Advertising

History

Classification

Purposes

Advertising is at the front of delivering the proper message to customers and prospective customers. The purpose of advertising is to inform the consumers about their product and convince customers that a company's services or products are the best, enhance the image of the company, point out and create a need for products or services, demonstrate new uses for established products, announce new products and programs, reinforce the salespeople's individual messages, draw customers to the business, and to hold existing customers.[94]

Sales promotions and brand loyalty

Sales promotions are another way to advertise. Sales promotions are double purposed because they are used to gather information about what type of customers one draws in and where they are, and to jump start sales. Sales promotions include things like contests and games, sweepstakes, product giveaways, samples coupons, loyalty programs, and discounts. The ultimate goal of sales promotions is to stimulate potential customers to action.[95]

Criticisms

Main article:

Criticism of advertising See also:

Racial stereotyping in advertising

While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth,[27] it is not without social costs. Unsolicited commercial e-mail and other forms of spam have become so prevalent as to have become a major nuisance to users of these services, as well as being a financial burden on internet service providers.[96] Advertising is increasingly invading public spaces, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation.[97] This increasing difficulty in limiting exposure to specific audiences can result in negative backlash for advertisers.[98] In tandem with these criticisms, the advertising industry has seen low approval rates in surveys and negative cultural portrayals.[99]

One of the most controversial criticisms of advertisement in the present day is that of the predominance of advertising of foods high in sugar, fat, and salt specifically to children. Critics claim that food advertisements targeting children are exploitive and are not sufficiently balanced with proper nutritional education to help children understand the consequences of their food choices. Additionally, children may not understand that they are being sold something, and are therefore more impressionable.[100] Michelle Obama has criticized large food companies for advertising unhealthy foods largely towards children and has requested that food companies either limit their advertising to children or advertise foods that are more in line with dietary guidelines.[101] The other criticisms include the change that are brought by those advertisements on the society and also the deceiving ads that are aired and published by the corporations. Cosmetic and health industry are the ones which exploited the highest and created reasons of concern.[102]

Regulation

There have been increasing efforts to protect the public interest by regulating the content and the influence of advertising. Some examples include restrictions for advertising alcohol, tobacco or gambling imposed in many countries, as well as the bans around advertising to children, which exist in parts of Europe. Advertising regulation focuses heavily on the veracity of the claims and as such, there are often tighter restrictions placed around advertisements for food and healthcare products.[103]

The advertising industries within some countries rely less on laws and more on systems of self-regulation.[103][104][105] Advertisers and the media agree on a code of advertising standards that they attempt to uphold. The general aim of such codes is to ensure that any advertising is 'legal, decent, honest and truthful'. Some self-regulatory organizations are funded by the industry, but remain independent, with the intent of upholding the standards or codes like the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK.[106]

In the UK, most forms of outdoor advertising such as the display of billboards is regulated by the UK Town and County Planning system. Currently, the display of an advertisement without consent from the Planning Authority is a criminal offense liable to a fine of £2,500 per offense.[107] In the US, many communities believe that many forms of outdoor advertising blight the public realm.[108] As long ago as the 1960s in the US, there were attempts to ban billboard advertising in the open countryside.[109] Cities such as São Paulo have introduced an outright ban[110] with London also having specific legislation to control unlawful displays.

Some governments restrict the languages that can be used in advertisements, but advertisers may employ tricks to try avoiding them. In France for instance, advertisers sometimes print English words in bold and French translations in fine print to deal with Article 120 of the 1994 Toubon Law limiting the use of English.[111]

The advertising of pricing information is another topic of concern for governments. In the United States for instance, it is common for businesses to only mention the existence and amount of applicable taxes at a later stage of a transaction.[112] In Canada and New Zealand, taxes can be listed as separate items, as long as they are quoted up-front.[113][114] In most other countries, the advertised price must include all applicable taxes, enabling customers to easily know how much it will cost them.[115][116][117]

Theory

Gender effects on comprehension

According to a 1977 study by David Statt, females process information comprehensively, while males process information through heuristic devices such as procedures, methods or strategies for solving problems, which could have an effect on how they interpret advertising.[142][need quotation to verify] According to this study, men prefer to have available and apparent cues to interpret the message, whereas females engage in more creative, associative, imagery-laced interpretation. Later research by a Danish team[143] found that advertising attempts to persuade men to improve their appearance or performance, whereas its approach to women aims at transformation toward an impossible ideal of female presentation. In Paul Suggett's article "The Objectification of Women in Advertising"[144] he discusses the negative impact that these women in advertisements, who are too perfect to be real, have on women, as well as men, in real life. Advertising's manipulation of women's aspiration to these ideal types as portrayed in film, in erotic art, in advertising, on stage, within music videos, and through other media exposures requires at least a conditioned rejection of female reality, and thereby takes on a highly ideological cast. Studies show that these expectations of women and young girls negatively impact their views about their bodies and appearances. These advertisements are directed towards men. Not everyone agrees: one critic viewed this monologic, gender-specific interpretation of advertising as excessively skewed and politicized.[145][need quotation to verify] There are some companies, however, like Dove and Aerie that are creating commercials to portray more natural women, with less post production manipulation, so more women and young girls are able to relate to them.[citation needed]

More recent research by Martin (2003) reveals that males and females differ in how they react to advertising depending on their mood at the time of exposure to the ads, and on the affective tone of the advertising. When feeling sad, males prefer happy ads to boost their mood. In contrast, females prefer happy ads when they are feeling happy. The television programs in which ads are embedded influence a viewer's mood state.[146] Susan Wojcicki, author of the article "Ads that Empower Women don’t just Break Stereotypes—They’re also Effective"[147] discusses how advertising to women has changed since the first Barbie commercial where a little girl tells the doll that, she wants to be just like her. Little girls grow up watching advertisements of scantily clad women advertising things from trucks to burgers, and Wojcicki states that this shows girls that they are either arm candy or eye candy.

Alternatives

Other approaches to revenue include donations, paid subscriptions and microtransactions. Websites and applications are "ad-free" when not using ads at all for revenue. For example, the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia provides free access to its content by receiving funding from charitable donations.[148]

See also

"Fathers" of advertising

References

Further reading

• Arens, William, and Michael Weigold. Contemporary Advertising: And Integrated Marketing Communications (2012)
• Belch, George E., and Michael A. Belch. Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective (10th ed. 2014)
• Biocca, Frank. Television and Political Advertising: Volume I: Psychological Processes (Routledge, 2013)
• Chandra, Ambarish, and Ulrich Kaiser. "Targeted advertising in magazine markets and the advent of the internet." Management Science 60.7 (2014) pp: 1829–1843.
• Chen, Yongmin, and Chuan He. "Paid placement: Advertising and search on the internet*." The Economic Journal 121#556 (2011): F309-F328. online
• Johnson-Cartee, Karen S., and Gary Copeland. Negative political advertising: Coming of age (2013)
• McAllister, Matthew P. and Emily West, eds. HardcoverThe Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture (2013)
• McFall, Elizabeth Rose Advertising: a cultural economy (2004), cultural and sociological approaches to advertising
• Moriarty, Sandra, and Nancy Mitchell. Advertising & IMC: Principles and Practice (10th ed. 2014)
• Okorie, Nelson. The Principles of Advertising: concepts and trends in advertising (2011)
• Reichert, Tom, and Jacqueline Lambiase, eds. Sex in advertising: Perspectives on the erotic appeal (Routledge, 2014)
• Sheehan, Kim Bartel. Controversies in contemporary advertising (Sage Publications, 2013)
• Vestergaard, Torben and Schrøder, Kim. The Language of Advertising. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985. ISBN 0-631-12743-7
  • Splendora, Anthony. "Discourse", a Review of Vestergaard and Schrøder, The Language of Advertising in Language in Society Vol. 15, No. 4 (Dec., 1986), pp. 445–449

History

Main article:

History of advertising § Further reading

• Brandt, Allan. The Cigarette Century (2009)
• Crawford, Robert. But Wait, There's More!: A History of Australian Advertising, 1900–2000 (2008)
• Ewen, Stuart. Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of Consumer Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. ISBN 0-07-019846-2
• Fox, Stephen R. The mirror makers: A history of American advertising and its creators (University of Illinois Press, 1984)
• Friedman, Walter A. Birth of a Salesman (Harvard University Press, 2005), In the United States
• Jacobson, Lisa. Raising consumers: Children and the American mass market in the early twentieth century (Columbia University Press, 2013)
• Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. Packaging the presidency: A history and criticism of presidential campaign advertising (Oxford University Press, 1996)
• Laird, Pamela Walker. Advertising progress: American business and the rise of consumer marketing (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.)
• Lears, Jackson. Fables of abundance: A cultural history of advertising in America (1995)
• Liguori, Maria Chiara. "North and South: Advertising Prosperity in the Italian Economic Boom Years." Advertising & Society Review (2015) 15#4
• Meyers, Cynthia B. A Word from Our Sponsor: Admen, Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio (2014)
• Mazzarella, William. Shoveling smoke: Advertising and globalization in contemporary India (Duke University Press, 2003)
• Moriarty, Sandra, et al. Advertising: Principles and practice (Pearson Australia, 2014), Australian perspectives
• Nevett, Terence R. Advertising in Britain: a history (1982)
• Oram, Hugh. The advertising book: The history of advertising in Ireland (MOL Books, 1986)
• Presbrey, Frank. "The history and development of advertising." Advertising & Society Review (2000) 1#1 online
• Saunders, Thomas J. "Selling under the Swastika: Advertising and Commercial Culture in Nazi Germany." German History (2014): ghu058.
• Short, John Phillip. "Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany." Enterprise and Society (2014): khu013.
• Sivulka, Juliann. Soap, sex, and cigarettes: A cultural history of American advertising (Cengage Learning, 2011)
• Spring, Dawn. "The Globalization of American Advertising and Brand Management: A Brief History of the J. Walter Thompson Company, Proctor and Gamble, and US Foreign Policy." Global Studies Journal (2013). 5#4
• Stephenson, Harry Edward, and Carlton McNaught. The Story of Advertising in Canada: A Chronicle of Fifty Years (Ryerson Press, 1940)
• Tungate, Mark. Adland: a global history of advertising (Kogan Page Publishers, 2007.)
• West, Darrell M. Air Wars: Television Advertising and Social Media in Election Campaigns, 1952–2012 (Sage, 2013)

‏Source en.m.wikipedia.org