Advertising & Marketing

Some thoughts on advertising and marketing

It is through advertisement that people begin to feel a need for even those goods of which they had never heard before. Advertisement creates demand. it is the backbone of commerce and Industry. No business can stay in the business world without advertisement.  The business world rotates on the pivot of advertisement (Chaterjee, 2012).

Advertising is an announcement made to the public to call attention to the desirable characteristics of a product or service. It requires investments of both time and finances. Done well, investments in advertising may generate sales. Done poorly, consumers may develop a negative impression of the business.  Therefore businesses have to look at long-term customer relationships and these are companies who will convey the right information to the customers through their advertisements.  These businesses understand the importance of retaining customers (learningseed.com, 2009).

But we also have many businesses that do not think in terms of long-term customer relationship and only look at immediate benefits.  Effective advertisements should consider the six point of advertising strategy while developing advertisements (Bruch, 2005).
1. Primary Purpose: What is the primary purpose of our advertisement?
2. Primary benefit: What unique benefit can we offer customers? What primary customer value or need can my enterprise meet?
3. Secondary Benefit: What other key benefits will customers receive from our products or services?
4. Target Audience: At whom (what target market) are we aiming this advertisement?
5. Audience Reaction: What response do we want from our audience (come to the operation, visit a Web site, call an information line)?
6. Company Personality: What image do we want to convey in our advertisement?

Businesses that follow these steps will also calculate the effectiveness of advertisements.  These can be through:
• Tracking and evaluating total sales, average sales per customer or customer visits before, during and after an advertisement or series of advertisements is run;
• Recording the number of coupons redeemed (if a coupon was included in the advertisement)
• Asking new customers how they heard of your business

Through advertisements, companies should therefore not limit to retaining existing customers, but also in capturing new customers.  With this in thought, I would also like to bring in the concept of marketing and especially the four P’s of marketing (learningseed.com, 2009):
1. Product: The product is the item or service that people buy to satisfy a want or need. In the case of chocolate-covered cornflakes, the product is the food itself. The company makes many decisions about the product, including what it should look, taste and feel like, and how much of it should be sold in a package.

2. Price: Price is how much a customer pays for the product. The selected price, if too high--or even too low--will affect how well the product sells.

3. Place: The word "place" refers to the location where a product can be purchased. It could mean a physical store on the street, or a virtual store on the Internet. Marketing managers have to decide which stores should carry the chocolate-covered cornflakes – supermarkets, convenience stores, online grocery stores, or directly through TV commercials and catalogues, for instance.

4. Promotion: Promotion represents all of the ways a company communicates with a customer. Promotion has many elements, including advertising, public relations, publicity, merchandising, sales promotion, and direct mail. The chocolate-covered cornflakes company might put commercials on during certain television shows, design unique packaging and supermarket aisle displays, or mail coupons to potential buyers' homes.

Each of the four P’s is a variable you control in creating the marketing mix that will attract customers to your business.  Your marketing mix should be something you pay careful attention to because the success of your business depends on it.


REFERENCES:

Bruch, Megan L. (2005) "Advertising 101", Center for Profitable Agriculture, CPA Info # 111, February 2005

Chaterjee, Milan (2012) "Essay On Advertisement : Its Advantages And Disadvantages", Available at: http://www.publishyourarticles.net/knowledge-hub/essay/an-essay-on-advertisement-its-advantages-and-disadvantages.html, Accessed: August 13, 2012

learningseed.com (2009) "Marketing’s 4 Ps: The Consumer Angle", Available at: http://www.learningseed.com/_guides/1237_marketings_4_ps_guide.pdf, Retrieved: August 13, 2012