What is Advertising?
Advertising is a highly visible and powerful kind of communication that promotes the sale of products, services, ideas, and images. Many individuals believe that advertising reflects the age in which it was created. Advertising is everywhere, whether one likes it or not. Advertisements can be found in newspapers, magazines, on television, the internet, and on the radio, among other places. Every day, the average consumer, particularly those living in cities and semi-urban areas, is inundated with advertising. To be entirely neutral and untouched by current advertising appears to be practically impossible.
The most visible component of advertising is the advertisements we see, read, or hear, which we either love or despise. Advertising is described using a variety of relevant adjectives, depending on the intended audience, including exceptional, dynamic, beautiful, engaging, annoying, dull, invasive, obnoxious, and offensive.
Advertising serves as a gauge for the advancement, improvement, and perfection of society. It is a necessary component of our social, cultural, and economic environments. Advertising is one of the most scrutinised corporate industries, which is expected. Advertisers are scrutinised in today’s context not just by the intended audience, but also by society as a whole.
The term “advertising” is derived from the latin word “advertere,” which means “to direct people’s attention towards.” Some of the definitions given by various authors are:
According to William J. Stanton, “Advertising consists of all the activities involved in presenting to an audience a non-personal, sponsor-identified, paid-for message about a product or organization.”
According to American Marketing Association “advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services by an identified sponsor”.1. American Marketing Association has defined advertising as “any paid form of non-personal presentation of ideas, goods and services by an indentified sponsor”.
Definitions of Advertising
2. According to Webstar, “Advertising is to give public notice or to announce publicity”.
3. According to Gardner, “Advertising is the means of mass selling that has grown up parallel with and has been made necessary to mass production”.
Features of Advertising
1. Communication : Advertising is means of mass communication reaching the masses. It is a non-personal communication because it is addressed to masses.
2. Information : Advertising informs the buyers about the benefits they would get when they purchase a particular product. However, the information given should be complete and true.
3. Persuasion : The advertiser expects to create a favourable attitude which will lead to favourable actions. Any advertising process attempts at converting the prospects into customers. It is thus an indirect salesmanship and essentially a persuasion technique.
4. Profit Maximisation : True advertising does not attempt at maximising profits by increasing the cost but by promoting the sales. This way It won‟t lead to increase the price of the product. Thus, it has a higher sales approach rather than the higher-cost approach.
5. Non-Personal Presentation : Salesmanship is personal selling whereas advertising is non-personal in character. Advertising is not meant for anyone individual but for all. There is absence of personal appeal in advertising.
6. Identified Sponsor : A sponsor may be an individual or a firm who pays for the advertisement. The name of reputed company may increase sale or products. The product gets good market because of its identity with the reputed corporate body.
7. Consumer Choice : Advertising facilitates consumer choice. It enables consumers to purchase goods as per their budget requirement and choice. Right choice makes consumer happy and satisfied.
8. Art, Science and Profession : Advertising is an art because it represents a field of creativity. Advertising is a science because it has a body of organised knowledge. Advertising is profession is now treated as a profession with its professional bodies and code of conduct for members.
9. Element of Marking Mix : Advertising is an important element of promotion mix. Advertising has proved to be of great utility to sell goods and services. Large manufactures spend crores of rupees on advertising.
10. Element of Creativity : A good advertising campaign involves lot of creativity and imagination. When the message of the advertiser matches the expectations of consumers, such creativity makes way for successful campaign.
Objectives of Advertising
The fundamental purpose of advertising is to sell something – a product, a service or an idea. In addition to this general objective, advertising is also used by the modern business enterprises for certain specific objectives which are listed below :
1. To introduce a new product by creating interest for it among the prospective customers.
2. To support personal selling programme. Advertising maybe used to open customers’ doors for salesman.
3. To reach people inaccessible to salesman.
4. To enter a new market or attract a new group of customers.
5. To light competition in the market and to increase the sales as seen in the fierce competition between Coke and Pepsi.
6. To enhance the goodwill of the enterprise by promising better quality products and services.
7. To improve dealer relations. Advertising supports the dealers in selling he product. Dealers are attracted towards a product which is advertised effectively.
8. To warn the public against imitation of an enterprise’s products.
Importance of Advertising
Advertising has become an essential marketing activity in the modern era of large scale production and serve competition in the market. It performs the following functions:
1. Promotion of Sales : It promotes the sale of goods and services by informing and persuading the people to buy them. A good advertising campaign helps in winning new customers both in the national as wet as in the international markets.
2. Introduction of New Product : It helps the introduction of new products in the market. A business enterprise can introduce itself and its product to the public through advertising. A new enterprise can’t make an impact on the prospective customers without the help of advertising. Advertising enables quick publicity in the market.
3. Creation of Good Public Image : It builds up the reputation of the advertiser. Advertising enables a business firm to communicate its achievements in an effort to satisfy the customers’ needs. This increases the goodwill and reputation of the firm which is necessary to fight against competition in the market.
4. Mass Production : Advertising facilitates large-scale production. Advertising encourages production of goods in large-scale because the business firm knows that it will be able to sell on large-scale with the help of advertising. Mass production reduces the cost of production per unit by the economical use of various factors of production.
5. Research : Advertising stimulates research and development activities. Advertising has become a competitive marketing activity. Every firm tries to differentiate its product from the substitutes available in the market through advertising. This compels every business firm to do more and more research to find new products and their new uses. If a firm does not engage in research and development activities, it will be out of the market in the near future.
6. Education of People : Advertising educate the people about new products and their uses. Advertising message about the utility of a product enables the people to widen their knowledge. 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.
7. Support to Press : Advertising provides an important source of revenue to the publishers and magazines. It enables to increase the circulation of their publication by selling them at lower rates. People are also benefited because they get publications at cheaper rates. Advertising is also a source of revenue for TV network. For instance, Doordarshan and ZeeTV insert ads before, in between and after various programmes and earn millions of rupees through ads. Such income could be used for increasing the quality of programmes and extending coverage.
