Introduction:
An advertisement as an object and an advertising as a process has lots of contents and players to bring that concept. As an object it is the Ad designer or the agent who has the role to play, while as a process it is the beholder who has the responsibility to accomplish the objective. In between these two there are other players also to play their separate roles. While the whole issue is to manage and explore the benefits, the role of advertising, being used as a marketing tool can’t be ignored. This is an attempt to define what an advertisement is, and how it is related to other objectives.
Definition
Advertising is a process to communicate the desired message of the producer to the customers. In other words it is the process by which the message is being passed to the consumers by proper means of communication. In a well versed form it is one of the marketing mix to promote goods, services, companies and ideas through an identified sponsor. One of the 4P’s of marketing is the promotion strategy. Advertising being a part of promotional mix helps a lot to the marketers to promote their products.
Elements of advertising Process
There are different elements of advertising. Their relevancy depends upon the demand of a particular situation and so can easily move in the priority list to fulfill the need of the situation. As enlisted and shown in the figure depicted above “an advertisement as a product has several elements to be judged (in the process starting from concept to reality) to come as a product to meet the objective of the company”.
The importance of advertising depends upon various factors such as nature of the product, Industry to which it belongs, competition in the market, market intensity, stage of the product or the brand in its life cycle, effect on per capita consumption, customer loyalty, brand credibility and media.
Advertising is a component of marketing mix has a lot to do in the market to meet an objective of the beholder. Being a communication process to put the information about the intended “idea or thought” to the target audience or defined customers in a manner to satisfy the intended need is not an easy task. In a very subjective way it is all to bring the concept into reality to work and meet the intended need. Through advertisement, the beholder tries to put their information into the market for their ready acceptance. The intensity of competition has led a lot of pressure on promoters and advertisers to make a creative, responding and effective advertisement.
The need of the market has created a different role for advertising to play in the area of marketing. For a well established product or brand, advertisement has to just communicate its relevance by transferring the information to the market. But, for a product or an idea which is either in an initiation stage or just to move, advertising has a lot to do in the market for that product. Nature of the product and its stage in its life cycle is also a great determinant of advertising, to be designed and to get figured in the market.
Four P’s of marketing and advertising
Product and Advertisement: There are three kinds of products shown in an advertisement. They are General Products, Esteemed or logical products and Competitive Products. To advertise a general product information used in an ad is all the benefits of the product and its appeal to the target audience. For logical products the information to be conveyed through the advertisement is the need or satisfaction level to which the product is designed. For competitive product the comparative appeal is used in an advertisement to promote the product.
Place and Advertisement: To convey information through advertisement place strategy covers culture, age, gender, emotion, demography, geography, society, class of people, Income class to be shown in the advertisement and through that to target the desired audience. By this an advertisement helps to promote the product and to reach the targeted audience.
Price and Advertisement: In an advertisement pricing strategy usually designed to convey the comparative benefits and price structure with the competitive products and to target the desired customers to meet the objective.
Promotion and Advertisement: An advertisement is usually defined as a promotion strategy to promote the intended idea and meet objective. When all the other 3 Ps gets compiled in an advertisement it is the advertisement (a part of the promotional mix) which has to serve the intended need.
Advertising budget and cost
There are different categories of advertising media to be used for advertisement. A company has to go through a thorough search of different available options, budget for advertisement, mass effect of the media and analysis of cost and benefit of the available media to meet the objective. The choice of the option depends upon available options, different objectives subject to the restriction of resources to be used. For example to meet the objective in terms of its effectiveness television advertising is used, for others such as for great branding and reach a large audience magazines are used, while to assist in cornering the market mail order and leaflets are used. By advertising one’s business with internet marketing strategies one can save on his advertising budget and one can run his advertising budget into arrears if he starts up his internet marketing with the wrong advertising company. To opt certain media one has to thoroughly evaluate the objectives, resource constraints, target reach, accessibility and per capita effect.
There are different types of advertising. It covers Television, Newspaper, Magazine, Mailorder, Banners, Cost per click, Google SEO, Weblinx etc. While their effect is respectively, mass effect, budgetary effect, cost justification effect , an easy lead access effect, brand development effect, easy access and lesser cost effect, website promotion effect and in budget advertising effect. The criterion to select an option to advertise is restricted with the purpose, the obligation, the resource constraints and the earlier outcomes of those options.
All the efforts for advertising are to put the information in the market and get the desired objective fulfilled. Though the definition is very subjective the outcomes are a mix of qualitative and quantitative one. Examples of subjective outcome is supporting the branding process, place the informations at the right place, stimulating intention and motivation to buy etc while the measurable outcome is sales growth, increase in per capita consumption etc. The measurement of an outcome of a selected option becomes a base for evaluating the decision of the company or the organization moved up with that decision. While the same outcome, becomes an evaluating parameter for others to use, as to evaluate that available option.
An ad campaign has different issues to meet the target. Its content covers, message, appeal, slogan, words, celebrities, media, kind of satisfaction etc. An ad is a complete justification of the need and the requirement. Though the justification has several grounds to get a trade off among different available options, the need to serve and manage that trade off cant be ignored. It is the resource capacity, which ultimately talks about the whole of the advertisement. The other factors which affects the decision is available options and the need.
Advertisement has an important role in marketing to meet the objective of the beholder. For an organization or the beholder for whom it is designed, for the ad designer, for the sponsors, and for the customers as a whole advertising has different meaning. For the sponsor it is the communication, for the beholder it is the objective, for a customer it the rationale to decide. To serve different needs of the society it is designed and used differently. The significance of advertising cant be ignored as it is the mean to communicate and get the desired result. As a mean to inform and to add to the credibility the strategy behind designing an advertisement and its content, there is a lot of factors to be judged and to comply with. Being an effective marketing tool advertisement is used to meet several needs and hence to fill the gap in the market.
Advertising : Different players their association and role :
Manufacturer/Initiator
1. What?
2. How?
3. Where?
4. To Whom?
5. By Whom?
6. How much?
Ad designer/ Ad agencies
1. What?
2. How?
3. By whom?
4. Where?
Sponsor
1. Where?
2. To whom?
3. When?
4. How?
Customers
1. What?
2. How?
3. Who?
Evaluator
1. Shift in per capita consumption
There are five main players playing with an ad concept to come as a product. They are manufacturer, Ad designer, Sponsor, Customers and the Evaluator. These different persons have different roles in formulating the purpose. As shown in the above picture they are concerned with different parts as to play in this process. Though the start and end point is not restricted but it all depends upon the requirement and available options. To enrich their role they have different role criteria either to be put to initiate the concept or to evaluate the same on different grounds, in an advertisement process, as shown in the below mentioned diagram. The terminology and the contents that have been used to define the roles of each head have the effect of their responsibility, the stage where they have to play or contribute and their part in the whole communication process to lead the concept of advertisement into reality.
After fulfilling the initial criteria these all have to stick towards different parts of their role within a predefined set to bring advertisement concept to work. The role of these players and the requirement of their role gets judged with the whole issues as defined in the below mentioned figure.
Ad designer/ Ad agencies
1.Message
2.Content
3.Language
4.Media
5.Target audience
6.Slogan
7.Methods
8.Brand association
9.Customer loyalty
10.Brand acceptance
Manufacturer/Initiator
1.Product/Idea
2.Concept
3.Budget
4.Segments
5.Gender
6.Value addition
7.Associated benefits
8.Celebrities
9.Media
10.Language
Sponsor
1.Budget
2.Cost/benefits
3.Media
4.Timimng
5.Target audience
6.Brand loyalty
Customers
1.Brand value
2.Valueaddition
3.Offerings
4.Ad association
5.Need satisfaction
6.Ad message
7. Earlier experience.
Evaluator
1.increase in per capita consumption
2.Customer acceptance
3.Market credibility
Advertising: Evaluation
Now about the product or the theme which get informed through the advertisement has to take the market acceptance. If the requirement of all meets properly the intention of the message gets served with proper acceptance in the market. Being a challenging and required issue of the market all parts of the process have to meet effectively. Based upon the results in terms of sales growth, market acceptance, and credibility as desired initially the advertisement also required to be evaluated in terms of its effectiveness. There are different methods of evaluating advertisement effectiveness. Few of them are rating point (rp) and target rating point (trp). It tries to show the percentage of the universe of the existing base of users/customers that can be reached by the use of each media outlet in a particular moment of time. The difference in these methods is because of the size of the sample and their dimensions. Hence we can put that these methods could be used to make an advertisement to fulfill the segmentation strategy with the more refined method i.e. trp.
To sum up
Advertising has a critical role in marketing. It helps in promoting the product, improves sales growth, puts the information into the market, effects people to initiate the action. Apart from its role for a beholder for whom it is designed it has a great contribution in generating a sector with employment opportunity and by that creating its contribution to the society. The affect, credibility, and the requirement all could be easily measured by its current role in the market and the economy. From both as a need and as a competitive requirement, advertising serves a lot in the market. Being an important marketing tool it servers the need of all the players and by that proves its credibility to contribute towards the needs and objective.
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