Advertising and it's Characteristics

Advertising

Advertising is a paid form of mass communication that consists of the special message sent by the specific person (advertiser or company), for the specific group of people (listeners, readers, or viewers), for the specific period of time, in the specific manner to achieve the specific goals.
More clearly, advertising can be defined as:
Advertising includes oral, written, or audio-visual message addressed to the people for the purpose of informing and influencing them to buy the products or to act favorably toward idea or institution.
Philip Kotler: “Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods, services, or ideas by an identified sponsor.”
Frank Presbrey: “Advertising is a printed, written, oral and illustrated art of selling. Its objective is to encourage sales of the advertiser’s products and to create in the mind of people, individually or collectively, an impression in favour of the advertiser’s interest.”

Characteristics of Advertising:

Above stated definitions reveal following features:
1. Tool for Market Promotion: There are various tools used for market communication, such as advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, and publicity. Advertising is a powerful, expensive, and popular element of promotion mix.
2. Non-personal: Advertising is a type of non-personal or mass communication with the target audience. A large number of people are addressed at time. It is called as non-personal salesmanship.
3. Paid Form: Advertising is not free of costs. Advertiser, called as sponsor, has to spend money for preparing message, buying media, and monitoring advertising efforts. It is the costliest option of market promotion. Company has to prepare its advertising budget to appropriate advertising costs.
4. Wide Applicability: Advertising is a popular and widely used means for communicating with the target market. It is not used only for business and profession, but is widely used by museums, charitable trusts, government agencies, educational institutions, and others to inform and attract various target publics.
5. Varied Objectives: Advertising is aimed at achieving various objectives. It is targeted to increase sales, create and improve brand image, face competition, build relations with publics, or to educate people.
6. Forms of Advertising: Advertising message can be expressed in written, oral, audible, or visual forms. Mostly, message is expressed in a joint form, such as oral-visual, audio-visual, etc.
7. Use of Media: Advertiser can use any of the several advertising media to convey the message. Widely used media are print media (newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, booklets, letters, etc.), outdoor media (hoardings, sign boards, wall-printing, vehicle, banners, etc.), audio-visual media (radio, television, film, Internet, etc.), or any other to address the target audience.
8. Advertising as an Art: Today’s advertising task is much complicated. Message creation and presentation require a good deal of knowledge, creativity, skills, and experience. So, advertising can be said as an art. It is an artful activity.
9. Element of Truth: It is difficult to say that advertising message always reveals the truth. In many cases, exaggerated facts are advertised. However, due to certain legal provisions, the element of truth can be fairly assured. But, there is no guarantee that the claim made in advertisement is completely true. Most advertisements are erotic, materialistic, misleading, and producer-centered.
10. One-way Communication: Advertising involves the one-way communication. Message moves from company to customers, from sponsor to audience. Message from consumers to marketer is not possible. Marketer cannot know how far the advertisement has influenced the audience.