by “Advertising consists of all activities involved in presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored identified message regarding a product, service, or idea. The message, called an advertisement, is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor”-William Stanton.
The world has become a global market. Modern market is more dynamic, competitive, and consumer-oriented. Entire marketing process is aimed at satisfying consumers more effectively than competitors. Consumer satisfaction can be achieved by receiving information from market and sending information to the market.
In order to inform, attract, and convince the valued customers, a marketer undertakes a number of promotional means. Advertising is one of the powerful means to inform about company’s total offers. Advertising is a dominant element of market promotion. Many times, the entire promotional efforts are replaced by advertising alone.
Major portion of promotion budget is consumed by advertising alone. Advertising is so powerful and popular that it is taken as equal to marketing!! Mass media are used intensively to advertise various products. Marketing without advertising seems to be impossible. Advertising works like a magic stick to actualize marketing goals!
Definitions of Advertising
We can define term ‘advertising’ as:
Advertising is a paid form of mass communication that consists of the special message sent by the specific person (advertiser or company), for the specific group of people (listeners, readers, or viewers), for the specific period of time, in the specific manner to achieve the specific goals.
More clearly, advertising can be defined as
Advertising includes oral, written, or audiovisual message addressed to the people for the purpose of informing and influencing them to buy the products or to act favorably toward idea or institution.
Philip Kotler:-
“Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods, services, or ideas by an identified sponsor.”
Frank Presbrey:-
“Advertising is a printed, written, oral and illustrated art of selling. Its objective is to encourage sales of the advertiser’s products and to create in the mind of people, individually or collectively, an impression in favour of the advertiser’s interest.”
William Stanton:-
“Advertising consists of all activities involved in presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored identified message regarding a product, service, or idea. The message, called an advertisement, is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor.”
Nature of Advertising
Above stated definitions reveal following nature
- Tool for Market Promotion
There are various tools used for market communication, such as advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, and publicity. Advertising is a powerful, expensive, and popular element of promotion mix.
- Non-personal
Advertising is a type of non-personal or mass communication with the target audience. A large number of people are addressed at time. It is called as non-personal salesmanship.
- Paid Form
Advertising is not free of costs. Advertiser, called as sponsor, has to spend money for preparing message, buying media, and monitoring advertising efforts. It is the costliest option of market promotion. Company has to prepare its advertising budget to appropriate advertising costs.
- Wide Applicability
Advertising is a popular and widely used means for communicating with the target market. It is not used only for business and profession, but is widely used by museums, charitable trusts, government agencies, educational institutions, and others to inform and attract various target publics.
- Varied Objectives
Advertising is aimed at achieving various objectives. It is targeted to increase sales, create and improve brand image, face competition, build relations with publics, or to educate people.
- Forms of Advertising
Advertising message can be expressed in written, oral, audible, or visual forms. Mostly, message is expressed in a joint form, such as oral-visual, audio-visual, etc.
- Use of Media
Advertiser can use any of the several advertising media to convey the message. Widely used media are print media (newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, booklets, letters, etc.), outdoor media (hoardings, sign boards, wall-printing, vehicle, banners, etc.), audio-visual media (radio, television, film, Internet, etc.), or any other to address the target audience.
- Advertising as an Art
Today’s advertising task is much complicated. Message creation and presentation require a good deal of knowledge, creativity, skills, and experience. So, advertising can be said as an art. It is an artful activity.
- Element of Truth
It is difficult to say that advertising message always reveals the truth. In many cases, exaggerated facts are advertised. However, due to certain legal provisions, the element of truth can be fairly assured. But, there is no guarantee that the claim made in advertisement is completely true. Most advertisements are erotic, materialistic, misleading, and producer-centered.
- One-way Communication
Advertising involves the one-way communication. Message moves from company to customers, from sponsor to audience. Message from consumers to marketer is not possible. Marketer cannot know how far the advertisement has influenced the audience.
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