Encyclopedia
Advertising is the business of drawing public attention to goods and services, and performed through a variety of media. It is an important part of an overall promotional strategy. Other components of the promotional mix include publicity, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion.
History
In
ancient times the most common form of advertising was by word of mouth; however, commercial messages and
political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of
Pompeii. Egyptians used
papyrus to create sales messages and wall posters, while lost-and-found advertising on papyrus was common in
Greece and
Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient media advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of
Asia,
Africa, and
South America. For instance, the tradition of wall paintings can be traced back to
Indian
rock-art paintings that goes back to 4000 BC. As printing developed in the 15th and 16th century, advertising expanded to include handbills. In the 17th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England.
These early print ads were used mainly to promote books, which became increasingly affordable thanks to the
printing press, and medicines, which were increasingly sought after as disease ravaged Europe. However, false advertising and so-called "
quack" ads became a problem, which ushered in regulation of advertising content.
As the economy was expanding during the 19th century, the need for advertising grew at the same pace. In the
United States, classified ads became popular, filling pages of newspapers with small print messages promoting all kinds of goods. The success of this advertising format led to the growth of mail-order advertising such as the
Sears Catalog, at one time referred to as the "Farmer's Bible". In 1843 the first advertising agency was established by Volney Palmer in
Philadelphia. At first the agencies were just brokers for ad space in newspapers, but by the 20th century, advertising agencies started to take over responsibility for the content as well.
The 1960s saw advertising transform into a modern, more scientific approach in which creativity was allowed to shine, producing unexpected messages that made advertisements more tempting to consumers' eyes. The
Volkswagen ad campaign featuring such headlines as "Think Small" and "Lemon" ushered in the era of modern advertising by promoting a "position" or "unique selling proposition" designed to associate each brand with a specific idea in the reader or viewer's mind.
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 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.
Today, innovations as "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 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 .
Product advertising
Certain products use a specific form of advertising known as
"Custom publishing". This form of advertising is usually targeted at a specific segment of society, but may also "draw" the attention of others. The lists are presented in the following box:
Public service advertising
The same advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods and services can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about non-commercial issues, such as AIDS, political ideology, energy conservation, religious recruitment, and deforestation.
Advertising, in its non-commercial guise, is a powerful educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences. "Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest - it is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes." - Attributed to Howard Gossage by David Ogilvy
Public service advertising, non-commercial advertising, public interest advertising, cause marketing, and social marketing are different terms for the use of sophisticated advertising and marketing communications techniques on behalf of non-commercial, public interest issues and initiatives.
In the United States, the granting of television and radio licenses by the FCC is contingent upon the station broadcasting a certain amount of public service advertising. To meet these requirements, many broadcast stations in America air the bulk of their required Public Service Announcements during the late night or early morning when the smallest percentage of viewers are watching, leaving more day and prime time commercial slots available for high-paying advertisers.
Public service advertising reached its height during World Wars I and II under the direction of several governments. Famous comments on advertising include: "Don't tell my mother I work in an advertising agency - she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse." ~ Jacques Seguela
Type
Media
Commercial advertising
media can include wall paintings, billboards , street furniture components, printed flyers, radio, cinema and television ads,
web banners, web
popups,
skywriting, bus stop benches, magazines, newspapers,
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, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising.
Covert advertising 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 is a science fiction [i] short story [i] by Philip K. Dick [i] first published in 1956 [i] ...
, 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 is a collection of nine science fiction [i] short stories [i] by Isaac Asimov [i], first pu ...
, 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 and
BMW cars featured in recent
James Bond films.
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 .
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 as well as devices such as
TiVo.
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".
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 , can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal recommendations , spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun -- these are the pinnacles of any advertising campaign. However, some companies oppose the use of their brand name to label an object.
The most common method for measuring the impact of mass media advertising is the use of the rating point or the more accurate target rating point . 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 . 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. In the United States, networks like the WB and FOX have had success with shows based on this premise; the shows had low overall ratings points, but delivered strong target rating points in the desired demographic.
Impact
- "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half." - John Wanamaker, father of modern advertising.
The impact of advertising has been a matter of considerable debate and many different claims have been made in different contexts. During debates about the banning of cigarette advertising, a common claim from cigarette manufacturers was that cigarette advertising does not encourage people to smoke who would not otherwise. The opponents of advertising, on the other hand, claim that advertising does in fact increase consumption.
According to many media sources, the past experience and state of mind of the person subjected to advertising may determine the impact that advertising has. Children under the age of four may be unable to distinguish advertising from other television programs, whilst the ability to determine the truthfulness of the message may not be developed until the age of 8.
Public perception of the medium
As advertising and marketing efforts become increasingly ubiquitous in modern Western societies, the industry has come under criticism of groups such as
AdBusters via culture jamming which criticizes the media and consumerism using advertising's own techniques. The industry is accused of being one of the engines powering a convoluted economic mass production system which promotes consumption. Recognizing the social impact of advertising, Mediawatch-uk, a British special interest group, works to educate consumers about how they can register their concerns with advertisers and regulators. It has developed educational materials for use in schools. The award-winning book, Made You Look
How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know, by former Mediawatch president Shari Graydon, provides context for these issues for young readers.
Public interest groups are increasingly suggesting that access to the mental space targeted by advertisers should be taxed, in that at the present moment that space is being freely taken advantage of by advertisers with no compensation paid to the members of the public who are thus being intruded upon. This kind of tax would be a
Pigovian tax in that it would act to reduce what is now increasingly seen as a public nuisance. Efforts to that end are gathering momentum, with Arkansas and Maine considering bills to implement such taxation. Florida enacted such a tax in 1987 but was forced to repeal it after six months, as a result of a concerted effort by national commercial interests, which withdrew planned conventions, causing major losses to the tourism industry, and cancelled advertising, causing a loss of 12 million dollars to the broadcast industry alone.
Negative effects on communication media
An extensively documented effect is the control and vetoing of free information by the advertisers. Any negative information on a company or its products or operations results many times in pressures from the company to withdraw such information lines, threatening to cut their ads. This behavior makes the editors of the media self-censor content that might upset their ad payers. The bigger both companies are, the bigger their relation gets, maximizing control over a single information.
Advertisers may try to minimize information about or from consumer groups, or consumer controlled purchasing initiatives , or consumer controlled quality information systems.
Another indirect effect of advertising is to modify the very nature of the communication media where it is shown. Media that get most of their revenues from publicity try to make their medium a good place for communicating ads before anything else. The most clear example is television, where this means trying to make the public stay for a long time and in a mental state that encourages spectators not to switch the channel through the ads. Programs that are low in mental stimulus and require light concentration and are varied are best for long sitting times. These make for much easier
emotional jumps to ads, which can become more entertaining than regular shows. A simple way to understand the objectives in television programming is to compare contents from channels paid and chosen by the viewer with channels that get their income mainly from advertisements.
Regulation
There have been increasing efforts to protect the public interest by regulating the content and the reach of advertising. Some examples are the ban on television tobacco advertising imposed in many countries, and the total ban on advertising to children under twelve imposed by the Swedish government in 1991. Though that regulation continues in effect for broadcasts originating within the country, it has been weakened by the
European Court of Justice, which has found that Sweden was obliged to accept whatever programming was targeted at it from neighboring countries or via satellite.
In Europe and elsewhere there is a vigorous debate on whether and how much advertising to children should be regulated. This debate was exacerbated by a report released by the Kaiser Family Foundation in February 2004 which suggested that food advertising targeting children was an important factor in the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States.
In many countries - namely New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and many European countries - the advertising industry operates a system of self-regulation. Advertisers, advertising agencies and the media agree on a code of advertising standards that they attempt to uphold. The general aim of such codes is to ensure that any advertising is 'legal, decent, honest and truthful'. Some self-regulatory organizations are funded by the industry, but remain independent, with the intent of upholding the standards or codes .
Naturally, many advertisers view governmental regulation or even self-regulation as intrusion of their freedom of speech or a necessary evil. Therefore, they employ a wide-variety of linguistic devices to bypass regulatory laws ; see Bhatia and Ritchie 2006:542. The advertising of controversial products such as cigarettes and condoms is subject to government regulation in many countries. For instance, the tobacco industry is required by law in India and Pakistan to display warnings cautioning consumers about the health hazards of their products. Linguistic variation is often used by advertising as a creative device to reduce the impact of such requirement.
Future
With the dawn of the Internet have come many new advertising opportunities.
Popup,
Flash,
banner, advergaming, and email advertisements abound.
Each year, greater sums are paid to obtain a commercial spot during the
Super Bowl. Companies attempt to make these commercials sufficiently entertaining that members of the public will actually want to watch them.
Another problem is people recording shows on DVR’s . These devices allow users to record the programs for later viewing enabling them to fast forward through commercials. Additionally, as more seasons or “Boxed Sets” come out of Television shows; fewer people are watching their shows on TV. However, the fact that these sets are
sold, means that the company will additionally receive profits from the sales of these sets. To counter this effect, many advertisers have opted for
product placement on TV shows like
Survivor. The
Will Ferrell movie
Talladega Nights even goes as far as to make a mockery out of it in one scene.
Particularly since the rise of "entertaining" advertising, some people may like an advert enough that they wish to watch it later or show a friend. In general, the advertising community has not yet made this easy, although some have used the Internet to widely distribute their adverts to anyone wishing to see or hear them.
Another significant trend to note for the future of advertising is the growing importance of niche or targeted ads. Also brought about by the Internet and the theory of
The Long Tail, advertisers will have an increasing ability to reach narrow audiences. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible. However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs to social networking sites, provides advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much better defined, leading to ads that are more relevant to viewers and more effective for companies marketing products.
Bibliography
- Klein, Naomi No Logo . Harper-Collins, ISBN 0-00-653040-0
- Bhatia, Tej K. 2000. Advertising in Rural India: Language, Marketing Communication, and Consumerism. Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Tokyo Press: Japan. ISBN 4-87297-782-3
- Wernick, Andrew "Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology and Symbolic Expression ", London: Sage Publications Ltd, ISBN 0-8039-8390-5
- Graydon, Shari "Made You Look - How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know", Toronto: Annick Press, ISBN 1-55037-814-7
- Leon, Jose Luis "Los efectos de la publicidad". Barcelona: Ariel, ISBN 84-344-1266-7
- Leon, Jose Luis "Mitoanálisis de la publicidad". Barcelona. Ariel, ISBN 84-344-1285-3
References
See also
External links
Awareness
- article from
- article from ERIC
Critical views
- , anti-consumerism magazine
- . RAP - activist group critical of advertising.
- . anti-consumerist group also publish the Décroissance magazine.
- a critical essay about certain advertisements
- . anti-ads
- , an advertising watchdog group
- an online academic journal and curriculum
