CONCEPT OF ADVERTISING

Advertising is the means of informing and influencing a vast audience to buy a product or
service through visual, oral or written messages. Advertising can be described as a paid form
of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services. A business that
wants to step into markets and make a mark definitely needs advertising. There is hardly any
organization that does not advertise these days.  Advertising can be done through various
media such as newspaper, magazines, television, radio, posters, hoardings, and billboard and
in recent times, the internet

Definition of Advertising
In Marketing, Promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform or
persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue. The aim
of promotion is to increase awareness, create interest, generate sales or create brand loyalty.

According to American Marketing Association (AMA), "Advertising means any paid form of
non- personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.

Importance of Advertising
 Advertising plays a very important role in today’s age of competition.
 Advertising is important for the customer awareness.
 Advertising is important for the seller and companies producing the products.
 Advertising helps increasing sales.
  Advertising helps producers or the companies to know their competitors and plan
accordingly to meet up the level of competition.
 Advertising helps creating goodwill for the company and gains customer loyalty after
reaching a mature age.
 The demand for the product keeps on coming with the help of advertising and demand
and supply become a never-ending process.

Types of Advertising
 Print Media (Newspaper and Magazine)
 Broadcast Media (Radio and Television)
 Directories
 Outdoor and Transit
 Direct mail, Catalogues and Leaflets
 Online
Components of Advertising
Advertising can be broadly broken down into four major components:
1. Advertising strategy- Focuses on the message, customer segment to be
targeted, integrated marketing communication (IMC) channels and the budget
2. Advertising media- Choosing the most appropriate advertising channel, medium or media
to reach out to the customers
3. Creative idea- This is the message or the visual which can be made to attract the customer
4. Creative execution- The final advertisement created based on the creative idea.
Nature of Advertising
 Attention seeker: The term ‘advertising‘ is derived from the Latin word ‘advertere’ that
means ‘to turn the attention’. Every piece of advertising attempt to seek the attention of
your audience towards a product or service.

 Has a Unique Selling Proposition: Often, the advertiser need to have a unique selling
proposition (USP)? This unique selling proposition makes the product or service stand
out of the crowd. Advertising attempts to persuade and influence the audience through
the different kinds of appeal.

 Visually attractive: The visual and non-verbal elements play a dominant role in
advertising. An eye-catching advertisement uses crisp information and focuses on the
visual treatment to convey the message. The visual elements used in the advertisements
not only convey the information, but also tell a story.
  Consumer oriented: Advertising broadens the knowledge of the consumers. With this
nature of advertising, consumers can have the know-how of the products, brands or
services that exist in the market. In fact, every product or service is designed in a way to
keep the consumers satisfied.

 Uses various media: Apart from print platforms like newspapers and magazines, its
presence can now also be seen in audiovisual platforms like, films, hoardings, banners
and many such promotional campaigns.
Nature of Advertising Management
 Advertiser: It is the most important person as he is the customer and spends money on
it. He gives employment to a lot of people and supports the advertising agencies. The
advertiser also has a great social responsibility to create a sound social and economic
system.

 Objective: The advertising objectives are many in number. However, we shall mention a
few:
To increase sale.
To create awareness and interest.
Establishing and sustaining the product.
To help middleman.
To persuade, to remain and inform the masses.
  Activities: The activities included are mass communication, carrying message, image
building. It also persuades and reminds. The activities should be performed regularly
and economically.

 Art & Science: Management is both an art and science and Advertisement being a part
of marketing is also an art. It creates, it requires experience. It is a science because it is
based on certain social-psychological factors. Cause and effect relationship are studied
in advertising. The effect of advertising is also studied by experimentation. The results of
advertising can be measured. It is tested on scientific principle as well.

Scope of Advertising Management

Advertising is often regarded as the most important means of marketing a company’s services
and tools. The scope of advertising is to communicate a message to current customers or
potentially target new customers. It helps a company get a message or a piece of information
across to their customer base regarding a new product or special deal.
 Scope of advertising by budget: There is always a budget allocated for advertising and
promotion within the marketing budget. The budget allocated should be in coordination
with the type of advertisement the organization wants. The resources and other
requirements are to be kept in mind for the budget allocation.

 Scope of advertising by deliverables: Once the budget is decided, the marketing plan
can be projected further. A detailed scope of work that deliverables require can be
outlined. Agencies can now develop a proposed resource plan.

 Scope of advertising by allocating deliverables: For creative work, allocating the type of
deliverables (TV, online, mobile, press, magazine, etc) based on the previous campaign
requirements can be more insightful after the previous plan.

 Scope of advertising by strategy: Once the deliverables are allocated, advertising

agencies can define the strategic requirements by brand or category and develop a
scope of work based on past requirements and remuneration for similar strategic
deliverables.

Benefits of Advertising
Advertising is a huge industry. It has created opportunities for various domains. The benefits of
advertising include:
 Launch of a new product: Advertising plays very significant role in the introduction of a
new product in the market. It stimulates the people to buy or know about a product.
  Increases markets: It helps the manufacturers to expand their markets. It opens the
horizons for new markets for the product or service.

 Mass sales: Advertising facilitates mass production to goods that ultimately results in a
raised volume of sales.

 Keeps the competitive spirit alive: Advertising helps in keeping the competition and the
competitors at bay. It keeps a regular check on the performance of your brand or
product.

 Creates goodwill: Advertising builds goodwill of a brand. Advertising is a crucial source

through which the audience gets to know about a brand or product. If a company is
spending on advertisement, it means they care to make their consumers aware. This
increases the goodwill of a brand.

 Creative minds: Every place has a rich pool of strategic and creative minds, media and
professionals. And every advertising organization possesses such talents.

 Consumer awareness: Advertising is educational and dynamic in nature. It educates the

customers about the new products and their diversifications.

 Direct link: Advertising aims at establishing a direct link between the manufacturer and
the consumer. This rule out the possibility for a middleman to be involved in between.

Aim of Advertising - Setting of Advertising Objectives

 Informative Advertising: Informative advertising is especially relevant in the pioneering

stage of a new product category. The objective is to build primary demand. To support
this objective, informative advertising provides information about the features of a new
product or service in order to initiate the decision-making process of consumers. For
instance, the yogurt industry initially had to inform consumers of the nutritional benefits
of yogurt.
  Persuasive Advertising: Persuasive advertising becomes relevant in the competitive stage.
The company’s objective is to build selective demand for a particular brand. It has to
persuade consumers of the fact that its products or services offer more value than
competing products or services. For instance, BMW attempts to persuade consumers
that its cars deliver more driving pleasure than Mercedes-Benz cars.

Some persuasive advertising uses comparative advertising, which makes explicit

comparisons of the attributes of two or more brands. For instance, Burger King used
comparative advertising for its attack on McDonald’s: Burger King directly compared its
flame-broiled burgers to the fried ones of McDonald’s to gain advantage. In some
countries, comparative advertising is not permitted. In addition, a company should
always make sure that it can prove its claim of superiority and cannot be
counterattacked in a vulnerable area, which may result in an “advertising war”.

 Reminder Advertising: Finally, reminder advertising becomes relevant in the case of

mature products. At this stage, consumers are aware of and informed about the
features of a product. Also, they are persuaded of its benefits. However, these benefits
must be repeated to remind consumers to buy the product. For instance, Coca-Cola ads
in magazines are intended to remind people to purchase Coca Cola. A related form of
Reminder Advertising is Reinforcement Advertising, which aims to assure current
purchases that they have made the right choice. For instance, automobile ads often
depict satisfied customers enjoying special features of their new car

DAGMAR Model
DAGMAR is an advertising model proposed by Russell Colley in 1961. Russell Colley advocated
that effective advertising seeks to communicate rather than to sell. Advertisers discover
whether their message conveyed enough information and understanding of a product to their
consumers and also its respective benefits from clear objectives.

The DAGMAR Model

Awareness

Comprehens

ion

Conviction

Action
  AWARENESS: Awareness of the existence of a product or a service is needful before the
purchase behaviour is expected. The fundamental task of advertising activity is to
improve the consumer awareness of the product. Once the consumer awareness has
been provided to the target audience, it should not be forsaken. The target audience
tends to get distracted by other competing messages if they are ignored. Awareness has
to be created, developed, refined and maintained according to the characteristics of the
market and the scenario of the organization at any given point of time. The objective is
to create awareness about the product amongst the target audience.

 COMPREHENSION: Awareness on its own is not sufficient to stimulate a purchase.

Information and understanding about the product and the organisation are essential.
This can be achieved by providing information about the brand features. Example: In an
attempt to persuade people to budge for a new toothpaste brand, it may be necessary
to compare the product with other toothpaste brands, and provide an additional usage
benefit, such as more effective than other toothpaste because it contains salt or that
this particular toothpaste is a vegetarian toothpaste, which will, in turn, attract more
customers. The objective is to provide all the information about the product.

 CONVICTION: Conviction is the next step where the customer evaluates different
products and plans to buy the product. At this stage, a sense of conviction is established,
and by creating interests and preferences, customers are convinced that a certain
product should be tried at the next purchase. At this step, the job of the advertising
activity is to mould the audience’s beliefs and persuade them to buy it. This is often
achieved through messages that convey the superiority of the products over the others
by flaunting the rewards or incentives for using the product. Example: Thumbs up
featured the incentive of social acceptance as “grown up”. It implied that those who
preferred other soft drinks were kids. The objective is to create a positive mental
disposition to buy a product.

 ACTION: This is the final step which involves the final purchase of the product. The
objective is to motivate the customer to buy the product.

Functions of DAGMAR Approach

 Persuade a prospect to visit the showroom.
 Growth in market share.
 Improve sales turnover.
 Perform complete selling function.
 Advertise a special reason to buy.
 Stimulate impulse sales and Remind people to buy.
  Create awareness about the product and brand existence.
 Create favourable emotional disposition towards the product.
 Impart information regarding benefits and distinctive features of the product.
 Combat and offset competitive claims.

Objectives of DAGMAR Approach

Advertising Budget
An advertising budget is an estimate of a company's promotional expenditures over a certain
time period. More importantly, it is the money a company is willing to set aside to accomplish
its marketing objectives. When creating an advertising budget, a company must weigh the value
of spending an advertising dollar against the value of that dollar as recognized revenue.
Factors affecting advertising budget
 Degree of competitiveness in market: A monopoly firm does not have to worry about
the promotional spends as it is the only player in the market. For duopoly, where market
is dominated by two dominant players, the promotional budgets would be high to
outperform each other. In an Oligopolistic market, where the market is cluttered and
there are many players, promotional spends has to be higher as frequency of
advertisement has to be increased to get noticed among so many players.

 Market Share: Market leader/Market Follower: The advertising budget for a market
follower will be decided by the tactics of the market leader. To improve market share,
one of the investments is to increase promotional spent. Thus, where a company stands
is a deciding factor in advertising budget

 Product life-cycle stage: Introduction/growth/maturity/decline: The advertisement

budget would be higher at the introduction and growth stages as it has to introduce the
product in the market and establish itself among the competitors, so the frequency of
advertisements would be high and so would be the budget. As the product reaches
maturity and decline stages the promotional spent would be lower.

 Advertising Frequency: An ad can be played only once or can be multiple times. Also, it
can be daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly etc. Depending upon the requirement, the
advertising budget is altered.

Methods of advertising budget allocation

There are various approaches which businesses use to calculate their advertising budget:
 Percentage of Sales: In this method the advertising budget is calculated as certain fixed
percentage of the sales or estimated sales.
 Comparison with Competitor: In this method the advertising budget is estimated based
on competitors promotional spending. Either equal, more or less depending on the
objectives of the company.
 Affordability: In this method the budget for advertising is decided based on availability
of funds. Mostly for small companies the funds available varies from time to time based
of business performance. Hence marketing spend vary throughout the year based on
availability of funds.
 Goal and Task: If the organization has well defined objectives or goals it can use this
method of allocating advertisement spending. The tasks associated with the goals are
evaluated and cost calculations are done. Based on the cost estimates funds are
allocated.
  Intuitive: In this method, seasoned managers take decisions of allocating advertising
budget for advertisements based on their experience and intuition. This method is
based on the past experiences of the company
 All available funds: In this, the organization is focused heavily on advertising and it
allocates all available funds for promotional activities. This approach might get the
organization noticed but on the other hand lack of funds stunts growth.

Advertising Budget Process

There are certain steps which can be followed in creating an advertising budget. They can be
explained as below:
1. Understanding advertising objectives based on the goals which have been set by the
company.
2. Determine the tasks, ad campaigns which could be done.
3. Formulating, evaluating and preparing the breakup of advertising budget.
4. Taking approvals form the senior management.
5. Allocation of funds for different activities under the advertising budget.
6. Monitoring and controlling the expenditure and revising it for better profit.

Media Planning
Media planning refers to the best way to get the advertiser’s message across to the market.
The goal of the media plan is to find that combination of media vehicles that enables the
message to be communicated to the largest proportion of the target audience at the most
effective cost. The process of media planning involves the following stages.

Media Planning Process

Market Analysis

Setting Media

Objectives

Developing Media Strategies

Evaluation of Different Media

Media Selection

Implementation of Media Plan

Evaluation and Follow-up

Step I. Market Analysis

Every media plan begins with the market analysis or environmental analysis. Complete review
of internal and external factors is required to be done. At this stage media planner try to
identify answers of the following questions:
 Who is the target audience?
 What internal and external factors may influence the media plan?
 Where and when to focus the advertising efforts?

The target audience can be classified in terms of age, sex, income, occupation, and other
variables. The classification of target audience helps media planner to understand the media
consumption habit, and accordingly choose the most appropriate media or media mix. And to
do that, one need to do the following:
 Demographic and segmentation
 Target market
 Market need
 Competition
 Barriers to entry
 Regulations
Step II. Setting Media Objectives
Media objectives describes what you want the media plan to accomplish. There are five key
media objectives that an advertiser or media planner has to consider - reach, frequency,
continuity, cost, and weight.
 Reach - Reach refers to the number of people that will be exposed to a media vehicle at
least once during a given period of time.
 Frequency - Frequency refers to the average number of times an individual within target
audience is exposed to a media vehicle during a given period of time.
 Continuity - It refers to the pattern of advertisements in a media schedule. Continuity
alternatives are as follows:
Continuous: Strategy of running campaign evenly over a period of time.
Pulsing: Strategy of running campaign steadily over a period of time with
intermittent increase in advertising at certain intervals, as during festivals or
special occasions like Olympics or World-Cup.
Discontinuous: Strategy of advertising heavily only at certain intervals, and no
advertising in the interim period, as in case of seasonal products.

 Cost - It refers to the cost of different media.

 Weight - Weight refers to total advertising required during a particular period.

Advantages of Setting Objectives

 Clear Plans
 Increased Awareness
 Specific Priorities
 Planning
 Organizing
 Quick Growth
 Direction

Step III. Developing Media Strategies

Media strategy is determined considering the following:
 Media Mix: From the wide variety of media vehicles, the advertiser can employ one
vehicle or a mix suitable vehicle.
 Target Market
 Scheduling: It shows the number of advertisements, size of advertisements, and time on
which advertisements to appear.
Seasonal Pulse: Seasonal products like cold creams follows this scheduling.
 Steady Pulse: According to this scheduling one ad is shown over a period of time,
say one ad per week or one ad per month.
Periodic Pulse: A regular pattern is followed in such scheduling, as in case of
consumer durable, and non-durable.
Erratic Pulse: No regular pattern is followed in such scheduling.

Start-up Pulse: Such scheduling is followed during a new campaign or a launch of

a new product.
Promotional Pulse: It is for short time, only for a promotional period.

 Reach and frequency

 Creative Aspects: Creativity in ad campaigns decides the success of the product, but to
implement this creativity firm must employ a media that supports such a strategy.
 Flexibility: An effective media strategy requires a degree of flexibility.
 Budget Considerations: In determining media strategy cost must be estimated and
budget must be considered.
 Media Selection: It covers two broad decisions - selection of media class, and selection
of media vehicle within media class.

Step IV. Evaluation of Different Media

Here are some of the most popular channels that marketers choose when media planning, along
with their attributes.
Offline Media

 Magazines: They have a long shelf life and often stay in a consumer’s possession for two
to four weeks after being read. Information in this medium tends to be retained longer,
since people read faster than they can listen. Research has shown there is a higher
amount of trust in magazine ads than in other forms of media. Consumers are also less
resistant to these kinds of advertisements, as these often tie in with their interests.
Publications tend to be very targeted.

 Newspapers: When selecting this medium, marketers can choose which section of the
newspaper ads are placed for further targeting. If they want to target those interested
in fashion, they can select that section of the newspaper for their ad. Newspapers have
a desirable audience for many marketers. Consider the following:
Newspaper readers are more likely to have higher education and earn a higher
salary.
This can be important when selecting ad space based on demographics.

The older the demographic, the longer they will spend reading the newspaper.
  Radio: Radio ads have a local appeal, allowing you to target specific areas or regions of
the country. It is an easy medium to build frequency with your target audience.
According to research, exposure to a radio ad and time to purchase is the shortest of
any medium. Additionally, if paired with other forms of media, the overall campaigns
were more effective. This tends to be a lower-cost medium.

 TV & Cable: This media is highly visual and can demonstrate products in everyday life. For
example, if you sell a cleaning product, consumers can see the benefits of your product
and how these can be applied in their home. This is very pervasive, as the average
American watches approximately five hours of television a day.

 Out of Home: Media such as billboards are large and get attention. In a busy area, your
message can reach 10,000 people in a month. Out of home isn’t limited by billboards,
only your creativity is. It is an extremely mobile option.

Online Media

 Digital Publications: Many digital publications have opportunities for you to email their
database through a personalized email or newsletter. They can track open rates and
understand conversion rates to your site or asset. These are often specialized
publications, making it easy to reach your target audience, and are great tools for lead
generation campaigns.

 PPC: Advertisers can capitalize on search intent. Advertisers can retarget people who
have visited their site. PPC is an extremely cost-effective medium.

 Social Media: Like PPC, social media is an extremely cost-effective medium. It is also
extremely targeted, allowing marketers to target by interests, age, marriage status, etc.
Social platforms are constructed on a basis of community, which allows your brand to
connect more personally with consumers. It also gives your brand the chance for
content to go viral.

 Programmatic Advertising: Programmatic advertising is extremely targeted, using an

algorithm to find and target specific audiences across digital platforms. When looking
into this, there are two methods to consider:
Programmatic Bidding - uses demand side platforms to buy ads on the digital
market based on target audience.

Real-Time Bidding - allows advertisers to bid on impressions to their target

audience. If their bid wins, the ad is displayed right away.
Step V. Media Selection

 Budget: What is your overall budget for advertising? Will your budget give you the
coverage you want? A firm that has a limited budget for advertising will limit amount of
coverage certain media can provide. Need to strike balance between budget &
coverage.

 Campaign Objectives: One factor that will influence the budget and coverage question is
the objective of the campaign. If the objective is to raise the brand awareness of the
firm amongst the teenage market, then this will influence any decisions you make
above. You may need to spend a little more on certain publications in order to meet
your objectives.

 Target Audience: The media you selected is obviously influenced by the target audience.
A firm must select media that the target audience is associated with e.g. the magazines
or paper that they read, or the social networking site they use.

 Focus: What is the message focus going to be? Will the message be emotional and work
on guilt or will the message be clear cut and say why the firm is better than the leading
player?

 Readership of Media: What is the readership of the media you wish to select?
Readership is the number times a publication has been read, so if I pick up newspaper
on the train, read it and leave it on the train and that same newspaper has been read by
10 other commuters, the readership in total is 11.

 Circulation of Media: A firm will need to find out what the overall circulation of the
media chosen is. So how many publications are sold, and exactly who reads them.

 Timing: When do you want the advertising campaign to start? Is it specific to a particular
time of the year e.g. Easter or Christmas?
Step VI. Implementation of Media Plan
The implementation of media plan requires media buying. Media Buying refers to buying time
and space in the selected media. Following are the steps in media buying:
 Collection of information: Media buying requires sufficient information regarding
nature of target audience, nature of target market, etc.
 Selection of Media/Media Mix: Considering the collected information and ad-budget,
media or media mix is selected which suits the requirements of both - target audience
and advertiser.
 Negotiation: Price of media is negotiated to procure media at the lowest possible price.
 Issuing Ad - copy to media: Ad - copy is issued to the media for broadcast or telecast
 Monitoring performance of Media: Advertiser has to monitor whether the telecast or
broadcast of ad is done properly as decided.
 Payment: Finally, it is responsibility of advertiser to make payment of media bills on time.

Step VII. Evaluation and Follow-up

Evaluation is essential to assess the performance of any activity. Two factors are important in
evaluation of media plan:
 How successful were the strategies in achieving media objectives?
 Was the media plan successful in accomplishing advertising objective?

Successful strategies help build confidence and serve as reference for developing
media strategies in future, and failure is thoroughly analyzed to avoid mistakes in future.

Measuring Advertising Effectiveness

The managerial responsibility in the area of advertising does not come to an end with the
execution of an advertising programme. Any sound managerial effort is finally interested in goal
attainment and, therefore, always ready to evaluate the results. Evaluation of advertising or
advertising effectiveness refers to the managerial exercise aimed at relating the advertising
results to the established standard of performance and objectives so as to assess the real value
of the advertising performance. This evolution exercise is also known as advertising research. It
is an attempt to know whether the message designed properly has reached the greatest
number of prospects at the least practical cost.

How to test?
Fortunately, the advertising has wide range of testing techniques or the methods to choose for
evaluation purpose. What methods or techniques he is going to use is dependent on when he is
going to measure the ad effectiveness. Accordingly, there can be three sets of methods to meet
his needs namely, pre-testing, concurrent testing and post-testing methods.
I. Pre-Testing Methods
 Check-list test: A check-list is a list of good qualities to be possessed by an effective
advertisement. A typical check- list provides rating scale or basis for ranking the ads in
terms of the characteristics. These characteristics may be honesty, attention getting,
readability, reliability, convincing ability, selling ability and the like. The ad that gets
highest score is considered as the best.

 Opinion test: Opinion test or consumer jury test is one that obtains the preference of a
sample group of typical prospective consumers of the product or the service for an ad or
part of it. The members of the jury rate the ads as to their head-lines, themes,
illustrations, slogans, by direct comparison. Getting preference from a juror is better
than getting it from a member of general public or an ad expert.

 Dummy magazine and port-folio test: Dummy magazines are used to pre-test the ads
under conditions of approximation resembling normal exposure. A dummy magazine
contains standard editorial material, control ads that have been already tested and the
ads to be tested. The sample households receive these magazines and the interviews
are conducted to determine recall scores. Port-folio test is like that of dummy magazine
test except that the test ads are placed in a folder that contains control ads. The
respondents are given these folders for their reading and reactions. The test scores are
determined in the interview. The ad with highest score is taken as the best.

 Inquiry test: It involves running two or more ads on a limited scale to determine which
is most effective in terms of maximum inquiries for the offers made. These inquiry tests
are used exclusively to test copy appeals, copies, illustrations, and other components.
Any of these elements may be checked. The point that is to be checked is changed and
all other components are unaltered, to get the score.

 Mechanical tests: These mechanical tests are objective in nature unlike the one already
explained. These help in provide good measures as to how respondent are eyes and
emotions reaching a given advertisement. The most widely used mechanical devices
are:
Eye Movement Camera
Percept scope
Psycho-galvanometer and
Tachistoscope.
II. Post-Testing Methods
 Inquiry tests: It is controlled experiment conducted in the field. In inquiry test, the
number of consumer inquiries produced by an advertising copy or the medium is
considered as to the measure of its communication effectiveness. Therefore, the
number of inquiries is the test of effectiveness which can be produced only when the ad
copy or the medium succeeds in attracting and retaining reader or viewer attention. To
encourage inquiries, the advertiser offers to send something complimentary to the
reader or the viewer, if he replies.

 Split-run test: A split-run test is a technique that makes possible testing of two or more
ads in the same position, publication, issued with a guarantee of each ad reaching a
comparable group of readers. It is an improvement over the inquiry test in that the ad
copy is split into elements like appeal layout headline and so on. Here also, the readers
are encouraged to reply the inquiries to the keyed or the given address.

 Recognition tests: Recognition is a matter of identifying something as having seen or

heard before. It is based on the memory of the respondent. It attempts to measure the
ad effectiveness by determining the number of respondents who have read or seen the
ads before. To arrive at the results, readership or listenership surveys are conducted.

 Sales tests: Sales tests represent controlled experiment under which actual field
conditions than the simulated are faced. It attempts to establish a direct relationship
between one or more variables and sales of a product or service. It facilitates testing of
one ad against another and one medium against another.
 Recall tests: Recalling is more demanding than recognizing as a test of memory. It
involves respondents to answer as to what they have read, seen or heard without
allowing them to look at or listen to the ad while they are answering. There are several
variations of this test. One such test is Triple Association Test which is designed to test
copy themes or the slogans and reveals the extent to which they have remembered.

III.Concurrent Testing Methods

 Co-incidental surveys: This is called as coincidental telephone method also whereby a
sample of households is selected, calls are made during the time programme broadcast,
the respondents are asked whether their radio or television is on, and if so, to what
station or programme it is tuned? The results of the survey are used to determine the
share of response for the advertisement or the programme.
  Consumer diaries: This method involves giving the families selected in advance of diary
or individual diaries to the members of the family. The selected families and individual
respondents are asked to record the details about the programme they listen or view.
The diaries are collected periodically to determine the scores.

 Mechanical devices: The mechanical devices used to measure the ad differences

concurrently are more common to broadcast media. These are:
Audio meters
Psychogalvanometer
Tachistoscope
Truck Electronic Unit.

 Traffic counts: Traffic counts are of special applicability to outdoor advertising. One can
get good deal of information through traffic counts. This counting is done by
independent organizations may be private or public. This work is also undertaken by
advertising agencies. For instance, how many automobiles and other vehicles were
exposed to a bulletin board or a poster or a wall painting and how many times? Can be
determined.

Social Aspects of Advertising

 Deception in Advertising: The relation between the buyers and sellers is maintained if
the buyers are satisfied with what they saw in advertise and what they got after buying
that product. If seller shows a false or deceptive image and an exaggerated image of the
product in the advertisement, then the relation between the seller and buyers can’t be
healthy. These problems can be overcome if the seller keep their ads clean and displays
right image of the product.

 The Subliminal Advertising: Capturing the Minds of the consumers is the main intention
of these ads. The ads are made in such a way that the consumers don’t even realizes
that the ad has made an impact on their minds and this results in buying the product
which they don’t even need. But “All ads don’t impress all consumers at all times”,
because majority of consumers buy products on basis of the price and needs.

 Effect on Our Value System: The advertisers use puffing tactics, endorsements from
celebrities, and play emotionally, which makes ads so powerful that the consumers like
helpless preys buy those products. These ads make poor people buy products which
they can’t afford, people picking up bad habits like smoking and drinking, and buy
products just because their favorite actor endorsed that product. This affects in
increased the cost of whole society and loss of values of our own selves.
  Offensiveness: Some ads are so offensive that they are not acceptable by the buyers.
For example, the ads of denim jeans showed girls wearing very less clothes and making a
sex appeal. These kinds of ads are irrelevant to the actual product. Btu then there are
some ads which are educative also and now accepted by people. Earlier ads giving
information about birth control pills was considered offensive but now the same ads are
considered educative and important.

Ethical Aspects of Advertising

 Pharmaceutical Advertising: They help creating awareness, but one catchy point here is
that the advertisers show what the medicine can cure but never talk about the side
effects of that same thing or the risks involved in intake of it.

 Children: Children are the major sellers of the ads and the product. They have the
power to convince the buyers. But when advertisers are using children in their ad, they
should remember not to show them alone doing their work on their own like brushing
teeth, playing with toys, or infants holding their own milk bottles as everyone knows
that no one will leave their kids unattended while doing all these activities. So, showing
parents also involved in all activities or things being advertised will be more logical.

 Alcohol: Till today, there hasn’t come any liquor ad which shows anyone drinking the
original liquor. They use mineral water and sodas in their advertisements with their
brand name. These types of ads are called surrogate ads. These types of ads are totally
unethical when liquor ads are totally banned. Even if there are no advertisements for
alcohol, people will continue drinking.

 Cigarettes and Tobacco: These products should be never advertised as consumption of

these things is directly and badly responsible for cancer and other severe health issues.
These as are already banned in countries like India, Norway, Thailand, Finland and
Singapore.

 Ads for social causes: These types of ads are ethical and are accepted by the people. But
ads like condoms and contraceptive pills should be limited, as these are sometimes
unethical, and are more likely to lose morality and decency at places where there is no
educational knowledge about all these products.
Legal Aspects of Advertising
 False, Not Misleading: The basic legal standard for advertising is that ads must be
truthful and not misleading. Several factors are considered when analyzing whether an
ad is truthful and not deceptive. These include whether the claim made by the
advertisement is express or implied, who the reasonable consumer is for the product
and whether the false or misleading content (if any) is material enough such that it
would influence consumer buying behavior.

 Evidence for Claims: The other legal standard for advertisements is reliable evidence
that supports any claims being made by the advertisements. Not every ad needs
evidence. However, if a garbage bag company boasts that its bags are 50 percent larger
than the leading competition, the garbage bag company needs to have actual evidence
to support such claim. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the exact level of
evidence needed varies depending on the claim. At the very least, an advertiser must be
able to produce the level of evidence it says it has. Using the previous example, the
garbage bag company must identify the leading competition and demonstrate that its
bags are actually 50 percent larger.

 Ethical Considerations: Ethical considerations fall into a gray area for advertisements. It
is possible for an advertisement to be legally permissible (in that it is truthful, not
misleading and supported by objective evidence), but for it to be unethical. Ethical
considerations relate to the manner in which the content is being delivered and the
message of the advertisement. According to the International Charter, ads that play on
fear would be unethical. An advertisement for car tires that claim (truthfully) to be safer
from the competition in bad weather conditions may be unethical if it displays actual
photos from accident scenes with gory imagery and sensationalized, emotionally
charged content. It is also unethical to market products towards groups for which those
products would be inappropriate, such as advertising cigarettes to teens.

 Advertising Regulation: The Federal Trade Commission regulates advertising in the

United States. False, misleading ads fall into the sphere of the FTC’s jurisdiction.
Advertisers face criminal and civil penalties for illegal ads. The same penalties may not
apply for unethical ads. A legal ad that happens to be unethical could still harm the
business, however, particularly in the form of consumer backlash and damage to
reputation.

Types of Advertising Technique

 Emotional Appeal: This technique of advertising is done with help of two factors - needs
of consumers and fear factor. Most common appeals under need are:
need for something new
 need for getting acceptance and need for not being ignored etc.

 Promotional Advertising: This technique involves giving away samples of the product
for free to the consumers. The items are offered in the trade fairs, promotional events,
and ad campaigns in order to gain the attention of the customers.

 Bandwagon Advertising: This type of technique involves convincing the customers to

join the group of people who have bought this product and be on the winning side. For
e.g. recent Pantene shampoo ad which says “15crores women trusted Pantene, and
you?”

 Facts and Statistics: Here, advertisers use numbers, proofs, and real examples to show
how good their product works. For e.g. “Lizol floor cleaner cleans 99.99% germs” or
“Colgate is recommended by 70% of the dentists of the world” or Eno - just 6 seconds.

 Unfinished Ads: The advertisers here just play with words by saying that their product
works better but don’t answer how much more than the competitor. For e.g. Lays - no
one can eat just one or Horlicks - more nutrition daily. The ads don’t say who can eat
more or how much more nutrition.
 Weasel Words: In this technique, the advertisers don’t say that they are the best from
the rest, but don’t also deny. E.g. Sunsilk Hairfall Solution - reduces hairfall. The ad
doesn’t say stops hairfall.

 Endorsements: The advertisers use celebrities to advertise their products. The

celebrities or star endorse the product by telling their own experiences with the
product. Recently a diamond jewelry ad had superstar Amitabh Bacchan and his wife
Jaya advertising the product. The ad showed how he impressed his wife by making a
smart choice of buying this brand.

 Complementing the Customers: Here, the advertisers used punch lines which
complement the consumers who buy their products. E.g. Revlon says, “Because you
are worth it.”

 Ideal Family and Ideal Kids: The advertisers using this technique show that the
families or kids using their product are a happy go lucky family. The ad always has a
neat and well- furnished home, well-mannered kids and the family is a simple and
sweet kind of family.

 Patriotic Advertisements: These ads show how one can support their country while
he uses their product or service. For e. g some products together formed a union and
claimed in their ad that if you buy any one of these products, you are going to help a
child to go to school.