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ad report card: Advertising deconstructed.

There Are 12 Kinds of Ads in the WorldResist them all!

By Seth Stevenson
Posted Monday, July 23, 2007, at 12:19 PM ET

Seth Stevenson was online on July 26 to chat with readers about this article. Read the transcript.

Click here to launch a slide show.In 1978, Donald Gunn was a creative director for the advertising agency Leo Burnett. Though his position implied expertise, Gunn felt he was often just throwing darts—relying on inspiration and luck (instead of proven formulas) to make great ads. So, he decided to inject some analytical rigor into the process: He took a yearlong sabbatical, studied the best TV ads he could find, and looked for elemental patterns.

After much research, Gunn determined that nearly all good ads fall into one of 12 categories—or "master formats," in his words. At last year's Clio Awards, I saw Gunn give a lecture about these formats (using ads mostly from the '70s and '80s as examples), and I was fascinated by his theory. I soon found myself categorizing every ad I saw on TV. It was a revelation: The curtain had been pulled back on all those sly sales tactics at the heart of persuasive advertising.

This slide show presents some recent ads exemplifying each of Gunn's 12 basic categories. With a little practice, you, too, will be ticking off the master formats during commercial breaks.

Click here for a slide show on Gunn's 12 master formats. Or watch a video version of this story at Slate V.

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Seth Stevenson is a frequent contributor to Slate.
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Remarks from the Fray:

I may have two more formats to add - meta advertising and "oddvertising."

Meta, or "self-aware", advertising lampoons itself while winking to the audience (Joe Isuzu comes to mind). And, oddvertising, which tries to be weird for weird's sake (think Skittles' spots with the elephant beard and hybrid sheep) - taking Dru's disruption method to its hyperbole.

As you mentioned, ad formats are like water colors, and the shades of formats are constantly blended. But I thought these two more recent categories might be relevant, too.

--sptrapani

(To reply, click here.)

I'm sure the 12 categories described in this story represents a useful way to think about advertising.

But there's a simpler way to boil it down.

An ad succeeds to the extent that it instills in the viewer discontent with his status quo (life without the advertised product). Ads seek to convince the viewer that without the product, he's a loser, but that acquiring the product will make him a winner: socially, economically, physically. This instills the motivation to buy the product.

There are serious negative effects of a world dominated by advertising. People lose self-confidence. Some become physically ill. It's widely accepted that unrealistic standards of feminine beauty presented by advertisements are a huge factor in the surge in anorexia and bulemia in Western nations.

I think this idea about advertising holds water. Even in simple "demonstration" videos of slicers and dicers, the point is that *you* can't make food look appetizing without these products. You're a loser until you buy them.

It works because all of us - every one - are worried about how we present ourselves to others. It's a competitive world, and we fear that looking bad, or driving an unhip car, or failing to wear the right make-up, or presenting ugly food to guests, will make others think less of us and hurt our prospects in life. We imagine that consumers who buy the product will be ahead of us in some tangible way, leaving us in a less competitive position, unless we buy it, too.

Understanding how advertising really works is like being inoculated against it. I'll be surprised if an ad exec ever goes public about it.

--UrgeIt

(To reply, click here.)

I really enjoyed this article and slide show, but I have to point out one little detail that irked me. In the slide about "associated user imagery," the author refers to one of the people in the Nike ad as "that gray-haired jogger lady." Well, I just need to point out that the "gray-haired jogger lady" so happens to be Joan Benoit Samuelson, winner of multiple Boston Marathons, as well as the Gold medalist of the first-ever women's Olympic marathon, which she won at the Los Angeles games in 1984 by a huge margin. I'm sure she wouldn't mind be characterized as a "normal person," but I think she deserves a little credit where credit is due, don't you think?

--Ahoytheship

(To reply, click here.)

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