What is Advertising?
Advertising is a process, not a medium in its own right, although it uses different media forms to communicate. Advertising, in its simplest form, is the way in which the vendor or manufacturer of a product communicates with consumers via a medium, or many different media.
Advertising = messages
Advertising can be a simple “For Sale” card placed on a supermarket noticeboard:
The vendor is giving notice that a product is for sale at a given price to people who might be interested in buying it. This can be compared to the earliest forms of advertising, when exotic new goods shipped into Europe from the Far East and India (eg tea and spices) needed to be brought to the attention of potential buyers.
However, even a supermarket noticeboard might be considered a crowded marketplace as there may be other desks offered for sale, and other advertisements for customers to read. In order to attract a customer's attention to this particular advertisement, the person offering the desk for sale has to make it eye-catching, possibly by adding some colour.
They also have to emphasise the benefits of the product they are offering. There are only two basic benefits that a product has when compared to others of a similar sort. It can be described as being better or cheaper(or both!):
They might also add an image of the desk - a picture is worth 1000 words after all - in order to persuade the consumer still further that this desk is the right desk to buy. They might add a headline or slogan to their ad, to announce exactly what it is that is being sold. Thus they have all the basic elements of print advertising: a catchy slogan, an image, and copy text. This advertisement will hopefully fulfill its purpose which is to provide information which might influence someone to buy the desk. It has done this by linking the vendor of the desk to people who are looking to buy a desk. The link appears in the medium of the supermarket noticeboard, and the vendor pays the owner of the medium to place it there. The vendor has chosen this medium because the kind of people who buy the kind
Therefore advertising is:
- A message from vendor/manufacturer to consumer
- Intended to give information which will influence consumer choice
- Aimed at a known audience
- Paid for
Marketing and Promotion strategies put simply:
Audience;
The people who will buy the media product, the ones the product is aimed at.
Sport for boys, romance for women, the Times for business people.
Genre;
A type of media style for a media product.
Science fiction, romance, comedy, thriller, rap music
Marketing;
Creating a need to buy a product in other people.
Media texts are luxuries and so films must be marketed to get people to go out to the cinema.
Media texts are luxuries and so films must be marketed to get people to go out to the cinema.
T-shirts, mugs, toys, product placement, posters, books, interviews with stars, publicity stunts, hype, labels, bottle tops.
Advertising;
A method of selling a product to people by paying for a poster or a page in a magazine.
Trailers, television shorts, posters, advertisements.
Ads that are attached to mobile phone apps.
Ads that are on YouTube before the film.
Viral ads across the Web.
Merchandising
is essentially using a third party to produce material for further promotions and activities
such as toys, clothes, foodstuffs
This is often called organisational synergy
Where two or more parties benefit from the promotional activity
Such as MacDonald's and toys from films
