Think about TV ads. Analyze. Ask questions.

 

 

Consider these ideas for your own compositions.
TV Set   Computer and Quill Pen
WHAT BRAND NAMES ARE USED?
WHAT CREDENTIALS CAN YOU USE?

Building confidence, or establishing trust in a product need not be deceptive or artificial. There are many honest people, many good products, and many mutual benefits shared between buyers and sellers.

Brand names are some of the most common, most important confidence-builders in advertising. While a brand name may not seem to be an important aspect of any single ad, overall consumer confidence is built by the constant long term repetition of such brand names, trade marks, logos, and visual symbols.

As you analyze ads, notice how many brands you can instantly identify simply by their distinctive symbols, shapes, colors, or packaging.

In the pre-industrial age, craftsmen put their own marking on the pottery and silverware they made as a way of identifying their work. Thus, trademarks, and later, brand names, became associated with reputable companies and quality products.

Brand loyalty -- that buyers would know, trust, and prefer their brand -- is the dream of every seller. In general, brand name products and established stores are more trustworthy than unbranded items and unknown stores.

Sellers today use brand names in order to establish confidence, emphasizing either tradition, that their product has been trusted for a long time, or popularity, that their product is trusted by many people.

At present, the USA has more than a half million registered trademarks competing to be known and liked by the public.

In business, a well known and trusted name is worth a lot of money. A reputable company takes great care in protecting its name, not only in its internal operations (such as product quality-control, guarantees, customer relations), but also in legally defending itself against ripoffs, pirates, imitators and counterfeiters.

 

Credentials, or credits, here refers to your genuine accomplishments (such as knowledge, experience, awards, affiliations) related to the topic.

Just as products and corporations can build audience confidence by calling attention to their established experience and proven record, so also individuals can build audience confidence in their work if they are able to point out their legitimate merits.

Readers often read articles or buy books simply on the basis of the author's past record, or their credentials.

If you have good credentials, display them.

The problem is how to display them tactfully without seeming to be bragging, vain or immodest, arrogant or pretentious.

Fortunately, many standard conventions are available to help writers advertise themselves. In magazine articles, for example, a footnote (or an "Editor's Note") cites the author's achievements. In books, this is usually done, by others, on the cover "blurb" or in a foreword.

In speeches, the function of the Master of Ceremonies is to introduce the speakers and their achievements, so that they won't have to talk about themselves. Frequently, such introductions and editorial notes are provided by the writers themselves, written in third person.

Writers (whether academic, business, or free lance) usually keep a copy of what they write, some "writing samples," and a list of their publications, as part of their credentials. In movies and TV, writers seek on-screen "credits," not only for vanity, but also because legal contracts, payments, and royalties are based on them.

In some writing situations, it is not appropriate to focus any attention on the writer. For example, a common error in student papers is a constant reflexive focus back on the writer, expressing subjective feelings or opinions ( "I think ... I feel ... I believe") rather than a focus on the assigned topic.

Writers should make a conscious decision about the appropriateness of introducing one's self, or displaying one's credentials.

 
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