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Lesson#37
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ADVERTISING BEYOND PRINT MEDIA
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ADVERTISING BEYOND PRINT MEDIA
Moving on from the point when we were discussing advertising in
the print media, we observe that
the human instinct to persuade fellow beings to buy commodities
and ideas on commercial or non
commercial basis by using means other than newspapers and
magazines has also been there.
Here we will examine different ways employed by men to further
the cause of advertising.
Commercial Advertising Media
Wall paintings
Billboards
Street furniture components
Printed flyers
Radio
Cinema
Television
Web banners
Web popups
Skywriting
Bus stop benches
Town criers
Sides of buses, taxicab doors and roof mounts
Musical stage shows
Subway platforms and trains
Elastic bands on disposable diapers
Stickers on apples in supermarkets
The opening section of streaming audio and video
Posters
Back of event tickets and supermarket receipts
Covert advertising
It is embedded in other entertainment media is known as product
placement.
A more recent version of this is advertising in film, by having
a main character use an item or other of a
definite brand - an example is in the movie
Minority Report,
where Tom Cruise's character Tom Anderton
owns a computer with the
Nokia
logo clearly written in the top corner, or his
watch engraved with the
Bulgari logo. Another
example of advertising in film is in
I, Robot,
where main character played by Will Smith
mentions his
Converse shoes several times, calling
them "classics," because the film is set far in the future.
Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie The Matrix Reloaded,
which as a result contained many scenes in
which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for
Omega Watches, BMW and Aston-Martin
cars are featured in recent James Bond films, most notably,
Casino Royale.
Radio commercial
A radio commercial
(often called an
advert
in the United Kingdom, or a
spot
to people in the
business) is a form of advertising in which goods, services,
organizations, ideas, etc. are promoted via the
medium of radio. Many commercials are produced by an outside ad
agency and, airtime is purchased from a
station or network in exchange for sponsorship of its
programming.
Radio commercials are frequently sold in either 30 second or 60
second increments. While a :60 radio
commercial is twice as long as a :30 radio commercial, it is
rarely sold at twice the price. While practices
vary, most radio stations only charge 20-30% more for the longer
spot.
While many commercials are professionally produced, radio is not
out of reach for the small retail business
owner. Most local radio stations have the ability to produce
radio commercials in house using their own
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announcers. At times local radio stations will write and even
produce the radio commercials for local retail
advertisers at no additional cost when the merchant purchases a
schedule of "spots" on the station.
The first radio commercial is credited to WEAF, New York on
August 28, 1922 for the Queens Boro real
estate corporation. The ten-minute live commercial was voiced by
H.M. Blackwell, a representative of
Queensboro.
Advertising Media—Audio
The most common audio advertising media is FM radio. Placement
of an advertisement on FM
radio costs about as much as an advertisement placed in a
metropolitan newspaper. However, radio is more
dynamic than print alternatives because it allows the advertiser
essentially to talk with the consumer. Indeed,
many small business consultants believe that an entertaining and
informative radio advertising campaign can
be a major asset. Nonetheless, some analysts contend that small
business owners should proceed cautiously
before deciding to rely exclusively on radio advertising.
Indeed, most businesses incorporate a media mix
when attempting to sell their products or services, utilizing
radio advertising in concert with print and other
advertising media. The key for small business owners is to study
what types of advertising best suits their
products and services and to use that media to spearhead their
advertising campaign.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Radio
Radio stations feature many different programming emphases.
These range from music-oriented
formats such as country, adult contemporary, classic rock, and
alternative rock to news-or talk-oriented
formats. Since these different formats attract different
demographic segments of the total audience,
business owners can take appreciable measures to reach their
target audience simply by buying time on
appropriate stations. Another major advantage of radio
advertising is that it is inexpensive to place and to
produce, allowing small business owners to place advertisements
on more than one station in a given
market. In addition, radio advertising content can be changed
quickly to meet changes in the market or to
reflect new business objectives. Finally, radio reaches large
numbers of commuters, income-generating
people who often pay more attention to radio advertising than to
other advertising media, especially if they
are driving alone.
The costs associated with purchasing radio advertising time
reflect this emphasis on reaching the commuter
audience. The four time slots, or "day parts," offered for
advertisers by most radio stations are the morning
drive, daytime, afternoon drive, and evening. The two most
expensive—but also most effective advertising
slots—are the morning and afternoon drive times.
Although radio advertising is effective, there are drawbacks to
consider when deciding whether to create
and place a radio spot. Aspects to consider include competitor
clutter, the cumulative costs associated with
long-term radio spots, and the fleeting nature of a radio
message. In addition to these drawbacks, several
other legal and procedural guidelines need to be considered.
Nation's Business
writer Phil Hill provided a
rundown of some of these concerns in his article "Make Listeners
Your Customers":
1. If celebrity sound-alike is used, make sure a clear
disclaimer is included in the advertisement, saying
that the sound-alike is not the actual celebrities.
2. If working with a station to create an advertisement, always
work with a contract.
3. Treat the competition fairly. Federal law mandates that
advertisers must accurately depict the
competition.
4. Be prepared to run a radio advertisement often. Industry
analysts indicate that an advertisement
needs to be heard by a consumer on several occasions before it
is likely to generate a response.
5. Be cautious about excessive reliance on one station. There
may be some instances in which a
business's products or services are compatible with only one
station (i.e., a dealer in sports
paraphernalia may want to limit his or her radio advertising to
the lone sports-talk station in town),
but small businesses that offer less niche-oriented services or
products can dramatically expand the
audience they reach if they use more than one station for their
audio advertising.
TV126
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 Super Bowl football game in the United States 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 $2.5 million (as of 2006).
Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television
programming through computer graphics. It
is typically inserted into otherwise blank backdrops or used to
replace local billboards that are not relevant
to the remote broadcast audience. More controversially, virtual
billboards may be inserted into the
background where none existing in real-life. Virtual product
placement is also possible. Increasingly, other
mediums such as those discussed below are overtaking television
due to a shift towards consumer's usage of
the Internet.
The vast majority of television commercials today consist of
brief advertising spots, ranging in length from
a few seconds to several minutes.
Commercials of this sort have been used to sell every product
imaginable over the years, from household
products to goods and services, to political campaigns. The
effect of television commercials upon the
viewing public has been so successful and so pervasive that it
is considered impossible for a politician to
wage a successful election campaign, in the United States,
without airing a good television commerciale.
Characteristics of commercials
Many television commercials feature catchy jingles (songs or
melodies) or catch-phrases that
generate sustained appeal, which may remain in the minds of
television viewers long after the span of the
advertising campaign. These long-lasting advertising elements
may therefore be said to have taken a place in
the pop culture history of the demographic to which they have
appeared.
Few examples,
Aiy Khuda meray abbu salamat rahain
Yey dil mangay aur
Aur sonao
Talk shawk
For catching attention of consumers, communication agencies make
wide use of humour. In fact, many
psychological studies tried to demonstrate the effect of humour
and indicate the way to empower
advertising persuasion.
Animation
Animation is often used in commercials. Techniques can vary from
hand-drawn traditional
animation to different forms of computer animation. By using
animated characters, a commercial may have
a certain appeal that is difficult to achieve with actors or
mere product displays. For this reason, an animated
commercial (or a series of such commercials) can be very
long-running, several decades in many instances.
An animated character talking to a real one, is a common sight
these days.
Computer
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 and the traffic that the website
receives.
E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited
bulk E-mail advertising is known as "spam".
Others
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), and the pervasiveness of mass messages
Unpaid advertising (also called word of mouth advertising), can
provide good exposure at minimal cost.
Personal recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it"),
spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a
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brand with a common noun ("Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex" =
tissue, and "Vaseline" = petroleum
jelly) -- these are the pinnacles of any advertising campaign.
However, some companies oppose the use of
their brand name to label an object.
Rating
The most common method for measuring the impact of mass media
advertising is the use of the rating
point (RP) or the more accurate target rating point (TRP). These
two measures refer to the percentage of
the universe of the existing base of audience members that can
be reached by the use of each media outlet
in a particular moment in time. The difference between the two
is that the rating point refers to the
percentage to the entire universe while the target rating point
refers to the percentage to a particular
segment or target. This becomes very useful when focusing
advertising efforts on a particular group of
people.
• For example, think of an
advertising campaign targeting a female audience aged 25 to 45. While the
overall rating of a TV show might be well over 10 rating points
it might very well happen that the
same show in the same moment of time is generating only 2.5 trps
(being the target: women 25-45).
This would mean that while the show has a large universe of
viewers it is not necessarily reaching a
large universe of women in the ages of 25 to 45 making it a less
desirable location to place an ad for
an advertiser looking for this particular demographic.
Conversely, a TV show with a low overall
rating point may be more successful at selling ads when its
target rating points are high.
Advertising Evaluation
Once the advertising campaign is over, companies normally
evaluate it compared to the established
goals. An effective tactic in measuring the usefulness of the
advertising campaign is to measure the pre-and
post-sales of the company's product. In order to make this more
effective, some companies divide up the
country into regions and run the advertising campaigns only in
some areas. The different geographic areas
are then compared (advertising versus non-advertising), and a
detailed analysis is performed to provide an
evaluation of the campaign's effectiveness. Depending on the
results, a company will modify future
advertising efforts in order to maximize effectiveness.
Summary
Advertising is the paid, non-personal promotion of a cause,
idea, product, or service by an
identified sponsor attempting to inform or persuade a particular
target audience. Advertising has evolved to
take a variety of forms and has permeated nearly every aspect of
modern society. The various delivery
mechanisms for advertising include banners at sporting events,
billboards, Internet Web sites, logos on
clothing, magazines, newspapers, radio spots, and television
commercials. While advertising can be
successful at getting the message out, it does have several
limitations, including its inability to (1) focus on
an individual consumer's specific needs, (2) provide in-depth
information about a product, and (3) be costeffective
for small companies. Other factors, such as objectives, budgets,
approaches, and evaluation
methods must all be considered.
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable
television and particularly MTV. Pioneering
the concept of the music video, MTV ushered in a new type of
advertising: the consumer tunes in
for the
advertisement, rather than it being a byproduct or afterthought.
As cable (and later satellite) television
became increasingly prevalent, "specialty" channels began to
emerge, and eventually entire channels, such as
QVC and Home Shopping Network and ShopTV, devoted to advertising
merchandise, where again the
consumer tuned in
for the ads.
Marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for
advertisers and led to the "dot-com" boom of the
1990s. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising
revenue, offering everything from coupons to free
Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, the search
engine Google revolutionized online advertising
by emphasizing contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended
to help, rather than inundate, users. This
has led to a plethora of similar efforts and an increasing trend
of interactive advertising.
A recent advertising innovation is "guerrilla promotions", which
involve unusual approaches such as staged
encounters in public places, giveaways of products such as cars
that are covered with brand messages, and
interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become
part of the advertising message. This
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reflects an increasing trend of interactive and "embedded" ads,
such as via product placement, having
consumers vote through text messages, and various innovations
utilizing social networking sites.
An advertising
campaign is a series of advertisement
messages that share a single idea and theme which
make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). Advertising
campaigns appear in different media
across a specific time frame.
The critical part of making an advertising campaign is
determining a campaign theme,
as it sets the tone for the
individual advertisements and other forms of marketing
communications that will be used. The campaign
theme is the central message that will be communicated in the
promotional activities. The campaign themes
are usually developed with the intention of being used for a
substantial period but many of them are short
lived due to factors such as being ineffective or market
conditions and/or competition in the marketplace.
Forms of Advertising
Advertising can take a number of forms, including advocacy,
comparative, cooperative, and directmail,
informational, institutional, outdoor, persuasive, product,
reminder, point-of-purchase, and specialty
advertising.
Advocacy Advertising
Advocacy advertising is normally thought of as any
advertisement, message, or public
communication regarding economic, political, or social issues.
The advertising campaign is designed to
persuade public opinion regarding a specific issue important in
the public arena. The ultimate goal of
advocacy advertising usually relates to the passage of pending
state or federal legislation. Almost all
nonprofit groups use some form of advocacy advertising to
influence the public's attitude toward a
particular issue. One of the largest and most powerful nonprofit
advocacy groups is the American
Association of Retired Persons (AARP). The AARP fights to
protect social programs such as Medicare and
Social Security for senior citizens by encouraging its members
to write their legislators, using television
advertisements to appeal to emotions, and publishing a monthly
newsletter describing recent state and
federal legislative action. Other major nonprofit advocacy
groups include the environmental organization
Green-peace, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and the
National Rifle Association (NRA).
Comparative Advertising
Comparative advertising compares one brand directly or
indirectly with one or more competing
brands. This advertising technique is very common and is used by
nearly every major industry, including
airlines and automobile manufacturers. One drawback of
comparative advertising is that customers have
become more skeptical about claims made by a company about its
competitors because accurate
information has not always been provided, thus making the
effectiveness of comparison advertising
questionable. In addition, companies that engage in comparative
advertising must be careful not to
misinform the public about a competitor's product. Incorrect or
misleading information may trigger a
lawsuit by the aggrieved company or regulatory action by a
governmental agency such as the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC).
Cooperative Advertising
Cooperative advertising is a system that allows two parties to
share advertising costs. Manufacturers
and distributors, because of their shared interest in selling
the product, usually use this cooperative
advertising technique. An example might be when a soft-drink
manufacturer and a local grocery store split
the cost of advertising the manufacturer's soft drinks; both the
manufacturer and the store benefit from
increased store traffic and its associated sales. Cooperative
advertising is especially appealing to small
storeowners who, on their own, could not afford to advertise the
product adequately.
Direct-Mail Advertising
Catalogues, flyers, letters, and postcards are just a few of the
direct-mail advertising options. Directmail
advertising has several advantages, including detail of
information, personalization, selectivity, and
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speed. But while direct mail has advantages, it carries an
expensive per-head price, is dependent on the
appropriateness of the mailing list, and is resented by some
customers, who consider it "junk mail."
Informational Advertising
In informational advertising, which is used when a new product
is first being introduced, the
emphasis is on promoting the product name, benefits, and
possible uses. Car manufacturers used this
strategy when sport utility vehicles (SUVs) were first
introduced.
Institutional Advertising
Institutional advertising takes a much broader approach,
concentrating on the benefits, concept,
idea, or philosophy of a particular industry. Companies often
use it to promote image-building activities,
such an environmentally friendly business practices or new
community-based programs that it sponsors.
Institutional advertising is closely related to public
relations, since both are interested in promoting a
positive image of the company to the public. As an example, a
large lumber company may develop an
advertising theme around its practice of planting trees in areas
where they have just been harvested. A
theme of this nature keeps the company's name in a positive
light with the general public because the
replanting of trees is viewed positively by most people.
Outdoor Advertising
Billboards and messages painted on the side of buildings are
common forms of outdoor
advertising, which is often used when quick, simple ideas are
being promoted. Since repetition is the key to
successful promotion, outdoor advertising is most effective when
located along heavily traveled city streets
and when the product being promoted can be purchased locally.
Only about 1 percent of advertising is
conducted in this manner.
Persuasive Advertising
Persuasive advertising is used after a product has been
introduced to customers. The primary goal
is for a company to build selective demand for its product. For
example, automobile manufacturers often
produce special advertisements promoting the safety features of
their vehicles. This type of advertisement
could allow automobile manufactures to charge more for their
products because of the perceived higher
quality the safety features afford.
Product Advertising
Product advertising pertains to non-personal selling of a
specific product. An example is a regular
television commercial promoting a soft drink. The primary
purpose of the advertisement is to promote the
specific soft drink, not the entire soft-drink line of a
company.
Reminder Advertising
Reminder advertising is used for products that have entered the
mature stage of the product life
cycle. The advertisements are simply designed to remind
customers about the product and to maintain
awareness. For example, detergent producers spend a considerable
amount of money each year promoting
their products to remind customers that their products are still
available and for sale.
Point-of-Purchase Advertising
Point-of-purchase advertising uses displays or other promotional
items near the product that is
being sold. The primary motivation is to attract customers to
the display so that they will purchase the
product. Stores are more likely to use point-of-purchase
displays if they have help from the manufacturer in
setting them up or if the manufacturer provides easy
instructions on how to use the displays. Thus,
promotional items from manufacturers who provide the best
instructions or help are more likely to be used
by the retail stores.
Specialty Advertising
Specialty advertising is a form of sales promotion designed to
increase public recognition of a
company's name. A company can have its name put on a variety of
items, such as caps, glassware, gym bags,
jackets, key chains, and pens. The value of specialty
advertising varies depending on how long the items
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used in the effort last. Most companies are successful in
achieving their goals for increasing public
recognition and sales through these efforts. |
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