What is Advertising?

Advertising is a marketing tactic involving paying for space to promote a product,

service, or cause. The actual promotional messages are called advertisements, or
ads for short. The goal of advertising is to reach people most likely to be willing
to pay for a company�s products or services and entice them to buy.

Advertising Objectives:
Introduction:
Advertising is aimed at achieving various objectives. Objectives may be commercial
or social in nature. Prof. Kelly gave the concept of DAG MAR � Defining Advertising
Goals for Measuring Advertising Results � in relation to advertising objectives.
Broadly, advertising objectives can be categorized into three classes, such as
informative objectives, persuasive objectives, and reminder objectives.

Prof. Sew and Prof. Smith have classified objectives as:

i. Sales objectives

ii. Aiding sales force

iii. Competition-related objectives

iv. Brand loyalty and reputation-related objectives

However, we will consider following objectives:

1. To Inform Buyers:

This objective includes informing customers regarding product�s availability,

price, features, qualities, services, and performance. Besides, it also includes
informing them about changes made in the existing product and introduction of new
products. Company also highlights its location, achievements, policies, and
performance through advertising.

Main advertising decisions

2. To Persuade or Convince Buyers:

Company uses advertisement to persuade or convince the buyers about superior

advantages offered by its product. Company communicates competitive advantages the
product
offers to induce customers buy it. Comparative advertising is used to prove the
additional benefits of product at a given price.

3. To Remind Buyers:

Marketer uses advertising to remind the buyers regarding existence of company,

products, maintenance of quality, superior services, and chasing customer-
orientation.
Mostly, the existing firms aim their advertising for this objective.

Here, the purpose is to inform that the company is still in existence and serving
customers in a better way. Due to huge information bombarded by a number of
companies,
customers are more likely to forget name of company and/or products and services it
offers.
4. To Face Competition:

Advertising is treated as the most powerful weapon to fight with competitors

effectively. Advertising enables the firm to respond the competitors strongly. It
helps the
firm to distinguish its total offerings from competitors.

In brief, the firm can face competition, can prevent the entry of competitors, or
can remove competitors away from the market. In competitive marketing environment,
the
firm cannot survive without an effective advertisement.

5. To Achieve Sales Targets:

Increase sales volume is one of the major advertising objectives. A company can
advertise its products in various media to attract customers situated in different
parts
of the world. National and international marketing is the result of advertising.
Even, non-users can be converted into users and usage rate can be increased. Thus,
company can achieve its sales objectives by advertisement.

6. To Build and Improve Brand Image:

Advertising is used for brand recognition and acceptance. A company can distinguish
its brand by magnifying major benefits the product offers. Advertisement attracts
customers toward the brand; they try it and accept it over time. In the same way,
bad image related to brand can be changed by systematic presentation of facts and
scientific evidences, and removing misunderstanding.

7. To Help or Educate People:

Advertising is not always used only for company�s benefits. It is meant for helping
customers to make the right choice of product. It educates people about
availability
of new products, its features and qualities, price, services, and other related
aspects. Such information is instrumental for purchasing suitable products. Thus,
it
guides customers to choose the most appropriate product.

8. To Build Company Image and Reputation:

A company opts for advertisement to build prestige and reputation in the market.
Most of the companies, though they are satisfied with the volume of sales, go for
advertising to acquire fame in the market. Many companies advertise its policies,
activities, and achievements to make a permanent place in the mind of people.

9. To Assist Sales Force and Middlemen:

Advertising is an aid to middlemen and salesmen. Advertising also popularizes the

name of dealers. Likewise, advertising provides necessary information to the
buyers.
Middlemen and salesmen are not required to do the same. It eases the task of
sellers. In the same way, advertising encourages sales force.

10. Other Objectives:

There are certain minor objectives of advertising, such as:

i. To promote new products.

ii. To build long-term relations.

iii. To remove misunderstanding.

advantages

(1) Introduces a New Product in the Market:

Advertising plays significant role in the introduction of a new product in the
market. It stimulates the people to purchase the product.

(2) Expansion of the Market:

It enables the manufacturer to expand his market. It helps in exploring new markets
for the product and retaining the existing markets. It plays a sheet anchor role
in widening the marketing for the manufacturer�s products even by conveying the
customers living at the far flung and remote areas.

(3) Increased Sales:

Advertisement facilitates mass production to goods and increases the volume of
sales. In other words, sales can be increased with additional expenditure on
advertising
with every increase in sale, selling expenses will decrease.

(4) Fights Competition:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Advertising is greatly helpful in meeting the forces of competition prevalent in

the market. Continuous advertising is very essential in order to save the product
from
the clutches of the competitors.

(5) Enhances Good-Will:

Advertising is instrumental in increasing goodwill of the concern. It introduces
the manufacturer and his product to the people. Repeated advertising and better
quality
of products brings more reputation for the manufacturer and enhances goodwill for
the concern.

(6) Educates The Consumers:

Advertising is educational and dynamic in nature. It familiarises the customers
with the new products and their diverse uses and also educates them about the new
uses
of existing products.

(7) Elimination of Middlemen:

It aims at establishing a direct link between the manufacturer and the consumer,
thereby eliminating the marketing intermediaries. This increases the profits of the

manufacturer and the consumer gets the products at lower prices.

(8) Better Quality Products:

ADVERTISEMENTS:
Different goods are advertised under different brand names. A branded product
assures a standard quality to the consumers. The manufacturer provides quality
goods to
the consumers and tries to win their confidence in his product.

(9) Supports The Salesmanship:

Advertising greatly facilitates the work of a salesman. The customers are already
familiar with the product which the salesman sells. The selling efforts of a
salesman are greatly supplemented by advertising. It has been rightly pointed out
that �selling and advertising are cup and saucer, hook and eye, or key and lock
wards.�

(10) More Employment Opportunities:

Advertising provides and creates more employment opportunities for many talented
people like painters, photographers, singers, cartoonists, musicians, models and
people
working in different advertising agencies.

(11) Reduction in the Prices of Newspapers and Magazines Etc:

Advertising is immensely helpful in reducing the cost of the newspapers and
magazines etc. The cost of bringing out a newspaper is largely met by the
advertisements
published therein.

(12) Higher Standard of Living:

The experience of the advanced nations shows that advertising is greatly

responsible for raising the living standards of the people. In the words of Winston
Churchil
�advertising nourishes the consuming power of men and creates wants for better
standard of living.� By bringing to the knowledge of the consumers different
variety and
better quality products, it has helped a lot in increasing the standard of living
in a developing economy like India

DISADVANTAGES

(1) Adds to Costs:

An organisation has to spend large amount on advertising. It increases the cost of

the products. To meet this expenditure, price of the product is raised. No
manufacturer pays for the advertising expenses out of his pocket. Advertising,
therefore, leads to unnecessary rise in prices. In this reference it is said that
advertising costs are passed on to the consumers in the form of high prices.

(2) Undermines Social Values:

Advertisement is a sort of day-dreaming for the people. These days it is taking the
people away from reality and into the realm of artificiality. Through its medium
people get information about new products.
Only very few products are of any use for them. The brilliance of new products
really gets on their nerves. They want to buy them but have no resources at their
command. Consequently, they start feeling upset with their present status. Taking
it as a social evil, it can be said that advertisement undermines social values.

(3) Confuses the Buyers:

Many a time distorted version of reality is shown in the advertising. Believing in

advertising, consumers buy the product. On its use, they feel cheated.

They come to realise later that the information given in the advertisement was
something else whereas the actual product was quite different from it. Thus, people

lose confidence in advertising because of wrong presentation. In this reference it

is said that advertising confuses rather than helps.

(4) Encourages Sale of Inferior Products:

Every manufacturer projects his product as superior one in the advertisement.

Therefore, the buyer is unable to decide as to which product is really good.

Consequently, it is difficult to get good quality product even after paying a

handsome price for it. If a seller gets good price for some inferior product, it
becomes a habit with him. It affects other sellers also. Therefore, it is said that
advertisement encourages the sale of inferior products.

(5) Some Advertisement is in Bad Taste:

Many times, foul language and objectionable pictures are used in advertising in
order to attract a particular class. They may be insulting to a particular class.
It
causes decay of social values.

Such kinds of advertising are generally opposed by the people as it hurts their
feelings. In this reference it is said that some advertisements are in bad tastes.