Advertising is the business of drawing public attention to goods
and services, and is performed through a variety of media. It is an
important part of an overall promotional strategy used by businesses to
sell their product. Advertising has developed as technology has
advanced. From the original world of mouth and town criers of times
past, to the virtual advertising possible through the use of computers,
advertising has been common in most societies. In fact, those societies
that have not permitted advertising have been totalitarian states, with
little freedom for their members. Advertising also benefits the
individual consumer, providing information regarding products prior to
purchase, as well as publicizing (and consequently lowering) prices.
Advertising can thus be seen to have positive results, both for those
developing a market for their products and for society in general. On
the negative side, however, advertising is partly responsible for
increasing materialistic consumerism, as people are tempted to buy items
they have no real need for. While encouraging creativity, without moral
and ethical guidelines, advertising has tended to exploit the baser
human desires, advancing hedonism. Advertisers, as all those involved in
the field of communication must recognize their responsibility to
uphold societal standards and thus contribute to the improvement of
human society.
History
In ancient times the most common form of advertising was by word
of mouth; however, commercial messages and political campaign displays
have been found in the ruins of Pompeii. Egyptians used papyrus to
create sales messages and wall posters, while lost-and-found advertising
on papyrus was common in Greece and Rome. Wall or rock painting for
commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient media
advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia,
Africa, and South America. For instance, the tradition of wall paintings
can be traced back to Indian rock-art paintings that goes back to 4000
B.C.E. As printing developed in the fifteenth and sixteenth century,
advertising expanded to include handbills. In the seventeenth century
advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England.
As the economy expanded during the nineteenth century, the need for
advertising grew at the same pace. In the United States, classified ads
became popular, filling pages of newspapers with small print messages
promoting all kinds of goods. The success of this advertising format led
to the growth of mail-order advertising such as the Sears Catalog,
at one time referred to as the “Farmer's Bible.” In 1843 Volney Palmer
established the first advertising agency in Philadelphia. At first,
these agencies were just brokers for ad space in newspapers, but by the
twentieth century, advertising agencies started to take over
responsibility for the content as well.
The 1960s saw advertising transform into a modern, more scientific
approach in which creativity was allowed to shine, producing unexpected
messages that made advertisements more tempting to consumers' eyes. The
Volkswagen advertising campaign featuring such headlines as "Think
Small" and "Lemon" ushered in the era of modern advertising by promoting
a "position" or "unique selling proposition" designed to associate each
brand with a specific idea in the reader or viewer's mind.
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable television.
Pioneering the concept of the music video, the MTV channel ushered in a
new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in "for" the advertisement,
rather than it being a byproduct or afterthought. As cable (and later
satellite) television became increasingly prevalent, "specialty"
channels began to emerge, and eventually entire channels, such as QVC,
Home Shopping Network, and ShopTV, were devoted to advertising
merchandise.
Marketing through the internet opened new frontiers for advertisers and
led to the "dot-com" boom of the 1990s. Entire corporations operated
solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free
internet access. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the search
engine Google revolutionized online advertising by emphasizing
contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended to help, rather than
inundate, users. This has led to a plethora of similar efforts and an
increasing trend of interactive advertising.
Types of Advertising
Advertising takes many forms, which have developed as advances have been
made in communications technology. Some examples include word of mouth,
print, commercials, public service announcements, covert advertising,
and virtual advertisements.
Word of mouth
Unpaid advertising (also called word of mouth advertising), can provide
good exposure at minimal cost. Personal recommendations ("bring a
friend"), or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common
noun—"Xerox" is equivalent to photocopier, "Kleenex" to tissue, and
"Vaseline" to petroleum jelly—are the pinnacles of any advertising
campaign. However, some companies have opposed the use of their brand
name to label an object.
Printed advertising
Printed materials used in advertising can include wall paintings,
billboards, street furniture components, printed flyers, bus stop
benches, magazines, newspapers, sides of buses, taxicab doors and roof
mounts, subway platforms and trains, stickers on products in
supermarkets, posters, and the backs of event tickets and store
receipts. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to present their
message in the print medium is advertising.
Commercials
Radio and television commercials are popular methods of promoting
products and services. The advertiser pays for a specific amount of
time, usually less than one minute, during or between particular
programs in which to present their message. The television 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 in the United States is known as much for its commercial
advertisements as for the game itself, and the average cost of a single
30-second TV spot during this game had reached $2.5 million by 2006.
Public service advertising
The same advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods and
services can be used to inform, educate, and motivate the public about
non-commercial issues, such as AIDS and other health issues, political
ideology, environmental concerns, religious recruitment, and charitable
activities. Public Service Announcements (PSA) are messages in the
public interest disseminated without charge, with the objective of
raising awareness of, and changing public attitudes and behavior
towards, a social issue. In the UK, they are generally called 'public
information films' (PIFs); in Hong Kong, they are known as
'announcements in the public interest' ('APIs').
Television shows featuring episodes that focus on a social or health
issue, may made PSAs that are shown directly after the episodes.
Examples include episodes on alcoholism, suicide, child abduction, or
domestic violence.
Covert advertising
Covert advertising, when a product or brand is embedded in other
entertainment media, is known as "product placement." A common version
of this involves advertising in film, by having a main character use an
item of a definite brand. Examples include a computer or a watch with
its logo clearly visible, a particular brand of shoes mentioned
frequently as "classics" by the lead character, or a particular brand of
automobile used in action sequences.
Virtual advertisements
Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television
programming through computer graphics. These may be inserted into
otherwise blank backdrops, or used to replace local billboards that are
not relevant to the remote broadcast audience. Virtual product placement
is also used to include items that did not exist in the actual scene.
Internet advertising developed rapidly at the end of the twentieth
century. Prices of web-based advertising space are dependent on the
"relevance" of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the
website receives. E-mail advertising is another phenomenon connected to
the development of the internet, following the same pattern as direct
mail advertising and telemarketing. Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising
is known as "spam."
Impact
The impact of advertising has been a matter of considerable debate and
many different claims have been made in different contexts. During
debates about the banning of cigarette advertising, a common claim from
tobacco companies was that cigarette advertising does not encourage
people to smoke who would not otherwise. The (eventually successful)
opponents of advertising, on the other hand, claimed that advertising
did in fact increase consumption.
According to many media sources, the past experience and state of mind
of the person subjected to advertising may determine the impact that
advertising has. For example, young children (under the age of four) may
be unable to distinguish advertising from other television programs,
whilst the ability to determine the truthfulness of the message may not
be developed until the age of eight. In any event, it is undeniable that
advertising exposes the public to the product and/or a brand name,
leading to subsequent recognition of the item or brand on a future
occasion.
Ethics of Advertising
Because of the potential impact on society, advertisers face a number of
ethical dilemmas. The International Chamber of Commerce suggests
maintaining transparent, accessible identities so that consumers will
know exactly who is advertising what. The ICC also suggests that
advertisers protect data on consumers, and that their messages are not
perceived as pornographic, violent, racist, or otherwise offensive.
There are a number of advertising practices deemed illegal. One such
practice, known as "bait and switch," involves advertisements for
tremendous savings on a product but when consumers inquire about the
product, they are told it is sold out. More often than not, consumers
will spend money on a similar item with no discount. One problem brought
about through advances in internet technology occurred when online
advertisements were charged based on how many people click on them.
Unethical companies continuously click on their competitors' ads in
order to quickly exhaust their advertising budget, a practice known as
"click fraud."
Criticism and Regulation
As advertising and marketing efforts have become increasingly ubiquitous
in modern Western societies, the industry has come under criticism. The
industry is accused of being one of the engines powering the economic
mass production system that promotes consumption. Recognizing the social
impact of advertising, special interest groups, such as Mediawatch-UK,
began work to educate consumers about how they can register their
concerns with advertisers and regulators.
Public interest groups have increasingly suggested that access to the
mental space targeted by advertisers should be taxed, in that at the
present moment that space is being freely taken advantage of by
advertisers with no compensation paid to the members of the public who
are thus being intruded upon. A proposed tax would be a Pigovian tax,
acting to reduce what is increasingly seen as a public nuisance. Florida
enacted such a tax in 1987 but was forced to repeal it after six
months, as a result of a concerted effort by national commercial
interests—which withdrew planned conventions, causing major losses to
the tourism industry—and canceled advertising, causing a loss of 12
million dollars to the broadcast industry alone.
There have been increasing efforts to protect the public interest by
regulating the content and the reach of advertising. Some examples are
the ban on television tobacco advertising and restrictions on alcohol
advertising imposed in many countries, and the total ban on advertising
to children under twelve imposed by the Swedish government in 1991.
Naturally, many advertisers view governmental regulation or even
self-regulation as intrusion of their freedom of speech or a necessary
evil. Therefore, they employ a wide-variety of linguistic devices to
bypass regulatory laws The advertising of controversial products such as
cigarettes and condoms is subject to government regulation in many
countries. For example, the tobacco industry is required by law in India
and Pakistan to display warnings cautioning consumers about the health
hazards of their products. However, linguistic variation is often used
by advertising as a creative device to reduce the impact of such
requirements.
Value of Advertising
Advertising has a number of benefits to society and business. Businesses
are able to make potential customers aware of their products, which
leads to a more efficient market as consumers have more information
available to them. Knowledge of a market increases consumer choice,
leading to lower prices overall. Advertising helps companies build a
brand, letting the public know that they are reliable.
Advertising also benefits society. Advertising supports such industries
as television and radio. Stations are able to broadcast programming to
the public at no charge to the public because advertisers underwrite the
costs of production and broadcasting.
Future
Technology has provided both opportunity and threats to the advertising
world. The internet is an entirely new frontier for advertisers. Other
advances pose problems for advertisers, as technology allows users to
record programs for later viewing without commercials. To counter this
effect, many advertisers have opted for covert advertising in the form
of product placement.
Another significant trend is the growing importance of niche or targeted
advertising. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message
was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible. However, usage
tracking, customer profiles, and the growing popularity of niche
content provides advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much
better defined, leading to commercials that are more relevant to viewers
and more effective for marketing products.