Essay on “Advertisement in Modern Society” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Advertisement in Modern Society

What is advertising? This question is important to business and media personnel who are concerned with whether a particular expense should be charged to the advertising budget. Advertising includes those activities by which visual or oral messages are addressed to the public for the purposes of informing them and influencing them, either to buy merchandise or services or to act or be Inclined favourably toward ideas, institutions, or persons’ features. As contrasted with publicity and other forms or propaganda, advertising messages are identified with the advertiser, either by signature or by oral statement. In further contrast to publicity, advertising is a commercial transaction involving payment to publishers or broadcasters and others whose media are employed.

The above definition excludes such activities as exhibiting at trade shows, use of premiums, samples, and free goods, and many miscellaneous activities, and regards these activities as constituting sales promotional effort rather than advertising proper. Sales promotion commonly includes such functions as the preparation of direct mail pieces for distributors and dealers, point of purchase display materials, promotional aids, and sales portfolios for salesmen.

We advertise to acquaint a selected body of people without business story—to sell our products, ideas and/or services, our background and our prestige.

The manner of advertising, of course, differs from organisation to organisation, from topic to topic and from product to product. Advertising must be tailor-made to be fully effective. The scope, too, is determined by individual circumstances. The concern producing goods, largely for an industrial market with a limited domestic appeal, would not wish to embark on a big campaign aimed to attract the attention of the country’s housewives. Neither would they embark on prestige advertising on a national scale.

There is no set formula for success in advertising. Advertising is, in fact, the essence of individualism, although its appeal is directed to the masses, very often through repetition.

As we are examining the purpose and function of advertising, it might be instructive if we followed the advertising policy of a group of companies, which sell a wide range of packaged goods to grocers and chemists, and hundreds of bulk products to the industries.

If price advantage is not the motivating force of an organization’s sales appeal, then clearly emphasis must be laid on such all important factors as quality, packaging, service and any outstanding characteristics which competitors do not possess.

National Advertising : The scope of activities of a business demands national advertising on two main fronts—home and international. We must reach the housewife and others interested in our domestic consumer goods, and we must see that our important range of industrial products is kept constantly before consumers. In addition, we are concerned with maintaining the prestige of the group of companies in the eyes of the general public. From this, our advertising and publicity appeal breaks down into four main heads :

1. Domestic consumer goods
2. Industrial products
3. Group and prestige
4. Public relations

We build our advertising and publicity plan under these heads:

In the domestic consumer field we are selling an extensive range of packaged goods to the housewife, to the businessman, to the man in the street, to the athlete—practically everyone; and of course the sales potential is very wide. Our advertising must tell the story of our products. Its basic appeal may be the same, but the shades and variation of the sales message must match the variety of the products. The sales approach must be light and popular, but yet retain enough responsibility to ensure full acceptance. An important aspect is the primary sales appeal of the message to the consumer. Is this to be based on price, quality packaging, service or new advantages? Where there is no price advantage and the product is not new, it is always worthwhile to highlight quality. This is a factor which attracts the consumer in any field.

Basically our own advertising in the domestic consume market sets out to do two jobs :

1. To ensure that every potential customer is made aware of the nature and advantages of our products.
2. To create in the customer an urge to buy.

Herein lies the magic of good advertising through words and visual image it creates in the minds of many a desire to buy one particular product in preference to a number of others. It is upon the successful creation of this urge to buy, that the worth of advertising is assessed.

The housewife, however, is not the only person one has to worry about when creating advertising for domestic consumer goods. There is the all important retailer—the man who finally sells the goods.

If the products themselves are right and the service to the retailer is satisfactory, advertising in retailer’s trade papers need no more than inform the retailer about the products and the service. But this form of advertising does provide a direct and vital link between the firm and the man who can make or mar a sale. To him the advertising is tangible evidence that he does have a place in the selling plans of the firm, and his position as principal sales-man for the product is being acknowledged. This type of advertising not only helps sales, but builds and maintains retailer goodwill—a vital factor in successful selling.

While dealing with advertising in the domestic consumer field, mention may be made to point-of-sale and packing, both of which are highly successful advertising aids, to selling. Display Advertising: Point-of-sale display reinforces that vital urge to buy, created by our initial publicity. This form of display does, in fact, carry the last selling word to the customer, before he actually leans over the counter to deliver his order to the grocer. Here is a unique selling opportunity which no salesman worth his salt would dream of missing, if personal salesmanship at this juncture were both acceptable and practicable.

Why, then, do so many firms treat the creation of point-of-sale display material as worthy of little more than second hand interest? The answer lies in the fact that the pulling power of this publicity medium has still not yet won universal recognition, despite recent advances in design and manufacture. There can be no doubt, how-ever, of the effectiveness of counter and window display.

What are the ingredients of a good display piece? They are originality, sincerity and quality, in that order. Originality because the display must, above all else, be ‘eye-catching’; sincerity because its sale-message must win home to the heart of the reader; and quality because a cheap and shoddy display reflects directly on the status and prestige of the company producing the product advertised.

There is one further important point in connection with dis-plays which is often overlooked—and that is, one display can only be effective for a certain period. Allow it to remain too long and customers will not even notice, it will have become part of the shop fittings. Variation and change—therein lies the secret of successful point-of-sale display, allied with the qualities listed earlier.  

Packaging, in many respects, is akin to point-of-sale display and is, of course, vitally important. Essential facts again are originality, sincerity and quality. The packet of the product is a constant advertisement and, as such, requires closest consideration in design and production. It should be pleasing, durable and allow easy access to the product.

 In the last few years, great strides have been made in package design, and today some of the best creative artists of the publicity world are engaged in the sphere of packing designs.

The Industrial Marketing Advertising: Leaving the domestic market, we move on to our second advertising field—the industrial market. Selling here differs greatly from selling in the domestic ‘consumer field. Industrial buyers are precisely informed about the. Needs and generally about the range of products that are available; for them to choose from. The products are not bought over the counters, but are ordered from visiting representatives, frequently supported by technical experts, with a comprehensive knowledge of the particular industry being served. Some industrial commodities are bought on speed fiction, so n theory, there should be little difference between the products of competing suppliers Where, then, does advertising enter into our sales plan? To answer this, we must first establish what we want our advertising to do It is manifest that no advertisement can ever do the whole job of selling an industrial product. Industry knows exactly what it wants and why, and so that main function of our advertising is to help the sales representative in his job of selling. The advertising should give aid in two chief ways:

1. By recommending the product itself.
2. By recommending ‘the supplying firm in point of status, reliability and service

 If any advantage over competing products can genuinely be claimed, then these should be publicised in a responsible manner.

 The note of responsibility and authority should be apparent in all industrial advertising, and no attempt should be made to sacrifice strict accuracy for the sake of a bright copy-line. Prestige Advertising: Our third promotional activity is prestige advertising, which is valuable if the status of the organization justifies this form of publicity. There are no convenient yardsticks for determining status, but it is obvious that the firm must, either through leadership in its particular sphere, or long years of service to the consumer, or both, occupy a special place in the minds of the public at large, or of the buyers in its traditional selling markets. The primary function of the prestige advertising is to promote the organization rather than its products, and to build confidence in the firm. Much fine prestige advertising can be characterized as educational, as it sets out to inform the public and not sell them on any given product The fact prestige advertising might indirectly help to improve sales is something no sales officer is likely to overlook when planning his advertising, but this is essentially a secondary consideration, and in no way weakens the prime motive of the advertising. Prestige advertising is concerned with educating the public on the size and scope of a company’s operations and informing them of the extensive service it gives—both to industry and the home.