Grade VII Civics

2. Introduction
• Today we are surrounded by advertisements or ads.
• We watch them on television, listen to them on radio,
see them on the streets and in newspapers and
magazines.
• Even taxis or rickshaws carry advertisements on them.
• In cinemas , advertisements appear before the film
begins and on the Internet, they pop-up when we go
into different websites.
• Advertisements draw our attention to various products
and describe them positively so that we become
interested in buying them.

3. What does Advertisement mean?

6. What does Advertisement mean?
( Cont..)
• Advertising is a powerful medium. It persuades the customer to
purchase a particular product or service by describing its good
points, which are mostly exaggerated .
• It is a method of mass promotion in which a single message can
reach a large number of people.
• It spreads its message to the consumers by making use of mass
media like, newspaper, internet, direct mailing, TV etc.

7. Building Brands and Brand Values
• Advertising is all about building brands.
• At a very basic level, ‘ branding’ means stamping a product with
a particular product name or sign. This is done in order to
differentiate it from other products in the market.
• E.g. When a company takes a product, packaged it, then it
requires a special name. So, they decide on a name and that
naming of the product is called ‘branding’

8. Building Brands and Brand Values ( Cont…)
• Just naming the product may not make consumers buy it, so
advertisements then play a crucial role in trying to convince the
consumers to buy the product that is advertised .
• Advertisers claim special values for their brand. In this way ,
they try to differentiate it from other similar products. These
brand values are conveyed through the use of visuals and words
to give us an overall image that appeals to us.
E.g. TOP TASTE DAAL : When guest come home serve them
with best.
BEST TASTE DAAL: Give your children great food value
CARE SOAP: Show your child you care.
Express your Love afresh

9. Development Activity
Look at the two advertisements given on page 81 ( Top taste daal and show your child
you care) and tell in the table that follow:
Top Taste Daal Care Soap
What are the advertisements selling?
How do they describe the product
What is the text trying to say? Guest should be served this
What do the picture convey? Love of Mother
Would you want to buy these products
after seeing the advertisement?

10. Home Assignment
Read the information on page 82 and find out
from where did the system of branding come?

11. Brand Values and Social Values
• Advertisements play a big role in our lives.
• We not only buy products based on them, but often , having
certain brand products influences the way in which we think
about ourselves, our friends and our family.
• It is, therefore, important to know how advertising works and
understand what it does before we choose to buy the products
that advertisements sell.

12. Brand Values and Social Values
• We need to be able to critically understand why they use
particular images, the personal emotion that they are appealing
to and the ways in which this affects how we think about
ourselves when we use the product or are not able to buy it.
• Cricketers and our favourite film stars also try and sell products
to us through advertisements.
• We may feel tempted to buy these products because persons
whom we consider our heroes tell us that they are worth
buying.
• In addition, advertisements often shows us images of the
lifestyles of rich people and seldom show us the reality of
people’s lives that we see around us.

13. Activity
List 5 things that you have been persuaded, or
manipulated to buy or do in the last four weeks.
* How many of those things did you/ your
family really want?
* How were you persuaded or manipulated?
* If you didn’t really want any of the things you
listed, why did you do it/ buy it?

14. Home Assignment
Make a presentation on advertising campaigns
related to a product.

15. How does advertisement get made?
• Advertising is a very important part of getting people to buy a
brand. This does not happen easily and several hundreds books
have been written on this.
• Advertisements aim to get people to buy a particular brand. This
basically means that after we see an advertisement we should
want to buy the brand.
• There will a team of experts who make advertisements, decide
on what images, text and personal emotions to use to sell the
product.

16. Advertising and Democracy
 Advertising plays an important role in providing the required
information about any product, service or idea to the general
public. It also allows people to form their opinion and
participate in democratic debates and discussions. There is very
close relationship between advertising and democracy.
 Advertising also communicates the policies and politics of the
government to the society so that the citizens can make their
opinion about the policies and ideas of the government.
 Right political choice are very necessary for the healthy society
and also for the success of the democracy.
 Hence the advertising plays an very important role in decision
making regarding democracy.

17. Benefits of advertising
 It aims to change attitude and behavior of the public and bring
about positive changes in the society like advertising
campaigns for polio drops, ORS, etc.
 Social advertising has benefitted many public awareness
programmes like importance of mother’s milk for the baby,
method of making baby food at home with pulses and grains,
need for hygiene etc.
 The Indian government has successfully protected the public
interest by banning the advertising of tobacco and alcohol on
radio, television and newspapers.

18. Activity
Observe the Social advertising given on page 88
and answer the question that follow:
1. Who do you think is the target audience for
the social advertisement?
2. What is the message that each social
advertisement is trying to get across?

19. How does advertising create discrimination in
the society?
1. Small businesses do not have the money to spend on advertising.
But they have to compete against highly advertised items that make
the people believe that banded and packed goods are better. Thus,
brands can create discrimination among the masses.
2. Advertising engrains stereotype attitudes. Some advertisements
show a family sitting on the table and woman cooking the food. The
men are invariably shown buying computers or cars. The type of
advertisements creates gender discrimination and hence, is against
the basic principles of democracy.
3. Many people cannot afford branded items. They feel that they are
failing in their duty by not providing a particular brand of flour for
their growing children. This creates distance between the rich and
the poor.

20. How do advertisements help in creating
awareness among the citizens?
o Advertising has played and important role in making us aware of our
responsibility towards the society. A documentary film by the
ministry of Social Welfare shows that girls are as capable of achieving
success in their chosen fields as the boys are, when given the
opportunity. It motivates the people to send their daughter to school
and not think of them as burden.
o Advertising is capable of reaching out to a large audience. Advertising
techniques can be used to create the awareness among the people and
motivate them to take necessary precautions. Such advertisements
may be related to water conservation, energy conservation,
deforestation etc.
o Advertising is also used by many other organizations to inform the
public about their objectives, achievements and projects. They are
political parities, interest groups, religious groups and defence
services.

21. Home Assignment
Project:
“About types of advertisement and create
advertisement about the needs to save water
and energy”