Table of Contents
Advertisement involves formal or informal communication to the public with the aim of convincing people to purchase a particular product. Advertisement activities are carried out through spreading of impersonal messages to the people about a product or service where the main party involved in this activity is the business sector. This is because the business managers wish to make profits; hence, they must engage in advertising their goods and services to promote their businesses’ sales. The advertisement may be either audio or visual, where audio involves listening to the promotional messages through the radio while visual involves passing the messages through newspapers or television. The medium in which to present or promote the goods and services differ depending on the nature of the products, the level of their availability, and the target population (Brown, Dev and Lee, 55). The nature of the product means its natural appearance; that is, if the appearance or operation of the product is complicated, the business is likely to use the visual mediums to promote it rather than the audio mediums. The level of the goods Availability refers to whether the products are readily available or scarce; that is, if they are readily available, both forms of an advertisement may be used to promote them, but if scarce, one of the methods may be used. Lastly, the target population involves individuals in the market who are likely to purchase the products being promoted; hence, the business or sellers will prefer a method in which they will contact them directly. The main forms of advertising; that is, print media and television are the most crucial forms due to their availability to reach out to people.
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The History of Advertising
The advertisement sector has been experiencing significant changes over time due to the various changes in the society. The changes in the society include population increase, technological advancements, and increased competition among the business enterprises. The old means of communication in the advertising sector were the use of magazines, newspapers, direct emails, and television. They are considered old methods since they have been present over the past years and have since been overtaken by new mediums such as websites, blogs, and text messages. Most businesses are creating their websites to cater for advertisements and sales of their goods and services. Currently, the business sector has invested highly in social media platforms to communicate to consumers about their products and ideas. This is due to the presence of millions of subscribers present in the social media. For instance, estimates indicate that Facebook currently has 1.5 billion active users, Twitter has 317 million while Instagram has 500 million users (Duggan and Brenner, 2). Therefore, advertisement through social media facilitates reaching out to people globally; hence, promoting the sales of business.
Mechanism of Advertising
The advertisement mechanisms play a major role in influencing individuals to purchase a particular product or service. The mechanisms are operated by the businesses to ensure maximum promotion is achieved. They include the use of print media and television, which are expected to inspire or convince consumers through the passing of marketing information or branding products to make them favorable in the market. The print media and television are psychological mechanisms used to influence the minds of consumers where tricks are applied to persuade people that a product is better compared to another. Advertising via the print media involves the posting of images and information of the goods and services, while television involves using images and video clips to market products. These mechanisms are applied differently depending on the type of goods or services. To analyze the two mechanisms critically, it is important to use examples of products and illustrate how the advertising mechanisms influence consumers. The products to analyze in this case are cigarettes, phones, and cars.
Advertising Cigarettes
Product marketing in the tobacco industry plays a crucial role in promoting sales and branding of the products. There are several brands of cigarettes including Pall Mall, Dunhill, and Camel. Due to the stiff competition among these brands, the advertising sector has been utilized effectively to regulate their sales. This product’s advertising highly depends on print media mechanism to market due to the target population and its nature. This means by using print media; the targeted population is regarded to be less since few people are considered to be cigarette smokers. The nature of the product also influences its advertising mechanism since cigarettes are considered to affect the health of its consumers; hence, print media is used to regulate the target population (Slater, 442). The purpose of using print media is to ensure consumers are aware of the effects of consuming the product. The effects are clearly stated on the product’s images to create the awareness and caution non-smokers. Therefore, through the analysis of cigarette adverts, one can conclude that print media is used to advertise products whose target population is less or regulated. It can also be stated that if a product is considered harmful to its consumers, print media is used to market it since print media fails to reach out to more people compared to television.
Advertisement of Phones
The marketing of phones highly depend on television advertising, but the use of print media is also utilized. The dependence on television is to ensure consumers view the products and learn more about them. Phones have been evolving over the past years due to the changes in technology and economies. For instance, Samsung is a brand that has changed overtime due to technological advancements. Currently, all Samsung phones are smart or digital phones where there are many different models. In the past, when technological advancement was low, Samsung phones were only used for calling and texting purposes, but now they offer a wide variety of services. Due to their complexity in nature, their advertisements are visually-oriented to promote their awareness (Babin and Zikmund, 540). The product aims at reaching out to as many people as possible globally; hence, the use of television is more favorable compared to print media. The style of advertising the Samsung phones has also changed due to their complexity. The visuals used in the television include individuals calling, texting, browsing, and taking pictures where all these activities are expected to market the product.
Advertisement of Cars
The automotive industry is also a beneficiary of adverts and promotions. The industry highly depends on both print and television advertising to market its products. For instance, a car such as Jaguar is mostly advertised on the television during commercial breaks where people can view the various models and their operations. The print media is used to spread awareness of the vehicle’s components regarding speed, design, and fuel consumption (Batra, Lenk and Wedel, 337). In this case, television and print media are utilized to reach out to many people and inform them about Jaguar. These mechanisms are used due to the high level of competition experienced in the automotive industry where there are other brands such as Bentley, Tesla, and Mercedes-Benz.
Conclusion
Therefore, advertisement involves marketing a product to promote its sales in the market. The main forms used to market products are the use of print media and television. Print media involves the use of newspapers and magazines where it is mainly text-based. Television, on the other hand, is visually-oriented; that is, the advertisement is mainly in the form of videos, which aim at convincing consumers to purchase a particular product. Television is mainly preferred by businesses compared to print media since the mechanism has the capability to reach out to more people.
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