Assignment #1

Why Do We Study Advertising?

In order for a business to construct advertisements that are effective and cost-efficient, it is helpful to understand the essential traits of advertising. Furthermore, in order for audiences to better understand the types of messages delivered through advertisements, it helps having information about its role.

Advertising is a planned process through which recognized sponsors convey information about their goods, services and/or ideas. Advertisements can be designed to inform, remind or reinforce ideas, and they are usually persuasive. They are used across various different forms of media including print media (newspapers and magazines), broadcast media (radio and television), or social media (Facebook and Twitter). Advertisements are paid for, and reach a large audience since it is a non-personal form of communication. They invoke the receiver to take an action in the present or future (Shimp, 2010: 182).

Businesses can turn these strengths of advertising into their objectives, and accomplish high favorable returns. It is also important to understand the four important roles advertising plays in a business and the society:

1)Marketing – advertising helps in promoting goods and services and matching the needs of consumers.
2)Communication – advertising delivers a message from the sellers to the potential buyers and aims to trigger some sort of response (likes sales).
3)Economic – successful advertising can increase the level of sales, and therefore decrease the cost for sellers. Advertising also encourages competitive pricing strategies to be used, lowering the price for consumers.
4)Societal – advertisements display the latest fashion or trends and improves the audience’s visual sense of product availability. (Mitchell & Moriarty, 2009: 56-58).

By studying advertising, businesses and societies become more aware of the function and the impact that advertisements can play in the lives of every individual in the targeted audience.

Advertising falls under the ‘promotion’ category of the marketing mix. It is also a part of the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) that includes all marketing communication tools and sources that maximize consumer impact and minimize costs. Therefore, learning about advertising has become important since all companies are incorporating it and advertisements are displayed to large audiences in large doses.It is also necessary to distinguish advertising from the other forms of marketing communications so that they are not misinterpreted and wrongly used (Shimp, 2010: 8).

Advertising is a process that is continually changing with the shift in many factors. It is a complex process in which the target – consumers – is unpredictable and not always consistent. Since advertising is adopted by all firms (and not only consumer goods companies) it is crucial to be studied. (Shimp, 2010: 181).