ADVERTISING AND PUBLICITY

 INTRODUCTION

In modern times advertising prevails in all walks of life. It has acquired the distinction of being the most visible and glamorous method of marketing communication. You would recall that advertising was defined as any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor. Some of the major marketing and communication functions performed by advertising today include informing, entertaining, persuading, influencing, reminding, reassuring and adding value to the product or service advertised. Before going to the role of advertising, let us acquaint ourselves with how advertising works and what are the various types of advertising. First, let us look at the objectives of this unit.

OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you will be able to:

1. list the roles and types of advertising 
2. list different kinds of advertising objectives 
3. explain how media planning is done 
4. explain the need for planning publicity. 

 MAIN CONTENT

How Advertising Works

In order to perform the various marketing and communication functions listed above, according to Paul E.J. Gerald, advertising moves through the following stages before accomplishing its purpose:

1. It gets planned and brought into existence 
2. It is reproduced and delivered and exposed to people 
3. It is received and assimilated 
4. It affects ideas, intentions and attitudes 
5. It affects buying and the buying process 
6. It responds to time (situation and repeated expose) 
7. It affects trade effort and supply 
8. It changes sales and profits 
9. it changes the market (size, quality mix, intensity of competition, trade relations, consumerism, etc.) 

List (8) eight possible ways by which advertisement works?

Types of Advertising

Depending upon the nature of the task involved, type of product represented or the focus of activity transacted, advertising efforts are grouped into various types. Let us take a few examples. Advertisements for machinery and machine tools form part of industrial advertising, and the ones for footwear, cornflakes or edible oil, form consumer advertising. The advertisements aimed at improving the corporate image are forms of institutional advertising and ones promoting a company’s products, product advertising. Likewise, advertisements promoting the consumption of tea or carpets are called primary demand creating advertisements whereas those relating to say spare parts and coffee are selective brand advertising. Advertisement aimed at effecting

immediate sale of the product advertised is called direct advertising, and the ones performing tasks like announcing the launch of the new product, building purchase intentions, creating interest in customers or changing their attitudes towards the product, are termed indirect action advertising. The advertisements which are sponsored and paid for by the manufacturers are manufacturer advertising, and such advertisements whose costs are shared by the manufacturer and wholesales or retailers are co-operative advertising. Co-operative advertisements aim at increasing the demand of a specific product of a manufacturer through a particular wholesale or retailer. On the other hand, when a retailer advertises for his shop entirely on his own, to attract traffic to his shop it is retail advertising.


In short, the major types of advertising are: industrial and consumer, product and institutional, primary demand and brand-demand, direct (sales) demand and indirect (awareness, intentions and attitudes) action advertising, and manufacturer, co-operative and retail advertising.

Role of Advertising

In the pursuit of its purpose, the economic and social effects of advertising have become the subject of continuing debate.

advertising as an information disseminating utility function and the other viewing advertising as a source of market power. On balance, advertising has carved out an indispensable place for itself in the marketing mix of a firm. Phillip Kotler very aptly refers to the following situations where advertising is likely to make greater contribution. The situations are:

1. When buyer awareness is minimal 
2. When industry sales are rising rather than remaining stable or declining 
3. When the product has features normally not observable to the buyer 
4. When opportunities for product differentiation are strong 
5. When primary instead of secondary motives can be tapped. 

Are there some limitations to the role of advertising? The answer is obviously is in the affirmative. Advertising, in the words of Richard H. Stansfield, cannot do the following:

1. Sell a bad product twice. 
2. Sell an overpriced or otherwise non-competitive product. 
3. Sell a poorly distributed product. 
4. Sell a seasonal product out of season (significantly). 
5. Sell products to persons having no use for them. 
6. Work overnight. 
7. Do the selling job alone. 

The usefulness of advertising, which has for long been accused of being a capitalist tool and a bane of the market economy, is now being by the planned and communist economies too. While Yugoslavia,
USSR, Poland and Hungary shed their hostility to advertising quite a few years ago, China is welcoming advertisements propelled marketing now.

Advertising Management

Advertising constitutes one of the four components of a firm’s promotion mix, which in turn forms an integral element of the firm’s marketing mix. In order to implement the marketing concept and to achieve the objectives of integration among different elements of marketing mix, it is necessary that the advertising functions be systematically planned.
In particular, the link of advertising with the promotion and marketing objectives of the firm on the one hand, and with factors like product positioning objectives, role of sales force, dealer support plan and the buying habits of consumers, on the other hand, must be clearly established. This link helps a firm to achieve the desired push-pull strategy objectives, and enables the product to have a distinct
personality. The task involved in advertising is, therefore, complex and its management requires systematic decision-making.

Setting Advertising Objectives

An advertisement is either good or bad in its ability to achieve its objectives. Though advertising is largely informative and persuasive in nature, yet to do a good job, the objectives of each advertising campaign need to be clearly spelt out in measurable terms, in order to focus clearly on the target audience, and on the period over which these are to be achieved. Russel H. Colley called for the need to provide an explicit link between advertising goals and advertising results in his pioneering approach nicknamed DAGMAR - Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results. Colley distinguished 52 advertising goals that might be used in connection with a single advertisement, a year’s campaign for a product or a company’s entire advertising philosophy. Some of such goals are as follows:

1. announce a special reason for ‘buying now’ (price, premium and so on) 
2. build familiarity and easy recognition of the package or trademark 
3. place advertiser in position to select preferred distributors and dealers 
4. persuade prospect to visit a showroom, ask for a demonstration 
5. build up the moral of company sales force 
6. correct false impression, misinformation and other obstacles to sales 
7. implant information or attitude regarding benefits and superior features of brand. 

According to DAGMAR, the communication task of the brand is to gain
(a) awareness, (b) Comprehension, (c) Conviction, (d) Image and, (e) Action. Advertising goals should, therefore, be specific to the communication task(s) to be performed. The process of advertising goal- setting thus, should begin by understanding the dynamics of marketing communication effectively.


Further, let us also understand that improving sales is not the only objective of advertising. Advertising is only one of the factors influencing sales, the other being: (a) different elements of the
marketing mix, (b) the competitive position of the firm, and (c) the purchasing power and the need of buyer. Also, the impact of advertising often occurs over the long run and not necessarily immediately, since consumers may belong to different stages of the product adoption process at a point in time. The advertising objectives are to:

1. inform and build awareness 
2. create brand knowledge 
3. reinforce position attitudes about the brand 
4. precipitate buying action 
5. increase sales 
6. build up an image. 

Publicity

Let us recall that publicity is non-personal stimulation of demand for a product, service or business unit by placing commercially significant news about it in a published medium or obtaining favourable presentation of it upon radio, television, or stage that is not paid for by the sponsor.
The crucial aspect of publicity is that it should emanate from a neutral and impartial source such as editorial material and is not paid for by the sponsor. To achieve the aim of credibility it should not raise any doubts regarding interested sponsorship. Publicity and public relations have a lot in common. In fact, publicity is one of the tools of public relations.

Uses of Publicity

Publicity, which is essentially aimed at building position image, goodwill or favourable visibility, has acquired a sound footing to assist a company in its marketing efforts. Specifically, it has a vital role in disseminating information regarding new products; warranty terms; product replacement policies and customer service arrangements; new R & D findings; successful bids or contracts won; contributions made to the promotion of sports, culture, and technology; employees’ welfare, policies; dealer training and promotion activities; membership of top and senior employees in governmental and international bodies; community development programmes; promotion of company trademark and slogans; and issues of public interest and welfare from time to time.

CONCLUSION

Advertising is an impersonal mass selling and communication method. It makes use of various types of media to reach the target public in a short time. Being persuasive in nature, advertising broadly aims at gaining exposure, creating awareness, changing attitudes of target
customers in favour of sponsor’s products and services, and is also an effective/defensive tool in managing competition. Measurement of effective advertising requires that the process be

initiated by setting of measurable and realistic goals. Identification and knowledge of the economic, demographic, cultural and psychological characteristics of the target customers should trigger the process of advertising planning. This should be followed by selection of

appropriate appeals, proper illustrations and unique copy themes in the language, which the audience understands and should be transmitted to them through media vehicles, which have a meaningful reach and desired credibility.
The spread of a good word through editorial space of neutral agencies, i.e., publicity, adds significant credibility to a firm’s efforts in building and strengthening its image. Organisation of newsworthy events and good relations with media can help. Organised publicity and public relations activities help in correcting misinformation and providing an opportunity to the public to view a firm in its right perspective.