Advertising SS1 Marketing Lesson Note

MEANING OF ADVERTISING

Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor. 

It is the dissemination of messages through different media that are paid for to build brand preference and educate the target audience. Advertising can also be defined as any form of non-personal communication through the mass media that is paid for by an identified sponsor. It is a kind of media used to inform people about an idea, product, or service.

Advertising can also be defined as “any form of paid non-personal presentation of ideas, goods or services to induce people to buy.”

Advertising messages are usually paid for by sponsors and viewed via various traditional media; including mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio advertisements, outdoor advertising or direct mail; or new media such as blogs, websites or text messages.

The message which is presented or disseminated is called an advertisement. In the present-day marketing activities, hardly is there any business in the modern world which does not advertise. Advertising has become an essential element of the corporate world and hence, companies allot a considerable amount of resources towards their advertising budget.

The main features of advertisement include the following:

1. It is directed towards increasing sales.
2. Advertising is a paid form of publicity.
3. It is non-personal. They are directed at a mass audience and not at the individual as in the case of personal selling.
4. Advertisements are identifiable with their sponsors or originators which is not always the case with publicity or propaganda.

OBJECTIVES/FUNCTIONS OF ADVERTISING

The purpose of advertising is nothing but to sell something product, a service or an idea. The real objective of advertising is effective communication between producers and consumers. The following are the main objectives of advertising:

1. Preparing Ground For New Product: A new product is needed because potential customers have never used such a product before and the advertisement prepares a ground for that new product.
2. Creation Of Demand: The main objective of the advertisement is to create a favourable climate for 6. maintaining and improving sales. Customers are to be reminded about the product and the brand. It may induce new customers to buy the product by informing them about its qualities since some of the customers may change their brands.
3. Facing The Competition: Another important objective of the advertisement is to face the competition. Under competitive conditions, advertisement helps to build up brand image and brand loyalty and when customers have Bb developed brand loyalty, it becomes difficult for the middlemen to change it.
4. Creating Or Enhancing Goodwill: Large-scale advertising is often Undertaken to create and enhance the goodwill of the base advertising company. This, in turn,  increases the market receptiveness of the company’s product and helps the salesman to win customers easily.
5. Informing The Changes To The Customers: Whenever changes are made in the prices, channels Of distribution or in the product by way of any improvement in quality, size, weight, brand, packaging, etc., they must be passed to the public by the producer through advertisement.
6. Neutralizing Competitor’s AdverTising: Advertising is unavoidable to compete with or neutralize competitor’s advertising. When competitors are (vi adopting intensive advertising as their promotional strategy, it is reasonable to follow similar practices to neutralize their effects. In such cases, the manufacturer needs to create a different image for his product.
7. Barring New Entrants: From the advertiser’s point of view, a strongly built image through long advertising helps to keep new entrants away. The advertisement builds up a certain A – monopoly for the product in which new entrants find it difficult to enter.

In short, advertising aims at benefiting the producer, educating the consumer and supplementing the salesman. Above all, it is a link between the producer and the consumer.

BENEFITS/ IMPORTANCE/ ADVANTAGES ADVERTISEMENT

Advertising broadens the knowledge of consumers. With the aid of advertising, consumers find and buy necessary products without much waste of time. This speeds up the sales of commodities, increases the efficiency of labour in distribution, and diminishes the costs of selling. It is an accepted fact that without the market stimulus of heavy advertising, consumers might have waited another 60 years for the product evaluation that took place in less than 10 years. 

It took over 60 years from the invention of the safety razor before the first acceptable Stainless steel blades appeared on the market. These words are more than enough to testify to the potentialities of advertising in the field of modern marketing systems. The main benefits of advertising are as follows:

BENEFITS TO MANUFACTURERS:

1. It increases sales volume by creating attraction towards the product.
2. It helps easy introduction of new products into the markets by the same manufacturer.
3.  It helps to create an image and reputation not only for the products but also for the producer or advertiser. In this way, it creates goodwill for the manufacturer.
4. In retail price, maintenance is also possible by advertising where price appeal is the promotional strategy.
5. It helps to establish direct contact between manufacturers and consumers.
6. It helps to smoothen the demand for the product. It saves the product from seasonal fluctuations by discovering new and new usage of the product.

BENEFITS TO WHOLESALERS AND RETAILERS

1. Easy sale of the products is possible since consumers are aware of the product and its quality.
2. It increases the rate of the turnover of the stock because demand is already created by advertisement.
3. It supplements the selling activities.
4. The reputation created is shared by the wholesalers and retailers alike because they do not need to spend anything since the advertisement has already advertised the product.
5. It ensures more economical selling because selling overheads are reduced.
6. It enables them to have product information.

BENEFITS TO CONSUMERS

1. Advertising stresses quality and very often prices. This forms an indirect guarantee to the consumers of the quality and price. Further large-scale production assumed by advertising enables the seller to sell the product at a lower cost.
2. Advertising helps eliminate the middlemen by establishing direct contact between producers and consumers. It results in cheaper goods.
3. It helps them to know where and when the products are available. This reduces the time they spend shopping.
4. It provides an opportunity for the customers to compare the merits and demerits of various substitutes.
5. This is perhaps the only medium through which consumers can know the varied and new uses of the product.
6. Modern advertisements are highly informative.

BENEFITS TO SALESMEN

Salesmanship is incomplete without advertising. Advertising serves as the forerunner of a salesman in the distribution of goods. Advertisement is beneficial to salesmen in the following ways:

1. Introducing the product becomes quite easy and convenient because the manufacturer has already advertised the goods, informing the consumers about the product and its quality.
2. Advertising prepares the necessary ground for a salesman to begin his work effectively. Hence, sales efforts are enhanced.
3. The contact established with the customer by a salesman is made permanent through effective advertising because a customer is assured of the quality and price of the product.
4. The salesman can weigh the effectiveness of advertising when he makes direct contact with the consumers.