2.1 The influence of advertising
After watching a part of the movie thank you for smoking, it seemed like all that the producer cares about is that his product is sold no matter how unhealthy the product is. I think that advertising influences a lot of people. In fact, advertising does more than influence people’s taste, it controls our desires. People that watch a commercial, for example, want to look like that person in the advertisement; here is where advertising starts to influence people in a negative way. We usually see very thin models, for example, in most of the ads and commercials. This basically says that skinny is beautiful, or at least that is the message that it is sending to young girls, which is why we see so many girls with eating disorders today. It was all over the tabloids when Tyra Banks and Britney Spears didn’t look as thin as they were before. Basically those tabloids were saying that they are now ugly because they are not thin which makes young girls want to be thin. People, especially the young ones, are under a lot of pressure. They want to look "cool" and beautiful and I think that what they see in advertisement is what they sometimes want to become which is why they go out and buy that product. There is a proactive commercial where Jessica Simpson’s skin looks absolutely flawless. Girls that see that commercial want her skin so they go and buy proactive. I actually asked my cousin, she is a dermatologist and she said that it doesn’t work all the time, some people really like it some people hate it. Sometimes advertisers make false statements and hope that the people would not know better or wouldn’t want to find out and just go and buy the product. For example, the food pictures that we saw in class. In the ad they look very good but in reality they are not half as good. However, advertising could also have a positive influence on people. A commercial that talks about how bad smoking is for you, could influence people to stop smoking. Sometimes, even if people know what is good and bad for them, they don’t realize it until someone tells them what is good and what is bad. Whether you like it or not, at some point advertisements will influence you in a good or bad way, it is up to you to decide. [28, p.40-42]
2.2 Forms of advertising
Advertising can take a number of forms, including advocacy, comparative, cooperative, direct-mail, informational, institutional, outdoor, persuasive, product, reminder, point-of-purchase, and specialty advertising.
Advocacy Advertising Advocacy advertising is normally thought of as any advertisement, message, or public communication regarding economic, political, or social issues. The advertising campaign is designed to persuade public opinion regarding a specific issue important in the public arena. The ultimate goal of advocacy advertising usually relates to the passage of pending state or federal legislation. Almost all nonprofit groups use some form of advocacy advertising to influence the public's attitude toward a particular issue.
Comparative Advertising Comparative advertising compares one brand directly or indirectly with one or more competing brands. This advertising technique is very common and is used by nearly every major industry, including airlines and automobile manufacturers. One drawback of comparative advertising is that customers have become more skeptical about claims made by a company about its competitors because accurate information has not always been provided, thus making the effectiveness of comparison advertising questionable.
Cooperative Advertising Cooperative advertising is a system that allows two parties to share advertising costs. Manufacturers and distributors, because of their shared interest in selling the product, usually use this cooperative advertising technique. An example might be when a soft-drink manufacturer and a local grocery store split the cost of advertising the manufacturer's soft drinks; both the manufacturer and the store benefit from increased store traffic and its associated sales. Cooperative advertising is especially appealing to small storeowners who, on their own, could not afford to advertise the product adequately.
Direct-Mail Advertising Catalogues, flyers, letters, and postcards are just a few of the direct-mail advertising options. Direct-mail advertising has several advantages, including detail of information, personalization, selectivity, and speed.
Informational Advertising In informational advertising, which is used when a new product is first being introduced, the emphasis is on promoting the product name, benefits, and possible uses
Institutional Advertising Institutional advertising takes a much broader approach, concentrating on the benefits, concept, idea, or philosophy of a particular industry. Companies often use it to promote image-building activities, such an environmentally friendly business practices or new community-based programs that it sponsors. Institutional advertising is closely related to public relations, since both are interested in promoting a positive image of the company to the public.
Outdoor Advertising Billboards and messages painted on the side of buildings are common forms of outdoor advertising, which is often used when quick, simple ideas are being promoted. Since repetition is the key to successful promotion, outdoor advertising is most effective when located along heavily traveled city streets and when the product being promoted can be purchased locally. Only about 1 percent of advertising is conducted in this manner.
Persuasive Advertising Persuasive advertising is used after a product has been introduced to customers. The primary goal is for a company to build selective demand for its product. For example, automobile manufacturers often produce special advertisements promoting the safety features of their vehicles.
Product Advertising Product advertising pertains to nonpersonal selling of a specific product.
Reminder Advertising Reminder advertising is used for products that have entered the mature stage of the product life cycle. The advertisements are simply designed to remind customers about the product and to maintain awareness.
Point-of-Purchase Advertising Point-of-purchase advertising uses displays or other promotional items near the product that is being sold. The primary motivation is to attract customers to the display so that they will purchase the product.
Specialty Advertising Specialty advertising is a form of sales promotion designed to increase public recognition of a company's name. A company can have its name put on a variety of items, such as caps, glassware, gym bags, jackets, key chains, and pens. The value of specialty advertising varies depending on how long the items used in the effort last. Most companies are successful in achieving their goals for increasing public recognition and sales through these efforts. [18]
2.3 Objectives of the advertising
Advertising objectives are the communication tasks to be accomplished with specific customers that a company is trying to reach during a particular time frame. A company that advertises usually strives to achieve one of four advertising objectives: trial, continuity, brand switching, and switchback. Which of the four advertising objectives is selected usually depends on where the product is in its life cycle.
Trial The purpose of the trial objective is to encourage customers to make an initial purchase of a new product. Companies will typically employ creative advertising strategies in order to cut through other competing advertisements. The reason is simple: Without that first trial of a product by customers, there will not be any re peat purchases.
Continuity Continuity advertising is a strategy to keep current customers using a particular product. Existing customers are targeted and are usually provided new and different information about a product that is designed to build consumer loyalty.
Brand Switching Companies adopt brand switching as an objective when they want customers to switch from competitors' brands to their brands. A common strategy is for a company to compare product price or quality in order to convince customers to switch to its product brand.
Switchback Companies subscribe to this advertising objective when they want to get back former users of their product brand. A company might highlight new product features, price reductions, or other important product information in order to get former customers of its product to switchback. [18]
2.4 Selecting the Right Advertising Approach
Once a company decides what type of specific advertising campaign it wants to use, it must decide what approach should carry the message. A company is interested in a number of areas regarding advertising, such as frequency, media impact, media timing, and reach.
Frequency. Frequency refers to the average number of times that an average consumer is exposed to the advertising campaign. A company usually establishes frequency goals, which can vary for each advertising campaign. For example, a company might want to have the average consumer exposed to the message at least six times during the advertising campaign. This number might seem high, but in a crowded and competitive market repetition is one of the best methods to increase the product's visibility and to increase company sales. The more exposure a company desires for its product, the more expensive the advertising campaign. Thus, often only large companies can afford to have high-frequency advertisements during a campaign.
Media Impact. Media impact generally refers to how effective advertising will be through the various media outlets (e.g., television, Internet, print). A company must decide, based on its product, the best method to maximize consumer interest and awareness. For example, a company promoting a new laundry detergent might fare better with television commercials rather than simple print ads because more consumers are likely to see the television commercial. Similarly, a company such as Mercedes-Benz, which markets expensive products, might advertise in specialty car magazines to reach a high percentage of its potential customers. Before any money is spent on any advertising media, a thorough analysis is done of each one's strengths and weaknesses in comparison to the cost. Once the analysis is done, the company will make the best decision possible and embark on its advertising campaign.
Media Timing. Another major consideration for any company engaging in an advertising campaign is when to run the advertisements. For example, some companies run ads during the holidays to promote season-specific products. The other major consideration for a company is whether it wants to employ a continuous or pulsing pattern of advertisements. Continuous refers to advertisements that are run on a scheduled basis for a given time period. The advantage of this tactic is that an advertising campaign can run longer and might provide more exposure over time. For example, a company could run an advertising campaign for a particular product that lasts years with the hope of keeping the product in the minds of customers. Pulsing indicates that advertisements will be scheduled in a disproportionate manner within a given time frame. Thus, a company could run thirty-two television commercials over a three-or six-month period to promote the specific product is wants to sell. The advantage with the pulsing strategy is twofold. The company could spend less money on advertising over a shorter time period but still gain the same recognition because the advertising campaign is more intense.
Reach. Reach refers to the percentage of customers in the target market who are exposed to the advertising campaign for a given time period. A company might have a goal of reaching at least 80 percent of its target audience during a given time frame. The goal is to be as close to 100 percent as possible, because the more the target audience is exposed to the message, the higher the chance of future sales. [6, p.38-40]
3. Web advertising
It has been suggested that online advertising is currently based on a print media model that is likely to develop into an interactive television model in years to come. Like print media, Web pages are largely text-based and must generally be read. Television, on the other hand, reflects a lower, more passive level of involvement. However, the interactive capabilities of the Internet certainly distinguish it from other media.
Drèze and Zufryden once suggested that the Internet offers unique but largely unexplored opportunities for advertising research that exist in spite of its popularity as a medium for marketing and promoting products and services. Three years is a long time on the Web, with great strides made in online advertising research during that time. Nevertheless, there is still widespread debate over the effectiveness of various Web advertising formats. Amid frequent claims that "the banner is dead", it is interesting to note that banner advertising revenue and the number of sites using banner ads have continued to increase. [12, p.80]
The emphasis of this study is on the application of copy testing methods to banner advertisements appearing on the World Wide Web. It is specifically concerned with the effect on consumer behavior generated by banner ads containing pull-down menus. These are menus accessed by clicking the computer's mouse pointer on an arrow appearing in the advertisement, thereby opening a menu containing further information or links to a specific Web page. Although banner ads are themselves interactive in nature and therefore somewhat unique, the use of pull-down menus adds a further layer of interactivity. Viewers may click on these to obtain more information before being transferred to the advertiser's Web site.
In this paper, a paired comparison approach is used to examine whether banner ads containing pull-down menus are more effective than conventional banner ads in terms of several widely employed advertising copy testing measures. Testable hypotheses are proposed that will provide an insight into the nature of banner advertising that will benefit both online advertisers and advertising researchers alike. [12, p.82]
3.1 Banner Advertising.
The most popular form of advertising on the Internet's World Wide Web is currently banner advertising. A banner (graphic image) and link are displayed on a high traffic web site, in which the people visiting that site (the audience) see when the page loads. This banner commonly advertises a product, service, or just another web site. It can also be used to show someone's point of view on a certain topic (for example, a presidential election).
A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. The advertisement is constructed from an image (GIF, JPEG, PNG), JavaScript program or multimedia object employing technologies such as Java, Shockwave or Flash, often employing animation, sound, or video to maximize presence. Images are usually in a high-aspect ratio shape (i.e. either wide and short, or tall and narrow) hence the reference to banners. These images are usually placed on web pages that have interesting content, such as a newspaper article or an opinion piece.
Typical web banner, sized 468×60 pixels.
The web banner is displayed when a web page that references the banner is loaded into a web browser. This event is known as an "impression". When the viewer clicks on the banner, the viewer is directed to the website advertised in the banner. This event is known as a "click through". In many cases, banners are delivered by a central ad server.
When the advertiser scans their logfiles and detects that a web user has visited the advertiser's site from the content site by clicking on the banner ad, the advertiser sends the content provider some small amount of money (usually around five to ten US cents). This payback system is often how the content provider is able to pay for the Internet access to supply the content in the first place.
Web banners function the same way as traditional advertisements are intended to function: notifying consumers of the product or service and presenting reasons why the consumer should choose the product in question, although web banners differ in that the results for advertisement campaigns may be monitored real-time and may be targeted to the viewer's interests.
Many web surfers regard these advertisements as highly annoying because they distract from a web page's actual content or waste bandwidth. (Of course, the purpose of the banner ad is to attract attention and many advertisers try to get attention to the advert by making them annoying. Without attracting attention it would provide no revenue for the advertiser or for the content provider.) Newer web browsers often include options to disable pop-ups or block images from selected websites. Another way of avoiding banners is to use a proxy server that blocks them, such as Privoxy. [10, p.40-42]
3.1.1 History of banners.
The first clickable web ad (which later came to be known by the term "banner ad") was sold by Global Network Navigator (GNN) in 1993 to Heller, Ehrman, White and McAuliffe, a now defunct law firm with a Silicon Valley office. GNN was the first commercially supported web publication and one of the very first web sites ever.