P3 advertising on food

 Freedman and Jarafsky noticed a connection between social class and different types of food advertising.  People of different classes undoubtedly eat different foods.  Apart from price, there are other factors that steer one person to buy a certain product and another person to buy a different one.  The more expensive foods use sophisticated language to draw in consumers who have received a higher education, lower class customers simply can’t relate to this language as well.  They discovered that the higher-grade chips more commonly said what they are not than what they are, compared to the lower-grade chips.  For example the lower-grade chips might say fat free while the more expensive ones talk about how they are not made with MSGs or other harmful chemicals. 

On top of these tricky marketing techniques, the more expensive chips had more average words per bag than the less expensive ones.  They also made more of a point to talk about how healthy the chips were. I find it interesting how the more expensive chips pointed out qualities that the cheaper chips also had, but didn’t bother to talk about.  These qualities were almost always related to the healthiness of the chips.  The more expensive chips tried to point out things that would draw the eyes of higher-class customers.  It seems that wealthier people are more health conscious than those of lower classes.

I feel like this method of food advertising analysis being applicable to advertising for electronics such as cell phones.  Sure, most phones now-a-days come with cameras, but some companies make sure to point out the amazing picture quality while others don’t.  Maybe cell phones are a bad example.  I think drugs would be a better one.  Cigarettes and booze are both perfect examples.  More expensive types of alcohol are advertised less but it is known that they are “better.”  They don’t necessarily talk about how people have more fun while drinking it, but they talk about how it was made in perhaps the Swiss Alps, or some foreign place.  I don’t smoke, but I think more expensive cigarettes would contain more text on their boxes than cheaper ones.  This text would probably contain bigger words, that made the product unintentionally sound more classy.  Cigarettes and alcohol are definitely two applicable products but there is no doubt that the examples are endless.