Introduction
Advertisement is creating awareness of a certain product that is in the market. In other words, it is the paid communication by an organization that would like its information disseminated. The term client or sponsor is the term used to refer to the company that is paying for the advertising. If by any chance a communication is not paid for, then it is not an advertisement. Advertising must also be mass-mediated. That is, it must be delivered through a communication medium designed to reach more than one person. The most common means of disseminating advertisement are television, radio, newspapers, and magazines.
The mass-mediated character of advertisement generates a communication atmosphere where the message is not conveyed in a face-to-face way. Notably, all advertisement includes an attempt to persuade. They are designed in a way to trigger somebody to do something. Thus for a communication to be termed as an advertisement, it must meet the three essential criteria; it must be paid for, communication must be delivered to an audience through mass media and communication must be an attempting persuasion.
There is the various mode of advertisements that manufacturers adopt in order create awareness of their products. It has been proven that advertising does not necessarily have a direct effect on the audience’s liking for a product (Bootwala; Lawrence, 2004, p.6-24). Advertising means different things for different people because it can be termed as a business, an art form, an institution, or a cultural phenomenon.
To an executive of a multinational organization, such as coca-cola, advertising is an important marketing tool that helps create brand awareness and brand loyalty. To a retail shop owner, advertising is a way of bringing customers to the shop. For an art director in an advertising bureau, advertising is the creative expression of a concept. For a planner in media, advertising is the way by which a firm makes use of the mass media to communicate to current as well as potential customers. In the case of a web designing manager, it is the way of driving traffic to a URL. This list is endless since every individual has his or her perspective of the term advertising (O’Guinn, Allen, and Semenik 2009, p. 8).
Advertising is a process that most average people do not understand or values even though companies believe in them and heavily rely on them. Most people have a major misunderstanding about advertising and what it is supposed to do, what it can do as well as what it cannot do. Many believe that advertising deceives others and not themselves. Others see it as a fascinating profession in which people are either morally insolvent swindle artists or pathological liars.
At worst, advertising can be seen as unfair entrepreneurial exploitation, ordinary business noise, mind control, or utter trickery. However, at best, an ordinary person perceives advertising as humorous, enlightening, useful, and sporadically trendy. The reality about advertising lies between these two extremes since at times, it can be hard-hitting and powerful while at other times it can be boring and ineffective (O’Guinn, Allen and Semenik, 2009, p. 9). Advertisement is heavily relied on by companies however big or small to build their brands.
The strategic role of advertising
There is usually a lot of under-emphasis on the role of advertising as a feature of marketing strategy. Advertising and promotion are in most cases the last things that managers think about, after product improvement, market testing, industry investigation, fabrication arrangement, material sourcing, supplying, and so on. It is a mistake to assume that the pattern of administrative actions concerned with bringing a market offering to the consuming public reveals their relative significance. Advertising as well as other forms of promotion communication are not in themselves enough for victorious consumer trademark promotion.
Advertising and promotion are necessary to the success of the venture. From an administrative point of view, advertising and promotion are the last steps in bringing a product to the marketplace. On the other hand, from the consumer’s point of view; advertising is the only step they see ahead of utilization. Advertising is the distinctive position where the buyer enters into the long sequence of brand promotion development and harmonization. It helps to institute a set of hypotheses that the customer will bring to all other features of their appointment with a given product.
Advertising is significant for the assurance and self-esteem of other parties who have a chance in the success of a product, like shareholders, sales workforce as well as other employees and contractors. It gives a substantial verification of the economical trustworthiness and competitive existence of a company. The substantial profits from this trustworthiness may include extended contractor credit periods, larger control over supplier’s price, enhanced employee preservation and more efficient staffing, as well as greater confidence amongst stock market players (Hackley, 2005, p. 56).
Factors affecting advertisement
Advertising budget
A company will spend more on advertising if the sales are more while a company with fewer sales will spend less on advertising. In reality, this should not be the case. A company with fewer sales should spend more on advertising to boost its sales. The expenditure in advertising will depend on the volumes of sales (Kaufmann and Dant 1995, p. 84). If the expenditure in advertising is high, it may result in higher sales and if advertising expenditure is reduced, this may result in decreased sales.
The objective and task method is the most desirable method of setting the advertising budget. This is based on setting promotion goals and noting the tasks to be performed to accomplish these goals. You start by determining the advertising objectives then identifying the tasks to be performed to achieve these objectives. This is followed by estimating the cost of all these tasks. This total cost of all these tasks in addition to some amount for contingencies makes up the advertising budget. This method considers advertising as an investment and a means to achieve long-term business objectives (Mukesh and Ranju 2006, p. 85).
Motivation
Motivation is an important factor in promoting the efficiency of the sales organization. A company may have the best product, best resources, but if the sales force is not motivated, these resources will not give the best result. The root of the success of an association is motivation. If the sales force is not motivated it will result in high sales force revenue, higher selling expenditure, reduced sales. If the salesperson is highly motivated then the sales firm can make use of his ability much better than a person who is not motivated. The motivation changes the psychology of salesmen to work professionally to achieve managerial objectives (Tyler, Ferguson and Klein 2006 p. 23).
Attitude
Producers are interested in knowing how attitudes are formed and can be changed as well as when and why attitudes will predict the behavior towards a certain product. What a person intends to do does not predict what that person will do. Some factors dictate whether a consumer’s attitude will manipulate his or her behavior.
- Level of involvement or elaboration. There is a higher likelihood of attitudes forecasting the performance when the cognitive contribution is elevated and customers elaborate the information that leads to their attitudes. Attitude also is likely to be well-built and lasting and therefore more prognostic of a consumer’s performance when moving participation is high.
- Knowledge and experience. As the knowledge of a consumer about an object increases, the attitudes are more expected to be strongly held (Neijens, Hess, Putte and Smit, 2004, p. 37).
- Analysis of reasons. It has been seen that when a consumer is asked to analyze his or her reasons for preferring a certain brand, this increases the link between attitude and behavior. This is applicable only when behavior is measured immediately after measuring attitudes.
- Attitudes of accessibility. The more accessible the attitudes, the more strongly they are related to behavior. Consequently, if an attitude regarding a certain product cannot be remembered, the attitude will have very little effect on the behavior of the consumer.
- Confidence attitude. There are times when a consumer will be more certain about his or her evaluation and at other times he or she is not. Confidence is stronger when the attitude is measured on the amount of information that the consumer has concerning a certain product.
- Attitude specificity. Attitudes can be good foretellers of performance when one is very specific about the performance that they want to foretell.
- Attitude-behavior relationship over time. When a product is introduced to consumers and then they do not use it, their attitude confidence towards the product gradually goes down. This can be solved by producers making regular advertisements to reactivate the attitudes of consumers (Shah and D’Souza, 2009, p. 149).
- Situational factors. Some factors intervene and hinder the consumer from showing a positive attitude towards a certain product. These factors weaken the attitude-behavior relationship.
- Emotional attachment. If a consumer becomes more emotionally attracted to a certain product he or she can pay more and repeatedly buy it over and over again because there is a bond that is created between him and the product (Hoyer and Macinnis, 2009, p.145).
Measure Used To Evaluate Campaign Effectiveness
Advertisement and sales
There is a relationship between advertising and expenditures. It can be seen that advertising sells certain goods. It is also true to say that products that sell more advertise more. However, this cannot tell how much a company will sell after advertising. To overcome this problem, companies advertise in some regions while leaving others. This is an experiment where the companies switch between print media and broadcast media. A company that takes advertisements of what they think is best for consumers to every market may not be able to experiment. To solve this, a company can try and include in the analysis variable other than doing advertisements that affect the sales.
A theory of advertising can be developed basing it on the idea that firms always act rationally in deciding on where and how to advertise as well as how much to spend on advertising. Using this theory, the amount and type of advertising done can be taken as optimal about the type of product advertised and other factors. The result of this is a model of factors that seem to affect advertisement and not a model of the relationship between advertising and sales (Black, 2009, p. 139).
Money and economic activity
According to Black (2009, p. 141), “When economic activity grows faster than usual, the money stock tends to grow faster than usual, and when the money stock grows faster than usual, economic activity tends to grow faster than usual; basically, unusually slower growth in the money stock tends to be associated with usually slower growth in economic activity; in other words, growth in the money stock and growth in economic activity are correlated.” The level of financial activity affects the demand for money, but that open market operations do not affect the level of economic activity. It can as well be stated that the money supply function and the money demand function are similar.
Consumption and output
There is a positive correlation between consumption and output. If there is an unusual increase or decrease in consumption, there will be an unusual increase or decrease in output. Some theories assign a causal role to consumption. If people reduce their consumption, this reduces business for many companies, resulting in reduced output, which decreases income and this may cause people to cut down their consumption rate even more.
Additional theories allocate a more inactive role to consumption. People cut down consumption when there is a fall in wealth as well as when they expect output to fall. If the production does not fall, then a cut on consumption will mean higher savings.
Reference List
Black, F., 2009. Business Cycles and Equilibrium. New Jersey, Wiley &Sons. Inc. Web.
Bootwala, S. and Lawrence, M. D. 2004. Advertising and Sales Promotion. Pune, Nirali Prakashan. Web.
Hackley, C., 2005. Advertising and Promotion. London, SAGE Publications. Web.
Hoyer, W. D. and Macinnis, D.J., 2009. Consumer behavior. OH, South West Cengage Learning. Web.
Kaufmann, P. J. and Dant, R. P., 1995. Franchising: Contemporary issues and research. NY, The Hawith Press Inc. Web.
Mukesh, T. and Ranju T., 2006. Advertising and Sales Management. New Delhi, V.K. Enterprises. Web.
Neijens, P., Hess, C., Putte, B. and Smit, E. 2004. Content and media factors in advertising. Amsterdam. Het Spinhuis Publishers. Web.
O’Guinn, T. C., Allen, C. T. and Semenik, R.J., 2009. Advertising and Integrated Promotion. OH, S.W. Cernage Learning. Web.
Shah, K. and D’Souza, A., 2009. Advertising and promotions. New Delhi, McGraw publishing company Ltd. Web.
Tyler, S. E, Ferguson, D.A. and Klein, R. A., 2006. Media promotion and marketing: for broadcasting, cable and the internet. MA, Elsevier Inc. Web.