Study of publicity in the UK - covers the activities of various public relations agencies.

At the end of the twentieth century, Britain was a consumer society. Commerce, intoxicating and addictive, had almost entirely colonized modern life. People were immersed in, and ultimately defined by, promotional culture. The things they consumed had overtaken class, religion, geography, or occupation as the primary form of self-identity and self-expression. For much of the twentieth century all forms of brand communication- from political campaigning to product advertising- were based on the theory of rational appeals to rational consumers. There was only one problem with this theory: it was wrong. The Persuasion Industries: The Making of Modern Britain examines develops in marketing, advertising, public relations, and branding. It explores the role they played in the emergence of the consumer society. New ideas from fields of behavioural psychology and economics, together with internal developments such as planning, positioning, and corporate branding allowed persuasion to become the driving force within many commercial enterprises. Together these changes led to the emergence of an alternative emotional model of brand communication. A simple idea that proved so compelling it changed the world we live in.

Stop to consider the culture of the 21st century: Each morning, you might hear a half–dozen ads on the radio before your feet touch the floor. Staggering out of bed, you'll pass brand logos on your clothing and in your bathroom. By the end of the day, hundreds — perhaps thousands — of marketing messages have targeted you. And yet so little is understood about how marketing affects our lives, our society, and our world. Enter Terry O'Reilly and Mike Tennant, the ad men behind The Age of Persuasion, the popular radio show broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Sirius Radio. They have made it their mission to share the back–room story of modern marketing, entertaining asides and all. "Think of advertisers as millions of ants in a colony, each working hard and each with its own objective. Except that in this colony, every single ant is competing against the others. That's the ad business. Almost every ad you see, hear, and otherwise experience is competing for a piece of your imagination. And like any cross–section of humanity, the vast, worldwide advertising community is diverse: composed of geniuses and idiots, saints and buffoons, and everything in between." From the early players to the Mad Men of the 1960s and beyond, O'Reilly and Tennant offer insights into a rapidly evolving industry. Smart and funny, The Age of Persuasion provides an entertaining — and eye–opening — look at a world driven by marketing.

What does advertising do? Is it the faith of a secular society? If so, why does it inspire so little devotion? Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion is a clear-eyed account of advertising as both business and social institution. Instead of fuelling the moral indignation surrounding the industry, or feeding fantasies of powerful manipulators, Michael Schudson presents a clear assessment of advertising in its wider sociological and historical framework, persuasively concluding that advertising is not nearly as important, effective, or scientifically founded as either its advocates or its critics imagine. ‘Dispassionate, open-minded and balanced ... he conveys better than any other recent author a sense of advertising as its practitioners understand it.’ Stephen Fox, New York Times Book Review First published in 1984.

Effective advertising is, almost always, persuasive advertising, and while not all advertising seeks to persuade, in a competitive situation those who best persuade are those most likely to win. This exciting new book seeks to explain the precise ways in which advertising successfully persuades consumers, setting out the strategies for advertisers to adopt and illustrating the theories at work. Offering not only a conceptual and theoretical grounding in persuasive techniques, this book also provides concrete empirical research that is uniquely incorporated into a marketing textbook format. The authors cover topics including: difficulties of persuasion, rationality and emotion in persuasion, positive reinforcement techniques and cognitive approaches to persuasion. To illuminate these theories, the authors include original case-studies on campaigns as diverse as Death Cigarettes, Mecca Cola, The Oxo Family and Renault Clio, as well as recent advertisements from BMW, McDonalds, Omega and Silk Cut. A genuinely fresh text on the art of persuasion in advertising, this book is essential reading for all marketing students and academics.