The Language Of Beer Comercials

=== 828a6e25e3b30e65eedcfaad39fcf0f984469d5a_546299_1 ===

CHAPTER I. FUNDAMENTAL ASPECTS REGARDING ADVERTISING AND ITS INFLUENCE ON CONSUMER DECISION

1.1 Consumers and consumption

While production is dedicated to observe how goods and services are produced from raw materials and energy, consumption refers to how people use those goods and services in order to satisfy their subsistence needs and desires. For Z. Bauman (2007) the "consumer society" is an expression that emphasizes a society that encourages, endeavours, develops and also promotes human choice regarding a style of consumer life, together with a strategy that disapproves any alternative cultural option. In this respect, this particular type of society involves the process of conformation to precepts regarding the culture of consumption in all its practical purposes. Within this society, the individual must choose a viable and plausible option, but also he must meet a requirement of belonging there. In order to understand Bauman's idea in accordance with certain aspects regarding a consumer society, one should understand the concept of consumerism. In this regard, Wright (2010) considered consumerism as "a belief that personal happiness and well-being depending on personal consumption, in particular regarding the purchase of tangible goods." Analyzing Wright’s opinion, the welfare depends on the living above a threshold while consumption and goods’ possession represents the centre of happiness for humans. A consumer society is one in which people devote a large amount of time, energy, resources in order to "consume". The general opinion in a consumerist society is that consumption is good and higher consumption is even better.

R. Cronk (1996) considers that "in the context of consumerism’s myth, the individual believes that he will be satisfied and integrated by consumption". The consumer sublimates the desire for cultural realization to the benefits of buying and owning the products. While consumerism offers the tangible goal of owning a good, it lacks the fulfilment of other cultural mythologies. Consumerism offers only the short term, the ego gratification of those who can afford luxury and frustration for those who can not. In order to be able to synthesize the difference between consumption and consumerism with a subjective but realistic vision, one can quote A. Leonard (2007: 106): "consumption means acquiring and using goods and services to meet one's needs, while consumerism is a particular relationship with consumption in which people seek to satisfy their emotional and social needs by buying, while society demonstrates and defines self-esteem through the things they possess".

The human being has inclined to buy and own goods, with the sense of giving meaning to his life. He does not know the origin of the things he uses daily, he ignores the fact that they come from biodiversity and the environment that surrounds him. The problem also lies in the fact that at no point in people’s lives does the probable outcome of the sources arise if they are squandered or overexploited. Excessive consumption does not act alone, but it interacts faithfully with the population increase experienced since the industrial era. Jeffrey Sachs (2007) in his book Economy for a crowded planet mentions that "the world population has multiplied tenfold since 1750 and has supported a similar growth of production per person on the planet means that the level of economic activity of society human is perhaps a hundred times greater than it was at the beginning of the industrial age." This increase corresponds to the predominance of activities aiming to impose physical processes in order to satisfy human consumption: the deforestation, the use of energy, fish catches, the use of chemical fertilizers, dams and the detours of river courses, the construction of roads and many other aspects. It is not surprising, then, that the terrestrial systems on which our existence depends have been altered in many adverse and unexpected ways. (Nakata, 2009)

1.2 The role of marketing and advertising

Marketing aims to influence the decisions of people, aspect involving the planning of the concept, price, promotion and distribution of goods, services and ideas. Marketing techniques are used by organizations to create awareness of their brands and products while advertising aims to influence and persuade people instead of informing. Advertising can achieve to build connections between people, brands and products. There are cases in which advertising can not determine people buy things, but they can influence to the point of moulding social behaviour. After years that the currently known production system was operated, there was recorded an overproduction of consumer goods that had to be sold, otherwise the companies and industries fell into disrepair; therefore, one of the key solutions for getting out of this crisis was the investment of certain companies in advertising and marketing. (Belch, Belch, 2004: 102) With this method, the consumption production wheel could be kept activated. The growing trend of mass consumption that is currently attributed only to developed countries is based on the deep-rooted culture to be consumed in the same countries. But the contagion was also directed to developing countries, in which the advertising methods applied also created a culture of consumerism in which they are immersed without exit. In this manner, advertising fulfils its goal of practically global reach. Throughout the second part of the twentieth century, advertising companies studied and applied their techniques to interest groups composed mostly of adults.

S. Martinez Rodrigo (2005) states that "in the decade of the seventies we found a growth of the social protagonism of the individual, first as a spectator and then as a consumer. At the same time, research on advertising, television and individuals begins to develop". From 1990, this field is consolidated as a field of study, from the perspective of the consumer. Most of the research carried out during this period comes from the field of marketing. According to Krugman (1994), the current dimension of the individual's market is a consequence of a series of economic factors (economic development, the multiplication of an offer of economic products) and demographic (the decrease in the number of individuals per family, the incorporation of the adults into the labour market, delayed paternity and so on). The globalization of communications and the appearance of television offers, turned most individuals into an audience, providing a means for companies to communicate directly with them, legitimizing them as a market.

Advertising also plays an important role in the social sphere. Even, one could say that it is one of the most powerful actors in the process of contemporary society culture production. This means that advertising has a high social visibility and, at the same time, it is subject to numerous criticisms. Throughout history, advertising has had detractors for its excesses in terms of the use of exaggerated and aggressive language or abuse of images of women and their bodies. During the sixties and seventies in the West, advertising was harshly criticized (De Mooji, 2013: 62) and the idea was extended that advertisers, such as skilled advertising professionals, easily manipulated the minds of consumers by creating false advertising needs of consumption (Galbraith, 1958). The journalist Vance Packard (1957), who wrote the book The Hidden Persuator, maintained this theory considering that is still valid today for authors who criticize the current process of economic and cultural globalization (Lasn, 1999: 5), (Klein, 2000: 70). Packard considered that advertisers could act on the unconscious of individuals to condition their behaviour through techniques such as motivational research. This exaggerated view of advertising is based on the fear it inspires as a powerful communication tool. It is true that advertising exerts an influence on people behaviour, but it is also exercised by other social actors. Therefore, it is always ultimately the consumer who decides what he consumes from the factors that surround him.

1.3 The operation of advertising

Currently, advertising is considered as a communication tool whose purpose is to create a positive environment and disposition on the part of the consumer, regarding certain products or services and, in addition, this culminates with the acquisition of the same aspects. Advertising never acts directly on the behaviour of consumers. Advertisers associate meanings and immaterial images to their products in order to endow them with symbolic imaginaries. Nowadays, the consumer looks for products with a set of symbolic meanings such as success, power, social acceptance and beauty among others, more than a functional type of satisfaction. In fact, the consumer does not acquire any product or service that has not previously had a dose of symbolic charge. In this regard, advertising is limited to capturing the meanings already existing in the imaginary collective and adapting them to the products offered in the consumer market. Advertising presents the product as an entity to achieve its objectives if it has a strong identity. Otherwise, it shows it together with objects, persons or social or affective situations whose social meanings are recognized by the consumer. As highlighted by Roland Barthes (1957), "this artificial construction of products and services loaded with values ​​that are not his own ends up being quite natural for individuals". According to this reasoning, a product lacking meaning only needs to be associated with another element with social significance. A good example is the one of a French perfume advertisement it can be displayed next to the Eiffel Tower, so that the symbolism of this monument is directly related to the announced perfume and the consumer perceives it as corresponding to the perfume.

As Corrigan (1997) states, "the product represents a reality and the consumer needs to acquire it in order to feel alive." Currently in our culture, advertising can be understood as an actor that conveys meanings and values ​​in unison: first to the product and, second, from it to the consumer through the purchase. So that advertising sterilizes the product because it transforms it into desirable attributes for the consumer and, later, these attributes are transferred to the consumer through purchase process, making it desirable to others to own the product. This process is feasible thanks to the participation of the consumer, who acts actively as an interpreter of the values ​​and meanings associated with the products and services and not passively. Therefore, advertising needs different marketing actions to make its messages more effective. This indicates that it is not as powerful as some believe. Although, this should not induce to think that the publicity does not produce concrete effects, because the ideal world that creates the publicity is not a mere tool so that the products or services are acquired, but, in addition, it is a model that influences of form direct on the individuals in their daily life and a powerful instrument of promotion and legitimation of the culture of consumption (Drumwright, 1996: 80).

1.4 Ethics and publicity

The publicity mechanism revealed by Alberoni is still valid today. Therefore, it must represent everything that is present in the social culture, which in turn is a reflection of what individuals think. These are not passive subjects who allow themselves to be influenced without resistance; on the contrary, they are active subjects that rework and synthesize the advertising messages received with their own personal culture in a completely individual way. This may happen due to the varied nature of the advertising, since it is presented in an explicit way, without hiding, very contrary to the journalistic information that, under the guise of informative neutrality, offers economic and political interest data without showing who or what part the individual is. Advertising establishes a pact with the interlocutor in a way that makes clear its intentions.

Advertising, media and individual and social factors influence people. When the latter are weakened, the influence of the media is direct and its power is strengthened, as stated by Shimp (1997). This is the case of social categories such as childhood and old age that are considered "weak" and whose cultural instruments do not allow them to defend themselves against the influence of advertising. Therefore, it is necessary to protect both advertising and media, in general, through control systems and legal rules. Sometimes, advertising and media seek their own interests, hurting the sensitivity of people with violent and vulgar messages transgressing social taboos. In order to avoid this, it is necessary to develop a critical capacity of adults, and not censorship, towards the media and the role that advertising develops in our society. And although the legal regulation determines limits to advertising, it has the right to offer its products or services in the market to the widest possible audience. This is necessary so that each consumer has the highest possible offer and can make the best choice. For some it would be enough to offer information based on truth and reason and not appeal to emotion, as it is usually done. However, if the advertising were based on serious and rational arguments, the cultural and social environment would be more sad and boring. One should think of how monotonous television programming would be without those commercial breaks, the spots, of just a few seconds, whose advertisers invest large amounts of money to offer people a "mini-show" that, on different occasions, is more fun than the program itself. In this regard, advertising is neither good nor bad like television, movies or other media. Therefore, advertising by itself is good and can only become a bad thing if it is misused or intentionally deceived by other people; in this case, the responsibility is not only for advertising, which is regulated by laws and codes of self-discipline, but also for other agents who do not perform their duties in an adequate manner. This is the case of the family that does not educate children in a proper way because it makes them think that the goal in life must be the material success or the school instead of providing the necessary cultural instruments to read critically the advertising messages that could offer a good education.

1.5 Publicity, social roles and gender discourse

1.5.1 Advertising as a social reflex

Every day, we consciously or unconsciously receive hundreds of advertising messages that impact us in different ways: through radio, television, press, Internet, the enormous billboards that accompany us throughout our car journeys and so on. People are surrounded of advertising language and that is the reason why it is so important to use a responsible discourse that promotes equality and social values, showing women and men as they are, equal in their human condition, although one must recognize the desire to sell in the advertising message or the desire to instil values ​​of deep social depth.

Advertising brings people to a magical world, an ideal space to which one should aspire, a mirror in which one looks to be socially accepted and achieve in professional field or family success. As Roland Barthes said, "the good advertising message is the one that condenses in itself the richest rhetoric and accurately achieves the great dreamlike themes of humanity". Advertising is the showcase of people desires and dreams, sharing with others at the most intimate and unspeakable level. The advertising discourse has a great force of persuasion which influences the transmission of values ​​and beliefs; that is why it is so important to eradicate stereotypes and clichés that promote socio-cultural inequalities from this everyday language.

Undoubtedly, advertising is an information model, because it provides products and services, although the difference with journalistic information is obviously one of persuasion. To persuade is to advice, as a suggestion that is directed to the will of the consumer and that gives him / her the freedom of the decision. Persuasion influences but it does not determine the will of the consumer. But now, citing McLuhan (Galfre, 1999) "it is the media and its transformations that produce the real changes". Mass advertising is being sentenced. Definitely does not mean that advertising will die, but it is becoming a more social advertising, to better understand consumers, their demands, tastes and beliefs.

Advertising is the dominant discourse in the media society, characterized more by the heterogeneity and fragmentation of the public than by the uniformity of the masses. Advertising has penetrated not only the added and external information of the content, but it also shapes the history and the social imaginary produced by the media. The diffusion of values ​​is nowadays a capital aspect in the communication strategy of the companies. "Advertisers realized years ago that technology had so matched products that it was very difficult to distinguish themselves from the competition for any strictly functional aspect, and they also discovered that the public was not able to retain as much information as it wanted to be transmitted to them by each ad (discounts, benefits), especially in television "spots". (Resnik, Stern, 1977: 50-53)

Since it is not possible to differentiate the product by any specific quality, it would be differentiated by an ideal quality, added by the advertising one. That is why during the last two decades we have seen an advertisement that sells values ​​and lifestyles as much as or more than goods and services. Advertising has become more symbolic than real, more emotional than rational. In this context, Advertising Ethics has focused solely on the economic sphere of advertising (truthfulness of the claims about the product, respect for competition), but instead it has only dealt with the social sphere of the type of values ​​that the individual unconsciously receives. (Drumwright, Murphy, 2009: 107-108)

Advertising, besides being a commercial activity, is a language. It has, therefore, its own codes. Like every language, it serves to communicate something, usually in order for a product to be consumed. Nowadays, advertising has a so strong power that one can not explain the reality and certain habits of people behaviour without taking it into account. But advertising not only invites to consume; it also serves to convey certain ways of seeing or understanding life. And this is where its greatest danger lies: advertising influences people’s way of thinking and acting every day, even without realizing it.

1.5.2 The advertising value

One considered that the first philosophers who exposed the issue of values ​​were Herbart and Lotze, but Husserl was the one who found a world of ideal entities, independent of the concrete reality, which are related to each other, having the virtue of being able to be captured through intellectual intuition and with the characteristic of timelessness and the lack of space. Max Scheler, unlike Husserl, considered values ​​as realities that "feel" allowing to have an experience with them, not being captured as acts of knowledge but as an emotional intuition. Then, the values ​​would be the realities captured by the emotional intuition, without ceasing to be pure and timeless qualities. Advertising adds value to a product by changing consumers’ perception, rather than changing the product itself. What is created in advertising is an intangible value, a perceived or subjective one, and this process has a certain "bad reputation". (Scheler, 2017)

Advertising has acquired a prominence that transcends its traditional objectives, becoming an agent that shapes cultural expressions of the first order, especially among young people, who are very knowledgeable and real consumers of advertising. But, as advertising creators reiterate, it would be convenient to limit its social influence. It is debatable that advertising has the capacity to decisively condition social values ​​and dominant lifestyles, to create fashions. From their perspective, advertising is limited to identify the needs, attitudes, values ​​and behaviour of young people, not to creating them, in order to link and connect them to certain products and brands. In some way, advertising fulfils a function of social foresight, anticipating the needs, tastes and values ​​of new social trends, proposing products and services through which one would meet these demands and conditions. (Moriarty et al., 2014) Advertising appears from this perspective as a cultural product, since it only reflects social changes, new realities and ways of being and thinking of young people or adults. Logically, to the extent that anticipates, advertising reinterprets values ​​and attitudes and disseminates certain social trends, accelerating, strengthening and reinforcing them. Therefore, people would face a process of mutual influence, interdependence and feedback, between dominant social values ​​and advertising. (Armstrong et al., 2015: 70)

As different investigations have shown, the media have acquired in recent years a relevant role in the processes of socialization regarding the transmission of values ​​and social attitudes. Advertising, like the media, projects a stereotyped vision of society; the young people appear carefree and amusing, pending their personal image. Adults present a seductive and sexual image, but it is a biased image, far removed from the social and cultural diversity, from the different ways of feeling and acting. The realities of society and social life are products of linguistic use, although it seems incredible to read it. One can adopt the point of view of social philosophy where culture itself is an ambiguous text that constantly requires the interpretation of those who participate in it while the constitutive role of language in the creation of social reality would become more fundamental if possible.

The realities are not in the object or in anyone’s mind, but in the act of affirming and negotiating the meaning of such concepts. Linguistic acts such as promising, renouncing, defrauding, loving, swearing, being and so on do not constitute anything by themselves; it is the latent negotiated meaning of such acts that constitute reality. By giving an example, if a father constantly tells his son that he is useless, the boy unconsciously accepts this linguistic action and as the negotiation is accepted, it becomes a reality. All human beings communicate naturally at all times.

1.6 Analysis of the impact of advertising on consumer decisions

Consumption patterns directly affect the exploitation of natural resources and the quantity and quality of the goods consumed by human beings. In the fourth chapter of the XXIth Agenda on the Elaboration of Consumption Modalities one mentioned that particular attention must be paid to the demand for natural resources generated by unsustainable consumption, as well as to the efficient use of these resources, in a coherent manner, with the objective of minimizing the depletion of those resources and reducing pollution (Earth Summit, Agenda 21, 1992). One of the fundamental factors for the growing demand on natural resources is the population growth and the mode of consumption of the same. "The population increases bring great pressures on consumption. In this respect, the level of consumption does not depend only on the total population. The intensity of the resources’ use is more significant for the level of consumption. Population and consumption are two interactive elements regarding the impact of man on the environment"(Problems of Unsustainable Consumption, CEADU)

Francesco Alberoni (1964) considered that advertising can exert a positive social influence as an instrument of "modernization" of society. In this respect, it allows citizens to accept new products, and even overcome the initial psychological distrust towards them. Advertising develops a double function: on the one hand, it induces anxiety to individuals due to the appearance of new products (in the sixties, Alberoni studied the anxiety caused by new products such as the washing machine that supposed for the housewives an imbalance with respect to their family duties) and, on the other hand, it eliminates this anxiety through the language that makes modern culture more understandable and avoids presenting the negative because it always speaks positively. Communicates from joy and serenity associate the product with a happy family life. In this respect, advertising helps individuals to accept innovations and emphasizes gratification on a psychological level and, at the same time, it encourages change and the acquisition of new goods by promising consumers that they will not change. Alberoni's position is present in advertising. Advertising contributes to the acceptance of social change and to "modernization" in terms of individuals’ uses and habits.

Ronald Berman (1981) states that advertising gives voice to technology because in addition of being invented, it has to be communicated. The role of advertising is to serve as a bridge between technology and market. And, in addition, it develops an ideological function showing the benefits that technology brings.

1.7 A new stage of advertising: the advent of the mass consumer society

1.7.1 The advertising of alcoholic beverages in our society.

In the 1950s, the society reconsidered its identity based on the cultural changes that were experienced as a result of the dynamics between political and socio-cultural factors. (Charter, Tischner, 2017: 44-45).  The civil war of 1948 was an event that left an indelible mark on the European society, and created a new political dynamic in which economic development was based on the implementation of intervening states. As a result of the expansion of capitalism in agriculture and the boom in industrialization, coupled with the social policy largely achieved before the war, the promotion and economic consolidation of the middle sectors, which enjoyed a rising context, was encouraged (Sherman, 2014: 93). It was created a society in which the workers had the support of a broad public sector (Sherman, 2014: 127). The above allows to increase the purchasing power of the population bulk, as Jason Moore suggests, the rise in wages and a more equitable distribution of income accompanied by a growing urbanization produced an evident change in the social dynamics of consumption (Morre, 2015 : 10-12). The development of the interventor state therefore led the society's economy to create the conditions for the majority of population to have access to mass-produced goods.

Nowadays, consumer society is characterized by production for the desire. This production not only creates material objects, but also social aspirations which causes the consumer to feel affinity towards certain products that the individual considers in order to satisfy his aspirations (Baudrillard, 2016: 4). Within this context, the role of advertising is to challenge the consumer and in this respect it must adapt to the transformations of the historical context of which it is a part of. Advertising must be in accordance with the social, political and economic characteristics that influence consumers' decisions. Consumer society arises in different parts of the world at different historical moments due to the massive production of manufactured products, improvements in means of transport and communication, as well as economic and commercial diversity, among others. The industrial revolution is an economic particularity present in those societies where the first expressions of the consumer society occurred (Cohen, Brown, Vergragt, 2017: 237). One of the characteristics of the mass consumer society is that it has the ability to adapt its markets according to the needs and social aspirations of consumers, but in a segmented manner. In this respect, the mass consumer society offers an option that satisfies the way in which the consumer imagines himself, allowing him to associate with group identities.

Europe has experienced insertion in the consumer society since the mid-nineteenth century. In this context, the diffusion of modernity was promoted, implying that the consumer was prone to acquire goods according to the consumption patterns of the United States and other developed regions (Jacobson, 1995: 3-4). The consumer society underwent another important transformation in the second half of the XXth century, thanks to industrial development and the rise of the middle sectors. The middle sectors of Europe had salaries that gave them a purchasing power capable of maintaining and activating a mass consumption economy. While it is true, the industrialists and merchants advertised themselves to sell more merchandise, as a collateral manner through which they were setting new cultural guidelines, especially when the product turned out to be novel. On the contrary, in some occasions the merchants took advantage of the demand of a previously established product within a certain culture and adapted their consumption to the American pattern. The professionalization of advertising is essential to maintain a stable market. Regardless of how the dynamics between advertising and culture develop, with the establishment of mass consumption society, the daily life of individuals was transformed.

1.7.2 The social aspirations offered by advertisements of the time

Following Howard, we affirm that advertising does not create a new consumer culture, but reflects how the society in which it operates is shaped in cultural terms. Similarly, it reflects consumers and their habits (Howard, 2008: 426). Some general characteristics of the advertising of the time must be mentioned before moving on to an analysis of the social aspirations that it offers. During this time most of the advertisements present drawings, but the use of photography although it appears from time to time, is not a widespread practice. This is how, from the graphical and textual content of the advertisements, the social aspirations most frequently represented in the advertising of alcoholic beverages were identified. Some of the ads present more than one social aspiration. On a smaller scale, it was possible to identify other representations of social aspirations, such as wealth, luxury, elegance and pleasure that are generally reached only by the most economically powerful sectors. Therefore, the main social aspirations shown by the advertisements are within the relative reach of a large part of the population, not exclusively of the economically privileged social sectors. The importance of advertising to popular sectors, which have a lower purchasing power, is also evident. The advertising offers aspirations that people can achieve in specific circumstances. (O'barr, 1994: 33-35)

1.7.3 Identities in the advertising

The advertising reflects the ways of operating of the society in which it operates, this is a consequence of the desire of advertisers to obtain success in their sales. Advertising, therefore more than a business practice, is a social and cultural phenomenon (Howard, 2008: 455). In such way, the industrialists and/or the merchants try to create identity feelings in the consumers according to the previously established cultural patterns. Therefore, in the advertisements one can find elements of national identity, ethnic identities, gender identities and age identities.

National identity

Studies about the history of advertising have shown that the use of symbols of national identity in advertising is a marketing strategy that has been practiced in different countries and in different historical periods. Specifically for the Australian case, for example, the advertising strategy of the Tooth's brewery was studied during the 1930s, which aimed to activate a market negatively affected by the economic crisis. This aspect proves that by inserting elements of national identity, the main breweries of New South Wales sought to improve their sales within a depressed market. The fundamental idea of ​​these industries was not to sell only beer, but also to promote a series of values ​​associated with it. To achieve the above, beer was presented as an honest, healthy and patriotic drink, which created a motivation difficult to resist for an Australian who considers himself a patriot (Crawford, 2007: 169). In the same way, at the end of the 19th century, the Backus and Johnston brewery established in Peru appealed to its Peruvian identity and to the capacity of this country to achieve technological advances that make possible the elaboration of a high quality beer (Bamforth, 2000: 235). More recently, the advertising of the beer elaborated as an advertising strategy the commemoration of the 120 years of the founding of the brewery and the bicentennial of the independence of Argentina, so that the advertising exalts the sentiment of national identity, especially when using specific figures and in the same way, it lets consumers understand that beer is an Argentine and patriotic beer. However, elements that undoubtedly are associated with a certain national identity can not be left out of the national anthem and all the elements that are related to it, such as the typical costume, the chonete, the machete, the saddlebag, among others.

1.7.4 Folk elements present in the advertisements

The unofficial elements found in Romanian advertisements, for example, are associated with the idea of ​​an idyllic peasant society, the typical costume or the simple peasant, which reproduce rural life. Likewise, some advertisements depict the traditional customs, typical of the peaceful region of the country, but practiced in our country during some of its festivities. These images can be seen in the plastic versions that showed rural Romania as a pleasant place, in which social differences are practically non-existent.

The cart is the main patriotic symbol present in the advertisements, which suggests that the Romanian society identified with the value of the work that the cart represents. Our society experienced a growing process of urbanization retained as an appreciation for the daily life of the rural environment that was based on agricultural production and where the wagon was an indispensable element for a long time.

1.7.5 Ethnic identities: Most frequent representations in the advertisements

With the arrival of mass consumption society, differences in consumption between classes with disparities in purchasing power are becoming increasingly diffuse. The symbolism of consumption has changed, because the purchasing power of a large part of the population raised, making it possible for people to access more goods. This economic model, rather than accentuating the economic and symbolic inequalities of society, sought to mitigate them in order to preserve them. The analyzed publicity managed to keep coherent with the development of the social, political and economic life of the country, because it presented a world of diffused or non-existent social disparities. The dialogue between advertising and the society in which it operates was established successfully, since the model benefited from the message that made invisible the socio-economic problems that in previous years led to political confrontations, and advertising benefited from accessing this equal message to a larger sector of the market. The analyzed advertising shows that for its elaboration it was required to develop a sensitive reading about aesthetic concerns, gender and generational differences, allowing it to elaborate announcements in accordance with these concerns. The world that these ads offer is the one that most people would like to possess, full of beauty, youth and joy. The national identity is made up of official and unofficial elements and, similarly, advertising makes a sensitive reading of the identity feelings present in our society during by identifying identity images that go beyond those posed by the official aspects. (Grier, Deshpandé, 2001: 218)

Nonetheless, it does not leave aside the established and culturally accepted approaches, which is why one may find a greater presence of images of different nations in certain commercials. Thus, the success of the national identity discourse proposed by the liberals at the end of the XIXth century about racial homogeneity is legitimized. Similarly analyze these ads helps us understand the impact of this discourse on individuals, and what influence advertising exerted on people physical perception, as well as on the social stereotypes of beauty, several decades after its approach. For example, the advertising of alcoholic beverages does not present women exercising the traditional gender roles, what the advertisements highlight is the feminine beauty that ceases to be exclusive of different women. The cultural offer of female beauty patterns becomes more varied, but what is exalted is the tone of the skin, not the ethnic origin. The admiration towards this type of beauty arises with the idea of ​​the exotic and erotic woman, without being aware of its racial component. The central role of men in the advertising of alcoholic beverages is that of active consumer being related to their traditional role as a family provider. The most common thing in society is for men to work and therefore acquire purchasing power. The advertising that contains female images aims to attract the attention of men. However, in the images of women that appear in these ads, women are clearly considered as active consumers.

1.8. Beverage, crisis and publicity sector

The beverage sector is within the primary sector: Food and Beverage Industry, Distribution and Restoration Channels. This sector has become a mature and very competitive section. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Food and Beverages Sector provides quality, healthy and affordable food to millions of people around the world. The beverage industry is composed of two main categories and eight subgroups. On the one hand, the category of non-alcoholic beverages, including: soft drinks; bottling and canning of water and soft drinks; bottling, canning and packaging in boxes of fruit juices; coffee industry; and tea industry. On the other hand, the category of alcoholic beverages includes distilled liquors, wine and beer.

The characteristics that represent the beverage sector are the following:

– Mature sector with high intensity;

– High level of business competition;

– Sector composed, in general terms, by private companies;

– Reduction in intervention mechanisms and state protection in agri-food markets;

– Progressive freedom in international trade.

– Opening the national market to foreign competition.

The arrival of the crisis produced an excess supply, caused by a reduction in demand, which led to a drop in prices. This pressure began in 2008, intensifying the sensitivity to the price of consumers, when there was an increase in the elasticity of demand. This effect, although its consumption of food did not decrease, if it modified the purchase behaviour, looking for alternatives of lower price. The increase in the prices of raw materials, as happened with oil, and the production inputs during 2007-2008 introduced aggregate pressures, although in 2009 these pressures fell thanks to better harvests and the relaxation of demand due to the economic crisis. (Bocherini, 2009) This situation configured an environment in which it was not easy to sustain a profitable activity over time. On the one hand, the variability of the costs of raw materials and inputs could cause new profitability crises. On the other hand, the suspension of the domestic market focused competition on prices. This brought with it the competitive intensity of copying successful strategies and the ability of gaining market shares, transferring to consumers the reduction of costs obtained along with the decrease in prices of copied products. When this began to take shape, it was necessary to start over again, launching new products with differentiating features, reducing prices or looking for new efficiency improvements.

This section is intended for the writing and description of the advertising strategy change by the beer industry, as a consequence of the crisis. Within the beverage sector, my project will focus on the beer industry, since Romania is a large beer producer in Europe, and also one of the countries that consumes the most beer. Beer is one of the most consumed beverages in Romania and its main consumption channel, unlike many countries, are the hospitality establishments. Advertising is always reinventing itself, whether through changes in formats, objectives, strategies and it does everything possible to be closer to the consumers who buy and consume the advertised brands. One of the products that has made a change in their way of selling has been beer, either alcoholic or non-alcoholic. This drink has had a before and after the crisis, since one experienced two changes:

• The change of advertising strategy.

• The craft beer boom.

If we look back, and visualize beer ads of 2006 or 2007, before the crisis erupted, most of them focus on two key points: the brand and the product. These strategies are called: Product advertising and institutional (brand) advertising. In this respect, the definitions are the following:

• Product advertising: It focuses on the characteristics and benefits that derive from it, as well as in the competitive position. It tries to stimulate the specific or selective demand for a specific brand, generally at the expense of those that compete with it. One can do it using direct buy propositions "buy now", "do not wait any longer" that try to provoke an immediate action or one can use less aggressive formulas, in order to create a favourable brand image, entailing a purchase of the product with later.

• Institutional advertising: The brand tries to promote the image of the company, entity, association, social issue and so on in order to generate favourable attitudes to it for subsequently translating into the purchase or acceptance of the products it sells or the ideas or programs it promotes.

With the arrival of the crisis, the beer industry presented a series of advertising weaknesses that made competitiveness difficult among beer companies. That is why many brands resorted to persuasion. This strategy, in advertising, is called persuasive advertising. In this respect, persuasive advertising becomes more noticeable in competitive situations, where the objective of a company is to develop a selective demand for a particular brand, creating image and brand loyalty. Most of this advertising focuses on already consolidated products. The advertising sector has changed a lot since 2008. Advertising campaigns are no longer focused only on a television spot, a radio spot or a poster, as far as conventional media are concerned and current advertising goes further. What it is focused on now is interacting with the user / consumer. It is not only to offer a product and make a brand known, but also to determine the consumer to see that the brand is close to him, and right now closer than ever. The conclusion that we can draw from this evolution is, on the one hand, a good one, since as the years went by, the advertisers have been getting closer to the consumers; even interacting with the user in real time, we have evolved at the same time as a step that evolved everything around us, changing things that did not work for others and reinventing the selling strategy. But on the other hand the beer sector, in terms of advertising, has always been a short and sticky one, since if one took out a new advertising strategy, another brand two months later took something similar.

The financial recession that occurred recently brought with it a negative environment for strategic communication. The advertising model established, during this period, began to have some gaps, since it did not impact the consumer as it had done so far. The advertising sector faced a gradual decrease in communicative effectiveness, such as emotionally connecting with the consumer or the withdrawal of some conventional media, among others. This meant that the concept of communication had to be rethought. These facts caused the advertising sector to redefine its advertising strategies. These changes occurred in the objectives, the public, the language or the way to reach the consumer, among others, giving rise to a change in buying habits, in the increase of brands, in the defence of brand value or in the increase of promotional activity in points of sale. With this necessary change, the brand ceased to be responsible for the company or organization, to be built by the user, generating its own experience through the various relationships maintained with the media, whether in a personal or interactive manner. Currently, what is sought is that the consumer is more active and more demanding compared to the offer; in other words, the consumer has evolved to crossumer. (Macías-Alegre, 2016)

Companies have also had to build or maintain a position of superiority over other brands, whether they are inferior or distributor, with values ​​related to prestige, authenticity, tradition and notoriety in the market. In addition, brands have tended to take advantage of a strategy focused on price as the main argument to get closer to the consumer, helping and taking responsibility for offering the best quality. In other cases, distributor brands, which focus on concepts such as "low cost", are based on building quality values. In this respect, they try to snatch the positioning of the big commercial brands.

Currently, the difference between television and newspapers is that the television is a digital medium through which one can navigate, while the information that the newspapers offer, can also be found on the network, and without having to spend one euro to visualize it. This is because the information regarding the one offered by the daily media, one can see it separately on social networks, on the official pages of those newspapers, or even in others because now all information companies have a gap in the great sea called Internet. Internet advertising has been a great investment fund because thanks to its presence in many of the online pages are supported by it. This type of advertising is a new form of marketing to direct promotional messages to their own customers and even increase the range of segmentation. It has also been a great step forward for the advertising sector, since one of the objectives of any advertising campaign is to be as close as possible to the client. This key point of advertising is when the official websites of brands come highlights themselves as their profiles on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Social networks are the best format to advertise products that are short (new) or long-life. These platforms offer the consumer a possibility to follow the brands he likes and even to buy their products through them. This is called Social Ads, having a large number of users and allowing the consumer to take advantage of their different features and options. In the case of Facebook, thanks to its Power Edtior, Facebook Ads represent a tool with many possibilities. To take advantage of its full potential, the companies make reflections on what they want to achieve with the campaign: increase in audience, improve their own branding, among others. In the case of Twitter, its tool Coversation Lift allows companies to configure campaigns in order to test multiple variables and thus focus the budget on those that give better results. In the case of the most visual social network of all, Instagram, its content offerings such as the 30 second videos, the photographs in horizontal format and the Marquee tool have greatly helped the advertising of social ads. (Tomas, 2016: 369)

The Internet has a wide range of formats. These intermingle with each other giving rise to new, more eye-catching for the user. Creativity reigns in the world that has created the Internet, since there are no limits to publicize the products of the brands. Another great feature of this medium is the wide segmentation it offers, since each web page has a specific target audience that advertisers can take advantage of to increase the segmentation of their audience or create loyalty with the one they already have. With the passage of time, the advertising sector has been reinventing itself, breaking with the established advertising model, taking a new form of advertising. This caused that in the beer industry companies changed their advertising strategy. Currently, most brands of beer take socially recognized characters, such as actors or singers to tell consumers a story, while they show the beer brand, as in the ads of beer brands.