A 30 second commercial is a jingle that sticks and a cleverly written slogan, though I would say advertising is usually more than that. Did you know the average person is exposed to something like 5000 advertising messages in a single day?
Ads come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, words and forms. So what exactly is advertising? Why does it matter to a company? What are its advantages and disadvantages? We will go through all of it carefully here.
The Definition of Advertising
Advertising is the act of drawing public attention to a product or a service through paid announcements made by a particular sponsoring company or person.
According to Tahir Dinç:
Advertising is presenting and promoting a product or a service to a defined target audience, in a form that may or may not be personal.
According to the Advertising Association in the United Kingdom:
Advertising is any communication, usually paid for, specifically designed to inform and/or influence one or more people.
According to the American Marketing Association:
Advertising is a business practice where a company pays to place its message or its brand in a particular location.
At its simplest, advertising is the process of developing a paid communication message designed to inform people about something or to persuade them to buy, try or do something.
A 1985 TRT Ad Break
A 1987 TRT Ad Break
The Characteristics of Advertising
- It is paid for: Advertising requires the advertiser (also called the sponsor) to pay for creating an ad message, running the ads and monitoring how they perform.
- It has a carrier: An ad reaches the consumer through a medium.
- It is one way communication: Advertising is one way communication that brands hold with their customers through various channels.
- Personal or impersonal: Advertising can take an impersonal, traditional form, as with TV, radio or newspaper ads, and it can be extremely personal, as with social media and cookie based advertising.
Types of Advertising
Advertising activity can be classified by its level of penetration as above the line, below the line and through the line.
- Above the line advertising covers activity that is largely untargeted and has broad reach. Examples of above the line advertising are the traditional ones: TV, radio and newspaper.
- Below the line advertising covers conversion focused activity aimed at a specific target group. Examples of below the line advertising are billboards, sponsorships, in store advertising and so on.
- Through the line advertising covers activity that uses both above the line and below the line strategies at once. These are aimed at brand building and conversions, and they draw on targeted (personalized) ad strategies. Examples of through the line advertising are cookie based advertising, digital marketing strategies and so on. In digital marketing, the most important advertising space is Google Ads.
Advertising activity can also be split into 5 types by the medium used. Those types are:
Product and brand integration: product placements in entertainment media such as TV shows and YouTube videos. (A dedicated page on YouTube advertising is coming soon at Türk SEM.)
Print advertising: newspaper, magazine and brochure ads. (Türk SEM entered a partnership with Turkuvaz Medya.)
Broadcast advertising: television and radio ads.
Outdoor advertising: boards, posters, flags, packaging and so on.
Digital advertising: the ad formats shown over the internet and on digital devices.
10 Example Ads
The Aims of Advertising
Brands run advertising for 3 basic aims: to give information about the brand or the product, to get a product bought or persuade someone to carry out an action, and finally to remind people of the brand message or reinforce it.
To Inform
Ads are used to raise brand awareness and brand visibility in the target market. Informing prospective customers about the brand and its products is one of the first steps a brand takes toward its goals.
To Persuade
Persuading customers to carry out a particular action is one of the clearest and most basic aims of advertising. Those actions can include buying or trying the products and services on offer, forming a positive brand image, developing a positive attitude toward the brand and so on.
To Remind
Another aim of advertising is to strengthen the brand message and to remind existing and prospective customers that you stand behind your brand vision. Advertising helps a brand stay top of mind and keeps competitors from taking its customers. It also helps word of mouth.
The other goals of advertising are subsets of the three we covered here. Those subsets are:
- Creating PR value
- Raising sales
- Creating demand
- Strengthening brand perception
- Widening the customer base
- Changing customer attitudes, and so on
Why Advertising Matters
Before we get into it, did you know the first television broadcast in Turkey was made by Istanbul Technical University? Long before TRT, İTÜ TV opened a channel to train a student body that understood television. That is a pride the whole İTÜ family has earned.
Advertising matters for everyone involved: customers, businesses and the intermediaries (agencies, artists and so on).
From the Customer’s Side
From the customer’s point of view, ads are mostly where the chance comes to learn about a new product or an advertiser’s message. Beyond that, ads give them:
- Convenience: Targeted, informative ads make deciding easier by letting customers know what suits their requirements and their budget.
- Awareness: Advertising lets customers learn broadly about the different products on the market and what they do. That knowledge helps them compare products and pick the right one for themselves.
- Better quality: Only brands promote themselves and their products. Unbranded products usually have no advertising behind them. That makes for better customer quality and a sound business model, because a brand putting budget into advertising will probably improve the customer experience as well.
From the Business’s Side
From an advertiser’s point of view, advertising is the most important way of getting a brand’s messages to its target audience. Beyond delivering the message, ads give companies:
- More brand awareness: Advertising raises awareness of the brand and the product among people in the target market.
- Brand image building: Smart advertising helps a business build the brand image and brand personality it wants in customers’ minds.
- Product differentiation: Advertising helps a business set its product apart from its competitors and communicate the product’s features and advantages to the target audience.
- More goodwill : Advertising highlights the brand vision and deepens the loyalty customers feel toward the brand.
- Value for money: Advertising can carry a message to a wide audience, which for the company can mean new sales.
The Advantages of Advertising
Advertising holds several advantages over the other promotional tools. They include:
- It lowers cost per unit: Ads reaching wide audiences raise demand for the product, which benefits the organization.
- It helps build the brand: Ads play an effective part in brand building. Brands that advertise get chosen more often than brands that do not.
- It helps launch a new product: Launching a new product goes more smoothly when advertising supports it.
- It raises existing customers’ trust in the brand: Existing customers feel proud when they see an ad for the product or brand they use, which raises their trust in it.
- It helps reduce customer churn: Strategic advertising for new offers and better service helps bring the churn rate down.
- It attracts new customers: Appealing ads help a brand win new customers and grow its business.
- It educates customers: Ads tell customers about the different products on the market and let them know what stands out about their own.
The Disadvantages of Advertising
Advertising has its own disadvantages:
- It raises costs: Advertising is an expense for the business and it gets added to the cost of the product. That cost is carried in the end by the final consumer.
- It confuses the buyer: A large number of ads making similar claims can leave a buyer unsure what to buy, or whether to buy at all.
- It is sometimes misleading: Some ads use clever strategies to mislead and confuse customers.
- Only for large businesses: Advertising costs money and only large businesses can afford it. That weakens small businesses in their competition against the big firms in the market.
- It encourages the sale of poor products: Effective ads can even lead to sales of low quality products that are not good for consumers.
Examples of Advertising
A Turkish Airlines Commercial
A Digital Ad Example
We covered every area of digital marketing in the types of digital marketing.
Google AdSense offers plenty of opportunities for making money from your website.
Advertising and Public Relations
| Basis | Advertising | Public relations |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Advertising is a paid form of promotion using persuasive techniques to influence consumers’ buying behavior. | Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and its audience. |
| Aims | The aims of advertising are to create awareness of a product or service, to persuade customers to buy it and to build brand loyalty. | The aims of public relations rest on building goodwill and understanding between an organization and its audience, promoting the organization’s products or services and influencing behavior. |
| Importance | Advertising matters because it helps businesses promote their products or services to a wide audience. | Public relations matters because it plays an important part in building positive relationships with customers and other stakeholders. |
| Paid or earned | Advertising is usually funded by the business. | Public relations is earned media, meaning businesses try to get positive coverage from journalists and other influential people. That can be done through PR campaigns, events and old fashioned media relations. |
Advertising, and Some Closing Thoughts
Getting advertising right is essential for every state and every company. It is not a risk, it is a requirement. If you have a product you believe in, put it in front of your potential customers with pride. We would like to know what you think of this piece, and you can reach us through the comments.
