From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of
goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified
sponsor. Marketers see advertising as
part of an overall promotional strategy. Other components of the promotional mix
include publicity, public relations, personal selling, and
sales promotion.
History
In ancient times the most common form of advertising was by word of mouth.
However, commercial messages and election campaign displays were found in the
ruins of Pompeii. As printing developed
in the 15th and 16th century, the first steps towards modern advertising were
taken. In the 17th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers
in England and within a century, advertising became very popular.
As the economy was expanding during the 19th century, the need for
advertising grew at the same pace. In 1843 the first advertising agency
was established by Volney
Palmer in Philadelphia. At first the
agencies were just brokers for ad space in newspapers, but in the 20th century,
advertising agencies started to take over responsibility for the content as
well.
Media
Some commercial advertising media include:billboards,
printed flyers, radio, cinema and television ads, web
banners, skywriting, bus stop
benches, magazines, newspapers, town
criers, sides of buses, taxicab doors and
roof mounts, musical stage shows,
elastic bands on disposable diapers, stickers on apples in supermarkets, the
opening section of streaming audio and video, and the backs of event tickets.
Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is
advertising. Covert advertising embedded in other entertainment media is known
as product placement.
The TV commercial is
generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format and this
is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during
popular TV events. The annual US Super Bowl football game is
known as much for its commercial advertisements as for the game itself, and the
average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached $2.3
million (as of 2004).
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. E-mail advertising is another recent
phenomenon. Unsolicited E-mail advertising is known as "spam".
Some companies have
proposed to place messages or corporate logos on the
side of booster rockets and the International
Space Station. Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal
advertising (see mind control), and the
pervasiveness of mass messages (see propaganda).
Unpaid advertising (also called word of mouth
advertising), can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal
recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it by zealot"), the unleashing of memes into the wild, or
achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun ("Hoover" = "vacuum
cleaner") -- these must provide the stuff of fantasy to the holder of an
advertising budget.
Objectives
One of the purposes of advertising is to stimulate demand for a product,
service, or idea. Other factors influencing demand are price and
substitutability. A major way advertising may stimulate demand is to create a
brand franchise for a product. When enough brand equity is created
that the brand has the ability to draw buyers (even without further
advertising), it is said to have brand franchise. The ultimate brand franchise
is when the brand is so prevalent in people's mind (called mind share), that it is used
to describe the whole category of products. Kleenex, for example, can
distinguish itself as a type of tissue or a label for a category of
products. That is, it is frequently used as a generic term. One of the most
successful firms to have achieved a brand franchise is Hoover, whose name was
for a very long time synonymous with vacuum cleaner (and Dyson
has subsequently managed to achieve similar status, having moved into the Hoover
market with a more sophisticated model of vacuum cleaner).
A brand franchise can be established to a greater or lesser degree depending
on product and market. In Texas, for example, it is common
to hear people refer to any soft drink as a Coke,
regardless of whether it is actually produced by Coca-Cola or not (more
accurate terms would be 'cola' or 'soda').
A legal risk of the brand franchise is that the name can become so widely
accepted that it becomes a generic term, and loses trademark protection. Examples
include "escalator", "aspirin" and "mimeograph".
(See genericized
trademark.)
Other objectives include short or long term increases in sales, market share,
awareness, product information, and image improvement.
Techniques
Advertisers use several recognizable techniques in order to better convince
the public to buy a product. These may include:
- Repetition:
Some advertisers concentrate on making sure their product is widely
recognized. To that end, they simply attempt to make the name remembered
through repetition.
- Bandwagon:
By implying that the product is widely used, advertisers hope to convince
potential buyers to "get on the bandwagon."
- Testimonials:
Advertisers often attempt to promote the superior quality of their product
through the testimony of ordinary users, experts, or both. "Three out of four
dentists recommend..." This approach often involves an appeal to
authority.
- Pressure:By attempting to make people choose quickly and
without long consideration, some advertisers hope to make rapid sales:"Buy
now, before they're all gone!"
- Association:
Advertisers often attempt to associate their product with desirable imagery to
make it seem equally desirable. The use of attractive models, a practice known
as sex in advertising,
picturesque landscapes and other alluring images is common. Also used are
"buzzwords" with desired associations.
- Subliminal
messages:It was feared that some advertisements would present
hidden messages, for example through brief flashed messages or the soundtrack,
that would have a hypnotic effect on viewers ('Must buy car. Must buy car.')
The notion that techniques of hypnosis are used by advertisers is now
generally discredited, though subliminal sexual messages are extremely common,
ranging from car models with SX prefixes to suggestive positioning of objects
in magazine ads and billboards.
It is important to note:During the past decade, advertising has increasingly
employed the device of irony. Aware that today's
media-savvy viewers are familiar with -- and thus cynical about -- the
traditional methods listed above, advertisers have turned to poking fun at those
very methods. This "wink-wink" approach is intended to tell viewers, "We know
that YOU know we're trying to sell you something, so bear with us and let's have
fun." The ultimate goal of such advertising is to convey a sense of trust and
confidence with viewers, by essentially saying, "We respect your intelligence,
and you should respect us because we're not trying to fool you." Common
television examples include most beer advertising and the commercials of the Geico insurance
company.
Public service advertising
The same advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods and services
can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about serious
non-commercial issues, such as AIDS, 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.
Regulation
There have been increasing efforts to protect the public interest by
regulating the content and the reach of advertising. Some examples are the ban
on tobacco advertising imposed in the USA, and the total ban on advertising to
children under twelve 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 has found that Sweden was obligated to accept whatever
programming was targeted at it from neighboring countries or via satelite. In
Europe and elsewhere there is a vigurous debate on whether and how much
advertising to children should be regulated. This debate was exacerbated by a
report released by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in February 2004 which
suggested that food advertising targeting children was an important factor in
the epidemic of childhood obesity raging acroos the United States.
Some suggest that access to the mental space targeted by advertisers should
be taxed, in that at the present moment that space is being freely taken
advantage of by advertisers with no compensation paid to the members of the
public who are thus being intruded upon. Efforts to that end are gathering
momentum, with Arkansas and Maine considering bills to implement such
taxation.
See also
External links
