Where you put sugar, you will also find the ants. Its similar to the internet phenomenon, once you know that people use internet a lot to search information, you can let people know about your business from internet. Yes, some people use internet to run their business. With the technology supported today, running a business merely using internet connection is very possible and helpful. Let me tell you about Statusmediaplc.com. Their main goal is increasing the natural search engine traffic with the reputable SEO agency which is expert in one way text links and press release article distribution. This link building agency purpose is improving your organic search engine result. Status media has served with over than 5 years experiences in managing successful campaign of SEO link building of direct clients and agencies. They have professional team which consist of specialists in link building will always ready to help you develop a friendly search engine to rank your chosen search term.

With their ability of CPA networks, Status media gives you a serious competitive advantage. Their unique SEO campaign management tracks and controls the building process to to an individual keyword. The result, you will be able to reduce the labor cost, increases budget efficiency and make it possible for you to achieve higher ranking.

Traditional television audiences are eroding.  In October, the four biggest broadcast networks reported declines in audiences between the ages of 18 and 49.   Many analysts believe that those eyeballs are moving from television to online.  Advertising Age, in a study on social networking and its impact on television, found that 25% of users of social networking sites like Facebook indicated they were spending less time watching TV because of the time they were spending online.  And more than a third of all 12 – 64 year olds online indicated they used social networking sites regularly.   With audiences being siphoned away from television, and using time-shifting digital video recorder (DVR) technology like TiVo to skip ads while they are watching TV, advertising dollars to be had in the broadcast medium are on the decline.

So media companies should simply follow their audiences online, right?  The picture is not that clear.  The current economic climate is eroding ad spending across the board.  TechCrunch indicates that in the third quarter, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL collectively eked out only a 0.6% increase in online advertising revenue quarter over quarter.  MediaPost.com reports that, while online ad revenue is up 11% year-to-date, compared to last year’s growth of 26%, growth has all but stalled in 2008.   They predict that 2009 will be the first flat year for online ad spending since 2003.  Others offer an even gloomier outlook.  In a survey of attendees at AdTech New York, private equity firm Halyard Capital found most predicted digital-marketing budgets would be down 10-20% in 2009.

And even worse news for media companies: rates that advertisers are paying for digital ad space, as traditionally measured by cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), are trending downward.  According to research by Morgan Stanley, the average CPM for a banner ad has dropped from  $3 to $1 over the past decade.  Consensus seems to be this is because of the proliferation of available inventory (places on the internet to display these ads).  In China, advertisers are paying as little as $.05 CPM because of the rapid explosion of inventory.  And MediaPost predicts that this decline in the rates advertisers are paying will extend to online video advertising in 2009, which is an area that has been enjoying a two year spike in CPMs.

But what about those social networks to which television viewers are being drawn?  Do they offer hope?  Halyard Capital found that 68% of those surveyed believed social networks are in the “strongest position to expand” among the alternative marketing channels over the next two years.   Advertisers see vast potential in social networking as a channel in which to better target advertising to consumers because of all of the personal information being shared.  And content providers see opportunities to tie together traditional media and social networking.  Broadcasters are starting to incorporate community features into their online video players.  Companies like Joost are tapping into social networks like Facebook for social video sharing.

At first glance, then, social networks seem to offer promise as an advertising haven in an economic downturn.   Sites like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube boast a tremendous number of pageviews, a higher than average number of pageviews per user, and a longer average time-on-site.  In a CPM-driven world, this massive pool of pageviews represents a virtual treasure trove of “inventory,” because of the sheer number of eyeballs.  The problem, however, is that the data shows that the actual performance of ads on these social networks is absolutely dismal. Click-through rates on these sites are 10 to 100 times lower than the average for banner ads, which were already in the 0.1 percent to 1 percent range.

According to Dr. Augustine Fou, Senior VP of Digital Strategy at MRM Worldwide, a digital marketing agency, the very nature of social networking sites make them unsuitable for traditional advertising:

“While the largest Web 1.0 sites (Yahoo, CNET, New York Times, etc.) were content sites that aggregated massive audiences and supported large numbers of pageviews, the largest Web 2.0 sites are social networking sites. The nature of these two types of sites is very different. Users go to Web 1.0 sites and portals to read content or do e-mail by themselves. Users go to Web 2.0 social networks to interact with others and are usually so immersed in socializing they are even less likely to see, let alone act upon, ads, despite the large number of pageviews generated per session. This may partially explain the dramatically lower click rates for ads on social networking sites. ”

Ted McConnell, general manager-interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble Co., postulates that social networks are not only ineffective channels for advertising, they are wholly inappropriate places to market in which attempts to do so alienate consumers.   McConnell poses the question to advertisers: “What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?”   He makes the point that “social media” is not really “media” at all.  Media is a one-way communication that contains blank spaces that constitute inventory for advertising.  Social networking is a dialog between consumers, in which advertising becomes disruptive.  Consumers were not intending to create media, they were intending to talk to someone.

If television ad revenue is on the decline, digital ad spending on the whole is trending downward, and social networks are failing to deliver on their promise to reach consumers, what can advertisers and media companies do to weather the storm?  Advertisers must ensure that they are getting the best return on investment they can on their remaining ad spending dollars.  Instead of paying for the biggest number of eyeballs they can, they should focus on advertising best positioned to make a conversion.  Online, this likely signals a needed shift from a CPM model, where advertisers pay for the number of folks who will see an ad, to performance-based measurements.  An ad model based on performance would have advertisers paying only for clicks or other targeted consumer actions.

McConnell predicts that as the economy worsens, the fortune of performance-based advertising will rise as impression-based models falter. “‘Spray and pray’ is a little harder to do when you’re under economic pressure,” he said. “So performance-based advertising will gain share over CPM.”

And according to Dr. Fou, “in the Web 2.0 advertising landscape, many advertisers have already moved beyond the cost-per-impression (CPM) model to a more measurable and accountable cost-per-click (CPC) model (e.g., Google Adwords) in which they only pay when users click through, no matter how many times the ad is displayed. Some have even moved to the next step of cost-per-action (CPA), where the advertiser does not pay until the user does the desired action-e.g., make a purchase. ”

How can media companies respond to the demand for performance-based advertising?  It is no longer enough to simply make inventory available, now these companies must ensure that the advertisements will be effective.  This means that it will be more important than ever to target the right advertising to the right consumer at the right time.  And media companies will have to work directly with the advertisers to ensure that advertising is tightly integrated with the content in a way that provides the right context and timing for the message.

One channel that offers some interesting promise for targeting of content is mobile.  62% of AdTech’s attendees responding to the survey by Halyard cited mobile as the advertising platform that will grow the most in the next two years.   Mobile has the potential to target a consumer at exactly the right time and the right place.  Imagine walking into a drug store and receiving a coupon by text message on your mobile phone for an over-the-counter pain reliever.  That is the power of location-based advertising, made possible by the proliferation of global positioning system (GPS) technology on mobile phones, that allows providers to know exactly where you are.  This is not science fiction – companies like Loopt and NAVTEQ are already starting to serve up location-based ads on a handset near you.

And while social networks may not prove to be the holy grail in providing a channel for advertising, their vast potential for understanding and targeting consumers may still be the key to effective advertising in a performance-based world.  Dr. Fou explains that “By redefining social networks as ‘the collective conversations and actions of customers, evidenced online,’ marketers can instead use social networks as places to do research-e.g., test messages with real customers in a real environment, listen to how customers describe their products or services to peers, or get ideas for new products or how to improve current products. And finally, advertisers can identify influencers, mavens or ‘heavies’ on social networks (the ones who are most active in talking, posting or sharing) and let them beta-test and write about their product or service.”

Not only can social networks help advertisers better identify, understand and influence their targets, they have the potential to exponentially extend their reach.   According to Advertising Age, there is “emerging evidence that mapping the online relationships among consumers — creating so-called social graphs — can be just as valuable as traditional targeting and segmentation in predicting how people will respond to marketing messages.”  The idea is to not only market to your identified target consumer, but market to the other people in that consumer’s social network.  The theory is that advertisers should associate “consumers who are already connected and share values and beliefs, a concept called homophily.”  Yahoo and several small start-ups are starting to prove out this theory.

Finally, there may still be hope for television.  In early November, Dish Network struck a deal with advertising technology firm Invidi that involves the creation of “advanced receivers” capable of “targeted advertising delivery” and “dynamic commercial insertion.”  According to Advertising Age, what this means is “[r]ather than bombarding millions of TV viewers with the same ads for things many of them may not be looking to buy, marketers could in the next two to three years send different ads to different households — making certain, for example, that Procter & Gamble wouldn’t have to pay for Pampers ads watched by a couple with no wee tykes and General Motors wouldn’t have to show ads for its Hummer vehicles to a house full of Prius enthusiasts.”  Industry experts believe that if consumers are presented with highly relevant advertising, they are far less inclined to skip the ad on their DVR.

* Finding the dayparts that best reach your target customer. Mornings? Middays? Afternoons?

* Selecting the top radio stations that most efficiently reach the highest potential customers, the right number of times (defined as frequency), for the least amount of money
Usually, when researching radio advertising costs, many potential radio advertisers have a pretty good idea of the first two points. However, when it comes down to finding the best station (or stations) at the best price, the radio advertising process becomes a little more challenging.
Here is how we tackle the process at Radio Lounge and determine how much to spend on radio advertising costs. Within the market you want to advertise in, we find the radio stations that have the best potential to reach your target customer. This is based on the formats of the radio stations. Urban Hip-hop stations will target different demographics than a News/Talk, or Soft Rock station. After we select a group of radio stations, we contact those stations to let them know we are thinking about advertising on their radio station. We ask for specific data from the radio stations called “rankers”. This is ratings data that most radio stations can provide based on specific requirements we have requested. From this point, we have a good idea which stations perform the best in our target demographics.
Once we have narrowed down the radio stations to just a few that will effectively reach our target customer, we then request a proposal based on certain criteria – dayparts, frequency goals, etc. From these proposals, we can see who reaches the target audience most efficiently – using tools like Cost Per Point (ratio of spot rate to ratings percentage), Cost Per Thousand (ratio of spot rate to audience category totals), etc. If a radio station is not competitive, we will often ask the station to resubmit a more competitive proposal. But, how will we know if all of the station’s radio advertising rates are too high. Radio Lounge has access to data that allows us to compare proposals against historical figures to determine if radio station prices are in line with market averages. We negotiate, and help execute the purchase.
Great…but what does this cost? It depends on the size of the market you wish to advertise in as determined by Arbitron (the radio ratings services). Radio advertising rates can be as high as $800 per 60 spots in a top market like New York City, or as low as $3 per 60 spots in Kerrville, TX. How will you know what to spend?
Here’s a valuable system we have used from our history of working with radio advertising rates. The system is based on a solid branding schedule that may run one spot per day in the morning drive, one per day at midday, and one per day in the afternoon drive – Monday through to Friday, and two spots on Saturday and Sunday. That’s nineteen spots a week at sticker price. This type of schedule is good for achieving a desired frequency level of three (meaning the average listener to a station will hear the radio commercial at least three times). Under these broad assumptions, you can use the following chart as a rough guide to budgeting your radio advertising campaign.*
*Note, these are gross rates and do not include production costs or agency discounts. These are market averages for the standard radio schedule mentioned above, actual costs may vary. Different combinations of dayparts on different stations may cost much less.
* Markets 1 -5 (ex: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc.)

Expect to pay from $4000 to $8000 per week/per station for a top performing station.
* Markets 6 – 20 (ex: Dallas/Ft.Worth, Houston, Phoenix, San Diego, etc.)

Expect to pay from $2000 to $5000 per week/per station for a top performing station.
* Markets 21 – 50 (ex: Denver, Cleveland, Kansas City, etc.)

Expect to pay from $1000 to $3000 per week/per station for a top performing station.
* Markets 51- 150 (ex: Akron, Syracuse, Baton Rouge, etc.)

Expect to pay from $800 to $2000 per week/per station for a top performing station.
* Markets 150+ (ex: Myrtle Beach SC, Green Bay, Topeka, etc.)

Expect to pay from $500 to $1500 per week/per station for a top performing station.
You may be saying, “Wow! That can be expensive”. Relax, these are standards and radio advertising schedules come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, schedules are smaller depending on advertising goals and objectives. However, we do recommend that you are able to commit to the range of minimums.
Leftovers?
Notice we have not mentioned remnant radio advertising here at all. Remnant advertising is the practice of buying unused inventory at deep discounts. Remnant advertising success exists more in theory than in practice. However, this is not to say that there are not advertisers who are having success with remnant advertising. If, and when, remnant advertising falls into your lap, we suggest you look into it. However, basing your entire radio ad campaign on remnant advertising may be shooting yourself in the foot. With the exception of a few times a year, most top performing radio stations do not have that much unsold inventory. Often, the largest advertisers have contracts that guarantee so many low cost/no cost spots that have to run. The reality is that if large advertisers (with the big dollar schedule) need their spots to run, or if another advertiser pays just one penny more than you did for your remnant spots – bump! You just got bumped off the air that day. You may pay for twenty spots and only get two that air. The stations will make it up to you, but what if you were counting on that advertising to drive sales. Or better yet, in the age of consolidated radio groups your remnant advertising might run on the third to the last rated station in the market. The result is NO RESULT and you have just wasted money for nothing. We really do believe that when it comes to radio advertising YOU TRULY DO GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
Now that radio advertising rates have been explained, you may ask the question, how long should I advertise? The type of radio advertising helps define the length of a campaign. Advertising for an event? We recommend shorter, more compact schedules to create buzz leading up to the event or launch. Branding a product? Often, long term schedules with a bit of breathing room work best. Maybe even flighting could work (on two weeks, off two weeks). Most of the time, the two things that will determine how long to run a radio advertising campaign will be advertiser goals (traffic numbers), and external factors such as sales cycles. Oh yeah, and usually budget affects the length of the campaign. It is not desired, but that’s reality.
The Total Cost
You may be thinking, “So if I want to run a spot on three top Houston radio stations, I should expect to pay $1000 for a commercial, plus $3000 per week per station…that’s $10,000 for one week’s worth of advertising!” That’s true, and may be just what it takes to reach over half a million potential well targeted customers. The real question is, “How much money can you make off half a million potential targeted customers?” Is it more than $10,000 a week? $40,000 a month? These are questions to ask yourself, because in the world of advertising, that is pretty good traffic.
It works even better when you let Radio Lounge reduce that cost even further. What if Radio Lounge was able to get you a great radio advertising schedule by providing an instant discount ABOVE the negotiated lowest radio station price?
Launch Your Radio Advertising Campaign
You may still have many questions about radio advertising. That’s why we are here. We want to help you get the biggest bang for the radio advertising buck. Radio Lounge has worked with thousands of radio advertising campaigns. We know what works and what does not. Let Radio Lounge help you with all facets of strategic development, creative development, copywriting, production, media planning, media negotiation, and monitoring of your radio advertising campaign.
Call for a free consultation. Toll free 1-866-4-AUDIO-9…that’s 1-866-428-3469.

Let Radio Lounge help you drive traffic with powerful radio advertising solutions.

http://www.radioloungeusa.com

In advertising service is a company which will create and execute advertising campaigns on behalf of other businesses. This means that the business will have a team of professionals working to create advertising that will get them to maximum amount of media coverage to increase customers and profits. There are various ways in which advertising service can help your business, and here are a few of those ways:

· An advertising service made do market research on behalf of your business so that their advertising campaigns are well targeted.

· Speak with the business owner and create a marketing campaign plan which will cover all aspects of the marketing including way marketing will take place and the frequency of adverts and other forms of advertising.

· Sometimes an advertising service will offer you a type of guarantee. For example if you are working with an advertising service that will provide advertising via the Internet they may tell you that they will guarantee your website the first page ranking on Google. Then the advertising service will do all they can to ensure that this happens to your business, and this is usually within a set period of time – often around three months.

· Looking for new ways that your business can advertise its products or services. If your business has been stuck in advertising rut, using an advertising service could be the breath of fresh air that it is looking for. Often it is difficult for a business to see advertising in new lights, especially if the advertising that a business is done has remained the same for several years. Sometimes having someone else outside of the business in charge of the marketing and advertising can really work to raise businesses image.

· Using an advertising service also means that the business will get the best advertising as and when they need it. There is no need to pay for such a service every month as a business may only need to use an advertising service once or twice a year.

· By using such a service a business can rest assured that they are working with professionals and that all the advertising that is created for them will be well put together and well researched so that it will get the best results for the business.

Any business that wants to increase their customers and their profits needs to get their marketing and advertising right as without this there will be no position to attract new customers.
Advertising is one of the most important ways for a business to attract new customers and raise a brand image. Large businesses tend to have in-house advertising departments which cope with creating new advertising campaigns and putting them out to the public. Smaller businesses often don’t have this luxury and then it can be difficult to successfully create a good advertising campaign. Any business that is looking to advertise their products or services but doesn’t have the advertising know-how should consider using an advertising service.

In advertising service is a company which will create and execute advertising campaigns on behalf of other businesses. This means that the business will have a team of professionals working to create advertising that will get them to maximum amount of media coverage to increase customers and profits. There are various ways in which advertising service can help your business, and here are a few of those ways:

· An advertising service made do market research on behalf of your business so that their advertising campaigns are well targeted.

· Speak with the business owner and create a marketing campaign plan which will cover all aspects of the marketing including way marketing will take place and the frequency of adverts and other forms of advertising.

· Sometimes an advertising service will offer you a type of guarantee. For example if you are working with an advertising service that will provide advertising via the Internet they may tell you that they will guarantee your website the first page ranking on Google. Then the advertising service will do all they can to ensure that this happens to your business, and this is usually within a set period of time – often around three months.

· Looking for new ways that your business can advertise its products or services. If your business has been stuck in advertising rut, using an advertising service could be the breath of fresh air that it is looking for. Often it is difficult for a business to see advertising in new lights, especially if the advertising that a business is done has remained the same for several years. Sometimes having someone else outside of the business in charge of the marketing and advertising can really work to raise businesses image.

· Using an advertising service also means that the business will get the best advertising as and when they need it. There is no need to pay for such a service every month as a business may only need to use an advertising service once or twice a year.

· By using such a service a business can rest assured that they are working with professionals and that all the advertising that is created for them will be well put together and well researched so that it will get the best results for the business.

Any business that wants to increase their customers and their profits needs to get their marketing and advertising right as without this there will be no position to attract new customers.

â??I know that half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The problem is, I donâ??t know which half.â?

This succinct resume of the advertiserâ??s dilemma is often attributed to John Wanamaker, the department store pioneer. Some people prefer to give the credit to Henry Ford, the automobile pioneer, or other favorite business giants. Whoever said it first, it is certain that it has been said thousand and thousand of times since.

The significance of the observation is nothing short of astounding. These are people whose business is investing and harvesting financial assets, yet when it comes to advertising, they freely admit to wasting at least half of their money!

But the observation can be turned on its head. Viewed from this perspective, it means that these same extremely clever and resourceful marketers believe that the power of advertising is so great, even at only 50% effectiveness they still get their moneyâ??s worth. This is equally astounding!

The value of advertising can most easily be seen with mass marketed products. For example, a breakfast cereal launches a major advertising campaign; within a few days to weeks the sales figures will reflect the impact of the campaign. With technical and industrial products, the picture is not quite so clear. Few people buy a car or a piece of industrial equipment on impulse. They build up to it over a long period of time, so that the cause-and-effect relationship between advertising and sales is virtually impossible to evaluate.

Nevertheless, advertising is indispensable. So the question is, can you construct advertising campaigns that will assure the best return on investment (ROI), even when that return cannot be directly measured?

The answer is both yes and no. It is â??noâ? if you believe that advertising by nature is more of an art than a science. It is â??yesâ? if you believe that advertising is a combination of both art and science.

It is certainly true that advertising has a major â??artâ? component, i.e. that people who have a â??feelâ? for it are likely to produce better, more effective advertising than people who donâ??t. Unfortunately, this verity has led to the false conclusion that advertising is predominantly art, i.e. a matter of taste.

When advertising is viewed as largely a question of personal preference, the rational component of the exercise takes second importance. Worse, it often degenerates into a kind of pseudoscience of rules and regulations with no scientific justification:

– Be positive: no one likes negative advertising

– Avoid simple, straightforward headlines; headlines should â??teaseâ? readers into the advert

– Use big, bold visuals; people are impressed by pictures

– Show the solution, not the problem: this is reassuring to potential buyers

– Never write more than 15 – 20 words of body copy; no one reads body copy anyhow

– Make payoff lines (slogans) clever and memorable, not explicit and to the point

The summation seems to be: Advertising is entertainment. If you can attract attention and give a show, then you will sell.

One writer on the subject bluntly stated: â??Advertising consists of first hitting people in the face with a pie, then delivering your message.â? It is of course true that you must attract attention before you can deliver your message. But just how seriously is anyone like to take your message while he is wiping whipped cream off his face?

Advertising may have elements of show business. But if it is only show business, it will fail. On the other hand, if we are more detached in our analysis — i.e. if we put the art of advertising and the science of advertising into better balance — we many learn some valuable lesions. And gain some valuable commercial leverage.

I have done considerably work in pharmaceutical marketing. Doctors are perhaps the most difficult targets in the world, because what you â??sellâ? them is ideas and information, which later on they may or may not turn into prescriptions for their patients. Thus, while the following examples relate specifically to doctors and medicines, the underlying principles are universally valid. Throughout this article, wherever you see the word â??doctorâ?, mentally substitute the name of your potential technical and/or industrial customer and see how well these ideas fit.

Facing the Facts

David Ogilvy, one of the most highly regarded gurus of consumer advertising, asserts: â??Very few advertisements contain enough factual information to sell the product. There is a ludicrous tradition among copywriters that consumers arenâ??t interested in facts. Northing could be farther from the truth.â?

If this contention is valid for housewives, how much more valid must it be for doctors!

Medicine is a serious business. When a doctor reads a medical journal, he is looking for medical information. Otherwise, he would be reading something else. It therefore follows: Advertising in medical journals that gives real medical information is likely to attract more attention and achieve better results than advertising which doesnâ??t.

If this seems self-evident, medical journals bear witness to the opposite. The majority of adverts tend to fall into two categories:

1. Lots of words, but little real information (lack of a focused message).

2. A clever headline, a pleasing pictureâ??and no information at all.

The excuse for the first kind of advert is often: â??It is a new product; we need to create a personality for it.â? It is hard to imagine how an empty personality, based solely on errant prose, will result in positive promotion.

The excuse for the second category of adverts often is: â??It is a well known product; this is simply a reminder advert.â? Certainly it makes sense to remind the doctor that a medicine exists. But it makes even more sense to remind him of why he is using it, if he is already using it. Or why he should be using it, if he isnâ??t.

The 80/20 Rule

The objection will now be raised: Doesnâ??t this â??art + scienceâ? concept of advertising necessitate long body copy? Does it make sense to write long body copy when no one reads it anyhow?

Letâ??s examine this contention in reverse order.

For every 100 doctors who read the headline and look at the visual of an advert, letâ??s say only 20 will actually read the body. Does this represent an 80% wastage? Emphatically no.

The 80/20 rule is a fundamental tenet of technical and industrial marketing, i.e. in general 80% of sales come from 20% of customers. The same principle applies to advertising.

Readers who just look at the headline and visual, then turn the page, at that moment are not the real customers for the product. Those who remain to read the body copy are the real customers for the product. This is the ideal moment to tell them bout it, because this is when they want to know about it. Otherwise, they too are likely to turn the page and an excellent selling opportunity will be lost.

Body is important, in fact vital, because it is your only real chance to make the sale. But how long should that body copy be?

This is like asking how long is a piece of string. You donâ??t answer this question by counting the number of words. Rather, you consider the value of the words. The best guide is: If the body copy contains one word more than needed to deliver the message, it is probably too long; if it contains one word less than need to deliver the message, it is definitely too short, regardless of how many words are used!

Of course, it makes no sense to simply print the prescribing information. As Bill Bernbach, a legendary practitioner of consumer advertising, has written: â??Be certain that your advertisement says something to the consumer; that it informs and renders a service. Then be certain that it says what it has to say in a way no one has ever said it before.â?

Notice the balance in this advice.

First: â??Be certain that your advertisement says something to the consumer.â? This is advertising as a science. Determining what you want to say about your product and what you ought to say about it are two different things. This is why most good advertising starts with market research. And never lets anything go to press before it has been thoroughly tested.

Second: â??Be certain that your advertisement says what it has to say in a way that no one has ever said it before.â? This is advertising as an art.

How the advert expresses its message, both visually and verbally, can vary dramatically depending on who is saying it. The total impact the advert will achieve intimately depends on the talents of the art director and the copywriter, the so-called â??createsâ? of the business.

The Use and Abuse of Creativity

Introducing the copywriter and art director into the discussion raises the vexing question of creativity in advertising.

â??Creativity” is probably one of the most abused and misused words in English or any other language. As we have seen, some people think it means hitting people in the face with a pie. We have also seen the dangers of this approach. Surprising and shocking people in order to gain their attention can:

– Undermine the credibility of the serious message you are trying to deliver.

– Lead to rapid advertising â??wear-outâ?. You can surprise and shock people only once; after that, you are likely to have no effect. Worse, you may have a negative effect!

Stripped of mythology, saying what you have to say in a way that it has never before been said simply means: Putting forward the essentials of the message in such a way that they cannot be ignored — on the first exposure and on subsequent exposures.

So much emphasis is placed on attracting attention and conveying a message on the first exposure (â??pie in the faceâ?), very little thought seems to be given to what will happen, if anything, on the second, third and subsequent exposures. This is the concept of â??wear-outâ?; after how many exposures does the advert stop having any useful impact?

The concept of wear-out is closely allied to the idea of repetition. Unlike supermarket adverts, adverts for prescription pharmaceuticals seldom appear only once (â??Buy now before supplies run out; Special discount prices, stock up nowâ?). Instead, they usually run for at least several months, and often a year or longer.

True, few doctors read the same advert more than once, but they cannot help seeing it more than once. They will certainly see it much more often than they will see the pharmaceutical representative who visits them. Advertising is the most frequent and most consistent point of contact between the doctor and the company.

A truly efficient advert should have impact each and every time it is seen — whether it is read each time or not. This is why the fundamental structure is so important. And why it is well worth spending the time and energy to get it right, i.e. concept development not only for journal adverts, but also for brochures, mailings, oral presentations, symposia, etc.

How do you create advertising with such power and longevity?

In general, any advert that communicates the product name and main sell proposition in a flash should continue to work as long as the underlying strategy remains the same. The assumption is, each exposure — even if it is only as long as it takes to turn the page — reinforces previous impressions of the message in the journals, mailings, etc. Adverts that rely on â??teaserâ? headlines or other indirect approaches are more problematical. It is far more likely that the doctor will perceive this kind of advertising as promotion rather than information, and will turn the page with no reinforcement of the selling message.

Courage and Conviction

A truly effective long-life advert may not always appear smashingly striking at first sight; however, if it is well constructed it will grow and gain strength over time. By contrast, an advert that is extremely striking at first sight — this being its major attribute — may in fact lose power over time. Sometimes overnight.

Developing advertisements that sell on first and subsequent exposures admits of no hard and fast rules. Some times it may mean an extremely factual advert that looks almost like editorial copy; other time it may be an advert with a highly emotional content. It all depends on the nature of the product; the nature of the market, and what ideas, true or false, are already in the doctorâ??s mind.

There is more to good technical and industrial advertising than meets the eye. Indeed, a superficial analysis is likely to be very misleading, with very expensive consequences. To properly evaluate an advertising campaign, it is necessary to know the underlying strategy and the objectives that strategy is designed to achieve.

By way of example, here are the descriptions of three advertising campaigns I produced when I was creative director of a specialized medical advertising agency. You may not fully understand the products, but look closely at the description of each advert.

1. Product: Vasodilator

Objective: Increase prescriptions by repositioning it as the first product of a new, more effective therapeutic class

Headline: â??6 Actions on the Blood and the Vessels to Combat Claudication and its Premonitory Symptomsâ?

Visual: 6 symbols in the form of a rectangle representing the 6 modes of action

Body copy: factual, moderate length

2. Product: Benzodiazepine

Objective: Stabilize leadership position/market share in an anti-benzodiazepine marketing environment

Headline: â??My Conditions for Prescribing an Anxiolytic to My Patientsâ?

Visual: Intelligent, serious-looking general practitioner speaking the headline

Body copy: factual, short

3. Beta-2 mimetic bronchodilator

Objective: Maximize sales potential by overcoming market prejudice to using oral beta-2 mimetics in the treatment of nocturnal asthma

Headline: â??Asthma: Night Is the Enemyâ?

Visual: Artistâ??s impression of the experience of a night-time asthma attack, painted by an asthmatic artist who actually suffers such attacks.

Body copy: factual; extremely short

At first glance the vasodilator and benzodiazepine adverts might appear uninspired, even banal. They are unlikely to win any awards for advertising â??creativityâ?. On the other hand, the asthma advert is exactly the type that could win a creativity award.

Despite their superficial differences, fundamentally they are quire similar. All three adverts had very high awareness and credibility scores. One of the so-called â??banalâ? adverts was so well received — and had such an impact on sales — that when we proposed a more â??imaginativeâ? version, the product manager, originally unconvinced by it, growled: â??If you touch my advert, I will break your arm.â?

Conclusion: All three adverts were extremely creative in the real sense of the word, because they:

1. Clearly reflected the nature of the product

2. Precisely addressed the needs of the market

3. Elicited the desired response (won prescriptions)

The serious advertiser would do well to bear this functional definition of creativity uppermost in mind.

It takes courage to reject an advertising campaign proposal that is striking, cute, funny, artistic, etc., in favor of one that doesnâ??t seem to possess these desirable characteristics. A so-called â??unimaginativeâ? campaign that clearly responds to the needs of the market and has the innate capacity to grow and develop (i.e. continue generating sales) is considerably more creative, in the true sense of the word, than one that flashes like a meteor, then dissipates its energy and loses impact before it has had a chance to do its job.

Philip Yaffe is a former writer with The Wall Street Journal and international marketing communication consultant. He now teaches courses in persuasive communication in Brussels, Belgium. Because his clients use English as a second or third language, his approach to writing and public speaking is somewhat different from other communication coaches. He is the author of In the â??Iâ? of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like a Professional, available from the publisher (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com). Contact: phil.yaffe@yahoo.com, phil.yaffe@gmail.com

1. Give up too quickly. Many studies reveal that most Adwords advertisers are failure because they give up too quickly. They expect to earn money quickly and easily by setting up a campaign and wait for money rolling into their bank, without any further action, in short term. They are wrong. It is not easy like that!

2. Lack of the strategy planning. It is obviously that planning is a key success factor for all kinds of business. It will help you to minimize redo and undo tasks. Also, it will help you to settle your own direction. Most Adwords advertisers should plan their strategies, budget, and their action in the PPC online advertising game, but they do not.

3. Lack of creativity. The internet marketing and PPC online advertising is an art, not pure science. All Adwords advertisers should come up with their ideas, creative and new strategies for testing their PPC advertising campaigns all the time. Otherwise, they will fail and can not win this game.

4. Lack of systematically testing system. In the internet marketing, particularly in PPC online advertising world, you must test everything in the systematic way, which you can test. In the Adwords advertising, you should test: (1) keywords (2) ad-copy (3) landing page (4) campaign management and organization and (5) other things, of which you can think. Most failed advertisers do not test in the systematic way and some of them do not test anything.

5. Lack of well-understand in the market and people. There is no doubt that the more you understand your market and people, the more opportunities to earn money on the internet you have. You have to put yourself into the customer’s shoes. You have to think like customers. Most Adwords advertisers fail to do this. They are rush to set up their PPC advertising campaigns with their mind and hope that they will generate a lot of money for them without any additional actions. They are wrong!

6. Lack of well monitor, tracking and evaluation system. In the PPC, other keys to your success are: (1) monitoring your campaigns, keywords, ad-copy and landing page (2) tracking the sales, keywords, conversion rate and cost, and (3) evaluate the high performance campaign, ad-group, keywords and landing page. Most of advertisers can not do these systematically. They wait and guess for their monitoring, tracking and evaluation!

7. Lack of consistency. This is a really important factor to your success in any kinds of business in the world. Many researches reveal that most successful entrepreneurs love what they do and they do their works consistency and continuously. On the other hand, other entrepreneurs can not achieve this. They give up and do not do their work consistency when they do not see big money and big results in short term, like weeks, months. That is another reason why they fail.

8. Lack of keyword bidding strategy. This strategy is one of the most significant strategies in the PPC online advertising. The golden rule of winning this game is to avoid the bidding war! Most new and failed advertisers have not the keyword bidding strategy. Without the bidding strategy, there is no any effectiveness at all!

9. Lack of well-organize campaign. Well, many researches reveal that managing and organizing are two of the best behaviours for advertisers to do for building their highly relevancy and successful PPC advertising campaign, particularly Adwords. With the well-organize, it is easier for advertiser to run and grow their relevancy PPC advertising campaigns.

10. Lack of niche profitable and negative keywords. The PPC online advertising is similar to the keyword auction game. With this sense, keywords will become the first critical factor for success and winning the PPC advertising game. Without niche profitable and negative keywords, you are losing your own money. This reveals that keyword research is one of the most important processes to success in PPC online advertising. Most people fail with their effective keyword research.

11. Write the poor and unattractive ad-copy. Without the attractive and eye-catching ad-copy, you can drive visitors to your landing page through PPC online advertising. Your click through rate (CTR) will be definitely low. Most advertisers are failed to write the powerful and attractive ad-copy. There are a few basic rules for writing the ad-copy in PPC online Advertising, which are to: (1) include the keywords in your title of ad-copy (2) address the benefits of your products to your ad-copy and (3) test various strategies for writing your ad-copy.

12. Drive visitors to the poor landing page with low conversion rate. The conversion rate is the best critical factor for all advertisers to concern and test heavily. Without high conversion rate, you can not turn your visitors into customers and earn big money on the internet; even you have a lot of traffic. There are many guidelines of how to build a high conversion rate landing page on the internet. However, one of the most critical factors for your landing page is “headline”. You have a several seconds to load your website and grab your visitors’ attention with your title.

13. Lack of secrets weapon software. With the appropriate software, it is easier for you to manage, monitor, track and evaluate your PPC advertising campaigns. There are many kind of secrets weapon software you must have for your own PPC online advertising if you do not want to fail: (1) keyword research tools (2) keyword bidding software (3) campaign management software (if you are running multiple campaigns in multiple search engines) (4) monitor and tracking software and (5) spy competitors software. Most advertisers do not invest on those tools. They believe that they can do everything by themselves and free tools. Many researches show that those paid tools can help advertisers a lot in term of effective researching, managing, monitoring, tracking and evalution.

14. Can not stay on top in the trend of PPC online advertising. There are many changes rapidly in the world of PPC online advertising. Most advertisers are tired of staying on top in the trend and do not want to keep updated the technology. Those are reasons why they are failed in the PPC online advertising world. Current technologies or solutions can not solve tomorrow problems in some situations!

15. Focus on only one PPC search engine. Many advertisers are only focus on one PPC search engine at a time. Obviously, if you want to drive more traffic to your website and earn huge of money on the internet and do not want to fail in PPC online advertising, it is a great idea to run multiple PPC search engines at a time. You can test keywords, ad-copy, landing page across those engines as well.

Final thoughts, if you do not want to fail in PPC online advertising, particularly in Adwords, you have to avoid those above mistakes. You have to be self-improvement, be patient, be consistency and be strategic to build, run and grow your success PPC online advertising campaigns. It requires a lot of effort and time to build super-profitable PPC advertising campaigns!

Learn more secrets of how to success in PPC online advertising and become a wealthy affiliate millionaire. You will learn great tips, inside secrets and workable techniques on PPC online advertising, particularly Adwords, every singly month. Also, you will discover and learn monthly up-to-date affiliate information, top profitable recommended online affiliate marketing programs, do effective research, improve continuously your home based affiliate business, learn how to make big money online from home over $5,000 a day and participant with other successful affiliate marketing entrepreneurs. You will discover great tips on internet affiliate marketing for your highly successful. Also, you will save your time and money for your trial & error.

Join now – get the full access to unlimited business and revenue ideas, detailed reviews of your sale letter, candid critiques of your website design, traffic campaign strategies proven to attract buyers and tricks to increase your sales by 400% or more! You will discover and learn proven moneymaking secrets to instantly increase your sales over $10,000 per month or more!

Read more valuable articles, news and up-to-date information about home based affiliate business at: http://www.zMillionDollars.com/blog. You will discover a wealthy of informative about how to start, build, run and grow your home based affiliate business.

*Reprint Policy: Reprint in full with writer’s name, contact information, active links and brief bio.

Introduction:

An advertisement as an object and an advertising as a process has lots of contents and players to bring that concept. As an object it is the Ad designer or the agent who has the role to play, while as a process it is the beholder who has the responsibility to accomplish the objective. In between these two there are other players also to play their separate roles. While the whole issue is to manage and explore the benefits, the role of advertising, being used as a marketing tool canâ??t be ignored. This is an attempt to define what an advertisement is, and how it is related to other objectives.

Definition

Advertising is a process to communicate the desired message of the producer to the customers. In other words it is the process by which the message is being passed to the consumers by proper means of communication. In a well versed form it is one of the marketing mix to promote goods, services, companies and ideas through an identified sponsor. One of the 4Pâ??s of marketing is the promotion strategy. Advertising being a part of promotional mix helps a lot to the marketers to promote their products.

Elements of advertising Process

There are different elements of advertising. Their relevancy depends upon the demand of a particular situation and so can easily move in the priority list to fulfill the need of the situation. As enlisted and shown in the figure depicted above â??an advertisement as a product has several elements to be judged (in the process starting from concept to reality) to come as a product to meet the objective of the companyâ?.

The importance of advertising depends upon various factors such as nature of the product, Industry to which it belongs, competition in the market, market intensity, stage of the product or the brand in its life cycle, effect on per capita consumption, customer loyalty, brand credibility and media.

Advertising is a component of marketing mix has a lot to do in the market to meet an objective of the beholder. Being a communication process to put the information about the intended â??idea or thoughtâ? to the target audience or defined customers in a manner to satisfy the intended need is not an easy task. In a very subjective way it is all to bring the concept into reality to work and meet the intended need. Through advertisement, the beholder tries to put their information into the market for their ready acceptance. The intensity of competition has led a lot of pressure on promoters and advertisers to make a creative, responding and effective advertisement.

The need of the market has created a different role for advertising to play in the area of marketing. For a well established product or brand, advertisement has to just communicate its relevance by transferring the information to the market. But, for a product or an idea which is either in an initiation stage or just to move, advertising has a lot to do in the market for that product. Nature of the product and its stage in its life cycle is also a great determinant of advertising, to be designed and to get figured in the market.

Four Pâ??s of marketing and advertising

Product and Advertisement: There are three kinds of products shown in an advertisement. They are General Products, Esteemed or logical products and Competitive Products. To advertise a general product information used in an ad is all the benefits of the product and its appeal to the target audience. For logical products the information to be conveyed through the advertisement is the need or satisfaction level to which the product is designed. For competitive product the comparative appeal is used in an advertisement to promote the product.

Place and Advertisement: To convey information through advertisement place strategy covers culture, age, gender, emotion, demography, geography, society, class of people, Income class to be shown in the advertisement and through that to target the desired audience. By this an advertisement helps to promote the product and to reach the targeted audience.

Price and Advertisement: In an advertisement pricing strategy usually designed to convey the comparative benefits and price structure with the competitive products and to target the desired customers to meet the objective.

Promotion and Advertisement: An advertisement is usually defined as a promotion strategy to promote the intended idea and meet objective. When all the other 3 Ps gets compiled in an advertisement it is the advertisement (a part of the promotional mix) which has to serve the intended need.

Advertising budget and cost

There are different categories of advertising media to be used for advertisement. A company has to go through a thorough search of different available options, budget for advertisement, mass effect of the media and analysis of cost and benefit of the available media to meet the objective. The choice of the option depends upon available options, different objectives subject to the restriction of resources to be used. For example to meet the objective in terms of its effectiveness television advertising is used, for others such as for great branding and reach a large audience magazines are used, while to assist in cornering the market mail order and leaflets are used. By advertising oneâ??s business with internet marketing strategies one can save on his advertising budget and one can run his advertising budget into arrears if he starts up his internet marketing with the wrong advertising company. To opt certain media one has to thoroughly evaluate the objectives, resource constraints, target reach, accessibility and per capita effect.

There are different types of advertising. It covers Television, Newspaper, Magazine, Mailorder, Banners, Cost per click, Google SEO, Weblinx etc. While their effect is respectively, mass effect, budgetary effect, cost justification effect , an easy lead access effect, brand development effect, easy access and lesser cost effect, website promotion effect and in budget advertising effect. The criterion to select an option to advertise is restricted with the purpose, the obligation, the resource constraints and the earlier outcomes of those options.

All the efforts for advertising are to put the information in the market and get the desired objective fulfilled. Though the definition is very subjective the outcomes are a mix of qualitative and quantitative one. Examples of subjective outcome is supporting the branding process, place the informations at the right place, stimulating intention and motivation to buy etc while the measurable outcome is sales growth, increase in per capita consumption etc. The measurement of an outcome of a selected option becomes a base for evaluating the decision of the company or the organization moved up with that decision. While the same outcome, becomes an evaluating parameter for others to use, as to evaluate that available option.

An ad campaign has different issues to meet the target. Its content covers, message, appeal, slogan, words, celebrities, media, kind of satisfaction etc. An ad is a complete justification of the need and the requirement. Though the justification has several grounds to get a trade off among different available options, the need to serve and manage that trade off cant be ignored. It is the resource capacity, which ultimately talks about the whole of the advertisement. The other factors which affects the decision is available options and the need.

Advertisement has an important role in marketing to meet the objective of the beholder. For an organization or the beholder for whom it is designed, for the ad designer, for the sponsors, and for the customers as a whole advertising has different meaning. For the sponsor it is the communication, for the beholder it is the objective, for a customer it the rationale to decide. To serve different needs of the society it is designed and used differently. The significance of advertising cant be ignored as it is the mean to communicate and get the desired result. As a mean to inform and to add to the credibility the strategy behind designing an advertisement and its content, there is a lot of factors to be judged and to comply with. Being an effective marketing tool advertisement is used to meet several needs and hence to fill the gap in the market.

Advertising : Different players their association and role :

Manufacturer/Initiator

1. What?

2. How?

3. Where?

4. To Whom?

5. By Whom?

6. How much?

Ad designer/ Ad agencies

1. What?

2. How?

3. By whom?

4. Where?

Sponsor

1. Where?

2. To whom?

3. When?

4. How?

Customers

1. What?

2. How?

3. Who?

Evaluator

1. Shift in per capita consumption

There are five main players playing with an ad concept to come as a product. They are manufacturer, Ad designer, Sponsor, Customers and the Evaluator. These different persons have different roles in formulating the purpose. As shown in the above picture they are concerned with different parts as to play in this process. Though the start and end point is not restricted but it all depends upon the requirement and available options. To enrich their role they have different role criteria either to be put to initiate the concept or to evaluate the same on different grounds, in an advertisement process, as shown in the below mentioned diagram. The terminology and the contents that have been used to define the roles of each head have the effect of their responsibility, the stage where they have to play or contribute and their part in the whole communication process to lead the concept of advertisement into reality.

After fulfilling the initial criteria these all have to stick towards different parts of their role within a predefined set to bring advertisement concept to work. The role of these players and the requirement of their role gets judged with the whole issues as defined in the below mentioned figure.

Ad designer/ Ad agencies

1.Message

2.Content

3.Language

4.Media

5.Target audience

6.Slogan

7.Methods

8.Brand association

9.Customer loyalty

10.Brand acceptance

Manufacturer/Initiator

1.Product/Idea

2.Concept

3.Budget

4.Segments

5.Gender

6.Value addition

7.Associated benefits

8.Celebrities

9.Media

10.Language

Sponsor

1.Budget

2.Cost/benefits

3.Media

4.Timimng

5.Target audience

6.Brand loyalty

Customers

1.Brand value

2.Valueaddition

3.Offerings

4.Ad association

5.Need satisfaction

6.Ad message

7. Earlier experience.

Evaluator

1.increase in per capita consumption

2.Customer acceptance

3.Market credibility

Advertising: Evaluation

Now about the product or the theme which get informed through the advertisement has to take the market acceptance. If the requirement of all meets properly the intention of the message gets served with proper acceptance in the market. Being a challenging and required issue of the market all parts of the process have to meet effectively. Based upon the results in terms of sales growth, market acceptance, and credibility as desired initially the advertisement also required to be evaluated in terms of its effectiveness. There are different methods of evaluating advertisement effectiveness. Few of them are rating point (rp) and target rating point (trp). It tries to show the percentage of the universe of the existing base of users/customers that can be reached by the use of each media outlet in a particular moment of time. The difference in these methods is because of the size of the sample and their dimensions. Hence we can put that these methods could be used to make an advertisement to fulfill the segmentation strategy with the more refined method i.e. trp.

To sum up

Advertising has a critical role in marketing. It helps in promoting the product, improves sales growth, puts the information into the market, effects people to initiate the action. Apart from its role for a beholder for whom it is designed it has a great contribution in generating a sector with employment opportunity and by that creating its contribution to the society. The affect, credibility, and the requirement all could be easily measured by its current role in the market and the economy. From both as a need and as a competitive requirement, advertising serves a lot in the market. Being an important marketing tool it servers the need of all the players and by that proves its credibility to contribute towards the needs and objective.

Unless the masses know about your new product or business, it would be very difficult to survive in the market. Well, you can always go for print advertising for your product or business. Print Advertising does not cost much compared to television advertising and you get good response from the masses.

If you are ready to burn a hole in your pocket, then you can definitely go for television advertising. The response that you get from the Television Advertising would never disappoint you. Whatâ??s more, this form of advertisement is considered to be the best one as it reaches every nook and corner of the world within seconds. In this way you can make a public response of your product through different forms of advertising.

Try to utilize more aspects

If you are seriously thinking of expanding your business then you can always go for outdoor advertising. This form of advertising has become very popular in recent years. You can hire or make use of your own vehicle for publicity of your product by putting a big banner or do a road show with lottery or even quizzes.

So you need to plan well in order to go for an effective Outdoor Advertising. Your goals should be very clear and you need to know the market, location and audience well without which you cannot target the customers. So preplan yourself and try to make the best advertisement possible so that it attracts more crowds.

Go for other forms of advertising

If you thought that there is only print advertising and television advertising, then you are wrong. With the advent of the FM radio, there are businessmen who go for radio Advertising as well. You do not have to pay much as compared to television advertising.

This is the main reason why people opt for Radio Advertising to reach to the masses especially the young generation or the people who are always on move. Also nowadays you can find Airport Advertising, basically airport advertising mainly targets toward the high end and global customers.

This is indeed considered to be a new and better form of advertising where audience from different parts of the world can be targeted about your business or product. After all itâ??s all about customers. For more information about Worldwide Advertising Network in terms of Advertising, Airport Advertising, Television Advertising, Print Advertising, Outdoor Advertising, Radio Advertising, Internet Advertising, Mobile Advertising & Media please visit us at: www.worldwideadvertisingnetwork.com

Tags:- Worldwide Advertising, Advertising, Airport Advertising, Advertising Network, Print Advertising, Television Advertising, Radio Advertising, Outdoor Advertising, Internet Advertising, Mobile Advertising, Advertising Agency, Advertising Company, Media

It will not be exaggerated if we conclude that we are ‘soaked in this cultural rain of marketing communications’ through TV, press, cinema, Internet, etc. (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). But if thirty years ago the marketing communication tools were used mainly as a product-centered tactical means, now the promotional mix, and in particular the advertising is focused on signs and semiotics. Some argue that the marketers’ efforts eventually are “turning the economy into symbol so that it means something to the consumer” (Williamson, cited in Anonymous, Marketing Communications, 2006: 569). One critical consequence is that many of the contemporary advertisements “are selling us ourselves” (ibid.)

The abovementioned process is influenced by the commoditisation of products and blurring of consumer’s own perceptions of the companies’ offering. In order to differentiate and position their products and/or services today’s businesses employ advertising which is sometimes considered not only of bad taste, but also as deliberately intrusive and manipulative. The issue of bad advertising is topical to such extent that organisations like Adbusters have embraced the tactics of subvertising – revealing the real intend behind the modern advertising. The Adbusters magazine editor-in-chief Kalle Lason commented on the corporate image building communication activities of the big companies: “We know that oil companies aren’t really friendly to nature, and tobacco companies don’t really care about ethics” (Arnold, 2001). On the other hand, the “ethics and social responsibility are important determinants of such long-term gains as survival, long-term profitability, and competitiveness of the organization” (Singhapakdi, 1999). Without communications strategy that revolves around ethics and social responsibility the concepts of total quality and customer relationships building become elusive. However, there could be no easy clear-cut ethics formula of marketing communications.

ADVERTISING – PRESCIOUS INFORMATION OR VICIOUS MANIPULATION?

In order to get insights into the consumer perception about the role of advertising we have reviewed a number of articles and conducted four in-depth interviews. A number of research papers reach opposed conclusions. These vary from the ones stating that “the ethicality of a firm’s behavior is an important consideration during the purchase decision” and that consumers “will reward ethical behavior by a willingness to pay higher prices for that firm’s product” (Creyer and Ross Jr., 1997) to others stressing that “although consumers may express a desire to support ethical companies, and punish unethical companies, their actual purchase behaviour often remains unaffected by ethical concerns” and that “price, quality and value outweigh ethical criteria in consumer purchase behaviour” (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001). Focusing on the advertising as the most prominent marketing communication tool we have constructed and conducted an interview consisting of four themes and nine questions. The conceptual frame of this paper is built on these four themes.

THEME I. The Ethics in Advertising

The first theme comprises two introductory questions about the ethics in advertising in general.

I.A. How would you define the ethics in advertising?

The term ethics in business involves “morality, organisational ethics and professional deontology” (Isaac, cited in Bergadaa’, 2007). Every industry has its own guidelines for the ethical requirements. However, the principal four requirements for marketing communications are to be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Unfortunately, in a society where the course of action of the companies is determined by profit targets the use of marketing communications messages “may constitute a form of social pollution through the potentially damaging and unintended effects it may have on consumer decision making” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999).

One of the interviewed respondents stated that “the most successful companies do no need ethics in their activities because they have built empires.” Another view is that “sooner or later whoever is not ethical will face the negative consequences.”

I.B. What is your perception of the importance of ethics in advertising?

The second question is about the importance of being moral when communicating with/to your target audiences and the way consumers/customers view it. In different research papers we have found quite opposing conclusions. Ethics of business seems to be evaluated either as very important in the decision making process or as not really a serious factor in this process. An example of rather extreme stance is that “disaster awaits any brand that acts cynically” (Odell, 2007).

It may seem obvious that the responsibility should be carried by the advertiser because “his is the key responsibility in keeping advertising clean and decent” (Bernstein, 1951). On the other hand the companies’ actions are defined by the “the canons of social responsibility and good taste” (ibid.). One of the interviewees said:

“The only responsible for giving decent advertising is the one who profits at the end. Company’s profits should not be at the expense of society.”

Another one stated that “our culture and the level of societal awareness determine the good and bad in advertising”.

The increased importance of marketing communications ethics is underscored by the need of applying more dialogical, two-way communications approaches. The “demassification technologies have the potential to facilitate dialogue”, but the “monologic” attitude is still the predominant one (Botan, 1997). Arnold (2001) points out the cases of Monsanto and Esso which had to pay “a price for its [theirs] one-way communications strategy”. In this train of thought we may review ethics in advertisements from two different perspectives as suggested by our respondents and different points of view in the reviewed papers. The first one is that it is imperative to have one common code of ethics imposed by the law. The other affirms the independence and responsibility of every industry for setting its own standards.

THEME II. Which type of regulation should be the leading one in the field of advertising?

The next theme directs the attention towards the regulation system which should be the primary one. Widely accepted opinion is that both self regulation and legal controls should work in synergy. In other words the codes of practice are meant to complement the laws. However, in certain countries there are stronger legal controls over the advertising, e.g. in Scandinavia. On the other hand the industry’s self regulation is preferred in the Anglo-Saxon world. Still, not everyone agrees with the laissez-faire concept.

One of our respondents said:

“I believe governments should impose stricter legal frame and harsher punishment for companies which do not comply with the law.”

Needless to say, the social acceptability varies from one culture/country to another. At the end of the day “good taste or bad is largely a matter of the time, the place, and the individual” (Bernstein, 1951). It would be also probably impossible to set clear-cut detailed rules in the era of Internet and interactive TV. Therefore, both types of regulation should be applied with the ultimate aim of reaching balance between the sacred right of freedom of choice and information and minimizing possible widespread offence. Put differently, the goal is synchronising the “different ethical frameworks” of marketers and “others in society” in order to fill the “ethics gap” (Hunt and Vitell, 2006).

THEME III. Content of Advertisements.

Probably the most controversial issue in the field of marketing communications is the content of advertisements. Nwachukwu et al. (1997) distinguish three areas of interest in terms of ethical judgment of ads: “individual autonomy, consumer sovereignty, and the nature of the product”. The individual autonomy is concerned with advertising to children. Consumer sovereignty deals with the level of knowledge and sophistication of the target audience whereas the ads for harmful products are in the centre of public opinion for a long time. We have added two more perspectives to arrive at five questions in the conducted interviews. The first one concerns the advertisement that imply sense of guilt and praise affluence that in the most cases cannot be achieved and the second one is about advertisements stimulating desire and satisfaction through acquisition of material goods.

III.A. What is your attitude towards the advertisement of harmful products?

A typical example is the advertisement of cigarettes. Nowadays we cannot see slogans like “Camel Agrees with Your Throat” (Chickenhead, accessed 25th September 2007) or “Chesterfield – Packs More Pleasure – Because It’s More Perfectly Packed!” (Chickenhead, accessed 25th September 2007). The general advertisement, sponsorship and other marketing communications means are already prohibited to be used by cigarette producers. Surprisingly, most of the answers of the respondents were not against the cigarettes advertisement. One of the respondents said:

“People are well informed about the consequences of smoking so it is a matter of personal choice.”

As with many other contemporary products the shift in communications messages for cigarettes is oriented towards symbol and image building. The same can be said for the alcohol ads. A well-known example of emotional advertising is the Absolut Vodka campaign. From Absolut Nectar, through Absolut Fantasy to Absolut World the Swedish drink actually aims to be Absolut… Everything.

Advertising of hazardous products is even more harshly criticised when it is aimed at audiences with low individual autonomy, i.e. children. Two main issues in this respect are the manipulation of cigarettes and alcohol as “the rite of passage into adulthood” and the fact that “sales of health-hazardous products (alcohol, cigarettes) develop freely without much disapproval” (Bergadaa, 2007).

III.B. What is your attitude towards the advertisement to children?

Children are not only customers, but also consumers, influencers and users in the family Decision-Making Unit (DMU). Additional difficulty is that they are too impressionable to be deciders in the DMU. At the same time it is not a secret that marketers apply “the same basic strategy of trying to sell the parent through the child’s insistence on the purchase” (Bernstein, 1951). It is not a surprise then that “spending on advertising for children has increased five-fold in the last ten years and two thirds of commercials during child television programs are for food products” (Bergadaa 2007). In the US alone children represent a direct purchases market of $24 billion worth (McNeal cited in Bergadaa, 2007) which certainly is on the top of the agendas of many companies. While exploiting children’s decision-making immaturity advertisers often go too far in dematerialising their products and “teleporting children out of the tangible and into the virtual world of brand names” (Bergadaa 2007). Teenage virtual worlds like Habbo where snack food brands run advertising campaigns are already a fact of life (Goldie, 2007). The imaginative worlds are popular not only online. Hugely successful for creating a fantasy world is Mc Donald’s. The company tops the European list of kids’ advertisers while more than half of the children’s adverts are for junk food.

In some countries there are harsher restrictions to the children advertising.

• “Sweden and Norway do not permit any television advertising to be directed towards children under 12 and no adverts at all are allowed during children’s programmes.
• Australia does not allow advertisements during programmes for pre-school children.
• Austria does not permit advertising during children’s programmes, and in the Flemish region of Belgium no advertising is permitted 5 minutes before or after programmes for children.
• Sponsorship of children’s programmes is not permitted in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden while in Germany and the Netherlands, although it is allowed, it is not used in practice.” (McSpotlight, accessed 20th September 2007).

According to a research by Roberts and Pettigrew (2007) the most frequent themes in children advertising are “grazing, the denigration of core foods, exaggerated health claims, and the implied ability of certain foods to enhance popularity, performance and mood.” But the junk food is not the only reason for parents’ preoccupation. According to a study of Kaiser Family Foundation (Dolliver, 2007) parents are concerned about the amount of advertising of the following products (in order of importance): toys, video games, clothing, alcohol/beer, movies, etc.

The interviewed respondents were unanimous: “The advertising to children should be strictly monitored.” Similar results were obtained in surveys by Rasmussen Reports and Kaiser Family Foundation. Nevertheless, the legal means are just one part of the children’s protection. The other part involves “the decision-making responsibility of parents and teachers” which is “to assist their children in developing a skeptical attitude to the information in advertising” (Bergadaa 2007). The marketers themselves should also be involved in shaping the moral system of our future and “each brand should have its own deontology – a code of practice regarding children – rather than rely on industry codes” (Horgan, 2007).

III.C. Do you think there are many misleading, exaggerating and confusing advertisements. Are many ads promising things that are not possible to achieve?

It will not be exaggerated to state that advertising is in a sense “salesmanship addressed to masses of potential buyers rather than to one buyer at a time” (Bernstein, 1951). Since “salesmanship itself is persuasion” (ibid.) we cannot merely blame advertisers for pursuing their sales goals. However, in the last twenty years or so advertisers have increasingly applied semiotics in their messages and as a consequence ads have begun to function more and more as symbols. One extreme case in this stream of advertising is the creation of idealised image of a person who uses the advertised product. Bishop (2000) draws our attention to two “typical representatives of self-identity image ads” which entice consumers to project the respective images to themselves through use of the products:

- “The Beautiful Woman”;
- “The Sexy Teenagers.

Through setting of such stereotypes advertisers not only mislead the public and exaggerate the effects of products but also provoke low self-esteem in consumers. At the same time they promise results that in most cases are simply impossible to achieve. Instead of promoting “‘glamorous’ anorexic body images” communication messages should use “varied body types” and should drop the idea of the “impossible physical body images” (Bishop, 2000).

To question III.C one of the respondents commented:

“The customers of these products [the ones advertised through thin models] are mostly people who do not have the same physical characteristic. For me, this type of advertising is deliberately aimed at people to make them feel not complete, far from attractive social outsiders.”

However, another interviewed stated that: “every person has his own way of evaluating what is believable and what is misleading. Consumers are enough sophisticated to know what is exaggerated.”

Similarly, Bishop (2000) concludes that “image ads are not false or misleading”, and “whether or not they advocate false values is a matter for subjective reflection.” The author argues that image ads do not interfere with our internal autonomy and if people are misled, it is because they want it. It is all about our free choice of behaviour and no advertisement can modify our desires. Perhaps, the truth lies somewhere in-between the two extreme positions.

III.D. What is your attitude towards advertisement that imply sense of guilt, and praise affluence that in the most cases cannot be achieved?

A more specific case of controversial advertising is the one used to “promote not so much self indulgence as self doubt”; the one that “seeks to create needs, not to fulfill them: to generate new anxieties instead of allaying old ones” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). A response of our interviewee reads:

“It is not only a matter of advertising. It has to do with the social inequality and the desire to possess what you can not.”

Hackley and Kitchen (1999) refer to this discrepancy as to “when reality does not match the image of affluence and the result is a subjective feeling of dissonance”. The issue could be elaborated further through the next question.

III.E. Are advertisements stimulating desire and satisfaction through acquisition of material goods moral?

We live in a society which is more or less marked by materialism. Advertisements are often blamed to fuel consumption which is allegedly leading to happiness. The role of promoting satisfaction through acquisition of material goods has become so important that currently the “media products are characterised by relativism, irony, self referentiality and hedonism” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). Is the popular saying “those who die with most toys win” really a motivator in consumers’ behavior and could consumption be the cure of emotional dissonance? This seems to be the case provided a brand succeeds to enter in the evoked set of consumer choices. This new “kind of materialism” goes hand in hand with “the emergence of individualism via sheer hedonism along with narcissism and selfishness” (Bergadaa 2007).

THEME IV. Is the quantity of advertisements justified?

IV.A. Do you think there is too much advertising?

An audit of food advertising aimed at children in Australia by Roberts and Pettigrew (2007) revealed that “28.5 hours of children’s television programming sampled contained 950 advertisements.” Actually, we all are being bombarded by ads on TV, Internet, print media, etc. The amount and content of marketing communications messages puts the consumer’s information processing capacity to a test. The exposure to marketing data overload often leads to diluted consumer’s selective perception. Whether our responses are circumscribed by “confusion, existential despair, and loss of moral identity” or we “adapt constructively to the [communications] Leviathan and become intelligent, cynical, streetwise” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999) is a question open to debate.

Two opposite streams of attitudes were produced in our research. One stance is concerned with the undue quantity of advertisement. The other stream proclaims that “If there is an advertisement, so it is justified by a need.” We agree that the communications overload may indeed have “pervasive effect on the social ecology of the developed world” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). If the increasing communication pollution is not managed properly by both legal and industry points of view yet again the advertising will manage “to hoist its foot to its own mouth and kick out a couple of its own front teeth” (Bernstein, 1951).

CONCLUSION

In preparation of this paper we have used qualitative depth interviews in order to get insights for what actual customers opine. We have also substantiated our presentation with references to a number of influential articles in the field of ethics in marketing communications. Generally, our respondents as well as various authors have taken two opposing stances. The first one affirms that ethics in marketing communications matters considerably, whereas the other one downsizes the importance of ethics, thereby stressing the role of other factors in consumer decision-making, i.e. price, brand loyalty, convenience, etc.

Marketers should understand their “responsibility for the emerging portrait of future society” (Bergadaa 2007). Not only there is a need of legal ethical frame but also professional ethical benchmarks and deontology should be in place. One of the main challenges is to avoid creating “a happy customer in the short term”, because “in the long run both consumer and society may suffer as a direct result of the marketer’s actions in ‘satisfying’ the consumer” (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001).

The strength of the advertisement influence exerted on consumers is only one part of the equation. On the other hand we may affirm that consumers are not morally subservient and according to the information process models there is a natural cognitive defense. The communications tools “offer us a theatre of our own imagination” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). Consequently, we accept the reality in terms of our own experiences. In this sense marketers do not create reality – they are simply a mirror of the society. We may argue that unfortunately this is not always the case.

Advertising is often deservedly seen as the embodiment of consumer freedom and choice. Notwithstanding this important role, when the choice is “between one candy bar and another, the latest savoury snack or sweetened breakfast cereal or fast food restaurant” (McSpotlight, accessed 20th September 2007) it represents anything else but not an alternative and certainly not a healthy one.

The words of Bernstein (1951), said fifty-six years ago are still very much a question of present interest: “It is not true that if we ‘save advertising, we save all,’ but it seems reasonable to assume that if we do not save advertising, we might lose all.”

REFERENCES:
Anonymous (2006). Module Book 6, Marketing Communications, University of Leicester.
Arnold, M. (2001). Walking the Ethical Tightrope (Marketing Corporate Social Responsibility), Marketing, 7/12/1001, p. 17.
Bergadaa M. (2007). Children and Business: Pluralistic Ethics of Marketers, Society and Business Review, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 53-73.
Bernstein, S. R. (1951). Good Taste in Advertising, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 42-50.
Bishop, J. D. (2000). Is Self-Identity Image Advertising Ethical?, Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 371-398.
Botan, C. (1997). Ethics in Strategic Communication Campaigns: The Case for a New Approach to Public Relations, Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 188-202.
Carrigan, M. and Attalla, A. (2001). The Myth of the Ethical Consumer – Do Ethics Matter in Purchase Behaviour?, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 18, No. 7, pp. 560-577.
Chickenhead, ‘Truth in advertising’. Online. Available at: chickenhead.com/truth/chesterfield6.html (accessed 25th September 2007).
Chickenhead, ‘Truth in advertising’. Online. Available at: chickenhead.com/truth/camel1.html (accessed 25th September 2007).
Creyer, E. H. and Ross Jr. W. T. (1997). The Influence of Firm Behavior on Purchase Intention: Do Consumers Really Care About Business Ethics?, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 421-432.
Dolliver, M. (2007). A Parental Dim View of Advertising, Adweek, Vol. 48, No. 26, pp. 25.
Goldie, L. (2007). Brands Free To Use Virtual Worlds To Target Kids, New Media Age, 8/9/2007, p. 2.
Hackley, C. E. and Kitchen P. J. (1999). Ethical Perspectives on the Postmodern Communications Leviathan, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 15-26.
Horgan, S. (2007). Online Brands Need Their Own Ethical Guidelines, Marketing Week, Vol. 30, No. 26, p. 30.
Hunt, S. D. and Vitell, S. J. (2006). The General Theory of Marketing Ethics: A Revision and Three Questions, Journal of Macromarketing; Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 143-153.
McSpotlight, ‘Advertising to children, UK the worst in Europe’ Online. Available at: mcspotlight.org/media/press/food_jan97.html, (accessed 20th September 2007).
Nwachukwu, S.L.S, Vitell, Jr. S.J., Gilbert, F.W., Barnes, James H. (1997). Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing: An Examination of the Ethical Evaluation of Advertising Strategies, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 107-118.
Odell, P. (2007). Marketing under the Influence, Promo, Vol. 20, No. 6, p. 27.
Roberts, M. and Pettigrew, S. (2007). A Thematic Content Analysis of Children’s Food Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 357-367.
Singhapakdi, A. (1999). Perceived Importance of Ethics and Ethical Decisions in Marketing,
Journal of Business Research, Vol. 45, No. 1, pp. 89-99.
Stanford University, ‘Alcoholic Advertisements’. Online. Available at: stanford.edu/class/linguist34/advertisements/alcohol ads/index.htm, (accessed 20th September 2007).
Vintage Virginia Slims, Online. Available at: freenet-homepage.de/mshel120/vintage/vintage-vs.html, (accessed 25th September 2007).