Advertising

“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.”

Characteristics of Advertising

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

Functions of Advertising

Advertising has become an essential marketing activity in the modern era of large-scale production and severe competition in the market.

1. Promotion of Sales

Advertising promotes the sale of goods and services by informing and persuading the people to buy them. A good advertising campaign helps in winning customers and generating revenues.

2. Introduction of New Products

Advertising helps in the introduction of new products in the market. A business enterprise can introduce itself and its products to the public through advertising. Advertising enables quick publicity in the market.

3. Support to Production System

Advertising facilitates large-scale production. The business firm knows that it will be able to sell on a large-scale with the help of advertising. Mass production will reduce the cost of production per unit by making possible the economical use of various factors of production.

4. Increasing Standard of Living

Advertising educates the people about the products and their uses. It is advertising which has helped people in adopting new ways of life and giving up old habits. It has contributed a lot towards the betterment of the standard of living of the society.

5. Public Image

Advertising builds up the reputation of the advertiser. Advertising enables a business firm to communicate its achievements and its efforts to satisfy the customers’ needs to the public. This increases the goodwill and reputation of the firm.

6. Support to Media

Advertising sustains press. Advertising provides an important source of revenue to the publishers of newspapers and magazines and the producers of T.V. programmes.

Benefits to Manufacturers and Traders

It pays to advertise. Advertising has become indispensable for the manufacturers and distributors because of the following advantages:

(i) Advertising helps in introducing new products. A business enterprise can introduce itself and its products to the public through advertising.

(ii) Advertising develops new taste among the public and stimulates them to purchase the new product through effective communication.

(iii) Advertising assists to increase the sale of existing products by entering into new markets and attracting new customers.

(iv) Advertising helps in creating steady demand of the products. For instance, a drink may be advertised during summer as a product necessary to fight tiredness caused by heat and during winter as an essential thing to resist cold.

(v) Advertising helps in meeting the forces of competition in the market. If a product is not advertised continuously, the competitors may snatch its market through increased advertisements. Therefore, in certain cases, advertising is necessary to remain in the market.

(vi) Advertising is used to increase the goodwill of the firm by promising improved quality to the customers.

(vii) Advertising increases the morale of the employees of the firm. The salesmen feel happier because their task becomes easier if the product is advertised and known to the public.

(viii) Advertising facilitates mass production of goods which enables the manufacturer to achieve lower cost per unit of product. Distribution costs are also lowered when the manufacturer sells the product directly to the customers. Advertising also facilitates distribution of the product through the retailers who are encouraged to deal in the advertised products.

Benefits to Customers

Advertising offers the following advantages to customers:

(i) Advertising helps the customers to know about the existence of various products and their prices. They can choose from the various products to satisfy their wants. Thus, they cannot be exploited by the sellers.

(ii) Advertising educates the people about new products and their diverse uses.

(iii) Advertising increases the utility of existing products for many people adding to the amount of satisfaction which they are already enjoying.

(iv) Advertising induces the manufacturers to improve the quality of their products through research and development. This ensures supply of better quality products to the customers.

Benefits to Society

The whole society is benefitted because of advertisement in the following ways:

(i) Advertising provides employment to persons engaged in writing, designing and issuing advertisements, and also those who act as models. Increased employment brings additional income with the people which stimulate more demand. Employment is further generated to meet the increased demand.

(ii) Advertising promotes the standard of living of the people by increasing the variety and quality in consumption as a result of sustained research and development activities by the manufacturers.

(iii) Advertising educates the people about the various uses of different products and this increases their knowledge. Advertising also helps in finding customers in the international market which is essential for earning foreign exchange.

(iv) Advertising sustains the press, and other media. It provides an important source of income to the press, radio and television network. The customers are also benefitted because they get newspapers and magazines at cheaper rates. The publishers of newspapers and magazines are benefitted because of increased circulation of their publications. Lastly, advertising also encourages commercial art.