Doublespeak in The Indonesian TV Advertisement of Pond's.

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iii Maranatha Christian University

ABSTRACT

Pond’s adalah sebuah merk kosmetik dari Unilever yang dapat

dikategorikan sebagai produk low involvement_{, yaitu produk yang tidak}

mengakibatkan kerugian ekonomis ataupun psikologis yang besar jika memang

produk tersebut tidak seperti apa yang diharapkan oleh pengguna produk. Hal itu

mengakibatkan para calon pembeli cenderung tidak melakukan pertimbangan

secara mendalam. Indonesia, dengan jumlah penduduk yang sangat besar yaitu

sekitar 237 juta, yang hampir setengahnya adalah wanita, menjadi salah satu

pasar dari produk-produk Pond’s. Dengan latar belakang di atas, penelitian ini

dilakukan untuk mengetahui jenis-jenis Doublespeak yang mungkin digunakan

dan bagaimana Doublespeak dapat menyesatkan dalam iklan-iklan yang

ditayangkan di stasiun-stasiun TV di Indonesia sehingga masyarakat Indonesia

tidak tersesatkan oleh iklan-iklan Pond’s yang mungkin menggunakan

Doublespeak di dalam pembuatan iklannya. Penelitian ini menggunakan teori

Doublespeak milik William Lutz dan sembilan data yang dibahas di dalam

penelitian ini merupakan iklan-iklan produk Pond’s yang ditanyangkan di TV di

Indonesia, terutama stasiun TV nasional. Weasel word dan unfinished word

adalah dua jenis Doublespeak yang paling dominan dalam iklan-iklan Pond’s

yang ditayangkan di TV di Indonesia. Cerita di dalam iklan-iklan Pond’s adalah

bagian yang membuat orang melewatkan keberadaan weasel word dan

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ii Maranatha Christian University

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Advertising is a very prominent and influential tool in product selling in

order to make a good sale of the product to gain as much profit as possible.

Basically it is a persuasion, which puts emphasis on the product’s benefit. An

advertisement is designed to create favorable mental impression to turn people’s

mind toward purchase (Rositter and Percy 4). Nowadays, it is almost impossible

for a producer not to advertise his/her product. Moreover, because of its vital

function in selling, advertising becomes a promising piece of business.

Despite its importance as a promotion tool, advertisements are also

considered a controversial tool as some of them are suspected to apply

manipulative words (Keller 286). The manipulation can inflict financial,

psychological and social loss because the information provided in the

advertisement can mislead the consumers to believe something which is not true.

As informed in the official website of Pond’s Indonesia, Pond’s, which has

been a brand of Unilever since 1987, is a brand that is significantly helped by

advertising to be a worldwide brand. It has grown year by year since it was

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In advertising, Pond’s, which is a cosmetic, is generally categorized as a

low involvement product, which means buyers perceive neither economic nor

psychological risk in purchasing the product (Rositter and Percy 167). People will

not be worried about the price of this product as they are relatively affordable.

However, this may make it easier for people to be misled as normally people will

not take any serious consideration to make a purchase. Mainly, cosmetics are

classified as informational which are products that are created because of

negative motivations such as problem removal, problem avoidance, and

incompetence satisfaction (Rositter and Percy 170). Thus, advertisers of

cosmetics will try to convince prospective buyers to believe that their products are

really favorable to solve the problems.

Advertisements usually appear in the media. There are several possible

media that can be used to promote a product. Mainly, advertisers will take some

considerations in choosing a media to promote their products. For national

advertisers of consumer products and services, television is the most effective

medium for achieving overall communication objectives and product sales

(Rositter and Percy 398) Therefore, Pond’s, which is mainly low

involvement/informational product and internationally-marketable, crucially

requires television advertising.

In advertising, there is a technique that is occasionally applied named

Doublespeak. Substantively, this is also commonly used in politics, education,

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3 Maranatha Christian University cleverly avoid something, to make something larger or more important, or to

make something less clear and harder to understand (Lutz 2). It is a branch of an

applied linguistic subject, which is called Pragmatics.

I intend to analyze the practice of doublespeak in Pond’s advertisements

that are displayed in Indonesian TV commercial breaks. By considering the

characteristics of the product explained above, there is a huge tendency of

advertisers to use doublespeak in Pond’s advertisements. I choose Indonesian

commercials as Indonesia is a prospective market for cosmetic product

promotion due to its massive number of population.

Based on Indonesian 2010’s census data, there are 237, 556, 363people

all around Indonesia and almost half of which are women who are prospective

buyers of cosmetics, especially Pond’s. That is the reasons why I choose

Indonesian commercial break as the source of data. Moreover, I am also eager to

know what kind of doublespeak is used in Pond’s advertisements that are

displayed in Indonesian TV and how they mislead people. The theory of

doublespeak maintained by William Lutz will be applied to make a critical analysis

of the doublespeak in the data.

The significance of the thesis is that by reading this thesis people can be

more aware of manipulative language used in commercial breaks in Indonesian

television and avoid being misled by those commercial breaks in general and

Pond’s advertisements in particular. From that significance of my study, I

formulate the title of my thesis, which is “Doublespeak in the Indonesian TV

Advertisements of Pond’s”.

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4 Maranatha Christian University 1.2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

1. What kind of doublespeak is used in Pond’s advertisements?

2. How does the use of doublespeak in Pond’s advertisements

mislead people?

1.3. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

1. To know what kind of doublespeak is used in Pond’s

advertisements.

2. To know how the use of doublespeak in Pond’s advertisements

misleads people.

1.4. METHOD OF RESEARCH

I began this research by obtaining and reading some books that are

relevant to the issue discussed. Moreover, I also looked for some further

information related to the topic to enrich the analysis from both books and the

Internet. Thus, this is a library research.

Then, I collected some data from Indonesian television stations, which are

some advertisements of Pond’s. I strongly prioritized to gather the Indonesian

data only from national TV station’s commercial break. As a result, I could

analyze the data and drew some conclusions of what has been discussed.

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS

The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is the

Introduction, which consists of the Background of the Study, Statement of the

Problems, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research, and Organization of the

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5 Maranatha Christian University collect some approaches to analyze the data. Chapter Three is the analysis of

the data. The last chapter, Chapter Four, is the Conclusion of all those analyses.

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

After analyzing the data, I find that it is clear that the use of weasel words

is the most dominant tool used in the advertisements. All of the advertisements

use weasel words. Moreover, there are mainly three to six weasel words that are

used in one Pond’s advertisement. The weasel word tampak is the most often

used word. The word tampak is used in six data out of nine that are analysed.

The second top weasel word is the word membantu. Moreover, the unfinished

word is the kind of doublespeak that is commonly combined with weasel words in

the data. There are seven out of nine data that combine weasel word and

unfinished words. Most of the advertisements consisting unfinished words use

the word lebih. There are only two out of twelve unfinished words in the data that

do not use the word lebih. They use the word makin. Consequently, I can

conclude that weasel words and unfinished words are two kinds of doublespeak

that are dominant in Pond’s advertisement. However, the parity claim and Up to

Claim are not found in the advertisement data.

From my findings, it is clear that the use of weasel words is a dominant

part that people should be aware of to avoid being misled by the advertisements

of Pond’s. Understanding what an advertisement is actually saying is crucial. Of

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37 Maranatha Christian University advertisement is carefully selected to create certain effects. Basically, to avoid

being misled, it is important to really understand the literal meaning of every

word, and we have to look closer to check what the advertisement promises. If

we compare the advertisement with an egg, we must examine the egg closely

whether the egg is hollow or not.

The story of the advertisement is a tool that can divert the advertisement

reader’s attention of the weasel words used. Generally, the pattern of the stories

will present a success story that is begun with a problem. The stories deal with

some human’s needs. A romantic relationship is a dominant theme in the data

like in data 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The rest emphasize on the problem women face

concerning their skin. The themes are close to a woman’s life so that the themes

can divert the prospective buyer’s attention from the weasel words the

advertisements use.

There are four data that are packed in romantic love stories. They are data

3, data 5, data 6, and data 7. This kind of story line is important as most women

tend to use their feelings to decide something. The romantic stories are more

interesting than the words for the prospective buyers, most of whom are women.

That is why this kind of story can be a strong tool to divert advertisement readers’

attention from the weasel words.

People should look at what the words really mean, and not what they think

or assume the advertisement says or what the advertiser wants them to think.

This can lead people to be misled and believe something which is not said. And

this is actually the purpose of the use of Doublespeak in an advertisement. It

means that it may cause disappointment as they do not get what they think they

will get. The advertiser cannot be blamed if people do not get what they think

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38 Maranatha Christian University about the favorability is the most important thing that people should really

understand.

The uses of unfinished words are also a significant part that can potentially

mislead people in interpreting Pond’s television advertisement. An unfinished

word is basically an incomplete comparison. Mainly, it will be a comparison

between the condition before using the product and the condition after using the

product. The condition before using the product is normally the missing part of

the incomplete comparison. The advertisement readers are to complete the

incomplete information and determine how the condition after using the product

is.

People will be misled if they do not realize that the comparison in an

advertisement is incomplete. They will automatically complete the incomplete

part. It is needed to be suspicious about the advertisements of Pond’s if there is

words lebih and makin used. The advertisement may contain an unfinished word,

especially when there is the word lebih.

All of the data provide ideal models that experience a success of using the

product and that is a source of suggestion for the advertisement readers to

complete the unfinished comparison. The models chosen to promote the product

are always fair-skinned. This may be to lead people’s mind to a thought that

bright skin is better and more beautiful than dark skin. This will make people,

especially women as the prospective buyers of the products, believe that all

people need skin-lightening products. This will help to increase the selling of

Pond’s products, especially the skin-brightening products.

Even though the theory of Doublespeak is not postulated by an

Indonesian linguist, I still find that the theory is quite applicable for analyzing the

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39 Maranatha Christian University interesting and challenging to analyze any other kind of Indonesian data to see

whether in the Indonesian language there is a special kind of doublespeak.

I find that it is a little bit hard to spot the doublespeak as the theory is not

postulated by an Indonesian linguist while the data is taken from Indonesian

advertisements. The language difference seems to be a barrier. However, I find it

challenging. Yet, I believe, it will be easier to make an analysis if the theory

concerns the same language as in the language of the data taken.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

References:

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 2nd ed. Hongkong: Cambridge

University Press, 2005.

Echols, John M., and Hassan Shadily. Kamus Indonesia Inggris Edisi Ketiga.

Jakarta: PT Gramedia Jakarta, 1992.

Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia. Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan

Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia, 1988.

Keller, Kevin Lane. Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity. New

Jersey: Pearson Education, 2003.

Lutz, William. Doublespeak. New York: Harper Perennial Publishers, 1990.

Rossiter, John R and Percy, Larry. Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing.

Detroit: McGraw-Hill College, 1996.

Vitale, Joe. Hypnotic Writing: How to Seduce and Persuade Customers with Only

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41 Maranatha Christian University Websites:

“Pond’s”. Unilever Indonesia. 2011. Unilever. 27 May. 2011.

<http://www.unilever.co.id/brands/personalcarebrands/ponds/index.aspx

>

“Sebaceous Glands – Location, Functions and Pictures”. Glands and Organs. 3

January 2011. Prime Health Channel. 6 August 2011.