Advertising is how a company encourages people to buy their products, services or ideas. Advertising is one element of marketing, which also includes design, research and data mining. An advertisement (or “ad” for short) is anything that draws good attention towards these things. It is usually designed by an advertising agency for a sponsor or brand and made public by various media. Ads appear on television, radio, newspapers, magazines and billboards in streets and cities. Advertisers use methods that attract attention.
Advertisers influence our emotions by techniques that include stereotyping and targeting the audience: who we are. Emotions are influenced by our occupation, beliefs, personality, self esteem, lifestyle, relationships, friends, how we look and what we wear. They use many different techniques to get people to notice their adverts, often using deliberately shocking or provocative images. Once they have managed to make people notice their advert, they need to ‘sell’ the product or brand. They may try to make the product look appealing, however often advertisers use humor in such a way that get people to remember the brand without actually promoting the product. Poor adverts can damage sales or spoil a brand’s identity.
Advertising happens in many different ways. Many products are advertised on television, although not all channels permit advertising. The advertisements usually appear during breaks between a television show. They are usually for products, other television shows or movies and are not normally much longer than 30 seconds. Some radio stations have audio advertisements that play between programmes.
An advertisement for a movie is called a trailer. It shows a short collection of clips from the movie, and shows the date it will be released in cinemas. Advertising also takes place on websites. These may appear as “banner ads” or “popups”. They are often still images or flash animations. The owner of the website will get money when a user clicks on the advertisement.
Sometimes they will get a percentage of the money if they buy a product.
Billboards advertise products on highways and city streets. These may simply be freestanding billboards or may be part of street furniture such as a bus shelter. Buses and taxis are often covered in adverts, while budget airlines sometimes allow advertising inside their planes. Adverts also appear in newspapers, magazines and sports programmes. Many stadiums have adverts set around them. Sports teams, tournaments, television programmes and public events may have a sponsor who is the main or sometimes only advertiser.
Source: wikipedia.org
Tv Advertising
The importance of TV advertising is that even in the age of YouTube and corporate Facebook pages, nothing packs the punch of a TV commercial. Despite the competition from streaming services, an ad on a popular show can present your message to millions of viewers. The advantages of TV advertising don’t come cheap, however.
The advantages of TV advertising aren’t just that TV can deliver a massive audience. It also introduces your pitch to customers at a time they’re enjoying themselves and paying attention to the screen. That contrasts TV with radio advertising, where their attention is probably focused on driving. Television ads can do more than print, digital or billboard messages. They combine visual and sound and include movement instead of static images. The same is true of online advertising, but it doesn’t yet have the marketing impact of TV commercials.
Cable TV specialty channels also make it easier to target a particular demographic than it used to be. A publisher promoting a new history book might find a better response advertising on the History Channel than ESPN, for example. The ability to target audiences adds to the importance of TV advertising. Despite the benefits of TV advertising, it does have a downside. The big negative is the impact a TV commercial will have on your bottom line as buying airtime is expensive. Making a good commercial is pricey too: There’s writing, acting and camera work to pay for.
There are ways to reduce the cost, however. Making a 15-second commercial is cheaper than the conventional 30-second length. Putting your money into less popular shows or local syndicated programming with the right viewer demographic can be more cost-effective for small businesses than targeting airtime on the biggest hits.Another drawback to TV is that no matter how popular the show, viewers aren’t a captive audience. They may get up and run to the kitchen or bathroom during commercial breaks. If they DVR the show, they may fast forward through commercials. That can cost you a chunk of the audience you’re paying for.
To gain the benefits of TV advertising and avoid the drawbacks, you have to plan your strategy carefully. Firts of all, you have to target the right audience. Is your dream customer a widowed senior, a millennial STEM nerd or a sports fanatic? Cable and broadcast TV have more than enough demographic data to help you pick the right show to connect with your targets. Additionally it’s a good idea to shop around. If there are multiple local stations, ad agencies or cable operators, get quotes from more than one. Look for more than money: Some stations will co-produce your commercials for free if you commit to a big enough ad buy. However if you only have a limited budget, don’t try airing multiple commercials right away. That can actually confuse people about your brand and message.
It is important to settle on the message you want to send. Are you competing on quality? Undercutting the competition’s prices? Do you just want to build brand recognition? Your commercials need to be in sync with your goals. Also you should keep in mind to determine a budget. Ad agencies and TV stations may push you to exceed it, but that’s usually a mistake.Watch commercials from your competition too. See what they say about themselves and what they want customers to know. You can either follow that model or go in a different direction, but it’s good to know what you’re up against. Finally, monitor your results. If the commercials don’t generate more profits for you, identify the problem and start over.
Relative to other media, TV has several key advantages. It offers the most creative potential of any medium because of its multi-sensory appeal. Creative directors can use dialogue, copy, sounds, movement, scenery, lighting and action to deliver a compelling message or story. TV spots are especially useful form companies with visually-appealing products that need to show them off, according to Inc. Wide reach in a local, regional or national market, as well as emotional appeals in messages, are other core benefits of TV ads.
Source: bizfluent.com
Radio Advertising
People say radio advertising seems to move towards obsolescence due to the arrival of digital media and the internet. But reports claim it is one of the best forms of advertising. It is considered to be quite effective while planning a media strategy for advertising. The advantages of radio advertising make it popular among advertisers. These benefits are as follows:
The market segments and the demographics at radio stations are quite specific in terms of target. This brings the opportunity to select the station where you want your ads to be broadcasted and reach to your potential customers. The targeting can be done in the following ways:
Through geographic advertising, you can advertise based on the location of your target audiences such as villages, cities, and states. Also, you can decide when to broadcast an ad at a particular location. The broadcast can be for local audiences or for national audiences. You can have the facility to choose the urban or rural location as well.
In demographic advertising, one can run an ad for women, children, etc based on their age. Such as, one can advertise for a shampoo intended for women aged 22-35. Or, you can advertise an educational institute for boys of the age 12-18. Through this, advertisers can dial in specific audiences quite easily.
People love listening to their favorite radio stations during a specific time. Most people listen to the radio while in the car or in the kitchen. There are people who tune to their favorite radio stations regularly and would never miss a program. In such a case, radio ads can be tailored for these specific listeners. It is basically an opportunity where you can get so many audiences for creating brand awareness .
Advertising works well with the increased frequency of your ads. That means, your ads have to be repetitive to be remembered by your audience for turning them into potential customers. For this, the radio is quite effective. Moreover, since there are loyal audiences listening to a particular station always, therefore; you can easily make an impact on them.
Choosing a prime time in the case of television advertising can be difficult and costly as compared to radio advertising. This can be understood as, in television advertising when you choose a slot, it is for a long term such as a year or two. But with radio advertising, it is different. Here you can choose a time slot for a week or two or according to your requirement. This can be beneficial in changing market scenarios.
Advertising through radio is cost-effective as compared to other forms of advertising. Here you can choose a time slot according to your requirement and pay accordingly. Also, the resources used in radio advertising are quite less which means no overhead cost. But in television and print media advertising, you need to pay for advertisement along with the cost of actors, models, studio time, video, and other factors. This makes radio advertising quite budget-friendly as compared to television or print media advertising.
Finally, radio advertising can result in producing catchy advertisements with the help of voice actors. Listeners tuning regularly to their favorite radio station have a mental connection with the radio jockeys. This can help you in advertising your product and filling an emotion in the mind of your target audience.
With these advantages, advertisers prefer radio advertising on other forms of advertising. It is one of the most cost-effective and impactful forms for advertising in the market. With this, you can reach your target audience without much hassle.
Source: creativethinksmedia.com
Print Ads
From online banner ads to television commercials and radio spots, advertising permeates daily life. Large companies frequently invest millions of dollars per year in advertising campaigns to sell new products or boost the sales of existing products. Like major companies, small businesses also use advertising to get the word out about their products and services or to better position themselves in the local market. In the battle for a bigger share of customers, print advertisements offer businesses several advantages.
Unlike television and Internet ads, which flash before the eye and then disappear, print ads stay on the page. Every time readers look at the page where the advertisement appears, they see the same thing. In addition, as long as the publication remains in circulation, the ad also remains in circulation. A single ad in a single magazine may promote a product or service for months or even years before someone places the magazine in the trash. No other advertising method provides that much potential longevity from a single investment.
Print publications that consistently deliver high-quality, reliable content develop credibility with their readers. Businesses capitalize on something called the “halo effect” to use the credibility of publications to their own advantage. In essence, the “halo effect” means that a person takes a positive thought or feeling associated with one thing and applies it, appropriately or inappropriately, to something related. In the case of print publications, the readers take the credibility generated by the quality of content and apply it to the advertisements, making the readers more likely to purchase a product or service.
Print advertisements, specifically magazine ads, generate the best results across four of the five components of the purchase funnel–the process customers go through from initial brand contact to buying decision. The purchase funnel consists of brand awareness, ad awareness, message association, brand favorability and purchase intent. Magazine ads perform equally in message association to ads in other media, but provide the best results in the area of intent to purchase. For a small business seeking to maximize the return on investment for advertising, print advertising also outperforms both television and Internet advertising.
Watching television and listening to the radio are passive processes, in which devices provide images and sounds that may or may not compel attention. The person who picks up a newspaper or opens a magazine makes a conscious decision to engage the words and images on the page. The reader must physically turn pages, look at all the material and make choices about what to read. In the case of newspapers, 79 percent of readers respond in some way to the advertisements they see, such as clipping coupons, visiting websites or making purchases.
Source: smallbusiness.chron.com
