Advertising





Advertising is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, most
often through paid messages.

Commercial messages have been found in the ruins of Pompeii, but the first
advertising agency was started by Volney Palmer in Philadelphia in 1843.

Unpaid advertising can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal
recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it by zealot"), the unleashing of
memes into the wild, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common
noun ("Hoover" = "vacuum cleaner") -- these must provide the stuff of
fantasy to the holder of an advertising budget.

Advertising media

Some commercial advertising media include: billboards, printed flyers,
radio, cinema and television ads, web banners, skywriting, bus stop benches,
magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, taxi cab doors, elastic
bands on disposable diapers, the opening section of streaming audio and
video, and the backs of event tickets. Any place an "identified" sponsor
pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising. Covert
advertising embedded in other entertainment media is known as product
placement.

The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market
advertising format and this is reflected by the high prices TV networks
charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events. The annual Super
Bowl football game is known as much for its commercial advertisements as for
the game itself, and the average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot
during this game has reached $2 million (as of 2003).

Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of
Web-based advertising space are dependent on the "relevance" of the
surrounding Web content. E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon.
Unsolicited E-mail advertising is known as "spam".

Some companies have proposed to place messages or corporate logos on the
side of booster rockets and the International Space Station. Controversy
exists on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising (see mind control),
and the pervasiveness of mass messages (see propaganda).

Advertising objectives

Advertising ultimately seeks to establish what is called "mind share". Mind
share is the status a brand can achieve when it co-exists with deeper, more
empirical categories of objects. Kleenex, for example, can distinguish
itself as a type of tissue. But, because it has gained mind share amongst
consumers, it is frequently used as a term to identify any tissue, even if
it is from an opposing brand. One of the most successful firms to have
achieved this is Hoover (as mentioned above) whose name was for a very long
time synonymous with vacuum cleaner (and Dyson has subsequently managed to
achieve similar status, having moved into the Hoover market with a more
sophisticated model of vacuum cleaner).

Mind share can be established to a greater or lesser degree depending on
product and market. In Texas, for example, it is common to hear people refer
to any soft drink as a Coke, regardless of whether it is actually produced
by Coca-Cola or not (the more accurate term would be 'cola').

A legal risk of mind share is that the name can become so widely accepted
that it becomes a generic term, and loses trademark protection. Examples
include "escalator", "xerox" and "mimeograph". 'Aspirin' is a special case
-- the US government took the trademark away from Bayer during the first
World War, not because the term was being used generically, but as "enemy
property," because Bayer is a German company.

Other objectives include short or long term increases in sales, market
share, awareness, product information, and image improvement.

Advertising Techniques

Advertisers use several recognizable techniques in order to better convince
the public to buy a product. These may include:

   * Repetition: Some advertisers concentrate on making sure their product
     is widely recognized. To that end, they simply attempt to make the name
     remembered through repetition.

   * Bandwagon: By implying that the product is widely used, advertisers
     hope to convince potential buyers to "get on the bandwagon."

   * Testimonials: Advertisers often attempt to promote the superior quality
     of their product through the testimony of ordinary users, experts, or
     both. "Three out of four dentists recommend..." This approach often
     involves an appeal to authority.

   * Pressure: By attempting to make people choose quickly and without long
     consideration, some advertisers hope to make rapid sales: "Buy now,
     before they're all gone!"

   * Association: Advertisers often attempt to associate their product with
     desirable things, in order to make it seem equally desirable. The use
     of attractive models, picturesque landscapes, and other similar imagery
     is common.

   * advertising slogans

A popular belief among many segments of society is that subliminal messages
are commonly used in advertising, though this is seen by experts as little
more than an urban legend.