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History
A print advertisement from a 1913 issue of
Encyclopaedia Britannica
In ancient times the most common form of advertising was "word of mouth".
However, commercial messages and election campaign displays were found in the
ruins of Pompeii. Egyptians used papyrus to create sales messages and wall
posters. Lost-and-found advertising on papyrus was common in Greece and Rome.
Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an
ancient media advertising form which is present to this day in many parts of
Asia, Africa, and South America. For instance, tradition of wall paintings may
be traced back to India rock-art paintings that goes back to 4000 BC, see Bhatia
2000: 62-68 on the evolution of wall advertising. As printing developed in the
15th and 16th century, advertising expanded to include handbills. In the 17th
century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England.
These early print ads were used mainly to promote books (which were
increasingly affordable) and medicines (which were increasingly sought after as
disease ravaged Europe). Quack ads became a problem, which ushered in regulation
of advertising content.
As the economy was expanding during the 19th century, the need for
advertising grew at the same pace. In
America, the
classified ads became popular, filling pages of newspapers with small print
messages promoting all kinds of goods. The success of this advertising format
led to the growth of mail-order advertising. In 1843 the first
advertising agency was established by
Volney Palmer in Philadelphia. At first the agencies were just brokers for ad space in
newspapers, but by the 20th century, advertising agencies started to take over
responsibility for the content as well.
The 1960s saw advertising transform into a modern, more scientific approach
in which creativity was allowed to shine, producing unexpected messages that
made advertisements interesting to read. The
Volkswagen
ad campaign featuring such headlines as "Think Small" and "Lemon" ushered in the
era of modern advertising by promoting a "position" or "unique selling
proposition" designed to associate each brand with a specific idea in the reader
or viewer's mind.
Today, advertising is evolving even further, with "guerrilla"
promotions that involve unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public
places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages,
and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the
advertising message.
Media
Paying people to hold signs in public places is one of the oldest forms of
adverting such as the
'board guy' pictured above
Transit advertising is combined with experiential marketing using pedapods in
Australia
Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards (outdoor
advertising), street furniture components, printed flyers, radio, cinema and
television ads, web banners, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches,
magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, taxicab doors and roof
mounts, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on
disposable diapers, stickers on apples in supermarkets, the opening section of
streaming audio and video, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket
receipts. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message
through a medium is advertising.
Covert advertising embedded in other entertainment media is known as
product placement. A more recent version of this is advertising in film, by
having a main character use an item or other of a definite brand - an
example is in the movie
Minority Report, where
Tom Cruise's
character Tom Anderton owns a computer with the
Nokia logo
clearly written in the top corner, or his watch engraved with the
Bulgari
logo. Another example of advertising in film is in
I, Robot, where main character played by
Will Smith
mentions his
Converse
shoes several times, calling them "classics," because the film is set far in the
future.
The
TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising
format and this is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for
commercial airtime during popular TV events. The annual Super Bowl football game
in the United States is known as much for its commercial advertisements as for the
game itself, and the average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this
game has reached $2.5 million (as of 2006).
Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television programming
through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into otherwise blank
backdrops[1]
or used to replace local billboards that are not relevant to the remote
broadcast audience[2].
More controversially, virtual billboards may be inserted into the background[3]
where none existing in real-life.
Virtual product placement is also possible[4][5].
Increasingly, other mediums such as those discussed below are overtaking
television due to a shift towards consumer's usage of the Internet as well as
devices such as TiVo.
Advertising on the
World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based advertising space
are dependent on the "relevance" of the surrounding web content and the traffic
that the website receives.
E-mail
advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising is
known as "spam".
Some
companies have proposed to place messages or corporate logos on the side of
booster rockets and the International Space Station. Controversy exists on the
effectiveness of subliminal advertising, and the pervasiveness of mass messages.
Unpaid advertising (also called
word of mouth advertising), can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal
recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it by zealot"), spreading buzz, or
achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun ("Xerox" =
"photocopier", "Kleenex" = tissue, "Vaseline" = petroleum jelly, "Kotex" =
tampons, "Maxi pads" = sanitary napkins, "Scotch Tape" = Clear Tape, "Band-aid"
= bandage, "Visine" = eye drops, "Q-tips" = cotton swabs, "Rollerblades" =
inline skates) -- these must provide the stuff of fantasy to the holder of
an advertising budget.
The most common method for measuring the impact of mass media advertising is
the use of the rating point (rp) or the more accurate target rating point (trp).
These two measures refer to the percentage of the universe of the existing base
of audience members that can be reached by the use of each media outlet in a
particular moment in time. The difference between the two is that the rating
point refers to the percentage to the entire universe while the target rating
point refers to the percentage to a particular segment or target. This becomes
very useful when focusing advertising efforts on a particular group of people.
For example, think of an advertising campaign targeting a female audience aged
25 to 45. While the overall rating of a TV show might be well over 10 rating
points it might very well happen that the same show in the same moment of time
is generating only 2.5 trps (being the target: women 25-45). This would mean
that while the show has a large universe of viewers it is not necessarily
reaching a large universe of women in the ages of 25 to 45 making it a less
desirable location to place an ad for an advertiser looking for this particular
demographic.
Impact
"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't
know which half." -
John Wanamaker, father of modern advertising.
Billboard,
New
York City, (2005)
The impact of advertising has been a matter of considerable debate and many
different claims have been made in different contexts. During debates about the
banning of cigarette adervertising, a common claim from cigarette manufacturers
was that cigarette advertising does not encourage people to smoke who would not
otherwise.[1]
The (eventually successful) opponents of advertising, on the other hand, claim
that advertising does in fact increase consumption.[2]
According to many media sources, the past experience and state of mind of the
person subjected to advertising may determine the impact that advertising has.
Children under the age of four may be unable to distinguish advertising from
other television programs, whilst the ability to determine the truthfullness of
the message may not be developed until the age of eight.[3]
Public service advertising
The same advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods and services
can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about non-commercial
issues, such as AIDS,
political ideology, energy conservation, religious recruitment, and
deforestation.
Advertising, in its non-commercial guise, is a powerful educational tool
capable of reaching and motivating large audiences. "Advertising justifies its
existence when used in the public interest - it is much too powerful a tool to
use solely for commercial purposes." - Attributed to Howard Gossage by David
Ogilvy
Public service advertising, non-commercial advertising, public interest advertising, cause marketing,
and social marketing are different terms for (or aspects of) the use of
sophisticated advertising and marketing communications techniques (generally
associated with commercial enterprise) on behalf of non-commercial, public
interest issues and initiatives.
In the
United States, the granting of television and radio licenses by the FCC is contingent upon the station broadcasting a certain amount of public
service advertising. To meet these requirements, many broadcast stations in
America air the bulk of their required Public Service Announcements during the
late night or early morning when the smallest percentage of viewers are
watching, leaving more day and prime time commercial slots available for
high-paying advertisers.
Public service advertising reached its height during World Wars I and II
under the direction of several U.S. government agencies.
Social impact
Regulation
There have been increasing efforts to protect the public interest by
regulating the content and the reach of advertising. Some examples are the ban
on television tobacco advertising imposed in many countries, and the total ban
on advertising to children under twelve imposed by the Swedish government in
1991. Though that regulation continues in effect for broadcasts originating
within the country, it has been weakened by the European Court of Justice, which has found that Sweden was obliged to accept
whatever programming was targeted at it from neighbouring countries or via
satellite.
In Europe and elsewhere there is a vigorous debate on whether and how much
advertising to children should be regulated. This debate was exacerbated by a
report released by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in February 2004 which
suggested that food advertising targeting children was an important factor in
the epidemic of childhood
obesity
raging across the United States.
In many countries - namely New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and many
European contries- the advertising industry operates a system of
self-regulation. Advertisers, advertising agencies and the media agree on a code
of advertising standards that they attempt to uphold. The general aim of such
codes is to ensure that any advertising is 'legal, decent, honest and truthful'.
Some self-regulatory organisations are funded by the industry, but remain
independent, with the intent of upholding the standards or codes (like the
ASA in the UK).
Critiques of the medium
Advertising wrapped around a train.
Minnesota,
US, (2005)
As advertising and marketing efforts become increasingly ubiquitous in modern
Western societies, the industry has come under criticism of groups such as
AdBusters via culture jamming which criticizes the media and consumerism using
advertising's own techniques. The industry is accused of being one of the
engines powering a convoluted economic mass production system which promotes
consumption. Some advertising campaigns have also been criticized as
inadvertently or even intentionally promoting sexism, racism, and ageism. Such
criticisms have raised questions about whether this medium is creating or
reflecting cultural trends. At very least, advertising often reinforces
stereotypes by drawing on recognizable "types" in order to tell stories in a
single image or 30 second time frame. Recognizing the social impact of
advertising, MediaWatch, a non-profit women's organization, works to educate consumers
about how they can register their concerns with advertisers and regulators. It
has developed educational materials for use in schools. The award-winning book,
Made You Look - How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know , by former MediaWatch president Shari Graydon, provides context for these issues for young
readers.
Public interest groups and free thinkers are increasingly suggesting that access
to the mental space targeted by advertisers should be taxed, in that at the
present moment that space is being freely taken advantage of by advertisers with
no compensation paid to the members of the public who are thus being intruded
upon. This kind of tax would be a Pigovian tax in that it would act to reduce
what is now increasingly seen as a public nuisance. Efforts to that end are
gathering momentum, with Arkansas and Maine considering bills to implement such
taxation. Florida
enacted such a tax in 1987 but was forced to repeal it after six months, as a
result of a concerted effort by national commercial interests, which withdrew
planned conventions, causing major losses to the tourism industry, and cancelled
advertising, causing a loss of 12 million dollars to the broadcast industry
alone.
Public perception of the medium
Billboard in Lund, Sweden, saying
"One Night Stand?" (2005)
Over the years, the public perception of advertising has become very
negative. It is seen as a medium that inherently promotes a lie, based on the
purpose of the advertisement - to encourage the target audience to submit to a
cause or a belief, and act on it to the advertising party's benefit and
consequently the target's disadvantage. They are either perceived as directly
lying (stating opinions or untruths directly as facts), lying by omission
(usually of terms unfavorable to the customer), portraying a product or service
in a light that does not reflect reality or even making up realities where their
product has a new role. Yet as with many other things in life, the vast majority
of the public do not care enough to act. One can either choose to listen to the
many campaigns or to ignore them.
Effects on communication media
Another effect of advertising is to modify the nature of the communication
media where it is shown. The most clear example is television. Channels that get
most of their revenues from publicity try to make their medium a good place for
communicating ads. That means trying to make the public stay for long times and
in a mental state that will make spectators not to switch the channel through
the ads. Programs that are low in mental stimulus and require light
concentration and are varied are best for long sitting times and make for much
easier emotional jumps to ads, that can become more entertaining than regular
shows. A simple way to understand the objectives in
television programming is to compare contents from channels paid and chosen
by the viewer with channels that get their income mainly from advertisements.
Future
With the dawn of the Internet have come many new advertising opportunities.
Popup, Flash, banner, and email advertisements (the last often being a form of
spam) abound. Recently, the advertising community has attempted to make the
adverts themselves desirable to the public. In one example, Cadillac chose to
advertise in the movie 'The Matrix Reloaded', which as a result contained many
scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for Rolex
watches and BMW cars featured in recent James Bond films.
Each year, greater sums are paid to obtain a commercial spot during the
Super Bowl.
Companies attempt to make these commercials sufficiently entertaining that
members of the public will actually want to watch them.
Particularly since the rise of "entertaining" advertising, some people may
like an advert enough that they wish to watch it later or show a friend. In
general, the advertising community has not yet made this easy, although some
have used the Internet to widely distribute their adverts to anyone wishing to
see or hear them.
See also
References
- ↑
Memorandum by British American Tobacco from The Tobacco Industry
and the Health Risks of Smoking (TB 28) paragraph 272, "Cigarette
advertising does not cause people to smoke", presented before the
House of Commons Select Committee on Health 13 January 2000, verifed 2005-12-31
- ↑
Frequently asked Questions: Tobacco Advertising, "persuades
non-smokers (especially the young) to start smoking" from
ASH
- ↑
Lawrence, Felicity (2004).
“The Ready Meal”, Kate Barker Not on the Label, 265, Penguin.
ISBN 0-141-01566-7.
- Bhatia, Tej K. 2000. Advertising in Rural India: Language, Marketing
Communication, and Consumerism. Institute for the Study of Languages and
Cultures of Asia and Africa. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Tokyo
Press: Japan.
ISBN 4-87297-782-3
Bibliography
- Wernick, Andrew (1991) "Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology and
Symbolic Expression (Theory, Culture & Society S.)", London: Sage
Publications Ltd,
ISBN 0803983905
- Graydon, Shari (2003) "Made You Look - How Advertising Works and Why You
Should Know", Toronto: Annick Press,
ISBN 1-55037-814-7
- Leon, Jose Luis (1996) "Los efectos de la publicidad". Barcelona: Ariel,
ISBN 84-344-1266-7
- Leon, Jose Luis (2001) "Mitoanálisis de la publicidad". Barcelona.
Ariel,
ISBN 84-344-1285-3
External links
Awareness
-
[9] Educating the Consumer about Advertising: Some Issues
-
[10] Advertising in the Schools
-
[11] Copywriter Brian Millar's advertising blog
Critical views
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