ADVERTISING

What exactly is advertising?

Definitions of advertising

http://www.ipa.co.uk/Page/What-exactly-is-advertising



WHAT IS ADVERTISING?
Source From - http://www.fundus.org/pdf.asp?ID=51

Every day when we watch TV or read the newspaper, we come across advertisements. Advertising
persuades people to buy a certain product. It brings goods to the attention of consumers.
People who are concerned with marketing deal with:
1. Market research
2. Product development
3. Promotion

1. MARKET RESEARCH
The main idea of market research is, to find out whether a product is needed, whether people would
buy it and what kind of people that are. These people are called TARGET GROUP.
Market research is often carried out buy specialist organisations, they make market surveys and
customer tests to find out preferences in design, quality, colour and taste. This information is used to
decide whether to produce a product, how much it should cost and how it should be promoted.

2. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
There are two ways of product development. On the one hand the product-oriented companies and on
the other hand the market-oriented companies.
Product-oriented companies invest a lot of money and time in finding new or im-proved goods to sell
them on the market. This is a very risky form of product development, because companies might not
sell the new goods. So they lost a lot of money.
Market-oriented companies want to find out what is needed and then they try to develop new ways of
production or new goods.

3. PROMOTION
Promotion is very important because however good a product is, it will not find any buyers, if no one
knows about it.
If you want to sell a specialised product, all you have to do is to write to people or companies, which
are known to be interested or place an advertisement in a trade magazine. If you are not able to do this
yourself, you can instruct an advertising argency. They have the experts who can make a successful
campaign. They know how, when and where the message should be transmitted to reach most people
of the target group.
At the beginning of production, advertising will inform you what a product is like, where you can get it
and how much it costs. Later, it is necessary to persuade the people to keep on buying or attract new
customers to buy. Modern advertising uses language, pictures, sound and colours to sell the products
as well as possible.

ADVERTISING MEDIA
The best times for commercials are the times at which people wait for something special like the news
or sports. At these times advertising can be very successful, but it is also very expensive.

TV-COMMERCIALS
TV is one of the most powerful advertising medium, because you can get very detailed information
about a product. Depending on your target group you have to decide the time, when your spot shall be
shown. It is not useful broadcasting an ad about cars in the children’s programmes because this is not
your target group, they cannot buy a car.
In the afternoon there are many films on TV, which are interrupted regularly. At that time advertising
can be very expensive. In fact, TV-adverts have a strange impact. You might have noticed how well
you can remember slogans long after the spot is over.

PRINTED ADVERTISING
The prices for full-page-adverts in national newspapers are roughly the same as for TV spots, but you
can also place smaller adverts in the print media. In local newspapers you only pay a few pounds.
The problem of adverts in newspapers and magazines is, that they can attract the reader’s eyes only.
This problem can be solved by considering several factors:
• Only use right-hand pages for newspaper adverts, because you first look at the right side.
• The colour is an important fact. Red signals mean danger and colours of the dusk make us feel
comfortable and save.
• The layout and the text are also very important parts of newspaper adverts. The layout may take
the readers look at the main information, and the text is just to inform interested people.

DIRECT MAILING
Direct mailing is another form of advertising. The companies get a list of names and addresses an
send leaflets to those people who might be interested in their products. Some people find this direct
mailing irritating, wasteful and unsightly, so the leaflets land in the rubbish bin.

PRO AND CONTRAS
Some people say, that advertising persuade people to buy things they don’t need and to be wasteful,
but advertising also means creating more jobs.
Regardless whether we like advertisements or not, advertising has become indispensable in our
economies. It has become a market of its own and it offers a high number of jobs. Moreover,
advertisements are an important source of information for the public.

And there is something that we should not forget: Advertising enables us to afford such “luxuries” like
TV and newspapers, because without it, they would be considerably more expensive.



QUICK OVERVIEW

Advertising is a non-personal form of promotion that is delivered through selected media outlets that, under most circumstances, require the marketer to pay for message placement. Advertising has long been viewed as a method of mass promotion in that a single message can reach a large number of people. But, this mass promotion approach presents problems since many exposed to an advertising message may not be within the marketer’s target market, and thus, may be an inefficient use of promotional funds. However, this is changing as new advertising technologies and the emergence of new media outlets offer more options for targeted advertising.

Advertising also has a history of being considered a one-way form of marketing communication where the message receiver (i.e., target market) is not in position to immediately respond to the message (e.g., seek more information). This too is changing. For example, in the next few years technologies will be readily available to enable a television viewer to click a button to request more details on a product seen on their favorite TV program. In fact, it is expected that over the next 10-20 years advertising will move away from a one-way communication model and become one that is highly interactive.

Another characteristic that may change as advertising evolves is the view that advertising does not stimulate immediate demand for the product advertised. That is, customers cannot quickly purchase a product they see advertised. But as more media outlets allow customers to interact with the messages being delivered the ability of advertising to quickly stimulate demand will improve.

Advertising is the promotion of a product or service and is extremely pervasive in contemporary society. To maximize sales, companies will pay a premium for wide exposure through the mass media. Advertising space is common, but not restricted to these realms; billboards, public transportation, movies (product placement), schools, clothing, even bathroom stalls carry ads and the industry is constantly finding new ways to advertise.