Advertising

Advertising is paid communication through a non-personal medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled. It includes publicity, public relations, product placement, sponsorship, underwriting, and sales promotion. Advertisements are usually placed anywhere an audience can easily or frequently access visuals and audio.

Advertising clients are predominantly, but not exclusively, for-profit corporations seeking to increase demand for their products or services. Some organisations that frequently spend large sums of money on advertising but do not strictly sell a product or service to the general public include: political parties, interest groups, religion-supporting organisations, and militaries looking for new recruits. While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth, it is not without social costs.

In developing an advertising program, marketing managers must always start by identifying the target market and buyer motives. Then they can make the five major decisions :

Mission : what are the advertising objectives?

Money: how much can be spent?

Message: what message should be spent?

Media: what media should be used?

Measurement: how should the results be evaluated?

SETTING THE OBJECTIVES

An advertising objective is a specific communications task and achievement level to be accomplished with a specific period of time.

Informative advertising aims to create brand awareness and knowledge of new products or new features of existing products.

Persuasive advertising aims to create liking, preference and purchase of a product or service.

Reminder advertising aims to stimulate repeat purchase of products and services

Reinforcement advertising aims to convince current purchasers that they made the right choice.

DECIDING ON THE ADVERTISING BUDGET

Generally, it is hard for a company to choose the right amount of money that should be spent on advertising. However, new products typically receive large advertising budgets to build awareness and to gain consumer trial. Established brands usually are supported with lower advertising budgets as a ratio to sales. In a market with large number of competitors and high advertising spending, a brand must advertise more heavily to be heard. Brands that do not have well differentiated products require heavy advertising to establish a differential image.

DEVELOPING THE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

In order to develop the message strategy, advertisers go through three steps: message generation and evaluation, creative development and execution and social responsibility review.

It is important to generate fresh insights and avoid using the same appeals and positions as others. The impact of the advertisement depends not only on what is said but often on how it is said. Message execution can be decisive. As companies are competing for consumer attention in an entertainment-rich environment despite the brand strengths and product benefits, not establishing a connection with potential consumers might turn into a failure. Brands need to state who they are, share their values and build their culture so they can be understood in qualitative terms. In order to have consistency with the overall brand positioning, you have to communicate a single-minded, clear and relevant brand benefit in an unexpected, emotional context in order to attract your target audience.