In this article we will discuss about Advertising, it’s Definition, Evolution, Nature and Scope,Functions, Objectives, Types, Importance, Role and Criticism against Advertising.
Everything you need to know about Advertising: Definition, History, Nature, Features, Objectives, Types, Importance and Examples
Advertising – Definition of Advertising in Marketing
The modern age is an era of competition. To withstand competition manufacturers have to think of new and unfamiliar uses for their products or they have to find out new buyers for their products.
To put it more clearly demand creation is as important as meeting existing demand. For demand creation what is more important is advertisement.
Advertisements could do wonders if they are properly done. The patent medicine people were the first to prove what advertisement could do. They sold “Rivers of tonics and mountains of pills.”
Advertising is that activity by which visual or oral messages are addressed to the general public. Its purpose is to inform or influence them in order to increase the sales of the advertiser. It is done with a view to selling the goods or services, offered by the advertiser. It may also draw the readers or viewers to act favourably towards the idea. It is paid for by a seller (sponsor).
The seller or the advertiser has to pay for the space (or time) through which the message (advertisement) appears. The aim is to persuade people to buy more. Advertising creates desire for new products.
“Advertisement is the art of influencing human action, the awakening for the desire to possess and possess your product.”
American Marketing Association defines advertising as “any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor.”
From the above definitions, it is stated that:
(a) Advertisement is a message to large groups.
(b) It is the form of non-personal message/communication.
(c) It persuades the general public to purchase the goods or services advertised.
(d) It is paid for by an advertiser to publisher.
(e) Advertising messages are identified with the advertiser.
Advertisement is most widely used method for promotion of products and services. It is used by all type of organizations including government and non-government organizations. Advertising is a good way to communicate information related to offerings by organizations. With popularity of mass media like satellite television, cable network, internet, print media etc. the scope and importance of advertising is increasing day by day. Companies are having a huge budget for advertising.
In small companies, advertising is handled by someone in the sales or marketing department, who works with an advertising agency. A large company will often set up its own advertising department. Its job is to propose a budget – develop advertising strategy – approves advertisement and campaigns and handle direct mail advertising, dealer displays, and other forms of advertising. This is also known as in-house advertising. Most companies use an outside agency for advertising campaigns, to select and purchase media. There are several media agencies to perform task of advertising.
Definition of Advertising:
Advertising is a paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.
The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), the body which represents advertising agencies, defines advertising as – “The means of providing the most persuasive possible selling message to the right prospects at the lowest possible cost”.
According to Stanton, “Advertising consists of all activities in presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored message regarding a product, service or idea”.
According to Kotler and Armstrong – “Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services through mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television or radio by an identified sponsor”.
Advertising and Publicity:
Advertising is a paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of good, services and ideas by an identified sponsor whereas publicity is a non-personal stimulation of demand for a product, services or business by planting commercially significant news about it in published medium or obtaining favourable presenting in media that is not paid by the sponsor. In publicity, the medium passing the massage is not the actual sponsor like any kind of remark appearing in newspaper about a product or service.
Propaganda:
Propaganda means spreading of ideas or doctrines or messages. Like publicity and advertising it also communicates ideas, but in propaganda there is favour for a cause Propaganda may be a paid form if a newspaper. It may be self-sponsored if the newspaper itself goes on printing something in favour of the subject matter.
But one feature about propaganda is that it is usually temporary and when the case no longer has an appeal, it ceases. For example as the day of election approaches, the vigour and strength of propaganda in favour of different candidates and parties gathers momentum. But as soon as elections are over the propaganda comes to an end.
Advertising – Evolution and History
Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters. Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of Pompeii and ancient Arabia. Lost and found advertising on papyrus was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America.
The tradition of wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock art paintings that date back to 4000 BC. History tells us that Out-of-home advertising and billboards are the oldest forms of advertising. As the towns and cities of the Middle Ages began to grow, and the general populace was unable to read, signs that today would say cobbler, miller, tailor or blacksmith would use an image associated with their trade such as a boot, a suit, a hat, a clock, a diamond, a horse shoe, a candle or even a bag of flour.
Fruits and vegetables were sold in the city square from the backs of carts and wagons and their proprietors used street callers (town criers) to announce their whereabouts for the convenience of the customers. As education became an apparent need and reading, as well as printing, developed advertising expanded to include handbills. In the 18th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England.
These early print advertisements were used mainly to promote books and newspapers, which became increasingly affordable with advances in the printing press; and medicines, which were increasingly sought after as disease ravaged Europe. However, false advertising and so-called “quack” advertisements became a problem, which ushered in the regulation of advertising content.
19th Century:
Thomas J. Barratt from London has been called “the father of modern advertising”. Working for the Pears Soap Company, Barratt created an effective advertising campaign for the company products, which involved the use of targeted slogans, images and phrases. One of his slogans, “Good morning Have you used Pears’ soap?” was famous in its day and well into the 20th century. Under Barratt’s guidance, Pears Soap became the world’s first legally registered brand and is therefore the world’s oldest continuously existing brand.
An advertising tactic that he used was to associate the Pears brand with high culture and quality.
Most famously, he used the painting Bubbles by John Everett Millais as an advertisement by adding a bar of Pears soap into the foreground. (Millais protested at this alteration of his work, but in vain as Barrat had bought the copyright.) Barratt continued this theme with a series of adverts of well-groomed middle-class children, associating Pears with domestic comfort and aspirations of high society.
Barrat established Pears Annual in 1891 as a spin-off magazine which promoted contemporary illustration and colour printing and in 1897 added the Pears Cyclopedia a one-volume encyclopedia. From the early 20th century Pears was famous for the annual “Miss Pears” competition in which parents entered their children into the high-profile hunt for a young brand ambassador to be used on packaging and in consumer promotions.
He recruited scientists and the celebrities of the day to publicly endorse the product. Lillie Langtry, a British music hall singer and stage actress with a famous ivory complexion, received income as the first woman to endorse a commercial product, advertising Pears Soap. Barratt introduced many of the crucial ideas that lie being successful advertising and these were widely circulated in his day. He constantly stressed the importance of a strong and exclusive brand image for Pears and of emphasising the products availability through saturation campaigns.
He also understood the importance of constantly reevaluating the market for changing tastes and mores, stating in 1907 that “tastes chaiige, fashions change, and the advertiser has to change with them. An idea that was effective a generation ago would fall flat, stale, and unprofitable if presented to the public today. Not that the idea of today is always better than the older idea, but it is different – it hits the present taste.”
As the economy expanded across the world during the 19th century, advertising grew alongside. In the United States, the success of this advertising format eventually led to the growth of mail-order advertising.
In June 1836, French newspaper La Presse was the first to include paid advertising in its pages, allowing it to lower its price, extend its readership and increase its profitability and the formula was soon copied by all titles. Around 1840, Volney B. Palmer established the roots of the modern day advertising agency in Philadelphia. In 1842 Palmer bought large amounts of space in various newspapers at a discounted rate then resold the space at higher rates to advertisers.
The actual ad – the copy, layout, and artwork – was still prepared by the company wishing to advertise; in effect, Palmer was a space broker. The situation changed in the late 19th century when the advertising agency of N.W. Ayer & Son was founded. Ayer and Son offered to plan, create, and execute complete advertising campaigns for its customers. By 1900 the advertising agency had become the focal point of creative planning, and advertising was firmly established as a profession.
Around the same time, in France, Charles-Louis Havas extended the services of his news agency, Havas to include advertisement brokerage, making it the first French group to organize. At first, agencies were brokers for advertisement space in newspapers. N. W. Ayer & Son was the first full-service agency to assume responsibility for advertising content. N.W. Ayer opened in 1869, and was located in Philadelphia.
20th Century:
At the turn of the 19th to 20th century, there were few career choices for women in business; however, advertising was one of the few. Since women were responsible for most of the purchasing done in their household, advertisers and agencies recognized the value of women’s insight during the creative process. In fact, the first American advertising to use a sexual sell was created by a woman -for a soap product.
Although tame by today’s standards, the advertisement featured a couple with the message “The skin you love to touch”. Modern advertising was created with the innovative techniques used in tobacco advertising beginning in the 1920s, most significantly with the campaigns of Edward Bernays, which is often considered as the founder of modern, Madison Avenue advertising.
The tobacco industries was one of the firsts to make use of mass production, with the introduction of the Bonsack machine to roll cigarettes. The Bonsack machine allowed the production of cigarettes for a mass markets, and the tobacco industry needed to match such an increase in supply with the creation of a demand from the masses through advertising.
On the Radio from the 1920s:
In the early 1920s, the first radio stations were established by radio equipment manufacturers and retailers who offered programmes in order to sell more radios to consumers. As time passed, many non-profit organizations followed suit in setting up their own radio stations, and included: schools, clubs and civic groups.
When the practice of sponsoring programmes was popularized, each individual radio programme was usually sponsored by a single business in exchange for a brief mention of the business’ name at the selling smaller blocks of advertising time to several businesses. This eventually became the standard for the commercial television industry in the United States. However, it was still a common practice to have single sponsor shows, such as The United States Steel Hour.
In some instances the sponsors exercised great control over the content of the show—up to and including having one’s advertising agency actually writing the show. The single sponsor model is much less prevalent now, a notable exception being the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Media Diversification in the 1960s:
In the 1960s, campaigns featuring heavy spending in different mass media channels became more prominent. For example, the Morgan Gasoline Company spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a brand awareness campaign built around the simple and alliterative theme put a Tiger in Your Tank. Psychologist Ernest Dichter and DDB Worldwide copywriter Sandy Sulcer learned that motorists desired both power and play while driving, and chose the tiger as an easy-to-remember symbol to communicate those feelings.
The North American and later European campaign featured extensive television and radio and magazine ads, including photos with tiger tails supposedly emerging from car gas tanks, promotional events featuring real tigers, billboards, and in Europe station pump hoses “wrapped in tiger stripes” as well as pop music songs. Tiger imagery can still be seen on the pumps of successor firm ExxonMobil.
Cable Television from the 1980s:
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable television and particularly MTV. Pioneering the concept of the music video, MTV ushered in a new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in for the advertising message, rather than it being a by-product or afterthought. As cable and satellite television became increasingly prevalent, speciality channels emerged, including channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as QVC, Home Shopping Network, and Shop TV Canada.
On the Internet from the 1990s:
With the advent of the ad server, marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers and contributed to the “dot-com” boom of the 1990s. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the 20th to 21st century, a number of websites including the search engine Google, started a change in online advertising by emphasizing contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended to help, rather than inundate, users.
This has led to beginning and end of the sponsored shows. However, radio station owners soon realized they could earn more money by selling sponsorship rights in small time allocations to multiple businesses throughout their radio station’s broadcasts, rather than selling the sponsorship rights to single businesses per show.
Public Service Advertising in WW2:
The advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods and services can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about non-commercial issues, such as HIV/AIDS, political ideology, energy conservation and deforestation. Advertising, in its non-commercial guise, is a powerful educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences. “Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest- it is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes.”
Attributed to Howard Gossage by David Ogilvy. Public service advertising, non-commercial advertising, public interest advertising, cause marketing, and social marketing are different terms for (or aspects of) the use of sophisticated advertising and marketing communications techniques (generally associated with commercial enterprise) on behalf of non-commercial, public interest issues and initiatives.
Commercial Television in the 1950s:
This practice was carried over to commercial television in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A fierce battle was fought between those seeking to commercialise the radio and people who argued that the radio spectrum should be considered a part of the commons – to be used only non-commercially and for the public good. The United Kingdom pursued a public funding model for the BBC, originally a private company, the British Broadcasting Company, but incorporated as a public body by Royal Charter in 1927. In Canada, advocates like Graham Spry were likewise able to persuade the federal government to adopt a public funding model, creating the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. However, in the United States, the capitalist model prevailed with the passage of the Communications
Act of 1934 which created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). However, the U.S. Congress did require commercial broadcasting companies to operate in the “public interest, convenience, and necessity”. Public broadcasting now exists in the United States due to the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act which led to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).
In the early 1950s, the DuMont Television Network began the modern practice of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsors. Previously, DuMont had trouble finding sponsors for many of their programmes and compensated by to a plethora of similar efforts and an increasing trend of interactive advertising.
The share of advertising spending relative to GDP has changed little across large changes in media. For example, in the United States in 1925, the main advertising media were newspapers, magazines, signs on streetcars, and outdoor posters. Advertising spending as a share of GDP was about 2.9 percent. By 1998, television and radio had become major advertising media. Nonetheless, advertising spending as a share of GDP was slightly lower- about 2.4 percent.
A recent advertising innovation is “guerrilla marketing”, which involves unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the advertising message. Guerrilla advertising is becoming increasingly more popular with a lot of companies.
Advertising – Nature and Scope
Advertising is a growing business in India today. It has been gaining importance in our economy. The role which advertising plays continues to increase in significance year after year.
The host of new products marketed, the expenses and the risks involved in launching them, and the low cost of personal selling are among the conditions which have placed a heavy responsibility on the advertising industry.
In India, with its growing productive capacity and output, there is a need for finding consumers for this growing output, and advertising plays an important role in the process of moving the goods from the producers to the consumers.
With mass marketing to distribute the output of our production, the gross national product may increase to a considerable extent. Advertising helps to increase mass marketing while aiding the consumer to choose from amongst the variety of products offered for his selection. It was only in the latter half of the 19th century, that mass advertising, as we know it today, came into being.
Mass production became a reality, and channels of distribution had to be developed to cope with the physical movement of goods, creating a need for mass communication to inform consumers of the choices available to them. This development was accelerated by increasing literacy.
In India, advertising as a potent and recognised means of promotion was accepted only 25 years ago. This delay is obviously attributable to late industrialisation in our country. But today India has also emerged as an industrial nation, which is quite evident from the nature of the advertisements that appear regularly in local as well as national papers.
In India, advertising as a profession is in its infancy. Because of this fact, there is a tremendous scope for development so that it may be productively used for the benefit of producers, trader’s consumers, and the country’s economy.
Advertising – Features
1. Provides information – The main feature of advertising is to provide information about the product to potential buyers. It provides details like features, uses, prices, benefits, manufacturer’s name and instructions for using the product effectively.
2. Paid communication – Businesses select, assign and pay advertisers for preparing advertisements that include the size, slogan, etc. These advertisers are asked to prepare a design or format of the advertisement as per the products and requirements of the businesses.
3. Non-personal presentation – Advertisement is a non-personal presentation, which means that media tools like television, radio, newspaper, etc., are considered that reaches out to a large number of people.
4. Publicity – As advertisement provides information about the product; advertising provides publicity to goods, services and ideas. Advertising provides flow and movement of information with the aim of increasing public awareness of a subject. For example, Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (HUL)’s Project Sunlight has recently launched ‘Bright Future Speeches’ wherein the Indian youth raises concerns about the need for sanitation and hygiene through films and television advertisements (HUL, 2014).
5. For persuasion – The main feature of advertising is to persuade and attract potential customers to new ideas that lead to probable sale of products. This means that the information needs to be believable and convincing that the product is better than their competitive products.
6. Target oriented – Advertisements are developed that caters to the needs and wants of target customers and markets. Advertisements depict target customers and markets by relevant characters, themes, props, slogans, select storylines and so on. For example, protein health drinks like Horlicks, Complan, etc., are targeted towards children representing young urban India and emotions are targeted towards excelling in studies, sports and tackling competition.
7. Creativity – Creativity plays a critical role in advertising, which involves presenting a product in an artistic, attractive and agreeable manner.
Advertising – Functions
Advertising performs a number of functions, which are mentioned as follows:
i. Updating the target audiences about a new product
ii. Helping the customers to know about the new uses of a product
iii. Rectifying the false impressions
iv. Informing the target audiences about any change in price
v. Minimizing the fears of customers about faults in a product or service
vi. Providing details about the functioning of a product
vii. Building the brand image
viii. Persuading the customers to buy the product
ix. Convincing the customers to make a purchase decision
x. Encouraging the customers to switch over the desired brand
xi. Persuading the customers to be receptive for sales calls
xii. Altering the perceptions of the customers about the attributes of a product
xiii. Reminding the customers about the product
xiv. Making the customers aware about the seasonal role of products, for example, the working of air conditioners
xv. Making the customers memorize the place from where the product can be purchased.
Advertising – Objectives
Advertising programme as an integral part of the promotion campaign may have one or more of the following specific objectives:
(1) Promotion of New Product:
Advertising can make prospects at least aware of the entry of the new product in the market.
(2) Support to Personal Selling:
Advertising can move the prospect nearer and nearer to the point of purchase. Under favourable atmosphere, salesman’s job is easier and simple. Actual closing of sale is, thus, facilitated by advertising. Selling costs are reduced incidentally. It should be noted that advertising and salesmanship are really complementary and in no way competitive tools of promotion.
(3) Brand Patronage:
In the long run, effect of advertising on brands and campaigns may be of great importance. The advertising programme can aim at consumer awareness and attitudes. Buyers may be induced to purchase and re-purchase. If the trial is satisfactory, consumers may stick with the brand. Thus, advertising tries to create and retain brand preference and brand loyalty.
(4) Immediate Buying Action:
Advertising may attempt to obtain immediate buying action. For instance, mail order advertisement, direct-action retail advertisement, price-deal offers, last-chance offers are special advertisements persuading prospects and securing prompt actions. Direct mail is the usual medium for coupons, samples, and other forms of direct action advertising.
(5) Pre-Sold Goods:
Well-advertised brands are pre-sold goods. Buyers are pulled by such advertisements. Supermarket advertisers pull customers and goods are sold without active help of counter sales force.
(6) Dealer Support:
National or big firms advertise extensively and intensively to support dealers and distributors so that they can assure accelerated distribution. Advertising alone can create mass markets for products which are intrinsically sound and can easily fill the customers’ needs and desires. Mass marketing brings about reduction in the cost of production as well as cost of distribution.
Advertising – Types
The common classification of advertising is as follows:
(1) Product Advertising:
When the company tries to sell its products or services through advertising, it may be referred to as product advertising.
(2) Institutional Advertising:
Where the advertising is to project the image of a company or its services, it is known as institutional advertising. Institutional advertising is not at all product-oriented, but is designed to enhance the image of the company. Institutional advertisements are not aimed at consumers. Whereas it is aimed at shareholders, creditors and various sets of public.
(3) Primary Demand Advertising:
It is intended to stimulate primary demand for a new product. It is heavily utilised during the introduction stage of the product life cycle.
(4) Selective or Competitive Advertising:
When a product enters growth stage of the life cycle and when competition begins, advertising becomes competitive and selective. Under this type of advertising, information will be less and it will be more emotional. Pricing also will be used as a key promotional weapon as products become very similar.
(5) Comparative Advertising:
When there is severe intensity of competition, comparative advertising is resorted to, comparative advertising stresses on comparative features of two or more specific brands in terms of product/service attributes. This method is adopted in the maturity stage when similar products are fastly appearing in the market and constitute a stiff competition. Comparative advertising “delivers information not previously available to consumers.”
(6) Shortage Advertising:
When there is short-supply of products shortage advertising is resorted to. Example- oil crisis. In such kind of advertising, new promotional objectives may be incorporated such as-
(a) Educating the people about the most economic use of the product.
(b) Making appeal to save resources.
(c) To reduce customer pressure on the sales force.
(7) Co-Operative Advertising:
When manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers join and share the expenditure on advertising it takes the form of co-operative advertising. Such advertising would carry the names of all the parties involved. From the point of view of the customers this is beneficial as they get the articles directly from the authorised outlets.
(8) Commercial Advertising:
It is also termed as business advertising. Such advertising is only meant for affecting increase in sales.
Usually the following forms of commercial advertising are recognised:
(a) Industrial advertising — this is exclusively meant for selling industrial products.
(b) Trade advertising — advertising relating to a trade.
(c) Professional advertising — undertaken by professionals like doctors, accountants, etc.
(d) Farm advertising — exclusively used for selling farm products such as fertilisers, insecticides, farm implements etc.
(9) Non-Commercial Advertising:
These are usually published by charitable institutions preferably to solicit general and financial help e.g., collection of donations or sale of tickets.
(10) Direct Action Advertising:
Advertising that stresses and persuades immediate buying of the product is known as Direct Action advertising. Direct mail advertising is capable of achieving immediate action to a greater extent.
Advertising – Importance of Advertising in Marketing
Nothing except the mint, can make money without advertising. Mass production and mass distribution totally depend on all forms of advertising and publicity. We can tell numerous people about a product or service in the quickest time-interval at the lowest possible cost.
Advertising, by facilitating mass production and mass distribution, has provided immense employment opportunities to people. It is responsible for creating and delivering rising standard of living to innumerable people. It has made possible tremendous industrialisation and economic development in many countries.
It is the backbone of modern national and international marketing. Many modern amenities like refrigerators, motorcars, cameras, radios, vacuum cleaners, and other appliances are sold in mass markets at very reasonable prices — much lower than the prices at which they were initially introduced in the market.
Modern advertising informs, guides, educates as well as protects buyers, so that they can buy intelligently and raise their standard of living. In the marketing programme of a business enterprise, advertising is an indispensable tool supplemented by salesmanship and sales promotion.
Advertising – Advertising and Brand Patronage
Advertising is an important promotional tool in order to establish brand patronage. Customer preference toward brands indicate the following tendencies:
(1) Brand insistence- A buyer insists on purchasing only one brand and will not accept a substitute.
(2) Brand loyalty- A buyer has a strong attachment to the brand and will not accept a substitute if the brand is available.
(3) Brand preference- A buyer favours the purchase of the brand but will accept a substitute.
(4) Brand acceptance- A buyer will buy the brand but has an open mind to try another brand.
(5) Brand awareness- A buyer is merely aware of the existence of the brand but has limited knowledge about it and has no particular emotional attachment to it so far. He may or may not risk purchasing the brand.
(6) Brand unawareness- A buyer has no knowledge of the existence of the brand.
Most of the time, and advertiser (seller) tries to build a brand privilege or patronage for his product or service. A seller has a brand privilege if buyers exhibit brand insistence, brand loyalty, or brand preference toward his product or service. By means of advertising or persuasive mass communication, seller tries to move prospective buyers and existing buyers from lower level to higher level, i.e., brand ignorance to brand awareness, or from brand acceptance to brand preference, loyalty and insistence. This can be done through proper promotion tools over a period of time.
Advertising – Advertisability Criteria
The proponents of advertising very often say that “it pays to advertise, advertising can sell anything, advertising has the miraculous powers of selling the goods, advertising hypnotises the readers to buy anything and advertising process possesses supernatural powers and so on.”
However, the dealer or producer should know how far his product can be advertised or how advertisable his products are or on what factors the effectiveness of an advertisement depends.
There are certain determinants of advertisability:
1. The Product should have a Primary Demand:
A product enjoys a primary demand when it is desirable. The product should offer benefits to consumers, otherwise advertisement will not succeed. Mere flattering illustrations and glorifying descriptions are not sufficient for making the people to buy. Advertising cannot push on to people merchandise that is behind or ahead of fashion, unreasonable or, over-priced.
2. Advertising must be Continuous:
Infrequent advertising is not sufficient to win new customers or to hold the favour of the old. The pitiful, unsystematic advertiser has little chance to earn the patronage of customers. Advertisement is a course of treatment, not a shot in the arm. It is futile to recognise that there is something like “love at first sight” in publicity.
3. Greater Chances for Product Differentiation:
Product differentiation is still another factor of advertisability. The demand for a product can be influenced by the technique of product differentiation. By product differentiation we mean that the product is differentiated by bringing about a change in colour, name, shape, size, package, taste, etc. Product differentiation makes the customers believe that a product is superior to others.
4. Presence of Powerful Emotional Buying Motives:
An advertisement must provoke the emotional buying motives of the prospects. The emotional buying motives may be gains, saving, utility, pride, economy, prestige, variety, etc. The buying motives are in the mind of the people and not in the product.
5. Financial Capacity:
Another criterion for advertiser ability is the financial soundness of the company. If very little money is spent on advertisement it will not have any effect. That is why reputed concerns spend money on advertisement.
6. Price of the Product:
The price should represent reasonable value for the brand in the mind of a customer. That is, advertising must not persuade the consumers to pay what a customer considers an unreasonable price.
Advertising – Communication Goals
Advertising should concentrate on clear and measurable communication objectives known as DAGMAR (Defining Advertising Coals, Measuring Advertising Results). Russell Colley, in 1961, pioneered DAGMAR. At that time he wrote- “Advertising succeeds or fails depending on how well it communicates the desired information and attitudes to the right people at the right time and at the right cost.”
Advertising objectives must be oriented around the process of communication. Communication tasks are- (1) Developing brand awareness, (2) Changing consumer attitudes, (3) Associating desirable themes with products, and (4) Informing consumers about product attributes.
The ultimate purpose of most advertising is to help the probability of the sale of a product or service. Advertising as a mode of promotion increases propensity to purchase — moving the prospect steadily, inch by inch, closer to a purchase decision. Of course, advertising is only one of several communication forces. It moves the consumer through successive levels such as unawareness, awareness, comprehension or recognition, conviction (intention) to buy and action (purchase).
Advertising goals may be divided into four stages of commercial communication as given below:
(1) Awareness:
The prospect must become aware of the existence of the brand or the company. Awareness is the minimum goal of advertising.
(2) Comprehension:
The prospect must understand what the product is and what it will do for him. Comprehension level indicates that people are not only aware of the brand or company but they also know the brand name and can recognise the package or trademark. But they are not yet convinced that they want to buy.
(3) Conviction:
The prospect must be mentally convinced to buy the brand or the product. The conviction level shows brand preference and intention to buy the product in the near future.
(4) Action:
The prospect takes meaningful action. Purchase decision is duly taken.
Advertising performs its role when it contributes to moving the consumer from one level to another in the communication spectrum: awareness of the existence of the product, comprehension of the features and advantages, rational or emotional conviction of the benefits and, finally, action leading to a sale.
Advertising – Advertising Campaign Development
A campaign is a series of operations to achieve a goal. A single idea or theme is the centre of the efforts. All promotional efforts are directed towards preset goals, namely, maximum sales and service.
We now concentrate on the advertising campaign:
(1) Determine specific goals to be achieved and decide the central theme and appeals to be stressed to influence buying motives and habits of customers.
(2) Determine the allocation of funds to advertising as one of the promotional tools.
(3) Select the appropriate media of advertising.
(4) Create suitable advertising message or copy to reach market target in the best manner possible. Copy is the heart of the entire advertising programme. It is the job of experts.
(5) Evaluate the effectiveness of the advertising plan or campaign. On the basis of evaluation, we can alter or modify our decisions relating to media and/or advertising copy.
Planning and execution of our advertising campaign can be entrusted to an advertising agency, a specialist organisation for advertising.
Advertising – Media and Advertising Approaches
Increasingly, other media are overtaking many of the “traditional” media such as television, radio and newspaper because of a shift toward consumer’s usage of the Internet for news and music as well as devices like digital video recorders (DVRs) such as TiVo. Digital signage is poised to become a major mass media because of its ability to reach larger audiences for less money.
Digital signage also offer the unique ability to see the target audience where they are reached by the medium. Technological advances have also made it possible to control the message on digital signage with much precision, enabling the messages to be relevant to the target audience at any given time and location which in turn, gets more response from the advertising.
Digital signage is being successfully employed in supermarkets. Another successful use of digital signage is in hospitality locations such as restaurants and malls. Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the “relevance” of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website receives.
Reasons for online display advertising: Display ads generate awareness quickly. Unlike search, which requires someone to be aware of a need, display advertising can drive awareness of something new and without previous knowledge. Display works well for direct response. Display is not only used for generating awareness, it’s used for direct response campaigns that link to a landing page with a clear ‘call to action’.
E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk E- mail advertising is known as “e-mail spam”. Spam has been a problem for e- mail users for many years. A new form of advertising that is growing rapidly is social network advertising. It is online advertising with a focus on social networking sites. This is a relatively immature market, but it has shown a lot of promise as advertisers are able to take advantage of the demographic information the user has provided to the social networking site.
Friendertising is a more precise advertising term in which people are able to direct advertisements toward others directly using social network services. As the mobile phone became a new mass media in 1998 when the first paid downloadable content appeared on mobile phones in Finland, it was only a matter of time until mobile advertising followed, also first launched in Finland in 2000. By 2007 the value of mobile advertising had reached $2.2 billion and providers such as Admob delivered billions of mobile ads.
More advanced mobile ads include banner ads, coupons, Multimedia Messaging Service picture and video messages, advergames and various engagement marketing campaigns. A particular feature driving mobile ads is the 2D Barcode, which replaces the need to do any typing of web addresses, and uses the camera feature of modern phones to gain immediate access to web content. 83 percent of Japanese mobile phone users already are active users of 2D barcodes.
Some companies have proposed placing messages or corporate logos on the side of booster rockets and the International Space Station. Unpaid advertising (also called “publicity advertising”), can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal recommendations (“bring a friend”, “sell it”), spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun (in the United States, “Xerox” = “photocopier”, “Kleenex” = tissue, “Vaseline” = petroleum jelly, “Hoover” = vacuum cleaner, and “Band-Aid” = adhesive bandage)- these can be seen as the pinnacle of any advertising campaign.
However, some companies oppose the use of their brand name to label an object. Equating a brand with a common noun also risks turning that brand into a genericized trademark – turning it into a generic term which means that its legal protection as a trademark is lost. From time to time, The CW Television Network airs short programming breaks called “Content Wraps,” to advertise one company’s product during an entire commercial break. The CW pioneered “content wraps” and some products featured were Herbal Essences, Crest, Guitar Hero II, CoverGirl, and recently Toyota. Recently, there appeared a new promotion concept, “ARvertising”, advertising on Augmented Reality technology. Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising, and the pervasiveness of mass messages.
Rise in New Media:
With the Internet came many new advertising opportunities. Popup, Flash, banner, Popunder, advergaming, and email advertisements (all of which are often unwanted or spam in the case of email) are now commonplace. Particularly since the rise of “entertaining” advertising, some people may like an advertisement enough to wish to watch it later or show a friend.
In general, the advertising community has not yet made this easy, although some have used the Internet to widely distribute their ads to anyone willing to see or hear them. In the last three quarters of 2009 mobile and internet advertising grew by 18.1% and 9.2% respectively. Older media advertising saw declines: “10.1% (TV), “11.7% (radio), “14.8% (magazines) and “18.7% (newspapers).
Niche Marketing:
Another significant trend regarding future of advertising is the growing importance of the niche market using niche or targeted ads. Also brought about by the Internet and the theory of The Long Tail, advertisers will have an increasing ability to reach specific audiences. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible. However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs to social networking sites, provide advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much better defined, leading to ads that are more relevant to viewers and more effective for companies’ marketing products.
Among others, Comcast Spotlight is one such advertiser employing this method in their video on demand menus. These advertisements are targeted to a specific group and can be viewed by anyone wishing to find out more about a particular business or practice at any time, right from their home. This causes the viewer to become proactive and actually choose what advertisements they want to view.
Crowdsourcing:
The concept of crowdsourcing has given way to the trend of user-generated advertisements. User-generated ads are created by consumers as opposed to an advertising agency or the company themselves, most often they are a result of brand sponsored advertising competitions. For the 2007 Super Bowl, the Frito-Lays division of PepsiCo held the Crash the Super Bowl contest, allowing consumers to create their own Doritos commercial.
Chevrolet held a similar competition for their Tahoe line of SUVs. Due to the success of the Doritos user-generated ads in the 2007 Super Bowl, Frito-Lays re-launched the competition for the 2009 and 2010 Super Bowl. The resulting ads were among the most-watched and most-liked Super Bowl ads.
In fact, the winning ad that aired in the 2009 Super Bowl was ranked by the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter as the top ad for the year while the winning ads that aired in the 2010 Super Bowl were found by Nielsen’s BuzzMetrics to be the “most buzzed-about”.
Global Advertising:
Advertising has gone through five major stages of development: domestic, export, international, multi-national, and global. For global advertisers, there are four, potentially competing, business objectives that must be balanced when developing worldwide advertising: building a brand while speaking with one voice, developing economies of scale in the creative process, maximising local effectiveness of ads, and increasing the company’s speed of implementation.
Born from the evolutionary stages of global marketing are the three primary and fundamentally different approaches to the development of global advertising executions: exporting executions, producing local executions, and importing ideas that travel. Advertising research is key to determining the success of an ad in any country or region.
The ability to identify which elements and/or moments of an ad contribute to its success is how economies of scale are maximised. Once one knows what works in an ad, that idea or ideas can be imported by any other market. Market research measures, such as Flow of Attention, Flow of Emotion and branding moments provide insight into what is working in an ad in any country or region because the measures are based on the visual, not verbal, elements of the ad.
Foreign Public Messaging:
Foreign governments, particularly those that own marketable commercial products or services, often promote their interests and positions through the advertising of those goods because the target audience is not only largely unaware of the forum as a vehicle for foreign messaging but also willing to receive the message while in a mental state of absorbing information from advertisements during television commercial breaks, while reading a periodical, or while passing by billboards in public spaces.
A prime example of this messaging technique is advertising campaigns to promote international travel. While advertising foreign destinations and services may stem from the typical goal of increasing revenue by drawing more tourism, some travel campaigns carry the additional or alternative intended purpose of promoting good sentiments or improving existing ones among the target audience towards a given nation or region. It is common for advertising promoting foreign countries to be produced and distributed by the tourism ministries of those countries, so these ads often carry political statements and/or depictions of the foreign government’s desired international public perception.
Additionally, a wide range of foreign airlines and travel-related services which advertise separately from the destinations, themselves, are owned by their respective governments.
Diversification:
In the realm of advertising agencies, continued industry diversification has seen observers note that “big global clients don’t need big global agencies any more”. This is reflected by the growth of non-traditional agencies in various global markets, such as Canadian business TAXI and SMART in Australia and has been referred to as “a revolution in the ad world”.
New Technology:
The ability to record shows on digital video recorders (such as TiVo) allow users to record the programmes for later viewing, enabling them to fast forward through commercials. Additionally, as more seasons of pre-recorded box sets are offered for sale of television programmes; fewer people watch the shows on TV. However, the fact that these sets are sold, means the company will receive additional profits from the sales of these sets.
To counter this effect, a variety of strategies have been employed. Many advertisers have opted for product placement on TV shows like Survivor. Other strategies include integrating advertising with internet-connected EPGs, advertising on companion devices (like smartphones and tablets) during the show, and creating TV apps. Additionally, some like brands have opted for social television sponsorship.
Advertising Education:
Advertising education has become widely popular with bachelor, master and doctorate degrees becoming available in the emphasis. A surge in advertising interest is typically attributed to the strong relationship advertising plays in cultural and technological changes, such as the advance of online social networking.
A unique model for teaching advertising is the student-run advertising agency, where advertising students create campaigns for real companies. Organizations such as American Advertising Federation and AdU Network partner established companies with students to create these campaigns.
Advertising – An Element of Marketing Mix
The communications view suggests many uses of advertising. Yet the bulk of advertising is directed toward facilitating and enhancing the sales of specific products and brands. Advertising is most often intended to be a supporting component in a marketing mix. This does not mean that it is any the less important than the product or other marketing decision areas.
It may, however, be clarified here that advertising is one of the components of the promotion mix the other being personal selling, sales promotion, publicity, etc. Advertising decisions must be integrated and coordinated with the rest of the marketing mix, particularly product/brand decisions.
Marketing is a particular blend of controllable marketing variables which the firm uses to achieve its objectives in the market. Product, place, price and promotion are essential to a marketing mix. In fact, they are interdependent. But is any one more important than the others? Generally speaking, the answer is no.
When a marketing mix is selected, all decisions about the product, place, price and time should be made at the same time. All these should focus on the customer. We develop a product that we feel will satisfy the customers. Then we find a way (place) to reach our target customers. Promotion (advertising and personal setting) tells the target customers about the availability of the product that has been designed for them.
Then the price is established in the light of expected customer reaction to the total offering and the cost of selling and getting it to them.
Advertising facilitates widespread distribution. It permits communication to large numbers of potential customers at the same time. Today, most promotion blends contain the two elements of advertising and personal selling. Advertising is more visible to the average consumer and, in many ways, more controversial.
How does the company choose the appropriate marketing mix for the target market? The answer is that it must examine the wants of the market and the position of competitors, and it must make a decision on what it wants to offer competitively to that market. The company arrives at its marketing mix by deciding on the competitive position it wants to occupy in the target market.
The product manager should consider the possibility of stimulating sales by altering one or more elements of the marketing mix. One tactic is to cut prices in order to attract new as well as the competitor’s customers. Another is to develop a more effective advertising campaign that attracts the consumers’ attention and interest. A more direct way to attract other brand users is by aggressive promotion trade deals, paise off, gifts, etc.
The company may also consider moving into higher volume market channels, particularly if these channels are in a growth stage. The company may also offer new or improved services to the buyer as a patronage-building step.
If a product is improperly designed, or if inadequate channels are used, or if cost plus pricing is resorted to, advertising may become costly. It is often relied upon to overcome previous miscalculations. It is because of this fact that some Advertising Managers resort to tricks or even at times to unethical practices to sell goods.
Often, even if a good job is done on the rest of the marketing strategy, advertising turns out to be inefficient and costly. The Advertising Manager may not co-operate, in the belief that his own technique is the most effective one and does not need the support of another. In other instances, the Advertising Manager may not communicate at all.
Until recently, in many firms only lip service was paid to the value of consumer research. Many advertising executives still feel that all an advertising campaign needs is their creative genius. The difficulty of checking the results of advertising sometimes encourages carelessness and sloppy thinking; as a result of which some agencies often do poor jobs without detection.
The amount of the marketing budget allocated to advertising is the advertising budget. In evaluating the advertising budget, therefore, it is important to keep in mind that the incremental amounts of money put into advertising must be more useful than the same amounts put into distribution or product refinement, or even reduced prices. Understanding consumer motivation and behaviour is a most significant factor in advertising decision making and in developing a marketing mix.
A manager’s view of who his consumers are, how they behave, and what motivates them determines, to a considerable extent, how a marketing strategy develops. The product should be designed and packed, the price set, the distribution methods decided and the advertising copy and appeals designed with a particular type of consumer in mind.
Advertising – How much should be spent on Advertising? [Advertising Budget]
The amount of money a firm will spend on advertising may be determined by one of several methods. In principle, money should be spent on all marketing activities as long as each dollar spent adds more than a dollar to gross profit.
It follows that this dollar expenditure should be allocated to those marketing activities which promise to make the greatest profit contribution. Unfortunately, this is easier to advocate than to do, because it involves a number of variables, most of which are unknown.
Sometimes, though, it is possible to quantify these variables. When this can be done, mathematical techniques are available which enable the planner to determine that combination of expenditure allocations which will make the maximum contribution to gross profit. But the result is still uncertain, since it is based on numerous assumptions about factors which are themselves uncertain.
When the purpose of advertising is related to something other than current profits, the principle is also clear. Advertising should be allocated the budget appropriation necessary to accomplish its purpose— provided this amount is less than would be needed to accomplish the purpose by any other means.
If the purpose can be achieved in part by advertising and in part by some other activity, advertising should be allocated the amount needed for that part of the total undertaking it can do most effectively and least expensively.
This is also very difficult to do in practice. But even though the principle can rarely be applied with anything approximating precision, decisions based on sound principles are more likely to be sound decisions than those which are reached in the absence of any conceptual construct.
As one might expect, what usually happens in practice represents a compromise of sorts. Some firms determine advertising expenditures on the basis of a fixed percentage of sales. The surveys of advertising budgets conducted annually by Industrial Marketing magazine and reported in the February issues indicate that between 15 and 20 percent of the reporting firms determine their advertising budgets in this manner.
In some instances the sales forecast is the base to which the fixed percentage is applied, in others the base is last year’s sales.
Although neither has much to commend it, budgeting a percent of expected sales can be more easily defended than using last year’s sales as a base. Both are reminiscent of the mid-19th-century admonition of a Saturday night bath, without regard to time or urgency of need.
Neither gives any assurance that either the percentage figure chosen or the base to which it is applied is the one that will result in the greatest profit to the firm or will make the most economical contribution to its non-profit objectives.
Much the same can be said of the practice of budgeting a determined percent of profits—last year’s or expected. This practice is probably based on a vague notion that it is a good idea to spend as much as possible on advertising, but not enough to seriously reduce profits.
Slightly more than 40 percent of the firms reporting in the 1973 Industrial Marketing survey base their advertising budgets on the task method. Under this method management first decides what functions or tasks advertising is expected to accomplish and then estimates the costs of doing them.
If several tasks are to be accomplished, cost estimates would be prepared for each and management would decide which tasks or combination of tasks were worth the cost, and within the limits of the firm’s financial resources.
This method has far more to recommend it than the fixed percentage technique, because it forces a determination of advertising’s role in the promotional strategy. It involves the process of matching the worth of what one wants to do against the probable cost of doing it.
This is an essential feature of business planning. Moreover, it recognizes that advertising should be a means of generating sales or contributing to other company objectives rather than serving as a function of sales or profits, which by implication is its role under the percentage method.
The 1973 Industrial Marketing survey also indicates that about 40 percent of the reporting firms determine their advertising budgets by a combination of the task and percentage methods. The survey offers no information regarding the manner in which the two methods are combined.
However, it seems probable that chief reliance is placed on the task method, with an upper- limit imposed by division or corporate-level management—in the form of a maximum percentage of expected sales— on the amount that can be spent.
Whether or not the combination method is really superior to the task method used alone depends on the way the maximum percentage limit is set. If it is arbitrarily fixed and not subject to change, the superiority of the combination method is at least debatable.
On the other hand, if the percentage is varied in response to changing circumstances and the changes systematically studied, the combination method clearly has real merit.
Advertising – Role
Advertising plays an important role by showcasing products/services and offering consumers a variety to choose from.
Its importance can be realised from a manufacturer, society, and customer’s perspective discussed as follows:
Importance to Manufacturers:
1. Enhancing customers’ satisfaction and confidence – Advertising showcases actual customers expressing satisfaction and confidence about the product offerings. An effective advertisement reflects goods attributes of customer services that the products cater to customer expectations for retaining customer confidence.
2. Helpful in increasing the demand of existing products – Advertising attempts to encourage and remind customers to purchase an existing product based on the information provided on media tools. An effective advertisement can possibly increase demand of the product in the future which may encourage businesses or producers to expand into large-scale production and marketing.
3. Helpful in facing competition – Advertising enables businesses to tackle the pertinent competition effectively by removing misunderstandings, possible myths, etc. Advertisements which are able to be honest, manage to deal with competition better than the rest.
4. Helpful in increasing the market area – Advertising attempts to increase the market area by creating new demand of products. It spreads information about the product through various media tools like television, press, radio and so on. Mostly various concessions and discounts are provided initially to create new demand from potential customers.
5. Helpful in creating brand preference – It emphasises on the strengths of the product and (indirectly) compares to the other competing products. This in turn builds the brand image of the product and makes it popular among selected and potential consumers.
Importance to Society:
1. Generating more employment – Advertising has been creating direct and indirect employment opportunities. Direct employment opportunities include jobs like copy writing, art, graphic designing, painting, music, modelling, acting, ad executives, outdoor advertising, etc. Indirectly, it created demand, employment avenues as it creates demand, stimulates production and thus promotes industrial activities.
2. Improving the standard of living – Advertising can enable decrease in the cost of production and distribution, promoted competition, resulting into price reduction. It has promoted demand from consumers in a large scale who have wider choices of products at lower prices thus improving the standard of living.
3. Creating healthy competition – Advertising has created healthy competition by promoting improved quality products at reasonable prices, sales promotion schemes, etc. Through advertising a business can communicate messages regarding good quality and benefits of the product, which is also followed by its other competitors thus promoting healthy competition.
4. Economic development of the country – Advertising promotes demand, which in turn increases production in industries, promotes growth in agriculture, growth in service sector, increase in exports, etc. It also promotes improved standard of living thus encouraging increase in national incomes. It leads to overall economic development.
5. Survival of communication media – Advertising is important for maintaining the survival of communication media that are traditional (like print) and contemporary (like the Internet). The survival of these media tools is useful and necessary to maintain economic growth but dependent on the nature of the product, costs, technological changes and market conditions.
Importance to Customers:
1. Reduction in price – Advertising stimulates demand, which enables mass production possible for producer. Mass production leads to lower costs of distribution per unit attracting mass customers to purchase products at lower prices.
2. Knowledge of various products – Consumers can easily obtain knowledge and information about existing and new products from advertising. They can study and compare competitors’ product features, prices and deals to make informed decisions.
3. No fear of exploitation – Advertising helps consumers in removing their misunderstanding about certain products. They can influence attitudinal changes towards consumption of certain products and services and remove fears of possible exploitation thus encouraging effective decision-making during purchase of products.
4. Improved quality product – Advertising promotes competition and every advertiser wishes to succeed in the competition. Advertisers recognise the importance of long-term customer retention and loyalty thus promoting products of improved quality.
Advertising – Benefits & Limitations
Benefits of Advertising:
Advertising benefits to all may it be manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, customer, salesman or community in the following ways:
a. It helps easy introduction of products into the markets.
b. It helps to create an image and reputation not only of the product but also of the advertiser.
c. It helps to establish a direct contact between manufacturers and consumers.
d. Easy sale of the products is possible since consumers are aware of the product and its quality.
e. The reputation credited is shared by the wholesalers and retailers and alike.
f. It provides an opportunity to the customers to compare the merits and demerits of various substitute products.
g. It helps in increasing the consumer knowledge about the product.
h. This is perhaps the only medium through which consumers could know the varied and new uses of a product.
i. Modern advertisements are highly informative.
j. Advertising prepares necessary ground for a salesman to begin his work. Hence sales efforts are reduced.
k. The contact established with the customer by a salesman is made permanent through advertising.
l. Advertising in general is educative in nature.
m. Advertising leads to large scale production creating more employment opportunities.
Limitations of Advertising:
Though advertising is one of the most frequently used medium of promotion of goods and services, by most of the production houses, it has some demerits too:
i. Less Forceful – Advertising is a non-personal form of communication and thus, is less forceful than personal selling, as there is no compulsion on the prospect to pay attention on message.
ii. Lacks Feedback – The effectiveness of advertising message is very difficult to evaluate as there is no immediate and accurate feedback to the message that is delivered.
iii. Inflexibility – Another limitation of advertising is that it lacks flexibility. Advertising messages are standard one and are not tailor made to suit the requirement of the different customer group.
iv. Less Effective – As the volume of advertising is increasing it is becoming less effective.
Advertising – Criticisms
Various objections against advertising are:
1. Economic objections,
2. Social objections and
3. Ethical objections.
1. Economic Objections:
(i) Advertising is not productive – It is true that advertising does not produce any tangible goods. On the contrary, it renders a very valuable service. Services are always intangible.
(ii) Advertising forces people to desire and buy things which, infact, are not within their means. It is true that advertising arouses interest for buying but there is no physical force exerted on customers to buy things.
(iii) Advertising simply multiplies the needs. It just takes business from one concern and gives it to another.
(iv) Advertising increases the cost of goods.
(v) The monopoly argument – Advertising usually lays emphasis on brands. This emphasis makes the consumer to become a slave of a particular brand.
(vi) Advertising encourages waste – People are forced to use the product as fast as possible since new products with improvements are introduced.
2. Social Objections:
(i) Misrepresentation of facts – Most of the advertisements contain tall claims and the benefits advertised are not enjoyed in full.
(ii) The press is influenced by advertisers because they provide the major source of revenue for the existence of newspapers.
3. Ethical Objections:
(i) Advertising appeals induce people to use such articles that might affect their health, for example – cigarettes and liquor.
(ii) People with less purchasing power cannot afford to buy many articles though the advertisements create a strong need in them for the product. This brings discontentment in the society.
Advertising consists of all the activities involved in presenting to an audience a non-personal, sponsor-identified, paid-for message about a product or organisation. Advertising is in fact a paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services of an identified sponsor.
The message which is presented or disseminated is known as ‘advertisement’. All activities necessary to prepare the message and get it to the intended people are part of ‘advertisement’.
Advertising performs the following functions:
(i) Introduction of a new product;
(ii) Creation of good public image;
(iii) Promotion of sales;
(iv) Facilitates mass production;
(v) Promotes research activity;
(vi) Educates the public at large, and
(vii) Supports the Press.
Advertising is an important tool of promotion. It helps in educating the public, create awareness regarding given goods and services and helps in boosting up their sales. It creates an avenue for communication.
It is important for any business that wishes to make progress in a competitive environment to have some form of advertisement; otherwise, the business may not perform well. One of the most important reasons for advertising is to create awareness regarding a new product or service.
Without informing the public about new developments, including improvement to certain products, it may be difficult to get customers. Another reason for advertising is that it is a good way of educating the society in general.
Advertisements usually contain information regarding the benefits of a given product or service. They may also contain information on how to use a given product in order to achieve the best possible results. In today’s competitive business environment, it is important for a business to devise strategies of moving ahead.
Creating an advertisement that is able to appeal to masses ensures that a business can acquire a fair share of the market. It also creates an avenue for communication. Advertisers can gauge the reaction of the masses after showing an advertisement to the public. This may help in the improvement or modification of goods and services in order to make better and suitable for the market.