Contemporary Advertising

With the changing media used by advertisers, advertisement itself changed quite a bit. So far the ads tried to present a product and make the consumer believe in the big advantages of it. Today, advertisers try to create certain images around their products, which draw a greater attention to the customers and makes them stick this specific product. This so-called “creative revolution” had its origin in the 1950s and 1960s when prominent advertising agencies stated that good advertising has to begin with the respect for the public’s intelligence and therefore have to be understated, sophisticated and witty.

This statement is even more important for today’s commercials on TV, since the technology has made it possible for the viewer to use the remote control to change the channel while the commercials are on. If it is not interesting to the viewer he will simply flip to another channel avoiding the commercial. New digital devices make it even possible to edit out commercials in order to watch a “commercial free” movie or show.

Methods of advertising

Television has attracted about 23.4 % of the money spent on advertising in the US in 1999. It is available in broadcast or cable form and generates a big platform for advertising. To run commercials on TV, advertisers have to buy units of time which range from 15 over 30 and up to 60 seconds in length. These spots are the most expensive ads and can cost up to millions of dollars depending on what time they are aired. If we just think about the ads shown at the major sports events in the U.S.A., like the Super Bowl or the Olympic Games. Only very economically powerful companies can afford this.

The combination of sight, sound and motion creates a more dramatic form of advertising which is considered to build a product’s brand image or to create an excitement around a special event such as a one-time sale. These ads are not intense enough to provide the viewer with a lot of information and are therefore only useful for products which are already familiar to the costumers.

Newspapers are an important media as well. Their advantage is to reach readers of different age groups, ethnic backgrounds and income levels. They display photographs and illustrations, giving explicit and detailed information about a product, new inventions and product improvements. Their disadvantage is that they can’t create such an emotionally strong image as the TV ads, but the opportunity to present coupons for special products shows a great popularity amongst customers, and is often used.

Direct mail is another kind of advertising, sending the ads via mail system to the future customers. This system is also used through e-mails and offers graphics and links to more information. In order to do this kind of advertising, the advertisers have to buy so-called mailing lists, which contain the addresses of people with certain wanted characteristics. Many advertisers consider this system the most effective, because it is much cheaper than mailing the advertisements and it is launched right at the target group.

Radio usually reaches a smaller group of people, mostly from one specific area. This gives local businesses the chance to broadcast their very specialized ads. Most people listen to these ads when they are driving in their car, so they will be informed of any kind of sales in stores in their region. They will hear them before they go shopping and might be tempted to buy these products. These ads have to be very simple and easy to be understood, since people are usually doing something, like driving, when listening to them.

The Yellow Pages are thick directories of telephone listings and displays of advertisements, mostly of local use, but nevertheless very effective.

Magazines only ranked sixth in the total spending on advertising in the U.S.A. in 1999. They are very specialized and target the reader of such magazines who usually have very similar interests. If you think about the highly specialized women magazines, displaying make up and other cosmetic products reaching for teenage girls to older women. This magazines are very prestigious because they show beautiful color photographs of the celebrities of today’s pop-culture.

Advertising on the Internet is becoming more and more popular among companies, since the majority of young consumers have online access at home. They range from banners, buttons, pop-ups to sponsorships of homepages, which we have been discussed in our course. This form of advertising gives the opportunity to check out the given information right away and most of the time allows the customer to order the product online without even leaving his or her home.

The last group of advertising I want to talk about is Outdoor Advertising which is launched via huge billboards to a highly mobile audience which is on the road very often. In cities like New York and the world’s metropolises, these big boards are part of the appearance of the city. People commuting to and from work will pass them, and subconsciously take them into account. This type of advertising has the lowest cost per exposure of any kind of advertisement. The boards are colorful, big and simply hard to ignore, and that’s what makes them effective.