Q. Collect from current periodicals examples of best in modern advertising. Why do you consider them as good advertisements?

Modern Advertising Methods There are different types of advertising and advertising techniques that are available for promoting products and services. However, here are some of the latest and hottest trends in advertising that are gaining popularity. People are now looking for new types of advertising appeals. Many of the new-age advertising methods are a result of the advent of the Internet, while some of the trends are just novel ideas that have transformed mundane advertising media into brilliant and witty advertising methods! Internet advertising is a vast concept and it entails several sub-types, many of which are only recently introduced. Email advertising is one of the earlier trends, while the new ones include banner advertising, pixel advertising, blog advertising, keyword advertising and contextual advertising. Web Banner Advertising If billboard advertising is used on roads, then a similar type called banner advertising is used on the web! Have you noticed the horizontal advertisement strips that are seen at the top of the web page? Web banners are usually constructed using images, or JavaScript, or any other multimedia objects and animations. Web banners are usually link to web pages that are related to the content on the existing website. Bandwagon Advertising Well, this is nothing but a propaganda advertising technique, which aims at convincing the user that everyone else is using the products or everyone in the customer base, is in favour of the brand. This compels the consumer to at least think about buying that product and check what everyone else is raving about. Bandwagon advertising is a strategy that is based on consumer psychology and hence, is an effective advertising technique which can be used via any media be it print, electronic or broadcast. Promotional Advertising Promotional advertising involves the use of promotional give-away items or promotional media events, which help to garner public attention and are an effective way of advertising. Handing out promotional freebies is a modern advertising technique that is innovative and very effective as well. Testimonials and Endorsements

ever wondered why Colgate brought Brooke Shields on board to promote their toothpaste. Or did you know that Keanu Reeves had once been a part of an advertisement for cornflakes? Well, an endorsement from a celebrity or a public figure is reason enough for certain customers to try a particular product. Such testimonials or endorsements are a great way to advertise particular products and services. Another evolved version of this being a new type called covert advertising, which involves the use of brand names or actual products in movies or television shows which leads to an indirect form of advertising. Surrogate Advertising Several national laws have banned the advertising of products like alcohol or cigarettes. Owing to this, many umbrella brands have come up with an advertising technique which only promotes the umbrella brand name which of course, also reminds the consumer of the products that have been banned from advertising. For example, Kingfisher doesnt need to advertise its beer when the general brand name, also conferred to the aircrafts, is being advertised publicly. Pixel Advertising Pixel advertising is a new type of Internet advertising in which the cost of an advertisement is calculated based on the number of pixels it occupies. This form of advertising originated in late 2005, when a British student Alex Tew came up with a website called The Million Dollar Homepage, where the advertisers could buy advertising space at the rate of $1 USD per pixel with a space limit of one million pixels. In addition to the space options provided by the hosting websites, there is also the option of using Do-it-Yourself (DIY) pixel scripts, which ensures that people who do not understand the intricacies of the pixel ads can incorporate the pixel ads in their website without any hassles. Some of the commonly used DIY pixel scripts are Million Pixel Script and the GPix Pixel Ad Script. Contextual Advertising Do you notice how Google generates ads that are relevant to your search? Or more recently, have you noticed the Google ads that show up next to your emails in the Google mail service? Well, if you are one of those people who still havent noticed this, then you need to wake up and smell the coffee. Well, Google Ad sense was the first contextual advertising venture. Contextual advertising is a very specifically targeted form of Internet marketing in which the advertisements are selected by automated systems based on the content being viewed by a particular user. The automated system scans the text of a website for keywords and sends advertisements that match the content which the user is viewing. Many search engines also make use of contextual advertising for displaying ads on the search result pages, such that the ads match the things that the user is looking up on the web. After Google started this trend, there were many others like Yahoo and Microsoft who followed suit. Keyword Advertising
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Commonly, keyword advertising is also known as pay per click advertising or cost per action advertising. Although, Yahoo was the first company to venture into keyword advertising, it is Google Ad words program which is now most popular for its keyword advertising. Some of the popular search engines, which are into keyword advertising, include Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter, Miva and LookSmart. Blog Advertising If you thought that a blog was nothing, but an online journal, then you are wrong. Owing to the tremendous popularity of blogs, advertisers have wisely used the blogs as effective advertising and marketing tools. The corporate blogs are excellent ways for companies to reach out to their customer base on the Internet. The advertising blogs often make use of Search Engine Marketing techniques, which ensure better results on the web. Bathroom Advertising Truly out-of-the-box isnt it? Yes, bathroom advertising is nothing, but placement of advertisements in public restrooms! A research was carried out, in which a test group of people visiting a restroom were questioned whether they noticed the advertisements in there, and surprisingly a major percentage of the group were seen to have a high retention of the advertisements. This led to the conclusion that people visiting the restroom are a good target audience. Bathroom advertising is soon catching up as an effective advertising tool. Mobile Advertising Yes, as annoying as it might be for you to receive advertisements on your cell phone, it is now a fact that mobile advertising or cell phone advertising is one of the most effective ways of advertising. Most of the times, advertisers have a data of mobile numbers of their existing customer base as well as a list of phone numbers of people who might be potential customers. A message on the mobile phone rarely goes unnoticed and hence, qualifies as an effective marketing or advertising tool! Public Relations Advertising Maintaining and developing good public relations has been a marketing tool for companies to maintain goodwill amongst employees as well as clients. It is not only a way to be in the public eye, but also a great way to build and maintain a particular brand image and identity. Public relations is thus a great advertising tool which is used by companies to reach out to their investors, employees and of course, their existing and potential customer base.

Q. What media are available to advertise today that were not available a century ago? What influence has the development of new media had on the growth of advertising?

There is a huge variety of media available through which a business can conduct an advertising campaign. What are the main types of media and what considerations should a business make in choosing between them? The starting point in the selection of appropriate advertising media is a media analysis. This can be defined as: "An investigation into the relative effectiveness and the relative costs of using the various advertising media in an advertising campaign" Before committing an advertising budget it is necessary to carry out marketing research on: - Potential customers - Their reading habits, television-watching habits - How many times the advertisers wish the potential customers to see an advertisement - How great a percentage of the market they wish to reach, etc. These elements all need to be considered and balanced to plan a campaign that will effectively reach its target audience at a reasonable cost. A useful distinction can be made between published media and visual/aural media. Published media include: National daily newspapers Sunday newspapers Local and regional newspapers Consumer magazines Specialist magazines Trade and professional press Internet Visual and aural media include: Television (terrestrial and digital) Radio Cinema Billboards Transport Direct mailing
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Development of new media. New media is communicationwhether written, broadcast, or spokenthat reaches a large audience. This includes television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and so forth. Mass media is a significant force in modern culture, particularly in America. Sociologists refer to this as a mediated culture where media reflects and creates the culture. Communities and individuals are bombarded constantly with messages from a multitude of sources including TV, billboards, and magazines, to name a few. These messages promote not only products, but moods, attitudes, and a sense of what is and is not important. Mass media makes possible the concept of celebrity: without the ability of movies, magazines, and news media to reach across thousands of miles, people could not become famous. In fact, only political and business leaders, as well as the few notorious outlaws, were famous in the past. Only in recent times have actors, singers, and other social elites become celebrities or stars. The current level of media saturation has not always existed. As recently as the 1960s and 1970s, television, for example, consisted of primarily three networks, public broadcasting, and a few local independent stations. These channels aimed their programming primarily at two-parent, middle-class families. Even so, some middle-class households did not even own a television. Today, one can find a television in the poorest of homes, and multiple TVs in most middle-class homes. Not only has availability increased, but programming is increasingly diverse with shows aimed to please all ages, incomes, backgrounds, and attitudes. This widespread availability and exposure makes television the primary focus of most mass-media discussions. More recently, the Internet has increased its role exponentially as more businesses and households sign on. Although TV and the Internet have dominated the mass media, movies and magazinesparticularly those lining the aisles at grocery checkout standsalso play a powerful role in culture, as do other forms of media. What role does mass media play? Legislatures, media executives, local school officials, and sociologists have all debated this controversial question. While opinions vary as to the extent and type of influence the mass media wields, all sides agree that mass media is a permanent part of modern culture. Three main sociological perspectives on the role of media exist: the limited-effects theory, the class-dominant theory, and the culturalist theory.

Limited-effects theory
The limited-effects theory argues that because people generally choose what to watch or read based on what they already believe, media exerts a negligible influence. This theory originated and was tested in the 1940s and 1950s. Studies that examined the ability of media to influence voting found that well-informed people relied more on personal experience, prior knowledge, and their own reasoning. However, media experts more likely swayed those who were less informed. Critics point to two problems with this perspective. First, they claim that limited-effects theory ignores the media's role in framing and limiting the discussion and debate of issues. How media frames the debate and what questions members of the media ask change the outcome of the discussion and the possible conclusions people may draw. Second,

this theory came into existence when the availability and dominance of media was far less widespread.

Class-dominant theory
The class-dominant theory argues that the media reflects and projects the view of a minority elite, which controls it. Those people who own and control the corporations that produce media comprise this elite. Advocates of this view concern themselves particularly with massive corporate mergers of media organizations, which limit competition and put big business at the reins of mediaespecially news media. Their concern is that when ownership is restricted, a few people then have the ability to manipulate what people can see or hear. For example, owners can easily avoid or silence stories that expose unethical corporate behaviour or hold corporations responsible for their actions. The issue of sponsorship adds to this problem. Advertising dollars fund most media. Networks aim programming at the largest possible audience because the broader the appeal, the greater the potential purchasing audience and the easier selling air time to advertisers becomes. Thus, news organizations may shy away from negative stories about corporations (especially parent corporations) that finance large advertising campaigns in their newspaper or on their stations. Television networks receiving millions of dollars in advertising from companies like Nike and other textile manufacturers were slow to run stories on their news shows about possible human-rights violations by these companies in foreign countries. Media watchers identify the same problem at the local level where city newspapers will not give new cars poor reviews or run stories on selling a home without an agent because the majority of their funding comes from auto and real estate advertising. This influence also extends to programming. In the 1990s a network cancelled a short-run drama with clear religious sentiments, Christy, because, although highly popular and beloved in rural America, the program did not rate well among young city dwellers that advertisers were targeting in ads. Critics of this theory counter these arguments by saying that local control of news media largely lies beyond the reach of large corporate offices elsewhere, and that the quality of news depends upon good journalists. They contend that those less powerful and not in control of media have often received full media coverage and subsequent support. As examples they name numerous environmental causes, the anti-nuclear movement, the anti-Vietnam movement, and the pro-Gulf War movement. While most people argue that a corporate elite controls media, a variation on this approach argues that a politically liberal elite controls media. They point to the fact that journalists, being more highly educated than the general population, hold more liberal political views, consider themselves left of center, and are more likely to register as Democrats. They further point to examples from the media itself and the statistical reality that the media more often labels conservative commentators or politicians as conservative than liberals as liberal. Media language can be revealing, too. Media uses the terms arch or ultra conservative, but rarely or never the terms arch or ultra liberal. Those who argue that a political elite controls media also point out that the movements that have gained media attentionthe environment, anti-nuclear, and anti-Vietnamgenerally support liberal political issues. Predominantly conservative political issues have yet to gain prominent media attention, or
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have been opposed by the media. Advocates of this view point to the Strategic Arms Initiative of the 1980s Reagan administration. Media quickly characterized the defence program as Star Wars, linking it to an expensive fantasy. The public failed to support it, and the program did not get funding or congressional support.

Culturalist theory
The culturalist theory, developed in the 1980s and 1990s, combines the other two theories and claims that people interact with media to create their own meanings out of the images and messages they receive. This theory sees audiences as playing an active rather than passive role in relation to mass media. One strand of research focuses on the audiences and how they interact with media; the other strand of research focuses on those who produce the media, particularly the news. Theorists emphasize that audiences choose what to watch among a wide range of options, choose how much to watch, and may choose the mute button or the VCR remote over the programming selected by the network or cable station. Studies of mass media done by sociologists parallel text-reading and interpretation research completed by linguists (people who study language). Both groups of researchers find that when people approach material, whether written text or media images and messages, they interpret that material based on their own knowledge and experience. Thus, when researchers ask different groups to explain the meaning of a particular song or video, the groups produce widely divergent interpretations based on age, gender, race, ethnicity, and religious background. Therefore, culturalist theorists claim that, while a few elite in large corporations may exert significant control over what information media produces and distributes personal perspective plays a more powerful role in how the audience members interpret those messages.