Potato chips

Freedman and Jurafsky examine potato chip advertisements and find that advertisers use different language and emphasize health and authenticity issues differently to appeal to either high class or middle to low class people. More expensive chips use more complex grammar and vocabulary and also use many more negative associations to imply that their chips have something that others do not.  It is also noted that the more expensive chips make many more health related comments on their packaging urging people to pay extra for the healthier or what looks like the healthier version. When Freedman and Jurafsky looked at appeals to authenticity in advertisements they found results that differed quite a bit from what appeals would be made in wine advertisements. They found that emphasis on naturalness and ingredients was used mainly for the more expensive chips and emphasis on historicity and locality was used for the cheaper chips. This contrasts with wine advertisements where the better wines usually boast about how long they have been around and where they are produced. I think this is the most interesting part of the analysis because it exemplifies how the advertisements that we see everyday and usually do not give much thought to require complex thinking. Advertisers do not use the same language to attract certain groups for every kind of food, historicity does not attract high class chip buyers in the same way that it attracts high class wine buyers. I am sure this is the same for things like fruits and vegetables, advertisters would have to use a different approach to sell these products than they would to see potato chips. Freedman and Jurafsky could look at fruit and vegetable advertisments to see what differences there were, health in this case might be emphasized for every price, naturalness might still be emphasized for more expensive produce. It would be interesting to see the differences between different foods.