Chapter 4 is called MAIN FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS, in which the authorsummarizes her findings in the characteristics of the English language used in airlines’advertising slogans and also her conclusions on the percentage of slogans employing thosecharacteristics.

The last chapter is Chapter 5 – CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS, which provides therecapitulations, implications of the study to the creating process of advertising slogans ingeneral and airlines’ slogans in particular, and suggestions for further studies

The study ends with the “BIBLIOGRAPHY”.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW2.1 Review of Previous Researches

Advertising activities in Vietnam can be considered young and inexperienced compared tothe long-built industry of advertising in the USA and European countries This economicand social fact has led to the difference in the quantity of researches on this field inVietnam and other countries.

As a result, there are quite a few researches which have been carried out in every aspect ofthe same matter in English, many of which cover the features of advertising language.

Some famous titles that can be mentioned here are “English in advertising: A linguistic

study of advertising in Great Britain” by Geoffrey N.Leech (1996), “Advertising ascommunication” by Gillian Dyer (1982), “English for sale: A study of the language ofadvertising” by Lars Hermeren (1999), or “The discourse of advertising” by Guy Cook

(2001) There are also some researches which only focus on some certain features in

advertising language Typical examples are “Selling America: Puns, language and

adverting” by Michel Monnot (1982), “Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising” by Char

Forceville (1998) There are also some contrastive studies which compare the advertising

language in English and that in other languages, e.g “Advertising language: A pragmatic

approach to advertisements in Britain and Japan” by Keiko Tanaka (1994).

In Vietnam, some notable researches on the language of advertising include two PhD

theses done by Mai Xuan Huy (2001) on “Các đặc điểm của ngôn ngữ quảng cáo dưới

ánh sáng của lý thuyết giao tiếp” (Features of advertising language in the light ofcommunicative theory) and Ton Nu My Nhat (2005) in which she carried out a contrastive

discourse analysis of travel advertisements based on the theory of Functional Grammar.Besides, there are many articles on the matter of advertising language which are collected

by Nguyen Kien Truong in 2004 in a book called “Quảng cáo và ngôn ngữ quảng cáo:

(Advertising and the language of advertising)

Also, there are some MA theses carried out at institutional level For example, in VietnamNational University, Hanoi College of Foreign Languages, a thesis on advertising language

used in trade was studied by Hoang Thi Thuy in 2005 and another on “Presupposition and

Implicature in English and Vietnamese Advertising Slogans” by Tran Thien Tu in 2007

All those books, articles and studies have revealed typical and very interesting features ofadvertising language in general and slogans in particular.

2.2 Theoretical preliminaries as instruments employed for conducting the research2.2.1 Discourse

Different linguists hold different points of view on what discourse is Crystal (1992:25)considers discourse as a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence, oftencontributing a coherent unit such as sermon, argument, joke or narrative To Halliday andHasan (1985:3), discourse is functional language This fact suggests that linguists needmore debates and discussion before an agreeable definition of discourse is made

However, the following definition of discourse suggested by Guy Cook (1989:7) seems toprovide relatively sufficient information so that we can shape a clear image of discourse inour minds:

“Discourse may be composed of one or more well-formed grammatical sentences – andindeed it often is – but it does not have to be It can have grammatical “mistakes” in it,and often does.”

“Discourse can be anything from a grunt or single expletive, through short conversationsand scribbled notes right up to Tolstoy’s novel, WAR AND PEACE, or a lengthy legalcase What matters is not its conformity to rules, but the fact that it communicates and isrecognized by its receivers as coherent.”

Basing on this definition, advertisements and advertising slogans are undeniably discoursesbecause they do communicate and they are recognized by their potential customers to becoherent This is because advertisements themselves are messages from manufacturers orservice providers to their customers and slogans are those messages in the most conciseways

2.2.2 Discourse Analysis

2.2.2.1 Context

Guy Cook (1989:39) considered context as “knowledge of the world outside language”

which helps us to understand and use it to interpret the messages both in spoken and

written form According to Nunan (1993: 10), “context refers to the situation giving rise to

the discourse and within which discourse is embedded” From the two ways of defining

context, it can be concluded that context is something that we need to understand thediscourse and there is no discourse without context.

2.2.2.2 Role of context in discourse analysis

Discourse analysis studies language in use: both written texts of all kinds and spoken datafrom informal to formal speech and it also studies the language phenomena above thesentence level that are influenced by contexts, social phenomena, social relationships aswell as cultural factors.

Hymes (1962) sees contexts as a limit of the range of possible interpretations, and on theother hand, a supporter of the intended interpretation He states as follows:

“The use of linguistic form identifies a range of meanings A context can support a rangeof meanings When a form is used in a context, it eliminates the meanings possible to thatcontext other than those the form can signal; the context eliminates from consideration themeanings possible in the form other than those the context can support ”

(Hymes, 1962 quoted in Brown and Yules, 1983:38)Hymes (1962) focuses on the features of context in which it is thought to be relevant to thereading and interpretation of discourse These features are mentioned by him:

1 Addresser and addressee2 Audience

3 Topic4 Setting5 Channel

6 Code

7 Message-form8 Event

9 Key 10 Purpose

2.2.2.3 Register

Different linguists give different concepts of register Here are some of them:

“Register may be defined as the variety of a language used in particular situationalcontext” (Halliday 1985:12)

Michael (1991:478) sees register from a different point of view With him, “register

reflects the degree of technical specification in the language of economics, banking andfinance, international business, advertising, medicine, information technology and soforth Discourse register reflects the degree of formality of particular text by using acharacteristic set of lexical and grammatical features”

Besides, Galperin (1977:319) suggests that , “a functional style of language is a system of

interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication”.

From different definitions of register above, it can be seen that registers of functional stylesare linguistic variations linked to specific occupations, professions, topics and so on toserve a specific aim in communication.

2.2.3 Genre

The word “genre” comes from the French (originally Latin) word for “kind” or “class” Ithas been used in rhetoric, literary theory, media theory and linguistics to refer to adistinctive type of text (a text in any mode) Since classical times literary works have beenclassified under genres (poetry, prose, drama, etc.) with sub-genres, e.g tragedy andcomedy as sub-genres of drama, and modern media routinely categorized into genres (e.g.film-trailers, or TV programs – sitcom, game shows, etc.)

In the realm of language, linguists have put forward quite a few concepts of genre Amongthem, the following ones seem the most detailed and convincing

“A genre is a socially sanctioned type of communicative event, either spoken-like asermon, a joke, a lecture – or printed, like a press report, a novel, or a politicalmanifesto” (Kramsch, 1998:62)

and

“Genres are how things get done, when language is used to accomplish them They rangethem from literary to far from literary forms: poems, narratives, expositions, lectures,seminars, recipes, manuals, appointment making, service encounters, news broadcast andso on The term “genre” is used here to embrace each of the linguistically realized activitytypes which comprise so much of our culture” (Martin, 1985:250)

It can be easily seen that linguists, though contradicting in their concepts of others, seem toreach a relative agreement here as it can be concluded by Bhatia (1993 as cited in Holland

and Lewis 2000: 76), “genre is recognizable and mutually understood by the number of

professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs.”

2.2.4 Grice’s maxims

Grice (1975), in his book, makes an attempt to develop the inferential model into anadequate explanatory account of communication He suggests that communication isgoverned by a cooperative principle and maxims of conversation.

Grice’s fundamental idea is that the communicators are trying to meet certain standards intheir conversation From knowledge of these standards, observation of the communicator’sbehavior, and the context, it is possible to infer the communicator’s specific intention.

“Our talk exchanges…are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts;and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set ofpurposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction…at each stage, some possibleconversational moves would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable.

We might then formulate a rough general principle which participants will be expected toobserve, namely: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stageat which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which youare engaged.” (Grice, 1975:45)

This general principle, which was called “the cooperative principle”, is expected to be

followed by all speakers Furthermore, the standards for conducting cooperative

communication were claimed by Grice to be of several different types Grice called these

standards maxims and grouped them under categories:

According to Bovee and Thill (2000:57), communication can occur in various forms,written or spoken, verbal or nonverbal, to show a process of sending and receiving

messages This concept has much to share with the definition given by Saundra Hybels and

Richard L Weaver (1992:7) which says “communication is any process in which people

share information, ideas, and feelings That process involves not only spoken or writtenword, but also the body language, personal mannerism and style, the surroundings –anybody that adds meanings to a message.” As seen from this definition, communication

itself is an on-going process with a lot of factors that help Basing on particular situations,communicators will choose to make use of some factors that are most useful and availablein such cases to make their messages understood.

Therefore, it can be concluded that communication process is made up of various elements

in which there are participants, messages, channels, feedback, noise and setting:

 Participants: the sender and receiver of the messages in both interpersonal and

non-interpersonal communication.

 Messages: including meanings, signs, symbols, encoding and decoding and form or

 Channels: the ways messages are sent.

 Feedback: the response of the receiver to the sender and vice-versa.

 Noise: it is interference that gets in the way of sharing meaning There are 3 forms of

 External noises: They are sights, sounds and other stimuli that draw people’s

attention away from intended meaning.

 Internal noises: They are thoughts and feelings that interfere with meaning.

 Semantic noises: They are those that alternate meanings arisen certain symbols that

inhibit meaning Also, meanings are dependent on your own experience, otherpeople may sometimes decode a word or phrase differently from the way youintended.

 Setting: It is the place where the communication occurs This is an important factor

and has great influences on communication.

2.2.6Advertising as a form of communication

2.2.5.1 Advertising

American Marketing Association (AMA) defines advertising as “the non-personalcommunication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature aboutproducts, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.”

It is due to its generalization that this definition is chosen by AMA First of all, advertisingis non-personal communication in comparison with interpersonal communication in whichboth speakers and hearers are there to interact with each other Advertising is not aimed atany individual, or by any individual It’s a non-personal transmission of informationaiming at the public or a certain group of people Because of the non-personal features ofadvertising, the dissemination and operation of it should be restricted by the law of acountry, the moral standards and people’s psychology The information, methods, media,and other components of advertising should follow the advertising laws, policies and rules,and should be under the supervision of the public All of these components are mutualfeatures and essential elements of every advertisement

Secondly, it is because of the money advertisers have to pay for their messages that thelanguage used in advertisements is always well-chosen and really meaningful It can besaid that advertising language is a style of immediate impact and rapid persuasion Thismust be the result of many processes of writing, rewriting, testing, modifying and so forth Churchill, Jr and Peter (1998: 142) confirm the above concept with their definition:

“Advertising is noted as any announcement or persuasive message placed in the mass

media in paid or donated time or space by an identified individual, company, ororganization to serve a number of audience about products and persuade or remind themof buying, to convey information about the organization itself or issues important to theorganization in order to create or enhance perception of the quality or reliability of aproduct, thus encouraging customer loyalty and repeat purchases”.

Therefore, advertising is, in its nature, a type of communication between advertisers andcustomers This process of getting advertising messages transferred is diagrammed in areally appropriate way in the model that follows.

(Hoang, T & Nguyen, V.T 2000)

It is clearly stated in the model that in advertising, the intended message never comes tothe receiver in a direct way It is always decoded, which makes the message sound implicit.There are two reasons for this implicitness of advertising messages Firstly, as advertisershave to pay for their advertising information, their messages must be decoded so that theycan convey as much as possible to the customers with the minimum number of words.Secondly, and more importantly, it is strongly believed by copywriters that human beings

have an inborn ability to infer as it is noted by Geis (1982:46) that “Human beings are

‘inferencing’ creatures, trained to read into what is said as much as is consistent with theliteral meaning of what is said and the context in which it is said ”

2.2.5.2 Advertising Functions

It has been agreed by many market researchers that an advertisement should have fourfunctions, which can be generalized by four words: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action

(1) Attention - a good advertisement should attract the consumer to direct their attention to

the product of it To achieve this, advertisers always try to make their advertisementsspecial in some ways, even stupid and awkward This is because striking things remainlonger in human minds than normal ones.

(2) Interest - the introduction and publicity of an advertisement should arouse consumers’

great interest The interest may be caused by an eye-catching image, a pleasant jingle, afunny advertising plot or a surprising slogan When they are interested in the productSatisfy the

receivers’

needs Intended message

MediaDecoded

Selective feelingsSelective awarenessSelective memorization

RECEIVER

advertised, they will learn more about it From this, the confidence in the product will begradually achieved.

(3) Desire - the publicity of advertising should stimulate consumers’ desire to buy the

product, and make them realize that this product is just what they want Previously, most

advertisements aimed at promoting their products’ merits, which is called

product-oriented However, there has been a shift of focus from product-oriented to oriented, which is primarily concerned with the needs and wants, the hopes and fears of the

audience-target audience.

(4) Action - the advertising makes consumers to response to the advertising information

and evokes them to take the action of purchasing It is here that the topmost task ofadvertising is fulfilled.

2.2.5.3 Types of Advertising

The features of different kinds of advertisements should be taken into account ifadvertisers want their messages to be effectively transferred to their customers Differenttarget audience or product types require different methods of advertising from advertisers

Different criteria can be used to classify advertisements Geographically, there are local,

national and international advertisements In terms of advertising medium, there are printand electronic ones Besides, as for their purposes, advertisements can be classified intocommercial and non-commercial categories The former category includes Consumer

Advertising, Business Advertising, and Service Advertising The latter can be called PublicInterest Advertising

Consumer Advertising

Most television, radio, newspaper and magazine advertisements are consumeradvertisements The consumer advertising includes alcoholic ads, cigarette ads, drink ads,food ads, wear ads, cosmetic ads, automobile ads, home electric appliance ads, and otherproducts which are used and purchased by ordinary people To this kind of advertisements,most people have developed a kind of ambivalent psychology On one hand, they are boredwith the endless advertisements hiding in the newspapers and magazines, clamoring on theradio, or dazzling on the TV On the other hand, they still need the information to guide

their purchasing Therefore, to attract the consumers’ attention is the most important taskfor an advertising copywriter.

Business Advertising

Business advertising is often said to be invisible, because unless one is actively involved insome business, he is unlikely to see it The majority of consumer advertising appears inmass consumer media Business advertising, on the other hand, tends to be concentrated inspecialized business publications or a professional journal, in direct-mail pieces mailed tobusiness establishments, or in trade shows held for specific areas of business Untilrecently, business advertising was rarely seen in the mass media.

Service Advertising

Service advertising is actually part of consumer advertising and business advertising, sinceconsumer goods and industrial goods both include relevant service However, due to itsintangible feature, service is advertised in a more imaginable way Hence wording serviceadvertising is somewhat different from product advertising Service advertising appears inboth mass consumer media and specialized business publication according to its differenttarget audience - consumer or people in business.

Public Interest Advertising

The general objective of public interest advertising is to inform, persuade, or remindpeople about the particular idea, cause, or philosophy being advertised This kind ofadvertising is often used by non-business institutions, such as schools, hospitals andcharitable organizations We also see advertising by associations or governmentorganizations Much government advertising announces the availability of such valuablegovernment services as consumer assistance, welfare aid, or career guidance Many stategovernments use advertising to attract new businesses, tourists, or workers to aid theireconomy.

Because of the fact that public interest advertising is nonprofit, the words it uses are muchmore different from the other 3 kinds of advertising Its purpose is not to urge readers tospend their money, but to disseminate a kind of concept or advocate a social ethic

2.2.5.4 Advertising Components

According to the definition of the advertising, most of the advertisements should have thefollowing components:

(1) Advertiser

The advertiser is the sender of information and all the advertising activities should beconsistent with the purpose and willingness of the advertiser The advertiser should be arecognizable group, including corporation, enterprise, government, organization andindividual

(2) Advertising Fee

The advertising fees are paid by the advertiser no matter it’s operated by itself or otheragency Because advertising is a kind of marketing action, an advertiser has to pay for itsadvertisement.

(3) Advertising Information

Advertising information is the principal contents an advertisement wants to disseminate.Advertising is a series of planning actions, so the information of advertising should beaimed at the certain target market and consumers, and should avoid aimlessness Thedissemination of information should be accurate, definite, recognizable and moderate inlength

(4) Advertising Media

Media are the means of the dissemination of advertising, including newspaper, magazine,broadcast, TV program, billboard and mail The newspaper, magazine, broadcast and TVare called the four main media of advertising Moreover, any kind of objects or tools canbe a medium for the advertisement, such as airplane, train, bus, building, neon light,movie, package, exhibition, and etc Different kinds of media have different features,disseminating area, target audience and speed.

Within the advertisement itself, the components are headline, body copy, slogan,illustrations and colors, trademark, and brand name These elements are named as

visual elements Another kind of elements - audio elements are advertising commentary,advertising music and advertising sounds In these elements, headline, body copy andslogan are the most important elements in an advertisement In this study, I would like to

pay more attention to slogans, which carry the features of being explicit, refined andinflammatory.

2.2.5.5 Features of Advertising Language

The language of advertising has been described as a “functional dialect” (Smith,

1982:190) Holmes (2005:8) explains this term as “the product of a process whereby

language is chosen and used for a particular purpose (hence, ‘functional’, andconsequently becomes a variety (hence, ‘dialect’) of its own because it becomes associatedwith this particular function.”

The definition has stated that the language of advertising is somehow different fromnormal language Although advertisers always aim at being as close as possible to theircustomers, the most striking difference between the two kinds of languages is thatadvertising language is always well-planned in advance, and rarely random

To achieve the functions of drawing the attention, building the interest and stimulating thedesire to buy the products among customers, the language used in advertising should be

impressive, credible and stimulated Schrank (1996) points out some techniques commonly

used by advertisers in creating informative and persuasive advertisements.

The first technique employed is “the weasel claim” Weasel words or claims are the words

used to say something, but actually they say the opposite or nothing at all Common weasel

words are help, virtually, act, work, refresh, fight, tackle, strengthen, etc.

“”Leaves dishes virtually spotless” – …

The next technique introduced is “the unfinished claim” in which advertisers claim that

their products are better and have more of something but never finish their comparison.

“Fashion and more” – Triumph underwear

Another technique used by advertisers is called “We are different and unique” The

products advertised here are claimed to be the best and special in some aspects.

Like.no.other – SonyThink different – Apple computer

Some advertisers make their advertisements special by not stating anything special at all.

This technique is called “water is wet” in which the true and obvious characteristics of the

products are pointed out.

TV you can watch – Nick-at-Nite

In the technique called “So what claim”, an advantage of the product over other products

of the same type is stated.

Television for women – Lifetime Television

A lot of meaningless words will be found in the advertisements using the technique called

“the vague claim” which encourages customers stretch out their imagination and ability of

inferring things

If it’s one, it’s in – Radio Times

To make their messages sound credible and more persuasive, some advertisers use a

technique called “scientific or statistical claim” in which facts and figures are fully

99 44/100% Pure – Ivory Soap

There is a fact that not all the time products are praised, sometimes it is the consumers.

This technique is called “Compliment the consumer”.

Nobody does it like you – Hoover Vacuum Cleaner

Using “Rhetorical question” is the last technique introduced by Schrank (1996) The

answers about the products’ merits will surely announced by the consumers themselves.

Want a better Internet? – AOL

2.2.6 Advertising Slogan as a part of an Advertisement

2.2.6.1 Definition of a Slogan

The word slogan is derived from a Scottish Gaelic word sluagh-ghairm pronounced as

slogorm which used to mean battle-cry

According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995), “a slogan is a short

easily-remembered phrase used by an advertiser, a politician, etc.”

Therefore, in general, a slogan is a memorable motto used in political, commercial,religious, and other contexts as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose In theparticular case of an advertising slogan, it is a verbal logo normally appearing just beneathor beside the brand name or the logo of the product A slogan is kind of a condensedmessage of the whole advertisement which advertisers want their customers to remembermost It is the usual case that slogans come to customers’ mind first when they think aboutthe products.

In his book, Creative Advertising, Charles L Whittier (1958: 11) says a slogan:

“…should be a statement of such merit about a product or service that it is worthy of

continuous repetition in advertising, is worthwhile for the public to remember, and isphrased in such a way that the public is likely to remember it.”

One interesting fact is that slogans are referred to with different termsin different countries Here are some of them.

The UK Endlines, end lines or straplines

The USA Tags, tag lines, taglines or theme lines

The Netherlandsand Italy

Pay-offs or payoffs

Some others Rip-offs or rip-offs

Slogos (the slogan by the logo)

2.2.6.2 Requirements of a good advertising slogan

A slogan should:

1 Be memorable

2 Recall the brand name3 Include a key benefit4 Differentiate the brand

5 Impart positive feelings for the brand6 Reflect the brand’s personality7 Be strategic

8 Be campaignable9 Be competitive10 Be original11 Be simple12 Be neat13 Be believable

14 Help in ordering the brandA slogan should not

1 Be in current use by others2 Be bland and generic

3 Prompt a sarcastic or negative response4 Be pretentious

5 Be negative

6 Be corporate waffle7 Make you say “So what?” 8 Be meaningless

9 Be complicated or clumsy

(http://www.adslogans.co.uk)

2.2.7 Typical features of airline service as an advertising product

First of all, it should be taken into consideration that airline advertising belongs to thecategory of service advertising, i.e the advertising object here is intangible Hence, it is acommonplace that customers know about the merits of the service through experiences,both first-hand and second-hand

Secondly, as all the airlines mentioned in this study are world-famous ones, theiradvertising campaigns must be international or cross-cultural Obviously, each airlinebelongs to a particular country However, their customers come from every corner of theworld It cannot be denied that culture varies from country to country, even from region toregion within each country With a population of customers coming from various cultures,airline advertisers must have a profound insight of the differences in their customers’cultural values and perceptions One that is considered good in this value may be bad inanother The advertising world is littered with examples of linguistic cross culturalblunders Of the more comical was Ford's introduction of the 'Pinto' in Brazil After seeingsales fail, they soon realized that this was due to the fact that Brazilians did not want to beseen driving a car meaning 'tiny male genitals' Therefore, airline advertising should bekind of cross-cultural, or, more exactly, universal advertising which uses the most highly-accepted ideas to best speak to their target audience Furthermore, the language used inairline advertisements, especially their slogans must be of simple and understandableEnglish to all their customers, even those from non-English speaking countries.

CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 A descriptive approach

This study is actually a descriptive study as it “involves a collection of techniques used to

specify, delineate, or describe naturally occurring phenomena without experimentalmanipulation” (Seliger & Shohamy, 1989:124) Therefore, the collection of data will be

carried out through non-intrusive and non-manipulative procedures The descriptiveapproach helps to investigate into the frequency of the occurrence of some linguisticphenomena among the slogans of some world-famous airlines The purpose of this type ofthis research as it is introduced by Wisker (2001) is to find out more about a phenomenonand to capture it with detailed information.

This study uses a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods The reasonsfor this combination lie in the procedures of the study First of all, the slogans areinvestigated so that linguistic features appearing in them are discovered and named Next,to find out which feature is the most commonly-used in airline slogans, the quantitativemethod is employed through systemizing the frequency of the occurrence of each featurein different tables Some complementary methods used in this study include studying somespecialist knowledge in advertising, getting to know the economic, social and culturalfactors that have influence on the issue investigated as well as personal observation.

3.2 Data Collection

In this study, more than 50 slogans taken from the advertisements of 50 airlines will beemployed to find out the common features in the language used by airline advertisers Theslogans mostly belong to national airlines as well as the biggest airlines of some developedcountries All of them are enlisted in the database of airline advertising slogans onhttp://www.textart.ru, http://en.wikiquote.org and most importantly, in the Skytrax list ofWorld Airline Awards throughout some years.

Skytrax is a United Kingdom-based consultancy, the public face of In-flight Research

Services It conducts research for commercial airlines It carries out international traveler

surveys to find the best cabin staff, airport, airline, airline lounge, in-flight entertainment,

on board catering, and several other elements of air travel Apart from these surveys,Skytrax has an airline forum where passengers give other potential passengers the feel ofan airline before choosing to fly with them They also have flight reviews, flight checks,and satisfaction surveys They are best known for their annual World Airline Awards andWorld Airport Awards.

The presence of these slogans in those highly prestigious lists of the world airlines provestheir effectiveness and success in extending their services, among which their advertisingstrategies in general and their advertising slogans in particular play a vital part What’smore, as they are among the biggest airlines in the world, the current trend in creatingairlines slogans will be present in their own ones

The population of 50 airlines’ slogans to be investigated is considered large enough as itincludes:

 Some national airlines, many of which belong to English-speaking countriessituated in Europe and are famous for their airline services Well-known names thatcan be mentioned are Air Canada, Air France, British Airways, Swissair, Lufthansa(Germany), and so on

 Some other airlines which are not national airlines but really well-known in theworld for their long-built prestige and often appear in the lists of Skytrax.

 Some randomly-chosen slogans in the database of airline slogans to ensure thegeneralization of the study.

3.3 Data Analysis

To find out the prevailing trend in creating airline advertising slogans, all the chosenslogans will be studied in the light of common features of advertising slogans to see whatfeatures or techniques are mostly employed by airline advertisers This purpose is bestachieved by working out the commonly-employed linguistic features and the proportion of