According to Richard Buskirk , “Advertising is a paid form of non-personal presentation of ideas goods and services by an identified sponsor.”
Being the best way of communicating with the customers, advertising helps organizations to inform their customers about their brand, products and services. Advertising is done using various media types and different techniques most suited. Read the importance of Advertising.
Objectives of Advertising
Four main objectives of advertising are:
- Trial: Most start-up ventures or companies generally work for this objective. It involves convincing the customers to make them buy a particular product or service introduced in the market. To achieve this objective, the advertisers make use of meaty advertisement to attract customers and inspire them look the products and buy for trials.
- Brand Switch: Companies wanting to attract the customers of the competitors have this as their objective. To achieve this, marketers try to encourage customers to switch from their existing brand to their product.
- Continuity: It is related to retain the existing customers for long. For this, marketers usually launch new products of customer interest and advertise them well so that the existing customers keep buying their products.
- Switching Back: To bring back the previous customers, who have switched to other brands, advertisers use different ways to attract them back such as discount sale, some reworking done on packaging, new advertise, etc.
In short, advertising is an artistic way of communicating with the end users, both directly and indirectly. However, the two basic requirements to achieving these objectives are great communication skills and excellent convincing power.
Significance of Advertising
Advertising is a very crucial thing which has become a necessity for organizations today. Let’s have a look on how and where is advertising crucial:
1. Advertising is significant for the customers
Imagine a newspaper, television or a radio without an advertisement! Imagine yourself as a customer. Can you buy any product without prior knowledge about it? Perhaps not! This is where advertising comes in. Customers buy a product or service only after they are made aware of the products available in the market. Without proper information, customer won’t know about the products available and will not purchase the product even if it was the best. Another benefit of advertising for customers is that people find the best products as they are able to compare different products based on various factors. This makes it convenient and easy for them to buy the one which suits their need and pocket.
2. Advertising is important for the manufacturers and sellers of the products
Advertising plays a crucial role for the manufacturers and sellers, because
- It helps them promote their products and services among the customers.
- It helps increasing sales.
- It helps them know about the products of their competitors and make the right strategies to meet up the competition standards.
- It helps organizations in creating goodwill for their brand and gains customer loyalty in the long run.
- With the help of advertising, organizations learn about the demand of the customers and demand and supply become a never ending process.
3. Advertising is important for the society
Advertising helps in educating the society, be it things of daily life, government policies, international happenings, etc. Some social issues like child labor, liquor consumption, smoking, girl child killing, family planning education, etc. can also be taken care of with the help of advertisement. In addition, it also promotes the living standard of the people by enhancing the quality and variety in utilization as a result of constant research and development activities by the producers.