Advertising


 

The main aim of advertisers is to communicate and influence the prospective customers to buy a particular brand’s product. Often they also advertise in order to improve the brand image. For this purposes every major medium and advertising tool is used to deliver their message. Some of the key mediums like television, radio, cinema, magazines, newspapers, video games, the Internet and billboards are used extensively.

Commonly, advertisements are seen on carts, airport, on the sides of buses, buss shelters, etc. Advertisements are cleverly placed at places where viewers can easily and regularly access visual, audio and printed information.

Mentioned below are some forms of advertising:

Advocacy Advertising: This type of advertising is done mainly for economic, political, or social issues. Advocate Advertising can be in the form of advertisement, message, or public communication. The aim of advertising through this medium is planned campaign to convince public and form their opinion on a specific issue.

Comparative Advertising: Comparative advertising works on comparison. One brand is directly or indirectly compared with another or even more conflicting brands. Major industries like airlines and automobile manufacturers these days use this technique.



Cooperative Advertising: Sharing is the key component here. Two parties share their advertising costs in this type of advertising.

Direct-Mail Advertising: Emails, catalogues, flyers, letters, and postcards are just a few of the direct-mail advertising options available. A lot of personal details are required to be known for this type of advertising.

Outdoor Advertising: Billboards, wraps on the side of buildings, etc fall in the category of outdoor advertising. Outdoor advertising is extremely effective if implemented on busy located areas where a lot of travelers come and can buy the product from nearby.

Product Advertising: In this type of advertising, no selling of a specific product is done.

Point-of-Purchase Advertising: Incentives play a major role in this type. Promotional items like package and its presentation is done in a manner to attract customers so that they purchase the product.

Some useful Tips on Advertising:

. Consistency: The message of the ad should be delivered in a constant way. Even style of business cards, letterheads of the company, envelops, etc should be standardized and not change often.

. Tools: Billboard ads can have the maximum impact when implemented with the right medium like TV, radio, newspapers, etc.

. Promotion: Focus should be on the benefits of the products rather than the features as it connects with the consumer’s emotional satisfaction.



YouTube Marketing

Advertising


Advertising falls into two main categories: consumer advertising, directed to the ultimate purchaser, and trade (or business-to-business) advertising, in which the appeal is made to business users through trade journals and other media. Ondalist.com is the best free online classifieds.

Both consumer and trade advertising employ many specialised types of commercial persuasion. Ondalist.com is the best site to list your classifieds. A relatively minor, but important, form of advertising is institutional (or image) advertising, designed solely to build prestige and public respect for particular items. Each year millions are spent on institutional advertising, which usually mentions products or services only incidentally. Another minor, but increasingly popular, form of advertising is co-operative advertising, in which the manufacturer shares the expense of local television, radio, or newspaper advertising with the retailer who signs the advertisement. National advertisers occasionally share the same space in magazine advertising. For example, makers of pancake flour, of syrup, and of sausages sometimes jointly advertise this combination as an ideal cold-weather breakfast.

Advertising may be local, regional, national, or international in scope. The rates charged for the different levels of advertising vary sharply, particularly in newspapers; varying rates also are set by newspapers for amusement, political, legal, religious, and charitable advertisements. Ondalist.com offers a great and cheap way to advertise on their site.

Advertising messages are disseminated through numerous and varied channels or media. In descending order of volume, the major media are newspapers, television, direct mail, radio, magazines, business publications, outdoor advertising, and farm publications. In addition, a significant amount of all advertising is invested in miscellaneous media, such as window displays, free shopping-news publications, calendars, blimps, sky writing by aeroplanes, and even sandwich boards carried by people walking the streets.

Direct advertising includes all forms of sales appeals mailed, delivered, or exhibited directly to the prospective buyer of an advertised product or service, without use of any indirect medium, such as newspapers or television. Direct advertising logically may be divided into three broad classifications, namely, direct mail, mail order, and un-mailed advertising.

All forms of sales appeals (except mail-order appeals) that are sent through the mails are considered direct-mail advertising. The chief function of direct-mail advertising is to familiarise prospective buyers with a product’s name, its maker, its merits, and its local distributors. A direct-mail appeal is designed to support the sales activities of retailers by encouraging the continued patronage of old and new customers.

When no personal selling is involved, other methods are needed to induce people to send in orders by mail. In addition to newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, special devices such as single-product folders or multi-product catalogues are used in mail-order advertising. Mail-order promotions are designed to accomplish a complete selling job without salespeople.

Price appeal probably motivates more decisions to buy than any other appeal, and the magic words sale and bargain are directed at consumers with great frequency. Closely allied to these plain and simple discount offers are the “something for nothing” lures, such as “buy one get one free,” “send for free sample,” and “trial offer at half price,” and the big-money contest, for example, “finish this sentence and win £1000 in cash, an automobile, or a trip to Bermuda for two”, “No money down” is also a successful inducement.

Advertising also supplies most of the operating funds of the principal communications media. According to an authoritative survey, the radio and broadcast television industry depends on advertising for all its revenue. Cable television carries both consumer-paid and advertising-supported programming. Newspapers derive some 76 percent of their incomes from advertising, and national magazines, about 63 percent.

Another aspect of modern advertising is the Internet. In the last three years the “World Wide Web” has become a focal point for people who enjoy shopping and “bargains”. They can now buy things from all over the world and have them shipped to your door within 24 hours – all courtesy of a piece of plastic!

 

 

 

 

 

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Advertising


Is advertising the ultimate means to inform and help us in our everyday decision-making or is it just an excessively powerful form of mass deception used by companies to persuade their prospects and customers to buy products and services they do not need? Consumers in the global village are exposed to increasing number of advertisement messages and spending for advertisements is increasing accordingly.

It will not be exaggerated if we conclude that we are ’soaked in this cultural rain of marketing communications’ through TV, press, cinema, Internet, etc. (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). But if thirty years ago the marketing communication tools were used mainly as a product-centered tactical means, now the promotional mix, and in particular the advertising is focused on signs and semiotics. Some argue that the marketers’ efforts eventually are “turning the economy into symbol so that it means something to the consumer” (Williamson, cited in Anonymous, Marketing Communications, 2006: 569). One critical consequence is that many of the contemporary advertisements “are selling us ourselves” (ibid.)

The abovementioned process is influenced by the commoditisation of products and blurring of consumer’s own perceptions of the companies’ offering. In order to differentiate and position their products and/or services today’s businesses employ advertising which is sometimes considered not only of bad taste, but also as deliberately intrusive and manipulative. The issue of bad advertising is topical to such extent that organisations like Adbusters have embraced the tactics of subvertising – revealing the real intend behind the modern advertising. The Adbusters magazine editor-in-chief Kalle Lason commented on the corporate image building communication activities of the big companies: “We know that oil companies aren’t really friendly to nature, and tobacco companies don’t really care about ethics” (Arnold, 2001). On the other hand, the “ethics and social responsibility are important determinants of such long-term gains as survival, long-term profitability, and competitiveness of the organization” (Singhapakdi, 1999). Without communications strategy that revolves around ethics and social responsibility the concepts of total quality and customer relationships building become elusive. However, there could be no easy clear-cut ethics formula of marketing communications.

ADVERTISING – PRESCIOUS INFORMATION OR VICIOUS MANIPULATION?

In order to get insights into the consumer perception about the role of advertising we have reviewed a number of articles and conducted four in-depth interviews. A number of research papers reach opposed conclusions. These vary from the ones stating that “the ethicality of a firm’s behavior is an important consideration during the purchase decision” and that consumers “will reward ethical behavior by a willingness to pay higher prices for that firm’s product” (Creyer and Ross Jr., 1997) to others stressing that “although consumers may express a desire to support ethical companies, and punish unethical companies, their actual purchase behaviour often remains unaffected by ethical concerns” and that “price, quality and value outweigh ethical criteria in consumer purchase behaviour” (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001). Focusing on the advertising as the most prominent marketing communication tool we have constructed and conducted an interview consisting of four themes and nine questions. The conceptual frame of this paper is built on these four themes.

THEME I. The Ethics in Advertising

The first theme comprises two introductory questions about the ethics in advertising in general.

I.A. How would you define the ethics in advertising?

The term ethics in business involves “morality, organisational ethics and professional deontology” (Isaac, cited in Bergadaa’, 2007). Every industry has its own guidelines for the ethical requirements. However, the principal four requirements for marketing communications are to be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Unfortunately, in a society where the course of action of the companies is determined by profit targets the use of marketing communications messages “may constitute a form of social pollution through the potentially damaging and unintended effects it may have on consumer decision making” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999).

One of the interviewed respondents stated that “the most successful companies do no need ethics in their activities because they have built empires.” Another view is that “sooner or later whoever is not ethical will face the negative consequences.”

I.B. What is your perception of the importance of ethics in advertising?

The second question is about the importance of being moral when communicating with/to your target audiences and the way consumers/customers view it. In different research papers we have found quite opposing conclusions. Ethics of business seems to be evaluated either as very important in the decision making process or as not really a serious factor in this process. An example of rather extreme stance is that “disaster awaits any brand that acts cynically” (Odell, 2007).

It may seem obvious that the responsibility should be carried by the advertiser because “his is the key responsibility in keeping advertising clean and decent” (Bernstein, 1951). On the other hand the companies’ actions are defined by the “the canons of social responsibility and good taste” (ibid.). One of the interviewees said:

“The only responsible for giving decent advertising is the one who profits at the end. Company’s profits should not be at the expense of society.”

Another one stated that “our culture and the level of societal awareness determine the good and bad in advertising”.

The increased importance of marketing communications ethics is underscored by the need of applying more dialogical, two-way communications approaches. The “demassification technologies have the potential to facilitate dialogue”, but the “monologic” attitude is still the predominant one (Botan, 1997). Arnold (2001) points out the cases of Monsanto and Esso which had to pay “a price for its [theirs] one-way communications strategy”. In this train of thought we may review ethics in advertisements from two different perspectives as suggested by our respondents and different points of view in the reviewed papers. The first one is that it is imperative to have one common code of ethics imposed by the law. The other affirms the independence and responsibility of every industry for setting its own standards.

THEME II. Which type of regulation should be the leading one in the field of advertising?

The next theme directs the attention towards the regulation system which should be the primary one. Widely accepted opinion is that both self regulation and legal controls should work in synergy. In other words the codes of practice are meant to complement the laws. However, in certain countries there are stronger legal controls over the advertising, e.g. in Scandinavia. On the other hand the industry’s self regulation is preferred in the Anglo-Saxon world. Still, not everyone agrees with the laissez-faire concept.

One of our respondents said:

“I believe governments should impose stricter legal frame and harsher punishment for companies which do not comply with the law.”

Needless to say, the social acceptability varies from one culture/country to another. At the end of the day “good taste or bad is largely a matter of the time, the place, and the individual” (Bernstein, 1951). It would be also probably impossible to set clear-cut detailed rules in the era of Internet and interactive TV. Therefore, both types of regulation should be applied with the ultimate aim of reaching balance between the sacred right of freedom of choice and information and minimizing possible widespread offence. Put differently, the goal is synchronising the “different ethical frameworks” of marketers and “others in society” in order to fill the “ethics gap” (Hunt and Vitell, 2006).

THEME III. Content of Advertisements.

Probably the most controversial issue in the field of marketing communications is the content of advertisements. Nwachukwu et al. (1997) distinguish three areas of interest in terms of ethical judgment of ads: “individual autonomy, consumer sovereignty, and the nature of the product”. The individual autonomy is concerned with advertising to children. Consumer sovereignty deals with the level of knowledge and sophistication of the target audience whereas the ads for harmful products are in the centre of public opinion for a long time. We have added two more perspectives to arrive at five questions in the conducted interviews. The first one concerns the advertisement that imply sense of guilt and praise affluence that in the most cases cannot be achieved and the second one is about advertisements stimulating desire and satisfaction through acquisition of material goods.

III.A. What is your attitude towards the advertisement of harmful products?

A typical example is the advertisement of cigarettes. Nowadays we cannot see slogans like “Camel Agrees with Your Throat” (Chickenhead, accessed 25th September 2007) or “Chesterfield – Packs More Pleasure – Because It’s More Perfectly Packed!” (Chickenhead, accessed 25th September 2007). The general advertisement, sponsorship and other marketing communications means are already prohibited to be used by cigarette producers. Surprisingly, most of the answers of the respondents were not against the cigarettes advertisement. One of the respondents said:

“People are well informed about the consequences of smoking so it is a matter of personal choice.”

As with many other contemporary products the shift in communications messages for cigarettes is oriented towards symbol and image building. The same can be said for the alcohol ads. A well-known example of emotional advertising is the Absolut Vodka campaign. From Absolut Nectar, through Absolut Fantasy to Absolut World the Swedish drink actually aims to be Absolut… Everything.

Advertising of hazardous products is even more harshly criticised when it is aimed at audiences with low individual autonomy, i.e. children. Two main issues in this respect are the manipulation of cigarettes and alcohol as “the rite of passage into adulthood” and the fact that “sales of health-hazardous products (alcohol, cigarettes) develop freely without much disapproval” (Bergadaa, 2007).

III.B. What is your attitude towards the advertisement to children?

Children are not only customers, but also consumers, influencers and users in the family Decision-Making Unit (DMU). Additional difficulty is that they are too impressionable to be deciders in the DMU. At the same time it is not a secret that marketers apply “the same basic strategy of trying to sell the parent through the child’s insistence on the purchase” (Bernstein, 1951). It is not a surprise then that “spending on advertising for children has increased five-fold in the last ten years and two thirds of commercials during child television programs are for food products” (Bergadaa 2007). In the US alone children represent a direct purchases market of $24 billion worth (McNeal cited in Bergadaa, 2007) which certainly is on the top of the agendas of many companies. While exploiting children’s decision-making immaturity advertisers often go too far in dematerialising their products and “teleporting children out of the tangible and into the virtual world of brand names” (Bergadaa 2007). Teenage virtual worlds like Habbo where snack food brands run advertising campaigns are already a fact of life (Goldie, 2007). The imaginative worlds are popular not only online. Hugely successful for creating a fantasy world is Mc Donald’s. The company tops the European list of kids’ advertisers while more than half of the children’s adverts are for junk food.

In some countries there are harsher restrictions to the children advertising.

• “Sweden and Norway do not permit any television advertising to be directed towards children under 12 and no adverts at all are allowed during children’s programmes.

• Australia does not allow advertisements during programmes for pre-school children.

• Austria does not permit advertising during children’s programmes, and in the Flemish region of Belgium no advertising is permitted 5 minutes before or after programmes for children.

• Sponsorship of children’s programmes is not permitted in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden while in Germany and the Netherlands, although it is allowed, it is not used in practice.” (McSpotlight, accessed 20th September 2007).

According to a research by Roberts and Pettigrew (2007) the most frequent themes in children advertising are “grazing, the denigration of core foods, exaggerated health claims, and the implied ability of certain foods to enhance popularity, performance and mood.” But the junk food is not the only reason for parents’ preoccupation. According to a study of Kaiser Family Foundation (Dolliver, 2007) parents are concerned about the amount of advertising of the following products (in order of importance): toys, video games, clothing, alcohol/beer, movies, etc.

The interviewed respondents were unanimous: “The advertising to children should be strictly monitored.” Similar results were obtained in surveys by Rasmussen Reports and Kaiser Family Foundation. Nevertheless, the legal means are just one part of the children’s protection. The other part involves “the decision-making responsibility of parents and teachers” which is “to assist their children in developing a skeptical attitude to the information in advertising” (Bergadaa 2007). The marketers themselves should also be involved in shaping the moral system of our future and “each brand should have its own deontology – a code of practice regarding children – rather than rely on industry codes” (Horgan, 2007).

III.C. Do you think there are many misleading, exaggerating and confusing advertisements. Are many ads promising things that are not possible to achieve?

It will not be exaggerated to state that advertising is in a sense “salesmanship addressed to masses of potential buyers rather than to one buyer at a time” (Bernstein, 1951). Since “salesmanship itself is persuasion” (ibid.) we cannot merely blame advertisers for pursuing their sales goals. However, in the last twenty years or so advertisers have increasingly applied semiotics in their messages and as a consequence ads have begun to function more and more as symbols. One extreme case in this stream of advertising is the creation of idealised image of a person who uses the advertised product. Bishop (2000) draws our attention to two “typical representatives of self-identity image ads” which entice consumers to project the respective images to themselves through use of the products:

- “The Beautiful Woman”;

- “The Sexy Teenagers.

Through setting of such stereotypes advertisers not only mislead the public and exaggerate the effects of products but also provoke low self-esteem in consumers. At the same time they promise results that in most cases are simply impossible to achieve. Instead of promoting “‘glamorous’ anorexic body images” communication messages should use “varied body types” and should drop the idea of the “impossible physical body images” (Bishop, 2000).

To question III.C one of the respondents commented:

“The customers of these products [the ones advertised through thin models] are mostly people who do not have the same physical characteristic. For me, this type of advertising is deliberately aimed at people to make them feel not complete, far from attractive social outsiders.”

However, another interviewed stated that: “every person has his own way of evaluating what is believable and what is misleading. Consumers are enough sophisticated to know what is exaggerated.”

Similarly, Bishop (2000) concludes that “image ads are not false or misleading”, and “whether or not they advocate false values is a matter for subjective reflection.” The author argues that image ads do not interfere with our internal autonomy and if people are misled, it is because they want it. It is all about our free choice of behaviour and no advertisement can modify our desires. Perhaps, the truth lies somewhere in-between the two extreme positions.

III.D. What is your attitude towards advertisement that imply sense of guilt, and praise affluence that in the most cases cannot be achieved?

A more specific case of controversial advertising is the one used to “promote not so much self indulgence as self doubt”; the one that “seeks to create needs, not to fulfill them: to generate new anxieties instead of allaying old ones” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). A response of our interviewee reads:

“It is not only a matter of advertising. It has to do with the social inequality and the desire to possess what you can not.”

Hackley and Kitchen (1999) refer to this discrepancy as to “when reality does not match the image of affluence and the result is a subjective feeling of dissonance”. The issue could be elaborated further through the next question.

III.E. Are advertisements stimulating desire and satisfaction through acquisition of material goods moral?

We live in a society which is more or less marked by materialism. Advertisements are often blamed to fuel consumption which is allegedly leading to happiness. The role of promoting satisfaction through acquisition of material goods has become so important that currently the “media products are characterised by relativism, irony, self referentiality and hedonism” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). Is the popular saying “those who die with most toys win” really a motivator in consumers’ behavior and could consumption be the cure of emotional dissonance? This seems to be the case provided a brand succeeds to enter in the evoked set of consumer choices. This new “kind of materialism” goes hand in hand with “the emergence of individualism via sheer hedonism along with narcissism and selfishness” (Bergadaa 2007).

THEME IV. Is the quantity of advertisements justified?

IV.A. Do you think there is too much advertising?

An audit of food advertising aimed at children in Australia by Roberts and Pettigrew (2007) revealed that “28.5 hours of children’s television programming sampled contained 950 advertisements.” Actually, we all are being bombarded by ads on TV, Internet, print media, etc. The amount and content of marketing communications messages puts the consumer’s information processing capacity to a test. The exposure to marketing data overload often leads to diluted consumer’s selective perception. Whether our responses are circumscribed by “confusion, existential despair, and loss of moral identity” or we “adapt constructively to the [communications] Leviathan and become intelligent, cynical, streetwise” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999) is a question open to debate.

Two opposite streams of attitudes were produced in our research. One stance is concerned with the undue quantity of advertisement. The other stream proclaims that “If there is an advertisement, so it is justified by a need.” We agree that the communications overload may indeed have “pervasive effect on the social ecology of the developed world” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). If the increasing communication pollution is not managed properly by both legal and industry points of view yet again the advertising will manage “to hoist its foot to its own mouth and kick out a couple of its own front teeth” (Bernstein, 1951).

CONCLUSION

In preparation of this paper we have used qualitative depth interviews in order to get insights for what actual customers opine. We have also substantiated our presentation with references to a number of influential articles in the field of ethics in marketing communications. Generally, our respondents as well as various authors have taken two opposing stances. The first one affirms that ethics in marketing communications matters considerably, whereas the other one downsizes the importance of ethics, thereby stressing the role of other factors in consumer decision-making, i.e. price, brand loyalty, convenience, etc.

Marketers should understand their “responsibility for the emerging portrait of future society” (Bergadaa 2007). Not only there is a need of legal ethical frame but also professional ethical benchmarks and deontology should be in place. One of the main challenges is to avoid creating “a happy customer in the short term”, because “in the long run both consumer and society may suffer as a direct result of the marketer’s actions in ’satisfying’ the consumer” (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001).

The strength of the advertisement influence exerted on consumers is only one part of the equation. On the other hand we may affirm that consumers are not morally subservient and according to the information process models there is a natural cognitive defense. The communications tools “offer us a theatre of our own imagination” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). Consequently, we accept the reality in terms of our own experiences. In this sense marketers do not create reality – they are simply a mirror of the society. We may argue that unfortunately this is not always the case.

Advertising is often deservedly seen as the embodiment of consumer freedom and choice. Notwithstanding this important role, when the choice is “between one candy bar and another, the latest savoury snack or sweetened breakfast cereal or fast food restaurant” (McSpotlight, accessed 20th September 2007) it represents anything else but not an alternative and certainly not a healthy one.

The words of Bernstein (1951), said fifty-six years ago are still very much a question of present interest: “It is not true that if we ’save advertising, we save all,’ but it seems reasonable to assume that if we do not save advertising, we might lose all.”

REFERENCES:

Anonymous (2006). Module Book 6, Marketing Communications, University of Leicester.

Arnold, M. (2001). Walking the Ethical Tightrope (Marketing Corporate Social Responsibility), Marketing, 7/12/1001, p. 17.

Bergadaa M. (2007). Children and Business: Pluralistic Ethics of Marketers, Society and Business Review, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 53-73.

Bernstein, S. R. (1951). Good Taste in Advertising, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 42-50.

Bishop, J. D. (2000). Is Self-Identity Image Advertising Ethical?, Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 371-398.

Botan, C. (1997). Ethics in Strategic Communication Campaigns: The Case for a New Approach to Public Relations, Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 188-202.

Carrigan, M. and Attalla, A. (2001). The Myth of the Ethical Consumer – Do Ethics Matter in Purchase Behaviour?, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 18, No. 7, pp. 560-577.

Chickenhead, ‘Truth in advertising’. Online. Available at: chickenhead.com/truth/chesterfield6.html (accessed 25th September 2007).

Chickenhead, ‘Truth in advertising’. Online. Available at: chickenhead.com/truth/camel1.html (accessed 25th September 2007).

Creyer, E. H. and Ross Jr. W. T. (1997). The Influence of Firm Behavior on Purchase Intention: Do Consumers Really Care About Business Ethics?, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 421-432.

Dolliver, M. (2007). A Parental Dim View of Advertising, Adweek, Vol. 48, No. 26, pp. 25.

Goldie, L. (2007). Brands Free To Use Virtual Worlds To Target Kids, New Media Age, 8/9/2007, p. 2.

Hackley, C. E. and Kitchen P. J. (1999). Ethical Perspectives on the Postmodern Communications Leviathan, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 15-26.

Horgan, S. (2007). Online Brands Need Their Own Ethical Guidelines, Marketing Week, Vol. 30, No. 26, p. 30.

Hunt, S. D. and Vitell, S. J. (2006). The General Theory of Marketing Ethics: A Revision and Three Questions, Journal of Macromarketing; Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 143-153.

McSpotlight, ‘Advertising to children, UK the worst in Europe’ Online. Available at: mcspotlight.org/media/press/food_jan97.html, (accessed 20th September 2007).

Nwachukwu, S.L.S, Vitell, Jr. S.J., Gilbert, F.W., Barnes, James H. (1997). Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing: An Examination of the Ethical Evaluation of Advertising Strategies, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 107-118.

Odell, P. (2007). Marketing under the Influence, Promo, Vol. 20, No. 6, p. 27.

Roberts, M. and Pettigrew, S. (2007). A Thematic Content Analysis of Children’s Food Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 357-367.

Singhapakdi, A. (1999). Perceived Importance of Ethics and Ethical Decisions in Marketing,

Journal of Business Research, Vol. 45, No. 1, pp. 89-99.

Stanford University, ‘Alcoholic Advertisements’. Online. Available at: stanford.edu/class/linguist34/advertisements/alcohol ads/index.htm, (accessed 20th September 2007).

Vintage Virginia Slims, Online. Available at: freenet-homepage.de/mshel120/vintage/vintage-vs.html, (accessed 25th September 2007).



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Advertising


A recent research commissioned by Google and conducted by Clark, Martire & Bartolomeo has thrown up some interesting facts related to newspaper advertising. According to the report, consumers often research products and services on the Internet after they see them advertised in the newspapers. The study indicates that two-thirds of the people turn to the Internet to research for more information for the products advertised in the newspaper. Then again, 70 percent of the people from this group actually do make purchases following the research.

The results of the research aptly demonstrate the importance of advertising in newspapers and other print media to boost online sales. Earlier research on the subject also points to the fact that newspapers continue to dominate as popular mediums of advertising for consumers in the USA and the UK.

Confirming this trend, John F. Sturm, Newspaper Association of America (NAA) president and CEO, said, “The study also shows the trust consumers place in newspaper ads and the benefits of advertising in both mediums to reinforce consumer confidence in those products and services.”

All said, the study lends support to the belief that the print media plays a powerful role in driving and motivating people to conduct additional research on the Internet for more information. In other words, this means that newspaper advertising is an effective method to drive traffic to websites. Combine newspaper advertising with online advertising and what you get is more consumers purchasing your offerings. Both forms of advertising reinforce consumer confidence in the products and services.

One reason for the impact of newspapers in advertising is that newspapers form an integral part of people’s daily experiences. Given the type of consumer interactions that are now taking place online in social networking sites, it becomes all the more important to reinforce brand images and direct responses through newspaper advertising.

It is not without reason that more and more companies are today turning to the print media as an effective channel for their advertising campaigns. That newspaper advertising plays an important role in increasing web traffic, is reiterated by the figures released in the report. Of all the people who researched the product advertised in the newspaper, 67 percent went online to search for more information. Compare this figure to 48 percent who visited a store, 23 percent who called a store and 23 percent who asked a friend and you will realize the power of newspaper advertising in driving traffic to websites.

Around 48 percent of the people polled for the study revealed that their trust level towards a product advertised online increased manifold when they saw it advertised in the newspaper also.

Given the above, it becomes clear that if you want to succeed online you must advertise offline also. So if you want to increase traffic to your website, advertise your site in the newspapers and magazines. In the UK, you can advertise your services through Web Windows, an online company that ensures that every advertising pound you spend is spent wisely. Through them, you can have your advertisement placed in all major newspapers in the UK at very cost effective rates. So advertise your online business in all the major newspapers in the UK and see the results in the form of increased numbers of web enquiries, increase in sales, increased number of repeated purchases and improved customer loyalty and long-term competitive advantage.