What is the definition of advertising and its nature and elements?

“Advertising consists of all activities involved in presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored identified message regarding a product, service, or idea. The message, called an advertisement, is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor”-William Stanton.

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• Definitions of Advertising:
• Characteristics of Advertising:
• Key Decisions in Advertising:
• Advertising Objectives:
• What is advertising and its nature?
• What are the elements of advertising?
• What is the basic definition of advertising?
• What are the 5 elements of an ad?

The world has become a global market. Modern market is more dynamic, competitive, and consumer-oriented. Entire marketing process is aimed at satisfying consumers more effectively than competitors. Consumer satisfaction can be achieved by receiving information from market and sending information to the market.

In order to inform, attract, and convince the valued customers, a marketer undertakes a number of promotional means. Advertising is one of the powerful means to inform about company’s total offers. Advertising is a dominant element of market promotion. Many times, the entire promotional efforts are replaced by advertising alone.

Major portion of promotion budget is consumed by advertising alone. Advertising is so powerful and popular that it is taken as equal to marketing!! Mass media are used intensively to advertise various products. Marketing without advertising seems to be impossible. Advertising works like a magic stick to actualize marketing goals!

Definitions of Advertising:

1. We can define term ‘advertising’ as:

Advertising is a paid form of mass communication that consists of the special message sent by the specific person (advertiser or company), for the specific group of people (listeners, readers, or viewers), for the specific period of time, in the specific manner to achieve the specific goals.

2. More clearly, advertising can be defined as:

Advertising includes oral, written, or audio­visual message addressed to the people for the purpose of informing and influencing them to buy the products or to act favorably toward idea or institution.

3. Philip Kotler:

“Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods, services, or ideas by an identified sponsor.”

4. Frank Presbrey:

“Advertising is a printed, written, oral and illustrated art of selling. Its objective is to encourage sales of the advertiser’s products and to create in the mind of people, individually or collectively, an impression in favour of the advertiser’s interest.”

5. William Stanton:

“Advertising consists of all activities involved in presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored identified message regarding a product, service, or idea. The message, called an advertisement, is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor.”

Characteristics of Advertising:

Above stated definitions reveal following features:

1. Tool for Market Promotion:

There are various tools used for market communication, such as advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, and publicity. Advertising is a powerful, expensive, and popular element of promotion mix.

2. Non-personal:

Advertising is a type of non-personal or mass communication with the target audience. A large number of people are addressed at time. It is called as non-personal salesmanship.

3. Paid Form:

Advertising is not free of costs. Advertiser, called as sponsor, has to spend money for preparing message, buying media, and monitoring advertising efforts. It is the costliest option of market promotion. Company has to prepare its advertising budget to appropriate advertising costs.

4. Wide Applicability:

Advertising is a popular and widely used means for communicating with the target market. It is not used only for business and profession, but is widely used by museums, charitable trusts, government agencies, educational institutions, and others to inform and attract various target publics.

5. Varied Objectives:

Advertising is aimed at achieving various objectives. It is targeted to increase sales, create and improve brand image, face competition, build relations with publics, or to educate people.

6. Forms of Advertising:

Advertising message can be expressed in written, oral, audible, or visual forms. Mostly, message is expressed in a joint form, such as oral-visual, audio-visual, etc.

7. Use of Media:

Advertiser can use any of the several advertising media to convey the message. Widely used media are print media (newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, booklets, letters, etc.), outdoor media (hoardings, sign boards, wall-printing, vehicle, banners, etc.), audio-visual media (radio, television, film, Internet, etc.), or any other to address the target audience.

8. Advertising as an Art:

Today’s advertising task is much complicated. Message creation and presentation require a good deal of knowledge, creativity, skills, and experience. So, advertising can be said as an art. It is an artful activity.

9. Element of Truth:

It is difficult to say that advertising message always reveals the truth. In many cases, exaggerated facts are advertised. However, due to certain legal provisions, the element of truth can be fairly assured. But, there is no guarantee that the claim made in advertisement is completely true. Most advertisements are erotic, materialistic, misleading, and producer-centered.

10. One-way Communication:

Advertising involves the one-way communication. Message moves from company to customers, from sponsor to audience. Message from consumers to marketer is not possible. Marketer cannot know how far the advertisement has influenced the audience.

Key Decisions in Advertising:

Advertising is one of – but popular and powerful – tools of market promotion. It involves a several decisions.

Some experts explain advertising decisions and activities in form of six ‘M’s as under:

1. The first ‘M’ stands for Mission – Advertising Objectives.

2. The second ‘M stands for Money – Advertising Budget.

3. The third ‘M’ stands for Message – Creating Advertising Message and Copy.

4. The forth ‘M’ stand for Monitoring – Managing (organising) of Advertising Efforts.

5. The fifth ‘M’ stands for Media – Advertising Media Selection and Media Scheduling.

6. The sixth ‘M’ stands for Measurement – Measuring and Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness (MEAE).

However, most of experts agree that advertising consists of mainly eight decisions as shown in figure 1. Manager concerns with taking decisions on these areas of advertising.

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.

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.

iv. To expand of market.

v. To gain confidence of buyers.

vi. To request customers to compromise with unavoidable circumstances.

vii. To seek apology of the buyers for any undesirable events, etc.

Company has to select one or more objectives based on its situations. It should be clarified that the list is not exhaustive. New advertising objectives may emerge as per change in situations. However, the main objective of advertising is to increase sales and earn profits. Company must define it advertising objectives clearly and precisely.