advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion

Module 13: Promotion: Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)

Advertising, learning objectives.

• Explain advertising

Advertising: Pay to Play

A 1900 advertisement for Pears soap.

Advertising is any paid form of communication from an identified sponsor or source that draws attention to ideas, goods, services or the sponsor itself. Most advertising is directed toward groups rather than individuals, and advertising is usually delivered through media such as television, radio, newspapers and, increasingly, the Internet. Ads are often measured in impressions (the number of times a consumer is exposed to an advertisement).

Advertising is a very old form of promotion with roots that go back even to ancient times. In recent decades, the practices of advertising have changed enormously as new technology and media have allowed consumers to bypass traditional advertising venues. From the invention of the remote control, which allows people to ignore advertising on TV without leaving the couch, to recording devices that let people watch TV programs but skip the ads, conventional advertising is on the wane. Across the board, television viewership has fragmented, and ratings have fallen.

Print media are also in decline, with fewer people subscribing to newspapers and other print media and more people favoring digital sources for news and entertainment. Newspaper advertising revenue has declined steadily since 2000. [1]  Advertising revenue in television is also soft, and it is split across a growing number of broadcast and cable networks. Clearly companies need to move beyond traditional advertising channels to reach consumers. Digital media outlets have happily stepped in to fill this gap. Despite this changing landscape, for many companies advertising remains at the forefront of how they deliver the proper message to customers and prospective customers.

The Purpose of Advertising

Advertising has three primary objectives: to inform, to persuade, and to remind.

• Informative Advertising  creates awareness of brands, products, services, and ideas. It announces new products and programs and can educate people about the attributes and benefits of new or established products.
• Persuasive Advertising tries to convince customers that a company’s services or products are the best, and it works to alter perceptions and enhance the image of a company or product. Its goal is to influence consumers to take action and switch brands, try a new product, or remain loyal to a current brand.
• Reminder Advertising  reminds people about the need for a product or service, or the features and benefits it will provide when they purchase promptly.

Left: Informative Advertising Right: Persuasive Advertising

Reminder Advertising

When people think of advertising, often product-focused advertisements are top of mind—i.e., ads that promote an organization’s goods or services. Institutional advertising  goes beyond products to promote organizations, issues, places, events, and political figures.  Public service announcements (PSAs) are a category of institutional advertising focused on social-welfare issues such as drunk driving, drug use, and practicing a healthy lifestyle. Usually PSAs are sponsored by nonprofit organizations and government agencies with a vested interest in the causes they promote.

Public Service Announcement (PSA)

Advantages and Disadvantages of Advertising

As a method of marketing communication, advertising has both advantages and disadvantages. In terms of advantages, advertising creates a sense of credibility or legitimacy when an organization invests in presenting itself and its products in a public forum. Ads can convey a sense of quality and permanence, the idea that a company isn’t some fly-by-night venture. Advertising allows marketers to repeat a message at intervals selected strategically. Repetition makes it more likely that the target audience will see and recall a message, which improves awareness-building results. Advertising can generate drama and human interest by featuring people and situations that are exciting or engaging. It can introduce emotions, images, and symbols that stimulate desire, and it can show how a product or brand compares favorably to competitors. Finally, advertising is an excellent vehicle for brand building, as it can create rational and emotional connections with a company or offering that translate into goodwill. As advertising becomes more sophisticated with digital media, it is a powerful tool for tracking consumer behaviors, interests, and preferences, allowing advertisers to better tailor content and offers to individual consumers. Through the power of digital media, memorable or entertaining advertising can be shared between friends and go viral—and viewer impressions skyrocket.

The primary disadvantage of advertising is cost. Marketers question whether this communication method is really cost-effective at reaching large groups. Of course, costs vary depending on the medium, with television ads being very expensive to produce and place. In contrast, print and digital ads tend to be much less expensive. Along with cost is the question of how many people an advertisement actually reaches. Ads are easily tuned out in today’s crowded media marketplace. Even ads that initially grab attention can grow stale over time. While digital ads are clickable and interactive, traditional advertising media are not. In the bricks-and-mortar world, it is difficult for marketers to measure the success of advertising and link it directly to changes in consumer perceptions or behavior. Because advertising is a one-way medium, there is usually little direct opportunity for consumer feedback and interaction, particularly from consumers who often feel overwhelmed by competing market messages.

Developing Effective Ads: The Creative Strategy

Effective advertising starts with the same foundational components as any other IMC campaign: identifying the target audience and the objectives for the campaign. When advertising is part of a broader IMC effort, it is important to consider the strategic role advertising will play relative to other marketing communication tools. With clarity around the target audience, campaign strategy, and budget, the next step is to develop the creative strategy  for developing compelling advertising. The creative strategy has two primary components: the message and the appeal .

The message comes from the messaging framework discussed earlier in this module: what message elements should the advertising convey to consumers? What should the key message be? What is the call to action? How should the brand promise be manifested in the ad? How will it position and differentiate the offering? With advertising, it’s important to remember that the ad can communicate the message not only with words but also potentially with images, sound, tone, and style.

Effective wordless advertisement

Marketers also need to consider existing public perceptions and other advertising and messages the company has placed in the market. Has the prior marketing activity resonated well with target audiences? Should the next round of advertising reinforce what went before, or is it time for a fresh new message, look, or tone?

Along with message, the creative strategy also identifies the appeal , or how the advertising will attract attention and influence a person’s perceptions or behavior. Advertising appeals can take many forms, but they tend to fall into one of two categories: informational appeal and emotional appeal.

The informational appeal offers facts and information to help the target audience make a purchasing decision. It tries to generate attention using rational arguments and evidence to convince consumers to select a product, service, or brand. For example:

• More or better product or service features: Ajax “Stronger Than Dirt”
• Cost savings:  Wal-Mart “Always Low Prices”
• Quality: John Deere “Nothing runs like a Deere”
• Customer service: Holiday Inn “Pleasing people the world over”
• New, improved: Verizon “Can you hear me now? Good.”

The following Black+Decker commercial relies on an informational appeal to promote its product:

The emotional appeal targets consumers’ emotional wants and needs rather than rational logic and facts. It plays on conscious or subconscious desires, beliefs, fears, and insecurities to persuade consumers and influence their behavior. The emotional appeal is linked to the features and benefits provided by the product, but it creates a connection with consumers at an emotional level rather than a rational level. Most marketers agree that emotional appeals are more powerful and differentiating than informational appeals. However, they must be executed well to seem authentic and credible to the the target audience. A poorly executed emotional appeal can come across as trite or manipulative. Examples of emotional appeals include:

• Self-esteem: L’Oreal “Because I’m worth it”
• Happiness: Coca-Cola “Open happiness”
• Anxiety and fear: World Health Organization “Smoking Kills”
• Achievement: Nike “Just Do It”
• Attitude: Apple “Think Different”
• Freedom: Southwest “You are now free to move about the country”
• Peace of Mind: Allstate “Are you in good hands?”
• Popularity: NBC “Must-see TV”
• Germophobia: Chlorox “For life’s bleachable moments, there’s Chlorox”

The following Heinz Ketchup commercial offers a humorous example of an ad based entirely on an emotional appeal:

Developing the Media Plan

The media plan is a document that outlines the strategy and approach for an advertising campaign, or for the advertising component in an IMC campaign. The media plan is developed simultaneously with the creative strategy. A standard media plan consists of four stages: (a) stating media objectives; (b) evaluating media; (c) selecting and implementing media choices; and (d) determining the media budget.

Media objectives are normally started in terms of three dimensions:

• Reach: number of different persons or households exposed to a particular media vehicle or media schedule at least once during a specified time period.
• Frequency: the number of times within a given time period that a consumer is exposed to a message.
• Continuity: the timing of media assertions (e.g. 10 per cent in September, 20 per cent in October, 20 per cent in November, 40 per cent in December and 10 per cent the rest of the year).

The process of evaluating media involves considering each type of advertising available to a marketer, and the inherent strengths and weaknesses associated with each medium. The table below outlines key strengths and weaknesses of major types of advertising media. Television advertising is a powerful and highly visible medium, but it is expensive to produce and buy air time. Radio is quite flexible and inexpensive, but listenership is lower and it typically delivers fewer impressions and a less-targeted audience. Most newspapers and magazines have passed their advertising heydays and today struggle against declining subscriptions and readership.  Yet they can be an excellent and cost-effective investment for reaching some audiences. Display ads offer a lot of flexibility and creative options, from wrapping busses in advertising to creating massive and elaborate 3-D billboards. Yet their reach is limited to their immediate geography. Online advertising such as banner ads, search engine ads, paid listings, pay-per-click links and similar techniques offers a wide selection of opportunities for marketers to attract and engage with target audiences online. Yet the internet is a very crowded place, and it is difficult to for any individual company to stand out in the crowd.

Table: Advertising Media Strengths and Weaknesses

The evaluation process requires research to to assess options for reaching their target audience with each medium, and how well a particular message fits the audience in that medium. Many advertisers rely heavily on the research findings provided by the medium, by their own experience, and by subjective appraisal to determine the best media for a given campaign.

To illustrate, if a company is targeting young-to-middle-aged professional women to sell beauty products, the person or team responsible for the media plan should evaluate what options each type of media offers for reaching this audience. How reliably can television, radio, newspapers or magazines deliver this audience? Media organizations maintain carefully-researched information about the size, demographics and other characteristics of their viewership or readership. Cable and broadcast TV networks know which shows are hits with this target demographic and therefore which advertising spots to sell to a company targeting professional women. Likewise newspapers know which sections attract the eyeballs of female audiences, and magazines publishers understand very well the market niches their publications fit. Online advertising becomes a particularly powerful tool for targeted advertising because of the information it captures and tracks about site visitors: who views and clicks on ads, where they visit and what they search for. Not only does digital advertising provide the opportunity to advertise on sites that cater to a target audience of professional women, but it can identify which of these women are searching for beauty products, and it can help a company target these individuals more intensely and provide opportunities for follow-up interaction.

The following video further explains how digital advertising targets and tracks individuals based on their expressed interests and behaviors.

You can read a transcript of the video here .

Selection and Implementation

The media planner must make decisions about the media mix and timing, both of which are restricted by the available budget. The media-mix decision involves choosing the best combination of advertising media to achieve the goals of the campaign. This is a difficult task, and it usually requires evaluating each medium quantitatively and qualitatively to select a mix that optimizes reach and budget.

Unfortunately, there are few valid rules of thumb to guide this process, in part because it is difficult to compare audiences across different types of advertising media. For example, Nielsen ratings measure audiences based on TV viewer reports of the programs watched, while outdoor (billboard) audience-exposure estimates are based on counts of the number of automobiles that pass particular outdoor poster locations. The “timing of media” refers to the actual placement of advertisements during the time periods that are most appropriate, given the selected media objectives. It includes not only the scheduling of advertisements, but also the size and position of the advertisement.

There are three common patterns for advertising scheduling:

• Continuous  advertising runs ads steadily at a given level indefinitely. This schedule works well products and services that are consumed on a steady basis throughout the year, and the purpose of advertising is to nudge consumers, remind them and keep a brand or product top-of-mind.
• Flighting  involves heavy spurts of advertising, followed by periods with no advertising. This type of schedule makes sense for products or services that are seasonal in nature, like tax services, as well as one-time or occasional events.
• Pulsing mixes continuous scheduling with flighting, to create a constant drum-beat of ads, with periods of greater intensity. This approach matches products and services for which there is year-round appeal, but there may be some seasonality or periods of greater demand or intensity. Hotels and airlines, for example, might increase their advertising presence during the holiday season.

When considering advertising as a marketing communication method, companies need to balance the cost of advertising–both of producing the advertising pieces and buying placement—against the total budget for the IMC program. The selection and scheduling of media have a huge impact on budget: advertising that targets a mass audience is generally more expensive than advertising that targets a local or niche audience. It is important for marketers to consider the contribution advertising will make to the whole. Although advertising is generally one of the more expensive parts of the promotion mix, it may be a worthwhile investment if it contributes substantially to the reach and effectiveness of the whole program. Alternatively, some marketers spend very little on advertising because they find other methods are more productive and cost-effective for reaching their target segments.

Anatomy of an Advertisement

Advertisements use several common elements to deliver the message. The visual is the picture, image, or situation portrayed in the advertisement. The visual also considers the emotions, style, or look-and-feel to be conveyed: should the ad appear tender, businesslike, fresh, or supercool? All of these considerations can be conveyed by the visual, without using any words.

The headline is generally what the viewer reads first—i.e., the words in the largest typeface. The headline serves as a hook for the appeal: it should grab attention, pique interest, and cause the viewer to keep reading or paying attention. In a radio or television ad, the headline equivalent might be the voice-over of a narrator delivering the primary message, or it might be a visual headline, similar to a print ad.

In print ads, a subhead is a smaller headline that continues the idea introduced in the headline or provides more information. It usually appears below the headline and in a smaller typeface. The body copy  provides supporting information. Generally it appears in a standard, readable font.  The call to action may be part of the body copy, or it may appear elsewhere in a larger typeface or color treatment to draw attention to itself.

A variety of brand elements  may also appear in an advertisement. These include the name of the advertiser or brand being advertised, the logo, a tagline, hashtag, Web site link, or other standard “branded” elements that convey brand identity. These elements are an important way of establishing continuity with other marketing communications used in the IMC campaign or developed by the company. For example, print ads for an IMC campaign might contain a campaign-specific tagline that also appears in television ads, Website content, and social media posts associated with the campaign.

Hoover advertisement with ad elements shown.

Ad Testing and Measurement

When organizations are poised to make a large investment in any type of advertising, it is wise to conduct marketing research to test the advertisements with target audiences before spending lots of money on ads and messages that may not hit the mark. Ad testing may preview messages and preliminary ad concepts with members of a target segment to see which ones resonate best and get insight about how to fine-tune messages or other aspects of the ad to make them more effective. Organizations may conduct additional testing with near-final advertising pieces to do more fine-tuning of the messages and visuals before going public.

To gauge the impact of advertising, organizations may conduct pre-tests and post-tests of their target audience to measure whether advertising has its intended effect. A pre-test assesses consumer attitudes, perceptions, and behavior before the advertising campaign. A post-test measures the same things afterward to determine how the ads have influenced the target audience, if at all.

Companies may also measure sales before, during, and after advertising campaigns run in the geographies or targets where the advertising appeared. This provides information about the return on investment for the campaign, which is how much the advertising increased sales relative to how much money it cost to execute. Ideally advertising generates more revenue and, ultimately profits, than it costs to mount the advertising campaign.

• http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/04/28/decline_of_newspapers_hits_a_milestone_print_revenue_is_lowest_since_1950.html ↵
• Screenshot Keep Your Head PSA. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Screenshot Naked Juice Ad. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Screenshot Puma Ad. License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright
• Screenshot Rogue Voodoo Porter Ad. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Revision and adaptation. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Screenshot Hoover Ad. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Advertising. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Communicating to Mass Markets, from Introducing Marketing. Authored by : John Burnett. Project : Global Text. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Behavioral Targeting. Provided by : BBC. Located at : https://youtu.be/HtOkaAMOmAc . License : CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• HEINZ Ketchup Wiener Stampede. Provided by : Heinz. Located at : https://youtu.be/LOlfhBT8i9I . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube license
• Our Awesome Drill with AutoSense Technology. Provided by : Black+Decker. Located at : https://youtu.be/mc_VsL44nWE . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube license
• Got Milk?. Provided by : Wikimedia. Located at : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gotmilk.png . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright
• Pears Soap ad. Provided by : Wikimedia. Located at : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pears_Soap_1900.jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

What is Advertising? Definition, Types, Objectives, Ethics, Features, Process

• Post last modified: 10 August 2023
• Reading time: 52 mins read
• Post category: Marketing Management / Marketing Essentials

What is Advertising?

Advertising is a paid form of communication in which the sponsor or the brand owner has made payments to the media to carry the message through their set of media vehicles.

Table of Content

• 1 What is Advertising?
• 2 Advertising Definition
• 3.1 To inform
• 3.2 To persuade
• 3.3 To remind
• 4.1 Press Advertising
• 4.2 Outdoor or Mural Advertising
• 4.3 Direct Mail Advertising
• 4.4 Other Media of Advertising
• 5 Features of Advertising
• 6.1 Brand Advertising
• 6.2 National Advertising
• 6.3 Local Advertising
• 6.4 Retail Advertising
• 6.5 Nation and Destination Advertising
• 6.6 Political Advertising
• 6.7 Social Advertising
• 6.8 Directory Advertising
• 6.9 Direct Response Advertising
• 6.10 Business to business Advertising
• 6.11 Institutional Advertising
• 6.12 Public Services Advertising
• 6.13 Interactive Advertising
• 6.14 Outdoor Advertising
• 6.15 Electronic Advertising
• 6.16 Film Advertising
• 6.17 Unconventional Media
• 7.1 Overall Promotional Goal
• 7.2 Setting Advertising Objective
• 7.3 Communication Objective
• 7.4 Sales Objective
• 7.5 Setting up Advertising Budget
• 7.6 Develop Advertising Campaign
• 7.7 Evaluate Campaign and Provide Feedback
• 8.1 Benefits to Manufacturers
• 8.2 Benefits to Wholesalers and Retailers
• 8.3 Benefits to Consumers
• 8.4 Benefits to Salesmen
• 8.5 Benefits to Community or Society
• 9.1 Does Not Make Fake or False Claims
• 9.2 Directly Related to the Purpose and Nature of Advertising
• 9.3 Ethics also Depend on what we Believe
• 9.4 Advertising is Often Criticized for being Offensive and in the Bad Taste
• 9.5 Pharmaceutical Advertising
• 9.6 Alcohol
• 9.7 Cigarettes and Tobacco
• 9.8 Ads for Social Causes
• 9.9 Children
• 10 Reference
• 11 Marketing Management Topics

Advertising Definition

Any paid down non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by business firms identified in the advertising message intended to lead to a sale immediately or eventually. – American Marketing Association

William J. Stanton , “ Advertising consists of all the activities involved in presenting to a group, a non-personal oral or visual, openly sponsored message regarding a product or service or idea, this message is called an advertisement, is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor “ .

Richard Buskirk , “ Advertising is a paid form of non-person presentation of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor “ .

Wheeler , “ Advertising is a paid form of non-person‘s presentation of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor “ .

According to Jermy Bullmore , Chairman of J. Walter Thompson, “ Advertising is any paid form of communication intended to inform and/or influence one or more people “ .

Objectives of Advertising

Objectives of advertising are:

To persuade

• Telling the market about a new product.
• Suggesting new uses for a product.
• Informing the market for a price change.
• Explaining how the product works.
• Describing available services.
• Correcting false impressions reducing consumers fears.
• Building the company image to persuade.
• Building brand preference
• Encouraging switching to your brand
• Changing customers perception of the product attributes
• Persuading customers to purchase now
• Persuading customers to receive a sales call
• Reminding consumers that the product may be needed in the near future
• Reminding them where to buy it
• Keeping it in their minds during off-seasons
• Maintaining its top of mind awareness

Media of Advertising

Media of advertisement means any object or any device, which is used to communicate the message, either written or oral, to the potential consumers.

For the convenience of study, means of advertisement may broadly be divided into four parts :

• Press advertising
• Outdoor or mural advertising
• Advertisement by mail
• Other media

Press Advertising

Press is considered the most popular media of advertisement these days. It is also considered the cheapest and the best media because of its wide circulation.

Press advertising may be divided in two forms;

• Newspapers advertisement : All the advertisements made through newspapers are called Newspapers advertisements. A newspaper may be of national level, state level or district level. It may be daily, weekly or fortnightly and in any language.
• Magazines or journals advertisements : When an advertisement is published in a magazine or a journal, it is called magazine or journal advertisement.

Outdoor or Mural Advertising

Outdoor advertisements are the advertisements, which attract the customers when they are out of their home. These advertisements are displayed on roads or otherwise.

Direct Mail Advertising

Direct mail advertising means the form of advertising, in which the advertiser sends personal message in writing through post to some selected persons.

Salient features of direct mail advertising:

• The advertisement messages are prepared in writing.
• These messages are addressed directly to some selected persons.
• The message may be different for different persons

Other Media of Advertising

Some other forms of advertising may be explained as under:

• Fairs and exhibitions : In India, various fairs and exhibition are organised in different parts at different times. By taking part in this fairs and exhibitions, businessmen and manufacturers can display their goods.
• Cinema : Cinema is considered the cheapest and the most popular medium of entertainment these days. Advertisers get their cinema slides prepared and these slides are played in the beginning and during interval.
• Radio and television : Radio and television have become very common these days. Advertisement through radio and television is becoming more and more popular these days.
• Loudspeakers : Under this form of advertising, a rickshaw or a Tonga or a car, etc. is hired. A loudspeaker is placed on it and the message is announced in different localities of the city.
• Free samples : Under this method, some samples packing are prepared and distributed among consumers. These samples provide an opportunity to the consumers to use these samples and then adopt these products.
• Competition : Some producers announce a competition in it, consumers are required to reply to some questions and to give a slogan about the product. They are also required to send some wrappers or cartoons or cash memo that may prove that they have purchased the product. It increases the sales of the product.

Features of Advertising

Looking into the meaning and definition of advertising we can sum up the following features of advertising.

• Non-personal Presentation of Message : In advertising there is no face-to-face or direct contact with the customers. It is directed to the prospective buyers in general.
• Paid Form of Communication : In advertising the manufacturer communicates with prospective customers through different media like newspapers, hoardings, magazines, radio, television, etc. He has to pay certain amount for using some space or time in these media.
• Promotion of Product, Service or an Idea : Advertisement contains any message regarding any particular product, service or even an idea. It makes people aware of the product and induces them to buy it.
• Sponsor is Always Identified : The identity of the manufacturer, the trader or the service provider who issues an advertisement is always disclosed.
• Communicated through Some Media : Advertisements are always communicated through use of certain media. It is not necessary that there will be just one medium. All the media may also be used like print or electronic media.

Types of Advertising

Since advertising is one of the popular mediums of brand communication, it is used in many forms and for many purposes. It is possible to classify types of advertising into various forms as mentioned below.

Types of Advertising are:

Brand Advertising

National advertising, local advertising, retail advertising, nation and destination advertising, political advertising, social advertising, directory advertising, direct response advertising, business to business advertising, institutional advertising, public services advertising, interactive advertising, outdoor advertising, electronic advertising, film advertising, unconventional media.

This is the most popular form of advertising as all possible media including television is flooded with brand advertising. Brands like Surf Excel, Pepsi, and Coke in India are shown more frequently on Indian televisions. These kinds of advertisements are done to build brands and develop a unique brand identity for the firm.

These advertisements are uniform across the nation and are released through national media covering the nation.

These advertisements are carried out in local and vernacular media to promote the product in a local region.

These advertisements are brought to promote retail outlets and dealer points.

These advertisements are brought out to promote a nation as a tourism destination. These are also used for promoting states, cities and tourist attractions.

These are done for political parties, politicians and individual candidates during elections and referendums.

These advertisements are brought out for a social cause like against AIDS, sexual exploitation, women trafficking, child labour and other critical issues in a society.

These are the advertisements done in directories and yellow pages and followed by people while collecting a telephone number or a home address. People normally refer to these directories to buy products and services.

These advertisements are used in any medium, which tries to stimulate sales directly. The consumer can respond by mail, telephone or Internet.

These kinds of advertisements are carried out targeting business and organisational marketers. These messages are directed towards retailers, wholesalers and distributors. These advertisements are placed in professional journals and trade association publications.

Institutions like colleges, universities, missionary of charities and large corporates bring out these advertisements. When these are brought out by large corporates we call them corporate advertising.

The purpose of such advertising is to create positive goodwill, which will ultimately contribute towards achieving the overall marketing and brand-building goal of the organisation. Many companies use such advertisements to build a positive image in the eyes of the consumers and general audience at large.

Government and government sponsored institutions bring such advertisements for the benefit of general public. They communicate a message on behalf of some good cause. Advertising professionals create these advertisements for public relations department of large corporates, highlighting a social cause.

These are typical Internet-based advertisement, which is delivered to individual consumers who have access to the World Wide Web. Advertisers use web pages, banner ads, spots; pop-ups and email programs to reach the target audience.

These are forms of advertising in which the marketer uses out of the home media like wall paintings, hoardings, bulletins, kiosks and mobile vans for communicating with audience.

These forms of advertising use electronic media like television, radio, video and audiocassettes, electronic display boards, CDROMs for promotion of products and services.

These are new forms of advertising in which brands are placed inside the film and actors are shown using these products during the movie for increasing its usage among the audience.

These forms of advertising are of recent origin and use traditional art forms like jatraa, puppet dance and other local dance forms to communicate about products and services to the audience.

Advertising Management Process

As an advertising manager one needs to know how to decide on and design an effective advertising campaign.

Overall Promotional Goal

Setting advertising objective, communication objective, sales objective, setting up advertising budget, develop advertising campaign, evaluate campaign and provide feedback.

The advertising management process is shown in Figure

The most obvious objective marketers have for promotional activities is to convince customers to make a decision that benefits the marketer.

Promotion or brand manager should set objectives for an advertising campaign and also for each ad in each medium used.

Marketers strive to influence how prospective customers think. To do that, they need to understand how and when to guide them.

• First, they must be aware of to whom they are offering the solutions.
• Then they want to hook customers and engage them as they become interested.
• Next, they need to build understanding and become a credible source of information.
• Finally, should entice customers to take action and purchase the products and services.

A critical decision is to define the target market for the product or service. This would involve finding and precisely defining those variables that indicate who and where the best prospects are

Consumer research may be needed to find out:

• Who buys the product?
• What do they really buy?
• When do they buy?
• How do they use the product?

The objectives determine what is expected of advertising to accomplish in a defined period of time. The budget controls all proposed expenditures by fixing a limit.

• Affordable method : Promotion budget is set at the level management thinks the company can afford.
• Percentage-of-sales method : Promotion budget is set as a specified percentage of either past or forecasted sales.
• Fixed-sum-per-unit method : Promotion budget is set as a predetermined dollar amount for each unit sold or produced.
• Meeting competition method : Promotion budget is set to match a competitor’s promotion outlays on either an absolute or relative basis.
• Task-objective method : Once marketers determine their specific promotion objectives, the amount (and type) of promotional spending needed to achieve them

Media Decisions : Media planning is quite complex because of the nature of different kind of media. Media plan determines the best way to reach the audience with the advertiser’s message.

Message Decisions : An excellent advertising message is estimated to be ten times or more effective than an average message in influencing consumer attitudes , preferences and purchase decision for the product.

Post-testing is done to evaluate the final results of the campaign. These results are concerned with measuring the effectiveness of the ad.

Post-testing is done at the end of the campaign to determine to what extent the advertising campaign objectives have been accomplished and then to make any appropriate changes. It provides feedback to promotion managers and helps future planning.

Importance of Advertisement

Advertising broadens the knowledge of the consumers. With the aid of advertising, consumers find and buy necessary products without much waste of time. The main benefits of advertising may be narrated as follows:

Benefits to Manufacturers

Benefits to wholesalers and retailers, benefits to consumers, benefits to salesmen, benefits to community or society.

Advertising helps in creating and sustaining demand for existing and new products. It builds brand image and goodwill of the firm.

• It increases sales volume by creating attraction towards the product.
• Retail price, maintenance is also possible by advertising where price appeal is the promotional strategy.
• It helps to establish a direct contact between manufacturers and consumers.
• It leads to smoothen the demand of the product. It saves the product from seasonal fluctuations by discovering new usage of the product.
• It creates a highly responsive market and thereby quickens the turnover that results in lower inventory.
• Selling cost per unit is reduced because of increased sale volume. Consequently, product overheads are also reduced due to mass production and sale.
• It helps easy introduction of new products into the markets by the same manufacturer.
• It helps to create an image and reputation not only of the products but also of the producer or advertiser. In this way, it creates goodwill for the manufacturer.
• Advertising gives the employees a feeling of pride in their jobs and to be in the service of such a concern of repute. It thus inspires the executives and workers to improve their efficiency.
• Advertising is necessary to meet the competition in the market and to survive.
• Easy sale of the products is possible since consumers are aware of the product and its quality.
• It increases the rate of the turnover of the stock because demand is already created by advertisement.
• It ensures more economical selling because selling overheads are reduced.
• It enables them to have product information.
• It supplements the selling activities.
• The reputation created is shared by the wholesalers and retailers alike because they need not spend anything for the advertising of a well advertised product.
• Advertising helps in eliminating the middlemen by establishing direct contacts between producers and consumers. It results in cheaper goods.
• It helps them to know where and when the products are available. This reduces their shopping time.
• Advertising stresses on quality and very often prices. This forms an indirect guarantee to the consumers of the quality and price. Further large scale production assumed by advertising enables the seller to sell a product at a lower cost.
• It provides an opportunity to the customers to compare the merits and demerits of various substitute products.
• This is perhaps the only medium through which consumers could know the varied and new uses of the product.
• Modern advertisements are highly informative.
• Introducing the product becomes quite easy and convenient because the manufacturer has already advertised the goods informing the consumers about the product and its quality.
• Advertising prepares necessary ground for a salesman to begin his work effectively. Hence sales efforts are reduced.
• The contact established with the customer by a salesman is made permanent through effective advertising because a customer is assured of the quality and price of the product.
• The salesman can weigh the effectiveness of advertising when he makes direct contact with the consumers.
• It helps artists by making available more job opportunities. It also supports the Press.
• Advertising leads to a large-scale production creating more employment opportunities to the public in various jobs directly or indirectly.
• It initiates a process of creating more wants and their satisfaction results in higher standard of living. For example, advertising has made more popular and universal the uses of such inventions as the automobiles, radios, and various household appliances.
• Newspapers would not have become so popular and so cheap if there had been no advertisements. The cheap production of newspapers is possible only through the publication of advertisements in them. It sustains the Press.
• It assures employment opportunities for the professional personnel and artists.
• Advertising does provide a glimpse of a country’s way of life. It is, in fact, a running commentary on the way of living and the behaviour of the people and is also an indicator of some of the future in this regard.

Ethics in Advertising

Ethics is the most important feature of the advertising industry. Though there are many benefits of advertising but then there are some points which do not match the ethical norms of advertising.

Does Not Make Fake or False Claims

Directly related to the purpose and nature of advertising, ethics also depend on what we believe, advertising is often criticized for being offensive and in the bad taste, pharmaceutical advertising, cigarettes and tobacco, ads for social causes.

An ethical ad is the one which does not lie, does not make fake or false claims and is in the limit of decency. The main area of interest for advertisers is to increase their sales, gain more and more customers, and increase the demand for the product by presenting a well decorated, puffed and colourful ad.

They claim that their product is the best, having unique qualities than the competitors, more cost-effective, and more beneficial. But most of these ads are found to be false, misleading customers and unethical.

Ethics in advertising is directly related to the purpose of advertising and the nature of advertising. Sometimes exaggerating the ad becomes necessary to prove the benefit of the product.

For example a sanitary napkin ad which shows that when the napkin was dropped in a river by some girls, the napkin soaked water of the entire river.

If the advertisers make the ads on the belief that the customers will understand, persuade them to think, and then act on their ads, then this will lead to positive results and the ad may not be called unethical.

There are several grounds for criticism. For example, TV ad of unpleasant products (haemorrhoid treatment, diarrhoea products) or sexual explicitness.

Such ads help in creating awareness, but one catchy point here is that the advertisers show what the medicine can cure but never talk about the side effects of that same thing or the risks involved in the intake of it.

Till today, there has not come any liquor ad which shows anyone drinking the original liquor. They use mineral water and sodas in their advertisements with their brand name. These types of ads are called surrogate ads. These types of ads are totally unethical when liquor ads are totally banned. Even if there are no advertisements for alcohol, people will continue drinking.

These products should never be advertised as consumption of these things is directly responsible for cancer and other severe health issues. Such ads are banned in countries like India, Norway, Thailand, Finland and Singapore.

These types of ads are ethical and are accepted by the people. But ads like condoms and contraceptive pills should be limited, as these are sometimes unethical, and are more likely to loose morality and decency at places where there is no educational knowledge about all these products.

Children are the major sellers of the ads and the product. They have the power to convince the buyers. But when advertisers are using children in their ad, they should remember not to show them alone doing work on their own like brushing teeth, playing with toys.

• V. S. Ramaswamy, S. Namakumari; 2009; Marketing Management; MacMillan Publishers Pvt Ltd.
• Kotler, Keller, Koshy, Jha; 2009; 13th Edition; Marketing Management: A South Asian Perspective.

Marketing Management Topics

• Market Segmentation
• Marketing Mix
• Marketing Concept
• Marketing Management Process
• Marketing Environment

Consumer Behaviour

• Business Buyer Behaviour
• Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

Marketing Management

• Advertising
• Marketing Planning
• Public Relations
• Sales Promotion
• Types of Sales Promotion
• Techniques of Sales Promotion
• New Product Development Process
• What is Pricing
• Methods of Pricing & Strategies

Market Entry Strategy

• Demand Forecasting
• Brand Building Process
• Agricultural Cooperative Marketing
• Classification of Products
• Types of Logistics
• Marketing Control
• Models of Communication
• Consumer Research
• DAGMAR Approach
• Consumer Behaviour Models
• Personal Selling
• Green Marketing
• Customer Relationship Management
• Electronic commerce

Kotler Product Level

• Marketing Communication

Go On, Share & Tell Us What You Think!

Did we miss something in Marketing Management Tutorial or You want something More? Come on! Tell us what you think about our post on Advertising in the comments section and Share this post with your friends.

( Click on Topic to Read )

• What Is Market Segmentation?
• What Is Marketing Mix?
• What Is Marketing Environment?
• What Is Consumer Behaviour?
• 7 Stages Of New Product Development
• Methods Of Pricing
• What Is Public Relations?
• What Is Marketing Management?
• What Is Sales Promotion?
• Types Of Sales Promotion
• Techniques Of Sales Promotion
• What Is Personal Selling?
• What Is Advertising?
• What Is Marketing Planning?
• Segmentation Targeting And Positioning
• Kotler Five Product Level Model
• Classification Of Products
• Types Of Logistics
• What Is Consumer Research?
• What Is DAGMAR?
• What Is Green Marketing?
• What Is Electronic Commerce?
• What Is Marketing Control?
• What Is Marketing Communication?
• What Is Pricing?
• Models Of Communication

Sales Management

• What is Sales Management?
• Objectives of Sales Management
• Responsibilities and Skills of Sales Manager
• Theories of Personal Selling
• What is Sales Forecasting?
• Methods of Sales Forecasting
• Purpose of Sales Budgeting
• Methods of Sales Budgeting
• Types of Sales Budgeting
• Sales Budgeting Process
• What is Sales Quotas?
• What is Selling by Objectives (SBO) ?
• What is Sales Organisation?
• Types of Sales Force Structure
• Recruiting and Selecting Sales Personnel
• Training and Development of Salesforce
• Compensating the Sales Force
• Time and Territory Management
• What Is Logistics?
• What Is Logistics System?
• Technologies in Logistics
• What Is Distribution Management?
• What Is Marketing Intermediaries?
• Conventional Distribution System
• Functions of Distribution Channels
• What is Channel Design?
• Types of Wholesalers and Retailers
• What is Vertical Marketing Systems?

Marketing Essentials

• What i s Marketing?
• What i s A BCG Matrix?
• 5 M'S Of Advertising
• What i s Direct Marketing?
• Marketing Mix For Services
• What Market Intelligence System?
• What i s Trade Union?
• What Is International Marketing?
• World Trade Organization (WTO)
• What i s International Marketing Research?
• What is Exporting?
• What is Licensing?
• What is Franchising?
• What is Joint Venture?
• What is Turnkey Projects?
• What is Management Contracts?
• What is Foreign Direct Investment?
• Factors That Influence Entry Mode Choice In Foreign Markets
• What is Price Escalations?
• What is Transfer Pricing?
• Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)
• What is Promotion Mix?
• Factors Affecting Promotion Mix
• Functions & Role Of Advertising
• What is Database Marketing?
• What is Advertising Budget?
• What is Advertising Agency?
• What is Market Intelligence?
• What is Industrial Marketing?
• What is Customer Value
• What is Consumer Behaviour?
• What Is Personality?
• What Is Perception?
• What Is Learning?
• What Is Attitude?
• What Is Motivation?
• Consumer Imagery
• Consumer Attitude Formation
• What Is Culture?
• Consumer Decision Making Process
• Applications of Consumer Behaviour in Marketing
• Motivational Research
• Theoretical Approaches to Study of Consumer Behaviour
• Consumer Involvement
• Consumer Lifestyle
• Theories of Personality
• Outlet Selection
• Organizational Buying Behaviour
• Reference Groups
• Consumer Protection Act, 1986
• Diffusion of Innovation
• Opinion Leaders

Business Communication

• What is Business Communication?
• What is Communication?
• Types of Communication
• 7 C of Communication
• Barriers To Business Communication
• Oral Communication
• Types Of Non Verbal Communication
• What is Written Communication?
• What are Soft Skills?
• Interpersonal vs Intrapersonal communication
• Barriers to Communication
• Importance of Communication Skills
• Listening in Communication
• Causes of Miscommunication
• What is Johari Window?
• What is Presentation?
• Communication Styles
• Channels of Communication
• Hofstede’s Dimensions of Cultural Differences and Benett’s Stages of Intercultural Sensitivity
• Organisational Communication
• Horizontal C ommunication
• Grapevine Communication
• Downward Communication
• Verbal Communication Skills
• Upward Communication
• Flow of Communication
• What is Emotional Intelligence?
• What is Public Speaking?
• Upward vs Downward Communication
• Internal vs External Communication
• What is Group Discussion?
• What is Interview?
• What is Negotiation?
• What is Digital Communication?
• What is Letter Writing?
• Resume and Covering Letter
• What is Report Writing?
• What is Business Meeting?
• What is Public Relations?

Business Law

• What is Business Law?
• Indian Contract Act 1872
• Essential Elements of a Valid Contract
• Types of Contract
• What is Discharge of Contract?
• Performance of Contract
• Sales of Goods Act 1930
• Goods & Price: Contract of Sale
• Conditions and Warranties
• Doctrine of Caveat Emptor
• Transfer of Property
• Rights of Unpaid Seller
• Negotiable Instruments Act 1881
• Types of Negotiable Instruments
• Types of Endorsement
• What is Promissory Note?
• What is Cheque?
• What is Crossing of Cheque?
• What is Bill of Exchange?
• What is Offer?
• Limited Liability Partnership Act 2008
• Memorandum of Association
• Articles of Association
• What is Director?
• Trade Unions Act, 1926
• Industrial Disputes Act 1947
• Employee State Insurance Act 1948
• Payment of Wages Act 1936
• Payment of Bonus Act 1965
• Labour Law in India

Brand Management

• What is Brand Management?

4 Steps of Strategic Brand Management Process

• Customer Based Brand Equity
• What is Brand Equity?

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Definitions of Advertising

Everything you need to know about the definitions of advertising. Advertising does not involve only presentation and promotion, but an element of persuasion too.

Any advertisement devoid of persuasion is not the part of advertising and will only be considered as a communication link disseminating some piece of information to the masses.

W.J. Stanton definition of advertising is – “Advertising consists of all the activities involved in presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored message regarding a product, service or idea, this message, called an advertisement is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor”.

Learn about the definitions of advertising as given by different authors like Albert Lasker, Burt Manning, Wheeler opines, Robert W. Sarnoff, John J. Myers, Bay and Wheeler, R. H. Colley, William J Stanton, R. V. Zacher, John E. Kennedy, Henry Ford and a Few Others.

Definitions of Advertising as Provided by Different Authors and Institutions  

Definitions of advertising – provided by american marketing association.

American Marketing Association recognizes the term advertising as – any paid form of non- personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services by an identified sponsor. This definition mainly explains what advertising is and helps in distinguishing advertising from other communication initiatives with which it is often confused. Advertising is not the same as publicity.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Publicity is another form of communication like press releases or public relation {e.g. news conferences) that the media covers on their own. Advertising which make use of mass media, either in broadcast or in print form- as a vehicle to carry the advertising message to its audience involves some payment as a consideration by the advertiser for using media time and media space.

Moreover, advertiser (the one who wishes to initiate the advertising process) is a disclosed entity to the audience for his advertising initiatives. In the case of publicity the source of information is not disclosed to the audience and information spreads like news and not the promotional message.

This is an important point of difference between advertising and publicity as at times there are the instances of paid publicity also but without disclosing the identity of the sponsor. Advertising is a non-personal form of communication because it uses mass media forms. Personal selling, on the other hand, is a face-to-face communication with the target audience and is also referred as dyadic communication.

The AMA definition thus explains the typical characteristics of an advertisement rather than advertising as a promotional activity. An advertisement that we normally come across while watching television, reading newspaper or passing through the road is a form of announcement (a message) that has been paid for by an identified sponsor, has been sent through one or more mass media, and is directed to a specific group of individuals or organization (a market segment) with the explicit purpose of supporting the sale or purchase of a product, brand or service.

In nutshell, ‘advertisement’ is different from other forms of announcements and the message is actually the end result of the series of advertising related decisions. Thus, the AMA definition of the term advertising is limited in its scope as it does not suggests in any way the persuasive and creative aspects of advertising or indicate its functions and responsibilities.

As defined by Cohen, ‘Advertising is a business activity, employing creative techniques to design persuasive communications in mass media that promote ideas, goods and services in a manner consistent with the achievement of the advertiser’s objectives, the delivery of consumer satisfactions, and the development of social and economic welfare.’

Advertising does not involve only presentation and promotion, but an element of persuasion too. Any advertisement devoid of persuasion is not the part of advertising and will only be considered as a communication link disseminating some piece of information to the masses. Advertising as a persuasive activity is taken up around the knowledge of buyer’s needs and wants related to the product and creates favourable pre-dispositions in his mind.

It is expected that the product use will get translated into consumer satisfaction. Apart from referrals and good word of mouth, the parameter of consumer satisfaction is likely to be the immediate or future increase in sales volume. If the increase in sales volume is proportionate to the increase in advertising expenditure, the net outcome of advertising is generally profitability for an organization.

The reasons for the consumer and manufacturer to use advertising information are, therefore, compatible and mutually essential. Advertiser’s purpose for the use of advertising is to maximize profits and help consumers to maximize their satisfaction.

Advertising communication process-Advertising provides reassurances to consumers once they own or use the product and fits into pre to post purchase phases of consumer decision-making process. Advertising provides persuasive communications with intent to make the consumer aware, to create the feelings of familiarity, to generate the feelings for the brand, to create the image, or to provide reminder for trial purchase.

Due to such persuasions, it is expected that the consumer is likely to change both their attitude and actions. The advertising communication process as modeled by Batra, Myers and Aaker (1998). The model shows various effects of ad exposure leading to the formation of a brand attitude which is expected to result into favourable purchase behaviour.

Advertising decisions-Advertising, being a persuasive process requires planning and decision making for the development of an advertisement, i.e. an ad or an ad campaign. Some of the key decisions include ascertaining to whom the ad would be of interest (the potential buyer), what can be said in the ad and how can it be said, when the ad should be sent, and which mass media form among the many available would provide the best vehicle to carry the advertising message to the selected audience.

More precisely, concerning the development of an ad, the various decisions include:

1. The selection of advertising objectives.

2. The selection of target audience.

3. The determination of advertising budget.

5. 4. The designing of both message strategy and tactics.

6. The selection of media and determining the media use.

7. The evaluation of the outcome of ad exposure.

In short, these can be summarized as decisions about 5 M’s, i.e. mission, money, message, media, and measurement.

In consonance with overall marketing and business plans, advertising objectives provides clarity on the role of advertising and guide the strategic decisions on the media and message both.

These advertising decisions involve many people and activities, and are not merely restricted to inform or entertain. It must seek to change or reinforce the behaviour. The consumers, therefore, need to be aware enough of persuasive intent of the advertiser no matter how restrained and informative the message is.

In view of these discussions, advertising is more appropriately defined as, ‘Controlled, identifiable persuasion by means of mass communication media’ Advertising is a persuasive communication, which is controlled in terms of what to say, how to say, when to say, where to say and whom to say.

Unlike both publicity and personal selling advertising persuasion is identifiable to the recipient both for its source and purpose. The use of mass communication media allows advertising to have a simultaneous reach to multiple audiences, thus making it different from personal selling.

A participant of advertising process-Advertising is a complex phenomenon. It involves a number of activities that form the part of process and advertiser, media, advertising and other support organizations and audiences  are the various participants of the process. Since each of the participants has specific characteristics and role related to different advertising activities, they make specific contributions in determining the effectiveness of advertising process. We will now discuss each of the participants of the process in detail to understand their nature and role in the advertising process.

Advertiser is the one who initiates the advertising process and sends some kind of advertisement through mass media. Advertiser decides about the need of advertising for product promotion, the level and type of advertising and the level of ad spend. Advertiser may belong to various categories.

He may be a producer, wholesaler, retailers, service organization, distributor, school, hospital, politician, individual, a business or non-business organization. Any government organization at local. State or national level may also be the advertiser. Each of the advertisers takes up advertising activity for selling purpose or for public relation purpose.

Advertising agency is defined as ‘An intermediary offering specialized services to some advertisers, so that they may presumably better reach (and influence) their potential customers.’ ‘Advertising agency is an independent business composed of creative and business people who develop, prepare and place advertising in media for clients seeking to find customers for their goods and services.’

The two key services that most of the agencies tend to perform for advertisers as their clients, the advertisers, are- (i) creative services and development of ads and (ii) the selection and placement of ads in the media. Both the services are fundamental to the success of an ad and they require high quality of creativity. Advertisers hire independent agencies to plan and implement in part or all their advertising efforts.

Advertising agency works in a client-agent relationship with an advertiser. It offers to the potential client a collection of specialists, e.g. copywriters, art directors, television and radio producers, researchers advertising planners and many more as per the needs of the clients.

There are agencies of varied types. Some are large agencies offering full length services to its clients; the others are small in size offering only limited services or some specialized services like media buying only. The number and size of agencies tend to vary quite often as mergers and acquisitions are a regular feature of agency business.

Support Organizations or vendors provide specialized research and other services to an advertiser and agency. Their services facilitate advertising process. Examples include freelance copywriters, photographers, market researchers, and others.

AC Neilson Company, Org-Marg are some such independent research firms that attempt to measure audience size for various media vehicles like television programmes. Some of these organizations also attempt to measure the effects of advertising in terms of its recall, recognition or attitude change.

Media in its print or broadcast form provides the channel through which advertising message is delivered to the target audience. Media providers are significant participants of advertising process as they provide media space and/or time and also assist in the selection of media type and development of an ad.

The advertising message is gathered by non-advertising content of a particular media type like television, radio or newspaper. Other media like direct mail, billboards, posters, car cards and point of purchase, however, rely solely on the advertising message to attract the attention of the target audience. In a nutshell, advertising is a form of mass persuasion and mass media is advertisers’ conduit to reach.

Target Audience is the recipient of advertising communication who uses information for decision-making purpose. On receiving advertising information, audience may decide to act if information is found suitably appropriate. Otherwise, the information may be recalled at some later date.

Advertisers necessarily need to identify and understand who the recipients of advertising message are. Their needs, preferences, media habits have direct bearing on the overall advertising strategy especially the message and media strategy.

Definitions of Advertising by Prasoon Joshi and Burt Manning  

Advertising is defined as the paid, non-personal form of communication about products or ideas by an identified sponsor through the mass media so as to inform, persuade or influence the behaviour of the target audience.

Advertising is directed to a large number of people and not to one individual. That is why we call it non-personal. Advertising is communication about products or ideas. It may inform us about the features of iPod or new smart phone or spell out the need to have a cancer check-up.

An identified sponsor is the advertising company or an NGO soliciting donations. The mass media channels are the newspapers, magazines, radio, TV which carry the advertised message so that it reaches the people at once.

The advertising message either informs about the product or persuades people to buy it. It may influence them to vote for a specific candidate. Sometimes, the message may influence us not do certain things, say drug abuse or wastage of fossil fuels.

The simplest definition of an advertisement is that it is a ‘public announcement’. In earlier times to ‘advertise’ was merely to announce or inform some ads such as the ‘classifieds’ still do the same – announce the birth, death, engagements with little or no intention to persuade. Gradually, advertising evolved as a form of persuasive communication with the public.

In a free market economy, such communication is required to make intelligent choices. John E Kennedy, Lord and Thomas Ad Agency, described advertising as ‘salesmanship in print’. Albert Lasker endorses the same definition. Till the term ‘salesman­ship in print’ was coined, advertising was, viewed as information dissemination.

Salesmanship added a new dimension to the advertising process – that of persuasive skills of a salesman. It introduced the art of persuasion and made advertising a force to reckon with. Sidney Bernstein (1990) reinforces Kennedy’s definition by describing ‘advertising as a substitute for the human salesman’. Chris Jacques, chairman, BBDO Asia-Pacific thinks that advertising is the business of creative thinking for commercial advantage.

The following two definitions of advertising are also interesting:

Prasoon Joshi, Creative Director, South and South-east Asia, McCann Erickson asserts that as advertisers, we are in the communication business. Clients come to advertising agencies, though they can give a technical brief, to communicate their message in a consumer-friendly manner. The crux of advertising is effective communication. People who cannot communi­cate should not get into this business.

“Advertising is one of the important forces which serve the public interest. It is a form of open communication between those who sell and those who buy. It is a form of advocacy – open to any company or cause that wants to argue its case. The jury is the public. Every purchase is a vote. “– Burt Manning, JWT

Definitions of Advertising   – Provided by Eminent Authors and Institutions

The term ‘advertising’ is derived from the Latin word ‘advertere’ which means ‘to turn the attention’. Every piece of advertising aims at turning the attention of the readers or the listeners or the viewers or the onlookers towards a product or a service or an idea. So, we can say anything that turns the attention to an article or a service or an idea might be well called as advertising.

Advertisement or commercial, often just advert, ad, or ad-film is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organisation that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product. Advertisement revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks.

When aired on radio or television, an advertisement is called a commercial. Advertisements of this sort have been used to promote a wide variety of goods, services and ideas since the advent of television.

Wheeler opines, “Advertising is any form of paid non-personal presentation of ideas, goods or services for the purpose of inducing people to buy.”

Advertising is defined as ‘mass communication of information intended to persuade buyers so as to maximize profits.’ (Littlefield) Advertising is “Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by business firms identified in the advertising message intended to lead to a sale immediately or eventually.”

Thus, advertising means any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor, intended to lead to a sale immediately or eventually. In short, ‘advertising is a paid form of impersonal, one-way mass communication for sales promotion.’

Salesmanship in print – Prof. Starch describes it as ‘selling in print’ i.e., presenting a commodity in print to the people in such a way that they may be induced to buy it.

Advertisement is a sort of ‘Machine made mass production method of selling.’

Definitions of Advertising by Several Authors

Advertising has been defined by several authors. Some of them are discussed here. “Advertising is paid, non-personal communication through various media by business firms.” It is always paid unlike the routine services of sales promotion, personal selling and publicity. Services for advertising are offered by advertising agencies which are experts in the areas of advertisement.

It is mass communication, for it informs and influences a large number of people. It is aimed at a big group of purchasers or potential purchasers. The medium of advertising is selected by the sponsor or the beneficiary.

Each medium of advertisement offers its own advantages, costs and drawbacks. Each is selected after due consideration of the potential market costs, expected benefits and availability. Adver­tising is aimed at a target group capable of purchasing the advertised goods.

The presentation of the sales message may be visual as well as oral. The sponsor has also been given importance under this definition. Advertising is an effective method of reaching people with product information. “Advertising is controlled, identifiable information and persuasion by means of mass communication media”.

It is considered controlled information because it has to use the time, space and content of the message effectively and economically. It is controlled because it is directed at a particular group. Advertising should not be haphazardly done to attract a number of persons without fruitful results.

It is identifiable because it identifies the product and the source of the product. The message should be definite and appealing to the target group. Persuasion is the main object of advertising. It is creative and information, and is designed to attract prospective buyers. It has been accepted by all the authors that advertising is mass communication.

Advertising management is different from mass communication by the producer. Advertising management is the main task of the advertiser who directs and controls the advertising activities. It covers analysis, and the planning, control and decision-making activities of the advertiser. Identification of markets and consumer behaviour are the vital parts of advertising management.

Definitions of Advertising   – By Famous Marketing Authors: W.J. Stanton, Robert W. Sarnoff, John J. Myers, Bay and Wheeler

The word advertising is derived from Latin root ‘Adverto’ meaning thereby ‘to turn to advertising’ i.e., anything employed to draw the attention of people towards any object or purpose. Definitions – It includes the whole process of promoting the sales. Personal selling and sales promotion get additional support only with pre-selling impact made by advertising.

It is the most common, deliberate and purposeful form of communication employed by an organization to inform, persuade and remind the target customers. A company’s message is carried by advertising media to reach the unknown group. It is a mass but paid form of communication through certain media to motivate people to make up their mind to buy the product or service to a number of potential buyers at a time. It is aimed at a group of persons and not an individual.

The communication of message may take the form of visual or oral messages for the purpose of informing and influencing the target group. The ultimate purpose underlying all advertising is increased awareness, which sooner or later turns the mind to buy the said product. It is a means of spreading the information.

This meaning is expressed by the scholars in their definitions as given below:

W.J. Stanton, “Advertising consists of all the activities involved in presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored message regarding a product, service or idea, this message, called an advertisement is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor”.

Firstly, advertising is paid form, it is commercial transaction and it is this which distinguishes from publicity.

Secondly, it is non-personal in the sense that advertising messages, visual, spoken or written, are directed at a mass audience and not at the industrial users, (i.e., it is found in case of personal selling).

Finally, advertisements are identifiable with their sponsor or originator, which is not always the case with publicity or propaganda.

Robert W. Sarnoff interestingly says that an “Advertising is the foot on the accelerator, the hand on the throttle, the spur on the flank that keeps our economy surging a head”.

Bur Manning JWT flashes it as – “one of the important forces which serve the public interest. It is a form of open communication between those who sell and those who buy. It is a form of advocacy- open to any company or cause that wants to argue its case. The jury is the public. Every purchaser is a vote.”

According to John J. Myers, “Advertising is dissemination of information concerning an idea, service or product to compel the action in accordance with interest of advertiser”.

In the words of Bay and Wheeler , “Advertising is any form of paid, non-personal presentations of ideas, goods and services for the purpose of inducing people to buy them”.

Definitions of Advertising   – Provided by R. H. Colley and William J Stanton

Advertising is a major tool that a company uses to communicate with its target buyers. The communication is about the products and services of the company, the details being presented in a very attractive manner with the intention of selling these to the target customers. Advertising uses several media to communicate with the target customers.

Advertising is absolutely inevitable to sell goods, in the present scenario because of the intense competition. It is only through advertising that a manufacturer can inform the prospective buyers about his products, convince them and make them buy his products.

The word-advertise is a derivation of the Latin term “ad vertere” which means to draw the attention.

“Advertising is paid form of mass communication, the ultimate purpose of which is to impart information, develop attitudes and induce action, beneficial to the advertising in the sale of a product or service.” — R. H. Colley

“Advertising consists of all the activities involved in presenting to an audience a non- personal, sponsor-identified, paid for message about a product or organization.” – William J Stanton

Advertising is the form of paid, non-personal communication conducted to disseminate messages. These messages are usually persuasive in nature and are used to build a brand or create awareness about a product or service, or educate for a social cause. Advertisements are created in different ways as the writer can conceive, be written, modified and injected with every aspect that can appeal to customers.

Points to be kept in mind while developing an advertising programme:

(i) Mission – The objectives of the advertisements should be carefully and neatly framed.

(ii) Money – The budget that needs to be allocated across different media types should be determined.

(iii) Message – The message the company needs to send to the customers.

(iv) Media – The platform of media the company needs to select in order to target the right customers.

(v) Measurement – The Company must have an evaluation technique for the results.

Definitions of Advertising   – As Given by Marketing Experts: R.V. Zacher and William J. Stanton

Advertising is a combination of actions taken in order to draw public attention towards any particular product or service. It is a kind of ‘paid announcement’ which the company creates in order to inform, educate and tempt the public to purchase their products or services.

The word ‘advertising’ has been derived from the Latin term ‘advertere’ which means ‘turn to’ or turning the attention towards the product. Goods are always produced in anticipation of demand. Success of a business depends upon fast sales and repeated orders. Every businessman, therefore, tries to increase the sales. In order to obtain high turnover, business enterprises now use various methods of persuading the people to buy their products.

Advertisement is the art of making yourself and your product known to die world in such a way that a desire for buying that product is created in the hearts of the people. It has been rightly pointed out that in order to fly the aeroplane of sales, advertisement acts as fuel. Advertising in fact, is a salesmanship in print. It is inevitable for increasing the volume of sales.

“Advertising is a means of communicating information pertaining to product or ideas by other than direct personal contact and on an openly paid basis with intent to sell or otherwise obtain favourable consideration.” —R. V. ZACHER

“Advertising consists- of all the activities involved in presenting to a group, a non- personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored message regarding a product, service or idea; this message called an advertisement, is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor.” —WILLIAM J. STANTON

Definitions of Advertising by John E Kennedy  

The marketing communication mix consists of five major modes of communication—(i) Advertising, (ii) Sales Promotion, (iii) Public Relations, (iv) Personal Selling and (v) Direct Marketing.

Advertising is one of the functions of marketing. Thus, advertising management is a branch of marketing management, which plays an important role in the realisation of the organisation’s objectives. Through advertising, one can attain short term objectives such as increase in the sales of a product, as well as long term objectives such as bringing behavioural changes in the attitude of the present and prospective customers.

Advertising management is made up of a system of interacting organiza­tions, with advertisers at the core of the system. Advertising management is heavily focused on the analysis, planning, control and decision-making activities of the core institution in achieving the marketing and organisation objectives. However, many other institutions are also involved in the process such as facilitating and control institutions—from advertising agency to research agencies, media, government and the competitors.

The word advertising has its origin from a Latin word ‘Advertise’ which means ‘turns on’. The dictionary meaning of the word is ‘to announce publicly or to give ‘public notice’. In the early days of advertising, people used to advertise simply to announce the availability of goods and services. It was in 1904 that John E. Kennedy dramatically changed the description of advertising to ‘salesmanship in print’.

For the first time, it was clearly stated that the ultimate win of advertising is to sell. “It is not good advertising unless it sells”. It was emphasised that advertising did not just denote thinking up with pictures or writing clear slogans, nor was the purpose of advertising to entertain. It was considered to be a serious business tool with the purpose of assisting the sales of a product.

Every advertiser pays the same tariff for a magazine or TV time. Yet a really good message can sell many times over a poor one. As an advertising professional one is expected to produce high return on investment, readership, action and sales.

According to John E. Kennedy – “Advertising is simply a way of selling something in the most effective method possible. Good advertising creates sales and not just attention”.

Definitions of Advertising   – As Defined by William J. Stanton, J. Thomas Russel and W. Roland Lane

Advertising is a form of communication. It is the presentation of an idea, image, message or information. It is objectively framed, addressing a target group to convey the theme desired to reach the specific objective and goal, designed by the advertiser. The idea behind any advertisement is to influence the target group, to generate interest and to act accordingly.

In other words, it is a process of developing an attitude and induced action, for selling goods or services. Advertisement plays the role of facilitator, to bridge the gap between the advertiser and the target group and to generate the brand image and loyalty.

According to William J. Stanton “Advertising consists of all the activities involved in presenting to a group, a non-personal, oral or visual, openly-sponsored message regarding a product, services or idea, this message is called an advertisement, is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by an identified sponsor.”

J. Thomas Russel and W. Roland Lane defined advertising as follows:

“Advertising is a message paid for by an identified sponsor and delivered through some medium of mass communication. Advertising is persuasive communication. It is not neutral; it is not unbiased; it says- ‘I am going to sell you a product or an idea.’”

From the above discussions and definitions we may identify ‘advertising’ as:

1. Any paid form,

2. Non-personal presentation and promotion,

3. Sponsored by an identified individual or organisation,

4. The presentation of ideas, messages or information,

5. Communicated through mass media,

6. Developed for generation of awareness,

7. Repeatedly focussed for persuasion and conviction,

8. Generates brand image and brand loyalty.

In marketing there are four major elements known as four P’s. They are – Product, Price, Place (Distribution) and Promotion. The promotional aspects of the marketing activities are concerned with – Advertising; Sales promotion; Personal selling; Public Relations; Publicity etc.

The marketing activities can only be organised successfully, if all the components are integrated and co-ordinated effectively to achieve the organisational objectives.

Advertising is a part of promotional-mix. The other elements are sales promotion, personal selling, public relations and publicity. Any non-personal sponsored commu­nication designed with the objective to influence the buying behaviour is treated as advertising.

Definitions of Advertising   – According to Russel H. Colley, Samuel Johnson, Albert Lasher, Stanley Resor, Leo Burnett, Claude C. Hopkins and David Ogilvy

“Adverting has become the second largest item in our corporate budget. The chips are getting so blue that top management can no longer afford to be uninformed — naive, if you will — about advertising”. — Russel H. Colley

Advertising and promotions are the avenues for the marketers to communicate with the consumers in a meaningful manner. Now a days, with the generation of myriad media outlets, marketers are looking beyond the tradi­tional methods of exposures.

Advertising and promotions are considered fastest growing dynamic and fascinating subject, for the pur­pose of study and practice. It was stated by Samuel Johnson “The trade of advertising is now so near to perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvements.”

The advertising activities encompasses multi-disciplinary aspects, like product at­tributes, knowledge of the market, role of competition, segmenting the market for targeting the audience arid knowledge of media. Consumer’s behavioural pattern, socio­economic and regulatory framework impact of globalisation, changing national and international scenario govern the advertising planning and strategies.

In the field of advertising, the exponents developed different innovative strategies. In 1900, Albert Lasher a pioneer in the field of advertising, owned the renowned adver­tising agency Lord and Thomas. According to him ‘a good advertising person should possess a sense of detail combined with a gift of grasping the big picture, and should have the potential to predict the reactions of consumers.’

Stanley Resor the head of J. Walter Thomson advertising agency, believed that an ideal agency should act ‘University of Advertising’. He hired three professors – a psychologist, an economist and a historian. Another renowned person in the field of that period Raymond Rubicam of Young and Rubicam agency, believed in the research process associated with the creativity in advertising. He inducted Dr. Gallup from North Western University to measure the readership of advertisements. Rubicam used to say, ‘The way we sell is to get read first.’

Leo Burnett , being a pioneer generated immortal campaign for ‘Marlboro’.

His few suggestions regarding creative process are as follows:

“There is an inherent drama in every product. Our No. 1 job is to dig for it and capitalize on it.”

“Steep yourself in your subject, work, like hell, and love, honour and obey your hunches.”

Claude C. Hopkins joined Lord & Thomas as a copy writer, and created famous ad campaigns for Pepsodent, Palmolive etc.

A few of his viewpoints may be cited, as follows:

“In every ad. consider only new customers. People using your product are not going to read your ads.”

“Ad writers forget they are salesmen and try to be performers. Instead of sales, they seek applause.”

“Brief ads are never key ad. Every traced ad tells a complete Story.”

Hopkins perceived the importance of brand images, long before it was actually practiced by the industry. Another exponent in the field, Bill Bernbach developed wonderful ad campaign for Volkswagen. His headline for AVIS car rental company “Avis is only No. 2 in rent a cars. So why go with-us?” proved simply overwhelming. An approach of hard confession generated a strong positive appeal among the audience targeted.

David Ogilvy the founder of Ogilvy & Mather agency believed on creativity in ad­vertising, and generation of ‘Big Ideas’. According to him ‘no idea is big unless it works for atleast 30 years’. He stressed on positioning a product in an exclusive manner to create an impact. In the advertising of ‘DOVE’, he positioned the toilet soap for dry skin, and used a promise which had won the test ‘Dove creams your skin while you bathe’.

Regarding advertising business and profession, he believed in professionalism and considered that specialisation different activities can turn the business to perfection. In his book ‘Ogilvy on Advertising’ he expressed the different diversified activities involved in the profession like, the role of ‘Copy-writers’, ‘Art Directors’, ‘Account Executives’, ‘Researchers’ etc.

Analysation and Synthesis of the opinions and views of the scholars, if summed up throw light on the various work fields of advertising agencies.

In India the advertising business took the shape of a professional stream only during 1990s. The growth of the business was recorded around 50% from 1990 to 1995, due to economic boom of the country, liberalisation process and influx of media opportunities. Economic policies opened the opportunities of global entries.

Considering the economic environment, advertising and other promotional strategies have now become the integral part of our social and economic system. The innovation of new technologies have led to the scope of introduction of new media for effective reach and exposure of the messages which in turn is developed by the dynamic marketers.

The developments of the marketing strategies have widened the range and the scope of marketing, to encompass different groups and segments of consumers advertising as a systematic and dynamic process, has generated the interest of the marketers.

Related Articles:

• Shape of the Advertising Cost Curve (With Diagram)
• Advertising: Subject-Matter and Rule of Thumb (With Diagram)
• Effectiveness of Advertisement and Its Evaluation
• Determining an Advertising Budget: 5 Methods

Major Advertising Decisions

We define advertising as any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor. Such presentation and promotion are done through a message called advertisement, which is disseminated through one or more media. The definition of advertising provides us with some important considerations.

• First, advertising differs from an advertisement. The advertisement is the message, while advertising is a process that consists of a program or a series of activities necessary to prepare the message and send it to the target market.
• Second, the public understands who is behind the advertising because the sponsor is openly identified in the advertisement.
• Third, the cost of media is paid for the message by its sponsor. These last two considerations distinguish advertising from propaganda and publicity.

Although advertising is done mostly by business enterprises, it is also used by various nonprofit organizations, professionals, and social organizations that promote their objectives to various target people.

Organizations vary in the task of handling advertising. Small companies handle advertising by someone in the sales department.

In large companies, advertising is handled by a separate department. This department performs functions like setting advertising budget, working with the agency, handling direct-mail advertising, dealer displays, and other advertising.

Most large firms employ outside advertising agencies to implement their advertising programs because these agencies offer several advantages.

5 Major Decisions in Advertising

In developing an advertising program, marketing managers must take five important decisions.

• Objectives Setting
• Budget Decisions
• Message Decisions
• Media Decisions
• Campaign Evaluation

The following figure shows major advertising decisions.

1. Objectives Setting

Developing an advertising program begins with setting advertising objectives. These objectives should be determined based on earlier decisions about the target market , positioning, and marketing mix . The marketing positioning and mix strategy dictate the role that advertising must play in the whole marketing program.

An advertising objective is a particular communication task directed towards a definite target audience within a specific time period. Advertising objectives can be classified by basic purpose-to inform, persuade, or remind.

Examples of each of these objectives are shown in the table given below:

Informative advertising is used to inform consumers about a new product or feature and to build primary demand.

For example, producers of compact-disc players first informed consumers of the sound and convenience benefits of CDs.

Persuasive advertising is used to build selective demand for a brand by persuading consumers that it offers the best quality.

For example, when compact-disc players became established, Sony began trying to persuade consumers that its brand offered the best quality for their money.

Some persuasive advertising has turned into comparison advertising, in which a company directly or indirectly compares its brand with one or more other brands.

For example, Procter & Gamble positioned Scope mouthwash against Listerine, claiming that minty-fresh Scope “fights bad breath and doesn’t give medicine breath.”

Comparison advertising has also been used for soft drinks, computers, automobiles, deodorants, toothpaste, and pain relievers.

Reminder advertising is especially important for mature products. Reminder advertising is used to keep consumers thinking about a product. Coca-Cola ads on television are designed primarily to remind people about Coca-Cola, not inform or persuade them.

2. Budget Decisions

After outlining its advertising objectives, the company moves on setting its advertising budget for each product. Adverting aims at manipulating demand for a product. The company tries to spend the amount required to achieve the sales goal.

We will discuss some specific factors that should be considered when setting the advertising budget; these factors can be stated as under :

• Stage in the Product Life-Cycle: A product in the introduction stage needs large advertising budgets to create awareness and gain consumer trial. In contrast, products in the maturity stage usually require lower budgets as a ratio to sales.
• Market Share: Brands that enjoy high-market share need more advertising budget as a percent of sales than low-share brands. Building the market or taking share from competitors requires larger advertising budgets than simply maintaining the current share.
• Competition and Clutter: In a highly competitive market where advertising spending is also large, a brand should be advertised heavily to attract buyers.
• Advertising Frequency: The advertising budget must be larger in a situation where advertising frequency is higher.
• Product Differentiation: A brand that closely resembles other brands in its product class requires heavy advertising to maintain its distinctive image. If the product differs significantly from competitors, advertising can be used to project the differences to consumers.

3. Message Decisions – Advertising Strategy

Advertising strategy has two important components; creating advertising messages and selecting advertising media.

Traditionally, most companies developed messages and media plans separately. Media planning often was considered secondary to the message creation process. The creative department first created quality advertisements.

Then the media department selected the most appropriate media for carrying these advertisements to target audiences. This, in many cases, resulted in conflict between creatives and media planners.

Today, media fragmentation, increasing media costs, and more concentrated target marketing strategies have recognized the importance of the media planning function. An advertising campaign might begin with a great message idea, followed by choice of appropriate media.

Reversely, a campaign might begin with good media potential, followed by advertisements designed to take advantage of that potential. Companies increasingly realize the benefits of planning these two important elements simultaneously.

Messages and media should blend properly so that the overall advertising campaign can be made most effective.

Creating the advertising message

A big advertising budget does not necessarily ensure the success of an advertising campaign. The same amount of spending on advertisement by more than one advertisers might produce varying results.

Studies reveal that creative advertising messages are more important than the money spent on advertising for advertising success.

Regardless of the size of the advertising budget, the success of advertising depends on the advertisement’s capacity to gain attention and communicate well.

The changing message environment

With the increase in the number and availability of media due to amazing technological advancements, the environment in which advertising message is given is also changing.

In mind, advertising messages must be better planned, more imaginative, more entertaining, more appealing, and more rewarding to the target consumers.

It goes without saying that creative advertising will assume an increasingly important role in the success of advertising.

Message strategy

Creating an advertising message starts with deciding what general message will be communicated to consumers. This requires planning a message strategy. Advertising aims at getting consumers to think about or react to the product or company in a particular way. Consumers will react only if they feel that they will benefit from doing so.

Therefore, what customer benefits can be used as advertising appeals should be identified first to develop an effective message strategy.

One approach to identify customer benefits is to talk directly to dealers, experts, and competitors. Another approach is to try to imagine consumers buying or using the product to figure out the benefits they seek. Ideally, the advertising message strategy will star directly from the company’s broader positioning strategy.

Message strategy statements should highlight the benefits and positioning points simply and directly. These strategy statements must be transformed into advertisements capable of persuading consumers to buy a product or accept some idea.

The advertiser must now develop a convincing and creative concept that will transform message strategy into distinct and appealing advertisements. Thus, simple message ideas take the shape of big ad campaigns.

The creative concept will guide the selection of specific appeals to be used in an advertising campaign. A good advertising appeal should have three characteristics.

First, it should be meaningful- indicating benefits that make the product more desirable or interesting.

Second, an appeal must be believable; consumers must believe that the product or service will give the benefits that have been claimed. However, the most meaningful and believable benefits may not be considered the best ones to feature.

Third, appeals should also be distinctive. They should clearly indicate how the product is better than the competing brands.

For example, owning a wristwatch is the most meaningful benefit because it keeps accurate time, yet few watch ads feature this benefit. Instead, watch advertisers select any of several advertising themes based on the distinctive benefits they offer.

For years, Timex has been the affordable watch that “Took a licking and kept on ticking.” In contrast, Swatch has featured style and fashion, whereas Rolex stresses luxury and status.

Message execution

The impact of the message depends on two things – what is said and how it is said. The advertiser now has to transform the creative concept into an actual ad execution that will attract the target market’s attention and interest.

The advertiser must find the style, tone, words, and format for executing the message. Different execution styles may be adopted for presenting any message, such as the following:

• Slice of life: This style shows one or more “typical” people using the product in a normal setting. For example, two mothers at a picnic discuss the nutritional benefits of Jif peanut butter.
• Life-style: This style shows how a product fits in with a particular life-style. For example, a National Dairy Board ad shows women exercising and talks about how milk adds to a healthy, active life­style.
• Fantasy: This style creates a fantasy around the product or its use. For instance, Revlon’s first ad for Jontue showed a barefoot woman in a chiffon dress coming out of an old French barn, crossing a meadow, meeting a handsome young man on a white horse, and riding away with him.
• Mood or image: This style builds a mood or image around the product, such as beauty, love, or serenity. No claim is made about the product except through suggestion. Bermuda tourism ads create such moods.
• Musical: This style shows one or more people or cartoon characters singing a song about the product. Sears intones, “Come see the softer side of Sears.”
• Personality symbol: This style creates a character that represents the product. The character might be animated (the Jolly Green Giant, Cap’s Crunch, Garfield the Cat) or real (the Marlboro man, Betty Crocker, Morris the I-Lives Cat).
• Technical expertise: This style shows the company’s expertise in making the product. Thus, Maxwell House shows one of its buyers carefully selecting the coffee beans, and Gallo tells about its many years of wine-making experience.
• Scientific evidence: This style presents a survey or scientific evidence that the brand is better or better liked than one or more other brands. For years, Crest toothpaste has used scientific evidence to convince buyers that Crest is better than other brands at fighting cavities.
• Testimonial evidence: This style features a highly believable or likable source that endorses the product. It could be a celebrity like Bill Cosby (Jell-O Pudding or Kodak film) or ordinary people saying how much they like a given product (“My doctor saidMylanta”).

4. Media Decisions – Selecting Advertising Media

The advertiser also must choose a tone for the ad. Procter & Gamble always use a positive tone. Its ads say something very positive about its products. P&G also avoids humor that might take attention away from the message. In contrast, Little Caesar’s “pizza, pizza” ads use humor- in the form of the comical Little Caesar character – to drive home the advertiser’s “Two for the price of one” message.

The advertiser must use memorable and attention-getting words in the ad. For example, the following themes on the left would have much less impact without the creative phrasing on the right:

Conclusively, format elements of an ad account for a difference in its impact and cost.

A minor change in ad design can have a major influence on its effects. The reader of an advertisement first notices its illustration.

So, the illustration must be powerful enough to draw the readers’ attention. The headline must effectively allure the reader to go through the copy.

The copy, which is the main block text in the ad, must be clear, lucid, powerful, and convincing. In the end, these three elements must go together to ensure maximum effectiveness.

Media selection involves four major steps which are:

• deciding on reach, frequency, and impact;
• Choosing among major media types;
• selecting specific media vehicles; and
• deciding on media timing.

These four steps can be stared elaborately as under:

Deciding on reach, frequency, and impact

For media selection, the advertiser must decide on the reach and frequency needed to accomplish advertising objectives. Reach is a measure of the percentage of people in the target market exposed to the ad campaign during a given span of time.

For instance, the advertiser might try to reach 80 percent of the target market during the first four months of the campaign. Frequency is the number of times the average person in the target market is exposed to an advertising message during a given period.

For example, the advertiser might expect an average exposure frequency of four. The advertiser must also decide on the expected media impact. The qualitative value of a message exposure through a given medium has to be assessed.

For example, for products needing demonstration, advertisements on television will have more impact than advertisements on the radio because television is an audio-visual medium. The same advertisement in one newspaper may be more believable than in another.

Suppose that the advertiser’s product might appeal to a market of 100,000 consumers. The goal is to reach 80,000 consumers (80 percent of 100,000).

Because the average consumer will receive four exposures, i.e., 320,000 exposures (80,000 x 4) must be bought.

If the advertiser wants 1.5 impacts (assuming 1.0 impact is the average), a rated number of exposures of 480,000 (320,000 x 1.5) must be bought.

If a thousand exposures with this impact cost $100, the advertising budget will have to be;

= (480,00 / 1000) X 100 =$48,000. The more the reach, frequency, and impact the advertiser wants, the higher the advertising budget will have to be.

Choosing among major media types

The advertiser needs to know the reach, frequency, and impact of each of the major media types for media planning. The major media types are newspapers, television, direct mail, radio, magazines, and outdoor.

In making media choices, media planners take into account many factors. The media habits of target consumers will influence media choice. For example, radio is the best media for reaching the rural population. The nature of the product also affects media choice. Detergents are best advertised on television.

Different types of media are suitable for different types of messages. A message announcing a major sale tomorrow should go through radio or newspapers. A message containing a lot of technical data might require magazines or direct mailings. Cost is also an important factor in media choice.

For example, newspaper advertising is cheaper than television advertising. The media planner considers both the total cost of using a medium and the cost per thousand exposures (the cost of reaching 1,000 people using the medium). Media impact and cost must be reviewed regularly.

This will enable the advertiser to switch over to more cost-effective media. After considering the various media characteristics, the media planner will decide how much of each medium type to use.

For example, in launching a new biscuit product, Nabisco may spend $5 lacs advertising on radio, $3 million on television, and $2 million in newspapers.

Selecting specific media vehicles

At this stage, the media planner must select the best media vehicles. Media vehicle is the specific media within each general media type, such as specific magazines, television programs, or radio programs

For example, television vehicles include “Drama Serial.”

If the advertisement is given in magazines, the media planner must consider circulation figures and the costs of different ad sizes, color options, ad positions, and frequencies for specific magazines.

The planner must then evaluate each magazine based on credibility, status, reproduction quality, editorial focus, and advertising submission deadlines. The media planner finally decides which vehicles give the maximum reach, frequency, and impact of the money.

Media planners also calculate the cost per thousand persons reached by a vehicle.

For example, if a full-page advertisement in a magazine-A cost $5,000 and a magazine-A’s readership is 40,000 people, the cost of reaching each group of 1000 persons is %125.

The same advertisement in magazine-B may cost only $3,000 but reach only 15,000 persons, the cost of reaching each group of 1000 persons is $200.

The media planner would rank each magazine by cost per thousand and prefer those magazines with a lower cost per thousand for reaching target consumers.

The media planner must consider the costs of producing ads for various media. Newspaper ads may cost hundreds, while television ads may cost thousands.

So, intelligent media planners should balance media cost measures against several media impact factors such as vehicle quality, audience attention, and vehicle’s editorial quality.

Media timing

The advertiser must also make decisions on scheduling the advertising over a specific time period – generally one year. Suppose a product’s sale reaches the maximum in October and the minimum in February.

The seller can make variations in his advertising. Advertising can be done to follow the seasonal pattern, oppose the seasonal pattern, or be the same all over the year. Most firms do some seasonal advertising while some do only yearly advertising. Bombay Sweets advertises its vermicelli only before Eids.

Finally, the advertiser has to decide on the pattern of advertisements. The advertiser may go for either ‘continuity’ or ‘pulsing.’ Scheduling ads evenly within a given period means continuity.

Scheduling ads unevenly over a given time period means pulsing. Thus 104 ads could either be scheduled at two per week during the year or pulsed in several bursts.

The objective is to advertise heavily for a short period to create awareness that carries over to the next advertising period. Advocates of pulsing maintain that it can be used to achieve the same impact as a steady schedule at a lower cost.

5. Campaign Evaluation – Advertising Effectiveness Evaluation

To ensure the maximum effectiveness of advertising, the advertiser should regularly evaluate both the communication effects and sales. This can be discussed in the following sections:

Measuring the Communication Effect

The communication effect of an ad is measured through copy testing, which tells whether the ad communicates well. Copy testing can be conducted either before or after an ad is released. There are three major ways of advertising – direct rating, portfolio tests, and laboratory tests.

• Direct Rating: Indirect rating, the advertiser exposes a consumer panel to alternative ads and asks them to rate the ads. These direct ratings indicate two things; how well the ads get attention and how they affect consumers. Although this is not a perfect measure of an ad’s actual impact, a high rating indicates a potentially more effective ad.
• Portfolio Test: In portfolio tests, consumers view or listen to a portfolio of advertisements taking sufficient time. They then are asked to recall all the ads and their content. In this process, they can be aided or unaided by the interviewer. Their recall level indicates an ad’s ability to be distinctive and its message to be understood and remembered.
• Laboratory Test: In laboratory tests, equipment is used to measure consumers’ physiological reactions to an ad such as heartbeat, blood pressure, pupil dilation, perspiration. Advertising pretests measure an ad’s attention-drawing ability. But these tests can not tell anything about the ad’s impact on beliefs, attitudes, or intentions.

Methods of post-testing ads are of two types; recall-tests and recognition tests.

• In recall tests , the advertiser asks people who have been exposed to newspapers or television programs to recall everything they can about the advertisers and products they watched. Recall scores indicate the ad’s power to be noticed and memorized.
• In recognition tests , readers are given a particular issue of a magazine. Then they are asked to point out what they recognize as having seen before. Recognition scores can be accepted as indicators of an ad’s impact in different market segments and can also compare the company’s ads with those of competitors.

Measures the Sales Effect

In reality, measuring the sales effect of advertising is harder than doing the same for communication. Advertising is not the only factor that affects sales. Product features , price, and availability are other factors that have a significant influence on sales.

One method of measuring the sales effect of advertising is to compare past sales with past advertising expenditures. This can be done by correlation analysis. Another method is through experiments.

For example, to test the effects of different advertising spending levels, “Keya” could vary the amount it spends on advertising in different market areas and measures the resulting sales levels’ differences.

It could spend the normal amount in one market area, half the normal amount in another area, and twice the normal amount in a third area.

If the three market areas are similar, and if all other marketing efforts in the area are the same, then differences in sales in the three market areas could be related to the advertising level.

Other variables, such as differences in the ads or media used, could be included to design more complex experiments.