WHAT IS ADVERTISING?

Since you were a child, you have been reading, watching, listening to, and looking at advertisements. So the question "what is advertising?" may appear a little silly. An educated observer, on the other hand, sees advertising as more than just a sales message that appears in and around news stories, magazine features, and television programs. In fact, it is a complex form of communication that employs objectives and strategies to have various effects on consumer thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Advertising is, in some ways, straightforward. It is about creating a message and sending it to someone, hoping for a specific reaction. You've seen it all your life in TV commercials and advertisements in magazines, on billboards, on the Internet, and elsewhere.

Advertising is a type of communication that is used to persuade a target audience (viewers, readers, or listeners) to take action in relation to products, ideas, or services. The most common goal is to influence consumer behavior in relation to a commercial offering, but political and ideological advertising is also common. Sponsors typically pay for advertising messages, which are distributed through a variety of media, including traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, outdoor, or direct mail, as well as new media such as websites and text messages.

Commercial advertisers frequently seek to increase consumption of their products or services through branding, which involves the repetition of an image or product name in an effort to make consumers associate certain qualities with the brand. Political parties, interest groups, religious organizations, and governmental agencies are examples of non-commercial advertisers who spend money to advertise items other than a consumer product or service. Nonprofit organizations can use free modes of persuasion, such as a public service announcement, to persuade people.

Advertising has undeniably become a powerful social force. As a result, regulators and society are keeping a close eye on advertisers. Because of the influential nature of their profession, advertisers are becoming more aware of their social responsibilities.

Definition of Advertising

"Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media to reach broad audiences" (Bovee, 1992, p. 7)

According to this definition, advertising has five basic components:

1. Although some forms of advertising, such as Public Service Commission (PSCs), use donated space and time, advertising is a paid form of communication.
2. The message is not only paid for, but the sponsor is also identified.
3. Most advertising attempts to persuade or influence the consumer to do something, but in some cases, the message's purpose is simply to inform consumers and make them aware of the product or company.
4. Advertising reaches a large number of prospective customers.
5. The message is communicated through a variety of non-personal forms of mass media. That is, advertising is not targeted at a specific individual, though this is changing with the introduction of the Internet and more interactive media.

History of Advertising

Advertising has existed since the dawn of civilization. Advertising research shows that it does not operate in a vacuum. Advertising is not only a product of the society and business environment in which it operates; it is also one of the marketing and communication tools that work together to set the stage for effective product or service marketing.

The environment that gave rise to advertising was shaped by three major forces. The first was the start of demographic ideals being realized. Second, advertising was a component of the industrial revolution that swept through the United States in the late nineteenth century. The transition from rural to urban society was the third significant social development. While all of these factors were important in the evolution of advertising, it is also clear that efficient transportation and the introduction of widely distributed branded goods of consistent quality set the stage for twentieth-century advertising. Advertising in the twenty-first century is expected to be a product of communication blending via the Internet, television, cable, and computer technologies. As we enter this bold and new century, advertisers will be preoccupied with globalization, diversity, and brand loyalty.

Looking back, scholars have determined that in the first half of the twentieth century, the convergence of the availability of branded products, the ability to provide national distribution, and a growing middle class as a market for these products had sufficiently evolved. This expansion aided in the development of an advertising industry that demonstrated the majority of the basic functions that we still see in advertising today. However, advertising truly matured and prospered when an ethical framework for promotional messages was established, as well as valid and reliable research to measure advertising effects.

The history of advertising may be divided into four broad eras:

Premarketing Era, prehistoric times to the middle of the 18th century. Communication was primitive at best.

Mass communication era, from the 1700s to the early 1900s. Faster communication permitted advertisers to reach large segments of the Research era, the last fifty years where the improvement of techniques and technology, the narrowing of target markets etc. drives advertisers closer to the perfect campaign.

Interactive era, where consumers use communication on an interactive basis. Rather than mass media sending one-way messages to the audience, the audience controls when and where the media can reach them. This has major control implications for the advertising industry.

David Ogilvy

A British-American business executive named David Ogilvy was a pioneer in the "creative revolution" in American advertising. Ogilvy is still one of the most well-known names in advertising. Time magazine dubbed him "the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry" in 1962.

Following his studies at Oxford, David Ogilvy spent a year studying American advertising techniques. In 1948, he co-founded Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, which grew to become one of the world's largest advertising firms. In 1965, Ogilvy merged the agency with his London backers, Mather & "Crowther, to form a new international company. The company went public a year later, becoming one of the first advertising firms to do so. Soon after, Ogilvy & Mather had spread around the world and established itself as one of the top agencies in all regions.

David Ogilvy became one of advertising's most eloquent spokesmen through best-selling books and widely publicized speeches. Nonetheless, he was never afraid to point out his profession's flaws. He is remembered for reminding his colleagues that "the consumer is not a moron" and for the inventiveness of his advertisements for Schweppes and Rolls Royce.