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| All About Advertising |
All about Advertising
Contents: 1.History,
2.Advertising theory, 3.Types of Advertising, 4.Purpose of Advertising, 5.Media
and Advertising Approaches, 6.Rise in New Media, 7.Advertising Education, 8.Criticisms,
9.Regulation, 10.Advertising Research, 10.Semiotics, 11.Gender Effects in the
Processing of Advertising.
Advertising in business is a form of marketing
communication used to encourage, persuade, or manipulate an audience (viewers,
readers or listeners; sometimes a specific group) to take or continue to take
some action. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior
with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological
advertising is also common. This type of work belongs to a category called
affective labor.
Interesting Topics:
In Latin, ad vertere means "to turn toward".
The purpose of advertising may also be to reassure employees or shareholders
that a company is viable or successful. Advertising messages are usually paid
for by sponsors and viewed via various old media; including mass media such as
newspaper, magazines, television advertisement, radio advertisement, outdoor
advertising or direct mail; or new media such as blogs, websites or text
messages.
Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased
consumption of their products or services through "branding", which
involves associating a product name or image with certain qualities in the
minds of consumers. Non-commercial advertisers who spend money to advertise
items other than a consumer product or service include political parties,
interest groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies. Nonprofit
organizations may rely on free modes of persuasion, such as a public service
announcement (PSA).
Modern advertising was created with the innovative
techniques introduced with tobacco advertising in the 1920s, most significantly
with the campaigns of Edward Bernays, which is often considered the founder of
modern, Madison Avenue advertising.
In 2010, spending on advertising was estimated at $143
billion in the United States and $467 billion worldwide.
History
Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall
posters. Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in
the ruins of Pompeii and ancient Arabia. Lost and found advertising on papyrus
was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for
commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form,
which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America.
The tradition of wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock art paintings
that date back to 4000 BC.
In ancient China, the earliest advertising known was
oral, as recorded in the Classic of Poetry (11th to 7th centuries BC) of bamboo
flutes played to sell candy. Advertisement usually takes in the form of
calligraphic signboards and inked papers. A copper printing plate dated back to
the Song dynasty used to print posters in the form of a square sheet of paper
with a rabbit logo with "Jinan Liu’s Fine Needle Shop" and "We
buy high quality steel rods and make fine quality needles, to be ready for use
at home in no time" written above and below is considered the world's
earliest identified printed advertising medium.
In Europe, as the towns and cities of the Middle Ages
began to grow, and the general populace was unable to read, instead of signs
that read "cobbler", "miller", "tailor", or
"blacksmith" would use an image associated with their trade such as a
boot, a suit, a hat, a clock, a diamond, a horse shoe, a candle or even a bag
of flour. Fruits and vegetables were sold in the city square from the backs of
carts and wagons and their proprietors used street callers (town criers) to
announce their whereabouts for the convenience of the customers.
In the 18th century advertisements started to appear in weekly
newspapers in England. These early print advertisements were used mainly to
promote books and newspapers, which became increasingly affordable with
advances in the printing press; and medicines, which were increasingly sought
after as disease ravaged Europe. However, false advertising and so-called
"quack" advertisements became a problem, which ushered in the
regulation of advertising content.
19th Century
19th Century
Thomas J. Barratt from London has been called "the
father of modern advertising". Working for the Pears Soap company, Barratt
created an effective advertising campaign for the company products, which
involved the use of targeted slogans, images and phrases. One of his slogans,
""Good morning. Have you used Pears' soap?" was famous in its
day and into the 20th century. Under Barratt's guidance, Pears Soap became the
world's first legally registered brand.[when?]
An advertising tactic that he used was to associate the
Pears brand with high culture and quality. Most famously, he used the painting
Bubbles by John Everett Millais as an advertisement by adding a bar of Pears
soap into the foreground. (Millais protested at this alteration of his work,
but in vain as Barrat had bought the copyright.) Barratt continued this theme
with a series of adverts of well groomed middle-class children, associating
Pears with domestic comfort and aspirations of high society.
Barrat established Pears Annual in 1891 as a spin-off magazine which promoted contemporary illustration and colour printing and in 1897 added the Pears Cyclopedia a one-volume encyclopedia. From the early 20th century Pears was famous for the annual "Miss Pears" competition in which parents entered their children into the high-profile hunt for a young brand ambassador to be used on packaging and in consumer promotions. He recruited scientists and the celebrities of the day to publicly endorse the product. Lillie Langtry, a British music hall singer and stage actress with a famous ivory complexion, received income as the first woman to endorse a commercial product, advertising Pears Soap.
Barrat established Pears Annual in 1891 as a spin-off magazine which promoted contemporary illustration and colour printing and in 1897 added the Pears Cyclopedia a one-volume encyclopedia. From the early 20th century Pears was famous for the annual "Miss Pears" competition in which parents entered their children into the high-profile hunt for a young brand ambassador to be used on packaging and in consumer promotions. He recruited scientists and the celebrities of the day to publicly endorse the product. Lillie Langtry, a British music hall singer and stage actress with a famous ivory complexion, received income as the first woman to endorse a commercial product, advertising Pears Soap.
Barratt introduced many of the crucial ideas that lie
behind successful advertising and these were widely circulated in his day. He
constantly stressed the importance of a strong and exclusive brand image for
Pears and of emphasizing the product's availability through saturation
campaigns. He also understood the importance of constantly reevaluating the
market for changing tastes and mores, stating in 1907 that "tastes change,
fashions change, and the advertiser has to change with them. An idea that was
effective a generation ago would fall flat, stale, and unprofitable if
presented to the public today. Not that the idea of today is always better than
the older idea, but it is different – it hits the present taste."
As the economy expanded across the world during the 19th
century, advertising grew alongside. In the United States, the success of this
advertising format eventually led to the growth of mail-order advertising.
In June 1836, French newspaper La Presse was the first to
include paid advertising in its pages, allowing it to lower its price, extend
its readership and increase its profitability and the formula was soon copied
by all titles. Around 1840, Volney B. Palmer established the roots of the
modern day advertising agency in Philadelphia. In 1842 Palmer bought large
amounts of space in various newspapers at a discounted rate then resold the
space at higher rates to advertisers. The actual ad – the copy, layout, and
artwork – was still prepared by the company wishing to advertise; in effect,
Palmer was a space broker. The situation changed in the late 19th century when
the advertising agency of N.W. Ayer & Son was founded. Ayer and Son offered
to plan, create, and execute complete advertising campaigns for its customers.
By 1900 the advertising agency had become the focal point of creative planning,
and advertising was firmly established as a profession. Around the same time,
in France, Charles-Louis Havas extended the services of his news agency, Havas
to include advertisement brokerage, making it the first French group to
organize. At first, agencies were brokers for advertisement space in
newspapers. N. W. Ayer & Son was the first full-service agency to assume
responsibility for advertising content. N.W. Ayer opened in 1869, and was
located in Philadelphia.
20th Century
Advertising increased dramatically in the United States
as industrialization expanded the supply of manufactured products. In order to
profit from this higher rate of production, industry needed to recruit workers
as consumers of factory products. It did so through the invention of mass
marketing designed to influence the population's economic behavior on a larger
scale. In the 1910s and 1920s, advertisers in the U.S. adopted the doctrine
that human instincts could be targeted and harnessed – "sublimated"
into the desire to purchase commodities. Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund
Freud, became associated with the method and is now often considered the
founder of modern advertising.
The tobacco industry was one of the firsts to make use of
mass production, with the introduction of the Bonsack machine to roll
cigarettes. The Bonsack machine allowed the production of cigarettes for a mass
markets, and the tobacco industry needed to match such an increase in supply
with the creation of a demand from the masses through advertising. The tobacco
companies pioneered the new advertising techniques when they hired Bernays to
create positive associations with tobacco smoking.
Advertising was also used as a vehicle for cultural
assimilation, encouraging workers to exchange their traditional habits and
community structure in favor of a shared "modern" lifestyle. An
important tool for influencing immigrant workers was the American Association
of Foreign Language Newspapers (AAFLN). The AAFLN was primarily an advertising
agency but also gained heavily centralized control over much of the immigrant
press.
At the turn of the 20th century, there were few career
choices for women in business; however, advertising was one of the few. Since
women were responsible for most of the purchasing done in their household,
advertisers and agencies recognized the value of women's insight during the
creative process. In fact, the first American advertising to use a sexual sell
was created by a woman – for a soap product. Although tame by today's
standards, the advertisement featured a couple with the message "The skin
you love to touch"
Influence of early
Psychology
In the early 20th century, psychologists Walter D. Scott
and John B. Watson contributed applied psychological theory to the field of
advertising. Scott said, “Man has been called the reasoning animal but he could
with greater truthfulness be called the creature of suggestion. He is
reasonable, but he is to a greater extent suggestible”. He demonstrated this
through his advertising technique of a direct command to the consumer. The
former chair at Johns Hopkins University, John B. Watson was a highly
recognized psychologist in the 1920s. After leaving the field of academia he
turned his attention towards advertising where he implemented the concepts of
Behaviorism into advertising. This focused on appealing to the basic emotions
of the consumer: love, hate, and fear. This type of advertising proved to be
extremely effective as it suited the changing social context which lead to
heavy influence of future advertising strategy and cemented the place of
psychology in advertising.
On the Radio from the 1920s
Advertisement for a live radio broadcast, sponsored by a
milk company and published in the Los Angeles Times on May 6, 1930
In the early 1920s, the first radio stations were
established by radio equipment manufacturers and retailers who offered programs
in order to sell more radios to consumers. As time passed, many non-profit
organizations followed suit in setting up their own radio stations, and
included: schools, clubs and civic groups.
When the practice of sponsoring programs was popularized,
each individual radio program was usually sponsored by a single business in
exchange for a brief mention of the business' name at the beginning and end of
the sponsored shows. However, radio station owners soon realized they could
earn more money by selling sponsorship rights in small time allocations to
multiple businesses throughout their radio station's broadcasts, rather than
selling the sponsorship rights to single businesses per show.
Public Service Advertising
The advertising techniques used to promote commercial
goods and services can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about
non-commercial issues, such as HIV/AIDS, political ideology, energy
conservation and deforestation.
Advertising, in its non-commercial guise, is a powerful
educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences.
"Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest – it
is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes."
Attributed to Howard Gossage by David Ogilvy.
Public service advertising, non-commercial advertising,
public interest advertising, cause marketing, and social marketing are
different terms for (or aspects of) the use of sophisticated advertising and
marketing communications techniques (generally associated with commercial
enterprise) on behalf of non-commercial, public interest issues and
initiatives.
In the United States, the granting of television and
radio licenses by the FCC is contingent upon the station broadcasting a certain
amount of public service advertising. To meet these requirements, many
broadcast stations in America air the bulk of their required public service
announcements during the late night or early morning when the smallest
percentage of viewers are watching, leaving more day and prime time commercial
slots available for high-paying advertisers.
Public service advertising reached its height during
World War I and World War II under the direction of more than one government.
During WWII President Roosevelt commissioned the creation of The War
Advertising Council (now known as the Ad Council) which is the nation's largest
developer of PSA campaigns on behalf of government agencies and non-profit
organizations, including the longest-running PSA campaign, Smokey Bear.
Commercial Television in the
1950s
This practice was carried over to commercial television
in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A fierce battle was fought between those
seeking to commercialise the radio and people who argued that the radio
spectrum should be considered a part of the commons – to be used only
non-commercially and for the public good. The United Kingdom pursued a public
funding model for the BBC, originally a private company, the British
Broadcasting Company, but incorporated as a public body by Royal Charter in
1927. In Canada, advocates like Graham Spry were likewise able to persuade the
federal government to adopt a public funding model, creating the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation. However, in the United States, the capitalist model
prevailed with the passage of the Communications Act of 1934 which created the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). However, the U.S. Congress did require
commercial broadcasting companies to operate in the "public interest,
convenience, and necessity". Public broadcasting now exists in the United
States due to the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act which led to the Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).
In the early 1950s, the DuMont Television Network began
the modern practice of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsors.
Previously, DuMont had trouble finding sponsors for many of their programs and
compensated by selling smaller blocks of advertising time to several
businesses. This eventually became the standard for the commercial television
industry in the United States. However, it was still a common practice to have
single sponsor shows, such as The United States Steel Hour. In some instances
the sponsors exercised great control over the content of the show – up to and
including having one's advertising agency actually writing the show. The single
sponsor model is much less prevalent now, a notable exception being the
Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Media Diversification in the
1960s
In the 1960s, campaigns featuring heavy spending in
different mass media channels became more prominent. For example, the Esso
gasoline company spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a brand awareness
campaign built around the simple and alliterative[28] theme Put a Tiger in Your
Tank. Psychologist Ernest Dichter and DDB Worldwide copywriter Sandy Sulcer
learned that motorists desired both power and play while driving, and chose the
tiger as an easy-to-remember symbol to communicate those feelings. The North
American and later European campaign featured extensive television and radio
and magazine ads, including photos with tiger tails supposedly emerging from
car gas tanks, promotional events featuring real tigers, billboards, and in
Europe station pump hoses "wrapped in tiger stripes" as well as pop
music songs. Tiger imagery can still be seen on the pumps of successor firm
ExxonMobil.
Cable Television from the
1980s
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of
cable television and particularly MTV. Pioneering the concept of the music
video, MTV ushered in a new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in for the
advertising message, rather than it being a by-product or afterthought. As
cable and satellite television became increasingly prevalent, specialty
channels emerged, including channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as
QVC, Home Shopping Network, and ShopTV Canada.
On the Internet from the
1990s
With the advent of the ad server, marketing through the
Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers and contributed to the
"dot-com" boom of the 1990s. Entire corporations operated solely on
advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access.
At the turn of the 20th to 21st century, a number of websites, including the
search engine Google, started a change in online advertising by emphasizing
contextually relevant ads based on an individual's browsing interests. This has
led to a plethora of similar efforts and an increasing trend of interactive advertising.
The share of advertising spending relative to GDP has
changed little across large changes in media. For example, in the US in 1925,
the main advertising media were newspapers, magazines, signs on streetcars, and
outdoor posters. Advertising spending as a share of GDP was about 2.9 percent.
By 1998, television and radio had become major advertising media. Nonetheless,
advertising spending as a share of GDP was slightly lower – about 2.4 percent.
A recent advertising innovation is "guerrilla marketing",
which involves unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public places,
giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages, and
interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the
advertising message. Guerrilla advertising is becoming increasingly more
popular with a lot of companies. This type of advertising is unpredictable and
innovative, which causes consumers to buy the product or idea. This reflects an
increasing trend of interactive and "embedded" ads, such as via
product placement, having consumers vote through text messages, and various
innovations utilizing social network services such as Facebook or Twitter.
The advertising business model has also been adapted in
recent years. A new development is media for equity. Here, advertising is not
sold, but provided to start-up companies in return for equity. If the company
grows and is sold, media companies receive cash for their shares.
Domain owners (usually those who buy domains as an investment)
sometimes "park" their domains and allow advertising companies to
place ads on their sites in return for a per-click payment.
Advertising theory
Hierarchy-of-effects Models
Various competing models of hierarchies of effects
attempt to provide a theoretical underpinning to advertising practice.
The model of Clow and Baack clarifies the objectives of
an advertising campaign and for each individual advertisement. The model
postulates six steps a buyer moves through when making a purchase:
- Awareness
- Knowledge
- Liking
- Preference
- Conviction
- Purchase
Means-End Theory suggests that an advertisement should
contain a message or means that leads the consumer to a desired end-state.
Leverage Points aim to move the consumer from
understanding a product's benefits to linking those benefits with personal
values.
Marketing Mix
The marketing mix has been a key concept to advertising,
it was proposed by professor E. Jerome McCarthy in the 1960s. The marketing mix
consists of four basic elements called the four P's. Product is the first P
representing the actual product. Price represents the process of determining
the value of a product. Place represents the variables of getting the product
to the consumer such as distribution channels, market coverage and movement
organization. The last P stands for Promotion which is the process of reaching
the target market and convincing them to buy the product.
Types of Advertising
Virtually any medium can be used for advertising.
Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street
furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and
television adverts, web banners, mobile telephone screens, shopping carts, web
popups, skywriting, bus stop benches, human billboards and forehead
advertising, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, banners
attached to or sides of airplanes ("logojets"), in-flight
advertisements on seatback tray tables or overhead storage bins, taxicab doors,
roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage shows, subway platforms and
trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers, doors of bathroom stalls, stickers
on apples in supermarkets, shopping cart handles (grabertising), the opening
section of streaming audio and video, posters, and the backs of event tickets
and supermarket receipts. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to
deliver their message through a medium is advertising.
Television Advertising /
Music in Advertising
The television commercial is generally considered[by
whom?] the most effective mass-market advertising format, as is reflected by
the high prices television networks charge for commercial airtime during
popular events. The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is
known as the most prominent advertising event on television.[citation needed]
The average cost of a single thirty-second television spot during this game
reached US$3.5 million in 2012. Virtual advertisements may be inserted into
regular programming through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into
otherwise blank backdrops or used to replace local billboards that are not
relevant to the remote broadcast audience. More controversially, virtual
billboards may be inserted into the background where none exist in real-life.
This technique is especially used in televised sporting events. Virtual product
placement is also possible.
Infomercials
An infomercial is a long-format television commercial,
typically five minutes or longer. The word "infomercial" is a
portmanteau of the words "information" and "commercial".
The main objective in an infomercial is to create an impulse purchase, so that
the target sees the presentation and then immediately buys the product through
the advertised toll-free telephone number or website. Infomercials describe,
display, and often demonstrate products and their features, and commonly have
testimonials from customers and industry professionals.
Radio Advertising
Radio advertising is a form of advertising via the medium
of radio. Radio advertisements are broadcast as radio waves to the air from a
transmitter to an antenna and a thus to a receiving device. Airtime is
purchased from a station or network in exchange for airing the commercials.
While radio has the limitation of being restricted to sound, proponents of
radio advertising often cite this as an advantage. Radio is an expanding medium
that can be found not only on air, but also online. According to Arbitron,
radio has approximately 241.6 million weekly listeners, or more than 93 percent
of the U.S. population.
Online Advertising
Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the
Internet and World Wide Web for the expressed purpose of delivering marketing
messages to attract customers. Online ads are delivered by an ad server.
Examples of online advertising include contextual ads that appear on search
engine results pages, banner ads, in text ads, Rich Media Ads, Social network
advertising, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail
marketing, including e-mail spam.
New Media
Technological development and economic globalization
favors the emergence of new communication channels and new techniques of
commercial messaging.
Product Placements
Covert advertising is when a product or brand is embedded
in entertainment and media. For example, in a film, the main character can use
an item or other of a definite brand, as in the movie Minority Report, where
Tom Cruise's character John Anderton owns a phone with the Nokia logo clearly
written in the top corner, or his watch engraved with the Bulgari logo. Another
example of advertising in film is in I, Robot, where main character played by
Will Smith mentions his Converse shoes several times, calling them
"classics", because the film is set far in the future. I, Robot and
Spaceballs also showcase futuristic cars with the Audi and Mercedes-Benz logos
clearly displayed on the front of the vehicles. Cadillac chose to advertise in
the movie The Matrix Reloaded, which as a result contained many scenes in which
Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for Omega Watches, Ford,
VAIO, BMW and Aston Martin cars are featured in recent James Bond films, most
notably Casino Royale. In "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver
Surfer", the main transport vehicle shows a large Dodge logo on the front.
Blade Runner includes some of the most obvious product placement; the whole
film stops to show a Coca-Cola billboard.
Press Advertising
Press advertising describes advertising in a printed
medium such as a newspaper, magazine, or trade journal. This encompasses
everything from media with a very broad readership base, such as a major
national newspaper or magazine, to more narrowly targeted media such as local
newspapers and trade journals on very specialized topics. A form of press
advertising is classified advertising, which allows private individuals or
companies to purchase a small, narrowly targeted ad for a low fee advertising a
product or service. Another form of press advertising is the Display Ad, which
is a larger ad (can include art) that typically run in an article section of a
newspaper.
Billboard Advertising
Billboards are large structures located in public places
which display advertisements to passing pedestrians and motorists. Most often,
they are located on main roads with a large amount of passing motor and
pedestrian traffic; however, they can be placed in any location with large
amounts of viewers, such as on mass transit vehicles and in stations, in
shopping malls or office buildings, and in stadiums.
The RedEye newspaper advertised to its target market at
North Avenue Beach with a sailboat billboard on Lake Michigan.
Mobile Billboard Advertising
Mobile billboards are generally vehicle mounted
billboards or digital screens. These can be on dedicated vehicles built solely
for carrying advertisements along routes preselected by clients, they can also
be specially equipped cargo trucks or, in some cases, large banners strewn from
planes. The billboards are often lighted; some being backlit, and others
employing spotlights. Some billboard displays are static, while others change;
for example, continuously or periodically rotating among a set of
advertisements. Mobile displays are used for various situations in metropolitan
areas throughout the world, including: Target advertising, One-day, and long-term
campaigns, Conventions, Sporting events, Store openings and similar promotional
events, and Big advertisements from smaller companies.
In-store Advertising
In-store advertising is any advertisement placed in a
retail store. It includes placement of a product in visible locations in a
store, such as at eye level, at the ends of aisles and near checkout counters
(aka POP – Point of Purchase display), eye-catching displays promoting a
specific product, and advertisements in such places as shopping carts and
in-store video displays.
Coffee Cup Advertising
Coffee cup advertising is any advertisement placed upon a
coffee cup that is distributed out of an office, café, or drive-through coffee
shop. This form of advertising was first popularized in Australia, and has
begun growing in popularity in the United States, India, and parts of the
Middle East.
Street Advertising
This type of advertising first came to prominence in the
UK by Street Advertising Services to create outdoor advertising on street
furniture and pavements. Working with products such as Reverse Graffiti, air
dancers and 3D pavement advertising, the media became an affordable and
effective tool for getting brand messages out into public spaces.
Sheltered Outdoor
Advertising
This type of advertising opens the possibility of
combining outdoor with indoor advertisement by placing large mobile, structures
(tents) in public places on temporary bases. The large outer advertising space
exerts a strong pull on the observer, the product is promoted indoor, where the
creative decor can intensify the impression.
Celebrity Branding
This type of advertising focuses upon using celebrity
power, fame, money, popularity to gain recognition for their products and
promote specific stores or products. Advertisers often advertise their
products, for example, when celebrities share their favorite products or wear
clothes by specific brands or designers. Celebrities are often involved in
advertising campaigns such as television or print adverts to advertise specific
or general products. The use of celebrities to endorse a brand can have its
downsides, however. One mistake by a celebrity can be detrimental to the public
relations of a brand. For example, following his performance of eight gold
medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, swimmer Michael Phelps'
contract with Kellogg's was terminated, as Kellogg's did not want to associate
with him after he was photographed smoking marijuana. Celebrities such as
Britney Spears have advertised for multiple products including Pepsi, Candies
from Kohl's, Twister, NASCAR, Toyota and many more.
Customer-Generated Advertising
This involves getting customers to generate advertising
through blogs, websites, wikis and forums, for some kind of payment.
Aerial Advertising
Using aircraft, balloons or airships to create or display
advertising media. Skywriting is a notable example.
Purpose of Advertising
Advertising is at the front of delivering the proper
message to customers and prospective customers. The purpose of advertising is
to convince customers that a company's services or products are the best,
enhance the image of the company, point out and create a need for products or
services, demonstrate new uses for established products, announce new products
and programs, reinforce the salespeople's individual messages, draw customers
to the business, and to hold existing customers.
Sales promotions
Sales promotions are another way to advertise. Sales
promotions are double purposed because they are used to gather information
about what type of customers one draws in and where they are, and to jumpstart
sales. Sales promotions include things like contests and games, sweepstakes,
product giveaways, samples coupons, loyalty programs, and discounts. The
ultimate goal of sales promotions is to stimulate potential customers to
action.
Media and Advertising
Approaches
Increasingly, other media are overtaking many of the
"traditional" media such as television, radio and newspaper because
of a shift toward the usage of the Internet for news and music as well as
devices like digital video recorders (DVRs) such as TiVo.
Digital signage is poised to become a major mass media
because of its ability to reach larger audiences for less money. Digital
signage also offers the unique ability to see the target audience where they
are reached by the medium. Technological advances have also made it possible to
control the message on digital signage with much precision, enabling the
messages to be relevant to the target audience at any given time and location
which in turn, gets more response from the advertising. Digital signage is
being successfully employed in supermarkets. Another successful use of digital
signage is in hospitality locations such as restaurants and malls.
Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon.
Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the
"relevance" of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the
website receives.
Reasons for online display advertising: Display ads
generate awareness quickly. Unlike search, which requires someone to be aware
of a need, display advertising can drive awareness of something new and without
previous knowledge. Display works well for direct response. Display is not only
used for generating awareness, it’s used for direct response campaigns that
link to a landing page with a clear ‘call to action’.
E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon.
Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising is known as "e-mail spam". Spam
has been a problem for e-mail users for many years.
A new form of advertising that is growing rapidly is
social network advertising. It is online advertising with a focus on social
networking sites. This is a relatively immature market, but it has shown a lot
of promise as advertisers are able to take advantage of the demographic
information the user has provided to the social networking site. Friendertising
is a more precise advertising term in which people are able to direct
advertisements toward others directly using social network services.
As the mobile phone became a new mass media in 1998 when
the first paid downloadable content appeared on mobile phones in Finland, it
was only a matter of time until mobile advertising followed, also first
launched in Finland in 2000. By 2007 the value of mobile advertising had
reached $2 billion and providers such as Admob delivered billions of mobile
ads.
More advanced mobile ads include banner ads, coupons,
Multimedia Messaging Service picture and video messages, advergames and various
engagement marketing campaigns. A particular feature driving mobile ads is the
2D barcode, which replaces the need to do any typing of web addresses, and uses
the camera feature of modern phones to gain immediate access to web content. 83
percent of Japanese mobile phone users already are active users of 2D barcodes.
Some companies have proposed placing messages or
corporate logos on the side of booster rockets and the International Space
Station.
Unpaid advertising (also called "publicity
advertising"), can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal
recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it"), spreading
buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun (in the
United States, "Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex"
= tissue, "Vaseline" = petroleum jelly, "Hoover" = vacuum
cleaner, and "Band-Aid" = adhesive bandage) – these can be seen as
the pinnacle of any advertising campaign. However, some companies oppose the
use of their brand name to label an object. Equating a brand with a common noun
also risks turning that brand into a genericized trademark – turning it into a
generic term which means that its legal protection as a trademark is lost.
From time to time, The CW Television Network airs short
programming breaks called "Content Wraps", to advertise one company's
product during an entire commercial break. The CW pioneered "content
wraps" and some products featured were Herbal Essences, Crest, Guitar Hero
II, CoverGirl, and recently Toyota.
A new promotion concept has appeared,
"ARvertising", advertising on Augmented Reality technology.
Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal
advertising, and the pervasiveness of mass messages.
Rise in New Media
With the Internet came many new advertising
opportunities. Popup, Flash, banner, Popunder, advergaming, and email
advertisements (all of which are often unwanted or spam in the case of email)
are now commonplace. Particularly since the rise of "entertaining"
advertising, some people may like an advertisement enough to wish to watch it
later or show a friend. In general, the advertising community has not yet made
this easy, although some have used the Internet to widely distribute their ads
to anyone willing to see or hear them. In the last three-quarters of 2009
mobile and internet advertising grew by 18% and 9% respectively. Older media
advertising saw declines: −10.1% (TV), −11.7% (radio), −14.8% (magazines) and
−18.7% (newspapers).
Niche Marketing
Another significant trend regarding future of advertising
is the growing importance of the niche market using niche or targeted ads. Also
brought about by the Internet and the theory of The Long Tail, advertisers will
have an increasing ability to reach specific audiences. In the past, the most
efficient way to deliver a message was to blanket the largest mass market
audience possible. However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing
popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs to social
networking sites, provide advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much
better defined, leading to ads that are more relevant to viewers and more
effective for companies' marketing products. Among others, Comcast Spotlight is
one such advertiser employing this method in their video on demand menus. These
advertisements are targeted to a specific group and can be viewed by anyone
wishing to find out more about a particular business or practice at any time,
right from their home. This causes the viewer to become proactive and actually
choose what advertisements they want to view.
Google AdSense is an example of niche marketing. Google
calculates the primary purpose of a website and adjusts ads accordingly; it
uses key words on the page (or even in emails) to find the general ideas of
topics disused and places ads that will most likely be clicked on by viewers of
the email account or website visitors.
Crowdsourcing
The concept of crowdsourcing has given way to the trend
of user-generated advertisements. User-generated ads are created by people, as
opposed to an advertising agency or the company themselves, often resulting
from brand sponsored advertising competitions. For the 2007 Super Bowl, the
Frito-Lays division of PepsiCo held the Crash the Super Bowl contest, allowing
people to create their own Doritos commercial. Chevrolet held a similar
competition for their Tahoe line of SUVs. Due to the success of the Doritos
user-generated ads in the 2007 Super Bowl, Frito-Lays relaunched the
competition for the 2009 and 2010 Super Bowl. The resulting ads were among the
most-watched and most-liked Super Bowl ads. In fact, the winning ad that aired
in the 2009 Super Bowl was ranked by the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter as the
top ad for the year while the winning ads that aired in the 2010 Super Bowl
were found by Nielsen's BuzzMetrics to be the "most buzzed-about".
This trend has given rise to several online platforms
that host user-generated advertising competitions on behalf of a company.
Founded in 2007, Zooppa has launched ad competitions for brands such as Google,
Nike, Hershey's, General Mills, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Zinio, and Mini
Cooper. Crowdsourced advertisements have gained popularity in part to its cost
effective nature, high customer engagement, and ability to generate
word-of-mouth. However, it remains controversial, as the long-term impact on
the advertising industry is still unclear.
Global Advertising
Advertising has gone through five major stages of
development: domestic, export, international, multi-national, and global. For
global advertisers, there are four, potentially competing, business objectives
that must be balanced when developing worldwide advertising: building a brand
while speaking with one voice, developing economies of scale in the creative
process, maximising local effectiveness of ads, and increasing the company's
speed of implementation. Born from the evolutionary stages of global marketing
are the three primary and fundamentally different approaches to the development
of global advertising executions: exporting executions, producing local
executions, and importing ideas that travel.
Advertising research is key to determining the success of
an ad in any country or region. The ability to identify which elements and/or
moments of an ad contribute to its success is how economies of scale are
maximised. Once one knows what works in an ad, that idea or ideas can be
imported by any other market. Market research measures, such as Flow of
Attention, Flow of Emotion and branding moments provide insight into what is
working in an ad in any country or region because the measures are based on the
visual, not verbal, elements of the ad.
Foreign Public Messaging
Foreign governments, particularly those that own marketable
commercial products or services, often promote their interests and positions
through the advertising of those goods because the target audience is not only
largely unaware of the forum as a vehicle for foreign messaging but also
willing to receive the message while in a mental state of absorbing information
from advertisements during television commercial breaks, while reading a
periodical, or while passing by billboards in public spaces. A prime example of
this messaging technique is advertising campaigns to promote international
travel. While advertising foreign destinations and services may stem from the
typical goal of increasing revenue by drawing more tourism, some travel
campaigns carry the additional or alternative intended purpose of promoting
good sentiments or improving existing ones among the target audience towards a
given nation or region. It is common for advertising promoting foreign
countries to be produced and distributed by the tourism ministries of those
countries, so these ads often carry political statements and/or depictions of
the foreign government's desired international public perception. Additionally,
a wide range of foreign airlines and travel-related services which advertise
separately from the destinations, themselves, are owned by their respective
governments; examples include, though are not limited to, the Emirates airline
(Dubai), Singapore Airlines (Singapore), Qatar Airways (Qatar), China Airlines
(Taiwan/Republic of China), and Air China (People's Republic of China). By
depicting their destinations, airlines, and other services in a favorable and
pleasant light, countries market themselves to populations abroad in a manner
that could mitigate prior public impressions.
Diversification
In the realm of advertising agencies, continued industry
diversification has seen observers note that "big global clients don't
need big global agencies any more". This is reflected by the growth of
non-traditional agencies in various global markets, such as Canadian business TAXI
and SMART in Australia and has been referred to as "a revolution in the ad
world".
New Technology
The ability to record shows on digital video recorders
(such as TiVo) allow watchers to record the programs for later viewing,
enabling them to fast forward through commercials. Additionally, as more
seasons of pre-recorded box sets are offered for sale of television programs;
fewer people watch the shows on TV. However, the fact that these sets are sold,
means the company will receive additional profits from the these sets.
To counter this effect, a variety of strategies have been
employed. Many advertisers have opted for product placement on TV shows like
Survivor. Other strategies include integrating advertising with
internet-connected EPGs, advertising on companion devices (like smartphones and
tablets) during the show, and creating TV apps. Additionally, some like brands
have opted for social television sponsorship.
Advertising Education
Advertising education has become popular with bachelor,
master and doctorate degrees becoming available in the emphasis. A surge in
advertising interest is typically attributed to the strong relationship
advertising plays in cultural and technological changes, such as the advance of
online social networking. A unique model for teaching advertising is the
student-run advertising agency, where advertising students create campaigns for
real companies. Organizations such as American Advertising Federation and AdU
Network partner established companies with students to create these campaigns.
Criticisms
While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic
growth, it is not without social costs. Unsolicited commercial e-mail and other
forms of spam have become so prevalent as to have become a major nuisance to
users of these services, as well as being a financial burden on internet
service providers. Advertising is increasingly invading public spaces, such as
schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation. In addition,
advertising frequently uses psychological pressure (for example, appealing to
feelings of inadequacy) on the intended consumer, which may be harmful. Many
even feel that often, advertisements exploit the desires of a consumer, by
making a particular product more appealing, by manipulating the consumer's needs
and wants.
Regulation
There have been increasing efforts to protect the public
interest by regulating the content and the influence of advertising. Some
examples are: the ban on television tobacco advertising imposed in many
countries, and the total ban of advertising to children under 12 imposed by the
Swedish government in 1991. Though that regulation continues in effect for
broadcasts originating within the country, it has been weakened by the European
Court of Justice, which had found that Sweden was obliged to accept foreign
programming, including those from neighboring countries or via satellite.
Greece's regulations are of a similar nature, "banning advertisements for
children's toys between 7 am and 10 pm and a total ban on advertisement for war
toys".
In Europe and elsewhere, there is a vigorous debate on
whether (or how much) advertising to children should be regulated. This debate
was exacerbated by a report released by the Kaiser Family Foundation in
February 2004 which suggested fast food advertising that targets children was
an important factor in the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States.
In New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Canada, and many European countries, the advertising industry operates a system
of self-regulation. Advertisers, advertising agencies and the media agree on a
code of advertising standards that they attempt to uphold. The general aim of
such codes is to ensure that any advertising is 'legal, decent, honest and
truthful'. Some self-regulatory organizations are funded by the industry, but
remain independent, with the intent of upholding the standards or codes like
the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK.
In the UK, most forms of outdoor advertising such as the
display of billboards is regulated by the UK Town and County Planning system.
Currently, the display of an advertisement without consent from the Planning
Authority is a criminal offense liable to a fine of £2,500 per offence. All of
the major outdoor billboard companies in the UK have convictions of this nature.
In the US, many communities believe that many forms of
outdoor advertising blight the public realm. As long ago as the 1960s in the US
there were attempts to ban billboard advertising in the open countryside.
Cities such as São Paulo have introduced an outright ban with London also
having specific legislation to control unlawful displays.
Many advertisers employ a wide-variety of linguistic
devices to bypass regulatory laws (e.g. In France, printing English words in
bold and French translations in fine print to deal with the Article 120 of the
1994 Toubon Law limiting the use of English). The advertisement of
controversial products such as cigarettes and condoms are subject to government
regulation in many countries. For instance, the tobacco industry is required by
law in most countries to display warnings cautioning consumers about the health
hazards of their products. Linguistic variation is often used by advertisers as
a creative device to reduce the impact of such requirements.
Advertising Research
Advertising research is a specialized form of research
that works to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of advertising. It
entails numerous forms of research which employ different methodologies.
Advertising research includes pre-testing (also known as copy testing) and
post-testing of ads and/or campaigns – pre-testing is done before an ad airs to
gauge how well it will perform and post-testing is done after an ad airs to
determine the in-market impact of the ad or campaign. Continuous ad tracking
and the Communicus System are competing examples of post-testing advertising
research types.
Semiotics
Today's culture is made up of meanings between consumers
and marketers. These meanings depict signs and symbols that are encoded in
everyday objects. Semiotics is the study of signs and how they are interpreted.
Advertising has many hidden signs and meanings within brand names, logos,
package designs, print advertisements, and television advertisements. The
purpose of semiotics is to study and interpret the message being conveyed in
advertisements. Logos and advertisements can be interpreted at two levels known
as the surface level and the underlying level. The surface level uses signs
creatively to create an image or personality for their product. These signs can
be images, words, fonts, colors, or slogan. The underlying level is made up of
hidden meanings. The combination of images, words, colors, and slogan must be
interpreted by the audience or consumer. The "key to advertising
analysis" is the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the object
and the signified is the mental concept. A product has a signifier and a
signified. The signifier is the color, brand name, logo design, and technology.
The signified has two meanings known as denotative and connotative. The
denotative meaning is the meaning of the product. A television’s denotative
meaning would be that it is high definition. The connotative meaning is the
product’s deep and hidden meaning. A connotative meaning of a television would
be that it is top of the line.
Apple is an excellent example of using semiotics in their
advertising campaign. Apple's commercials used a black silhouette of a person
that was the age of Apple's target market. They placed the silhouette in front
of a blue screen so that the picture behind the silhouette could be constantly
changing. However, the one thing that stays the same in these ads is that there
is music in the background and the silhouette is listening to that music on a
white iPod through white headphones. Through advertising, the white color on a
set of earphones now signifies that the music device is an iPod. The white
color signifies almost all of Apple's products.
The semiotics of gender plays a key influence on the way
in which signs are interpreted. When considering gender roles in advertising,
individuals are influenced by three categories. Certain characteristics of
stimuli may enhance or decrease the elaboration of the message (if the product
is perceived as feminine or masculine). Second, the characteristics of
individuals can affect attention and elaboration of the message (traditional or
non-traditional gender role orientation). Lastly, situational factors may be
important to influence the elaboration of the message.
There are two types of marketing communication
claims-objective and subjective. Objective claims stem from the extent to which
the claim associates the brand with a tangible product or service feature. For
instance, the camera has auto focus features. Subjective claims convey emotional,
subjective, impressions of intangible aspects of a product or service. They are
non-physical features of a product or service that cannot be directly
perceived, as they have no physical reality. For instance the brochure has a
beautiful design. Males tend to respond better to objective marketing
communications claims while females tend to respond better to subjective
marketing communications claims.
In advertisements, men are represented as independent.
They are shown in more occupations than women. Women are represented mainly as
housewives and mothers. Men are more likely to be shown advertising cars or
business products, while women advertise domestic products. Men are more likely
to be shown outdoors or in business settings. Women are depicted in domestic
settings. Men are more often portrayed as authorities. As far as ads go, with
age men seem to gain wisdom and authority. On the other hand women seem to
disappear with age. Voiceovers are commonly used in advertising. Most
voiceovers are men (figures of up to 94% have been reported). There have been
more female voiceovers in recent years but mainly for food, household products,
and feminine care products.
Gender Effects in the
Processing of Advertising
According to a 1977 study by David Statt, females process
information comprehensively, while males process information through heuristic
devices such as procedures, methods or strategies for solving problems, which
could have an effect on how they interpret advertising. According to this
study, men prefer to have available and apparent cues to interpret the message
where females engage in more creative, associative, imagery-laced
interpretation. Later research by a Danish team found that advertising attempts
to persuade men to improve their appearance or performance, whereas its
approach to women is aimed at transformation toward an impossible ideal of
female presentation. Advertising's manipulation of women's aspiration to these
ideal types, as they are portrayed in film, in erotic art, in advertising, on
stage, music video, and other media exposures, requires at least a conditioned
rejection of female reality, and thereby takes on a highly ideological cast.
Not everyone agrees: one critic viewed this monologic, gender-specific
interpretation of advertising as excessively skewed and politicized.
More recently, research by Martin (2003) reveals that
males and females differ in how they react to advertising depending on their
mood at the time of exposure to the ads, and the affective tone of the
advertising. When feeling sad, males prefer happy ads to boost their mood. In
contrast, females prefer happy ads when they are feeling happy. The television
programs in which the ads are embedded are shown to influence a viewer's mood
state.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising
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