It is the most used tool in capturing market stripes and is essential in the business strategy of any company.
Advertising can be defined as: any advertisement intended for the public and whose objective is to promote the sale of goods and services.
Advertising is aimed at large human groups and is often used when direct selling - from seller to buyer - is ineffective. It is necessary to distinguish between advertising and other types of activities that are also intended to influence public opinion, such as propaganda or public relations. There is an enormous variety of advertising techniques, from a simple advertisement on a wall to a simultaneous campaign using newspapers, magazines, television, radio, brochures distributed by mail and other mass media.
From its beginnings in the ancient world, advertising has evolved into a huge industry. In the United States alone, at the end of the 1980s, about $ 120 billion was spent on advertising in one year.
Advertising in the United States is the first worldwide, not only in volume, but also in terms of complexity in terms of organization and advertising techniques. Many of his methods have served as a model for other countries. Today's advertising plays a crucial role in urban industrial civilization, conditioning - for better and for worse - all aspects of everyday life. After demonstrating its enormous power to promote the sale of goods and services, since the 1960s advertising has been increasingly used to promote well-being. Campaigns for health and against the consumption of alcoholic beverages are just two examples of how the advertising industry can defend such objectives.
Two important categories of advertising can be distinguished: consumer goods, aimed at the final consumer, and business, aimed at entrepreneurs through economic newspapers and magazines and other specialized media.
These two types of advertising use a multitude of techniques to encourage consumption. Another advertising modality, of less importance, is institutional, whose sole objective is to create prestige and promote respect for certain public activities. Huge sums of money are spent each year on this type of advertising, which does not typically advertise goods or services. Another increasingly frequent advertising technique consists of presenting joint campaigns between the producer and the seller. Sometimes, when campaigning on a national scale, multiple entrepreneurs share the same ad.
Advertising can be local, national or international in scope. The prices of an advertising campaign will depend on its scope of implementation. They will also vary depending on what is advertised: entertainment, legal, political, financial, religious issues or advertisements intended to collect donations to fund charitable or humanitarian activities.
MEDIA USED BY ADVERTISING:
Publicity mesagges appears in diverse media. From greatest to least importance, the media used by advertising are newspapers, television, mail order, general information publications, business magazines, billboards and magazines for various professional sectors. In addition, a significant part of advertising is transmitted using media not intended for it in a specific way, such as a shop window, a store brochure, calendars, messages displayed with airplanes and even advertisement men.
There are also more and more media that were not originally thought to be used to advertise products. Advertising messages are now displayed on trucks and delivery vans, or even on buses and taxis. Some boxes carry advertisements for products other than those they contain. Shopping bags are also a frequent means of advertising products or the establishment itself.
Advertising in the US Advertising in the United States is the first in the world, not only in volume, but also in terms of complexity in terms of organization and advertising techniques.
DIRECT ADVERTISING
This scope includes all advertising sent by mail or delivered in person to the potential consumer, without using any other type of medium such as newspapers or television. Direct mail can be classified into important categories: mailing, mail order, or delivery of brochures and catalogs.
The main function of direct mail advertising is to familiarize the potential consumer with the product, its name, the producer and the advantages of the purchase, as well as to inform them of the selling points of the article. It is also intended to promote the sale of distributors while maintaining the clientele and attracting new consumers.
When there is no direct sale, other methods are required to induce mail order purchases. In addition to advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio and television, brochures and sales catalogs are also used to encourage mail order sales. These types of promotions are intended to sell without resorting to commercial agents.
Personal delivery of brochures has the same objectives as advertising by mail. These brochures are distributed door-to-door, at the exit of stores, or included in packages and in product boxes.
The competition between the media to share the advertising market is enormous, so advertising agencies develop new procedures to sell goods and services. Among these techniques we must highlight the improvement of the methods of printing and reproduction of graphics, adapting to the format of advertisements in magazines and brochures that are issued by mail; the use of colors in newspaper and television advertisements, and advertisements displayed on billboards are increasingly designed and illuminated. Many of the improvements come from research carried out by the advertising industry.
Today, advertising represents a large percentage of the budgets of the world's major companies.
"Advertising," Microsoft® Encarta® 2000 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
