Advertising as a communication tool

Advertising is a form of mass communication with the public. It is usually unilateral, that is, from the company to the potential buyer/user of the product. It is a form of communication that generally attempts to persuade potential customers to buy or consume more of a particular brand of product/service. As Bovee correctly defines, “Advertising is the non-personal communication of information generally for pay and generally of a persuasive nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through various media.”

Advertising is an important communication tool used to promote commercial goods and services, it can also be used to inform, educate and motivate the public on non-commercial issues such as AIDS, don’t drink and drive, polio, save water, electricity. , animals and trees, etc. “Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest: it is too powerful a tool to be used solely for commercial purposes.” – Attributed to Howard Gossage by David Ogilvy.

Advertising is most effective with products that can be differentiated from similar products based on the difference in quality accepted by the consumer. Tom Egelhoff has classified advertising into 6 types i.e. for company image, branding, advertising service rather than a product, business-to-business advertising, cooperative advertising, and public service advertising. Television, radio, movies, magazines, newspapers, newspapers, video games, the Internet, billboards, transit cards, sandwich boards, and skywriting are the different media used to convey the message. message. Companies choose the method according to cost, budget, target audience and their response. However, word of mouth/personal referrals is a form of unpaid advertising that can provide good exposure at minimal cost.

Several new forms of advertising are growing rapidly. One of them is advertising on social networks. It is an online advertisement focused on social networking sites and the use of the Internet/World Wide Web to deliver marketing messages and attract customers. The other is email advertising; Email marketing is often referred to as “opt-in email advertising” to distinguish it from spam. “I think ‘credibility’ is one of the most important issues Internet advertisers have yet to address. Everyone has ‘privacy’ on their minds as a major concern, but credibility will be much more favorable or negative for profitability A company may have a web presence, and unless the brand name is familiar, consumers have no way of knowing if it is a large company, a small company, an honest company, or a just scoundrel. my privacy, but i am much more concerned about whether or not the person or company i am dealing with is reputable. can i believe their claims? will i have recourse if something is wrong with the merchandise? credibility is no longer strictly a brick and mortar thing I can’t judge someone by where they work, when I do that internet business I can’t hold a hand and look them in the eye to judge their veracity Credibility is a big p problem”. -Jeff Richard.

For a message to be effective, keep it short, simple, sharp, and easy to absorb. It is essential to translate the product/service offering into significant customer benefit through advertising and creating awareness and generating a response. REMEMBER: – THE AIDA MODEL – ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE AND ACTION.

In the modern scenario, most of the companies outsource their advertising activities to an advertising/advertising agency which is a service company engaged in creating, planning and handling advertising and sometimes also performs other forms of promotion such as public relations, advertising and sales promotion for their customers. customer. Advertising agency departments include: – The Creative Department (which creates an actual ad), Account Service (which is responsible for coordinating the creative team, client, media and production staff), Creative Service Production (here the employees are the people who have contacts with the providers of various creative media), Other departments and Personnel. (like public relations). As David Ogilvy once said, the relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure he can live happily with your prospect before accepting his account.

I would therefore conclude with the famous words of Bruce Barton (1955): “Advertising is the very essence of democracy. Every minute of the working day, elections are held at the counters of hundreds of thousands of stores and businesses where customers set your preferences and determine which manufacturer and which product will be the leader today and which will be the leader tomorrow.