Effectiveness of Advertising in Business - Book Report/Review Example

Effective Advertising Introduction The use of advertising in business has become widespread in the 21st century. In fact, few businesses can operate without making use of advertisement as their marketing tools and reaching to their customers. Moreover, business needs to interact positively with its customers. This is easily achieved by having positive advert delivering a message in a different form of business. This way, the business is able to establish its loyal customers to their product, and at the same time, this enhances profit making of the business. Because of various advert, businesses are able to interact with their customers, expand their influence in the populace, built their brand, and at the same time maintaining a healthy relationship with their customers (Walia, 2013). On the other hand, the way of advertising keeps on changing as the technology continues to advance. This is because changes in technology have prompted changes in customer’s preferences (Rajagopal, 2000). In fact, if the advert fails to adapt to taste changes, it fails to deliver the necessary results in relation to investment. On the other hand, the medium of advertising is of essence based on the population of customers a certain business is targeting. Some of the major mediums of advertising include newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cinema, outdoor, mobile internet, and social sites. In fact, social sites have gained prominence as the medium of advert as some of them do not charge anything. The medium of advertising may also be determined by the cost it incurs on business. Moreover, a medium may be chosen based on the target customers and its own advantage in relation to customer’s populace. Therefore, it is beneficial for business to determine means to use based on these considerations. An analysis of effective advertising shows its influence on culture. General concepts and factor relating to Advertising The first concept is the social cultural context. This consists of shared beliefs, social values, customs, lifestyles, ethics and community reaction. These factors play a significant role in capturing the response of the consumer. Therefore, advertising should be close to these components. If an advert fails to meet the standards, the consumer may choose not to buy the intended product. The other factor is competition. This provides more options in influencing the consumer’s attitude. Therefore, any plan for effective advertising should turn into the product policies, distribution approaches, pricing mechanisms and promotional strategies with reference to their competitive product and their sustainability in the market (Rajagopal, 2000). The other factor is the legal environment. This may require regulation in which then advertising has to be developed and exposed. The other significant factor is uniqueness. For an advert to be unique, it must be different from that one of the competitor. The essence of a specific advert should be having a brand that will directly relate to a particular business or company. As a result, this will assist in capturing the attention of the intended customer without conflicting response. The uniqueness should exist in relation to the target audience. The other factor is having information that is up to date. For example, with the increased use of social sites, it is essential for business and corporate to keep information on these sites up to date (Rajagopal, 2000). If information is not up to date, it will attract little or no attention. On the other hand, the companies’ should also show focus on their websites. For example, the brand being advertised should be in consistent with the website of the particular organization. Likewise, organization should also focus on keeping their homepage up to date as most customers keeps on visiting such sites. Moreover, the advert should incorporate the benefits to the consumer. This will help the customer not just to consider the advert based on its aesthetic value (Zinkhan 1991). This is because most of the consumers are not interested in the product, but the gain they derive from such products. Therefore, an advert should include the benefits that the consumer derives from it. In addition, the advert should be in line with the target audience. This will help the advert in achieving maximum benefits. For example, age should be considered when an advert is being formulated. The other thing that influence advert is goals and expectations. Success will only be realized in advertising when most of the population are in agreement with the advert goals. The goals, on the other hand, will determine the content of the advert. Moreover, consistency is of the essence in the process of advertising. This is because it helps in sustaining the brand of the products being advertised. Such consistency should appear in colour, font, and imagery. Once consistency is maintained, the customer will be able to recognise a brand from one year to another. Emotional appeal is also of the essence in effective advertising. This is evident on several adverts that feature celebrities (University Of Pennsylvania, n.d.). Such celebrities invoke emotions and thus most of the people want to have a resemblance with them. This means that any advert that captures emotion will attract many followers. Moreover, product symbol is crucial in advertising. This is because product symbol is related to consumers self image (Zinkhan 1991). This means that if the symbol is not in agreement with one person’s image, it will have little impact on the purchasing behaviour (Zinkhan 1991). This may occur even after having a prominent symbol in then advert. The Impact of Culture on Advertising Advertisement has a massive influence to the society. Advertisement influences through telling the consumer that purchasing a particular product leads to contentment. As a result, women compare themselves with beautiful and skinny models that they see on various commercials and advert (Anonymous, n.d.). This starts comparing each other based on their belongings. This sometimes leads to a negative outcome. This because some women tend to avoid food to achieve the shapes of skinny models and ends up developing eating disorders. Other gets low confidence as they differ from characterised reinforced by these models. However, it is clear that advertising affects people’s culture in one way or another. For example, some of the advert encourages adoption of foreign culture, which most of the times, appears aggressive in comparison to values and tradition of a particular place. On the other hand, some minority groups are affected by adverts negatively. This is because some of the adverts portray them in a negative way. For example, the minority in the United States are depicted in an inferior way by adverts, and this settles in the minds of some people (Anonymous, n.d.). Moreover, advertising has an influence on the culture of a country. This has happened through the globalization of various organizations and corporate. A classical example is where multinational companies use an advert to gain access in different markets around the world. The argument is that this has helped to break down different culture and traditional values, and hence the world becomes more homogeneous (Anonymous, n.d.). This influence is also seen as the globalized economy uses a similar advert in different countries. This leads to breakdown in differences that exist between these countries. Examples of such adverts include football, health, and social sites ads. In fact, children born at a later stage will not be able to distinguish how society has been in the past. On the other hand, some of the adverts lead to deterioration of moral values. Such ads include women dressed in bikini, advert on condoms values, and even covers on popular magazines. Global commercial also leads to the breakdown of traditional cultures. This is usually rampant in the third world countries. This occurs through representation of foreign habits and products as related to modernity. Some of these adverts degrade the traditional values as inferior and takes modernity as a good thing (Noreen, 1983). Additionally, advertising tends to reinforce gender stereotype. This is generally seen in the use of women as a sex symbol in advertising. For example, most of the magazines in London feature popular personalities with most of them appearing half-naked (O'sullivan, n.d.). The advertiser does this believing that a majority of the potential buyers of a particular commodity being advertised are men (O'sullivan, n.d.). However, this appears to downgrade women and even reflects women as sexual product. Indeed, this is a good example of how some culture that considers women highly are affected by total disregard of the feminist movement (O'sullivan, J. n.d.). Only a few magazines have managed to avoid this offensive attitude towards women. On the other hand, the myth of masculinity is reinforced in some adverts. Examples of such stereotype exist in beer commercials. These commercials rarely or do not feature women and thus helps in reshaping the myth of masculinity (O'sullivan, n.d.). Likewise, by failing to present women, they portray men as irresponsible especially if this is related to accidents caused by drunken driving. On the other hand, such adverts communicate to small boys on what it means to be a man, what kind of things done by men, and the environment conducive to men (O'sullivan, n.d.). On the other hand, such advert leads to moral decadency of the society. This is because they treat alcohol as beneficial for the population. Consequently, people embrace it as a popular culture and hence end up suffering from the effects of alcohol. This is because of the social problems that arise from the alcohol abuse. Additionally, advertisements have an influence on popular culture. This happens through copying of various behaviours and attitudes as espoused in most of the adverts. For example, a village politician in India was alarmed on the impact of VCD growth in rural India (Sabnavis, 2005). He was worried because every village girl wanted to dress like a celebrity depicted in the VCD. In fact, it has a profound influence as the change was only noticed four weeks after the release of the film (Sabnavis, 2005). In the same locality, men have also changed their hairstyle to look like that of Radhe Bhayya in the hit movie Tere Naam (Sabnavis, 2005). Moreover, in the Indian society, things like blouses have defined the concept of beauty and bangles influenced by some of the television series (Sabnavis, 2005). This makes its clear that the entertainment industry has a telling impact on various society. A typical example is what has happened in India. Moreover, the amount spent on such entrainment industry by advertisers is also telling. Most of the companies spend an enormous amount of resources in advertising (Mooij 2001). This reflection of how society is influenced by anything appears on their screens. On the other hand, heroes and heroin that appear on such screens bring about social change in behaviour and values. Moreover, advertisements have an impact on values. This is because most of the ads tend to normalize values and behaviours in the society. For example, in America, average person is exposed to over 500 commercial adverts in a day (Williams, 2011). This wields considerable power on what is considered normal. A classic example is the idea put forward by advert on the use of cosmetics by men. Moreover, the idea of using moisturisers among Britain men was considered strange. However, a sustained campaign from ‘Nivea’ changed this perception. In fact, today there is nothing strange about men using hand cream in Britain. This is because the values were changed leading to opinion shifting towards the admiration of the product. Conclusion It is clear that advertising has gained a place in the 21st century. This has prompted advertising to concentrate on effectiveness. However, there are factors and concepts that influence effective advertising. These factors include socio-cultural factors, competition, legal factors, symbolism, uniqueness, and the target customers. If these factors are clearly followed, an advert becomes effective and hence able to attract attention from the target audience. On the other hand, advertising has impacted enormously on the culture. Such influence has been on the society. This influence is shown to affect traditional values and attitudes. There is also influence on the culture of some countries. This is mostly seen on behaviour and cultural values that keep on changing. Moreover, advertising affects gender stereotype. This is seen, as some of the adverts tend to reinforce negative attitude towards a particular gender. It also influences the popular culture through adoption of other people behaviours and ways of interaction. Lastly, advertisements have led to cultural values. This occurs through adoption of behaviour that appeared strange before the renaissance. References Anonymous. (n.d.). The Impact of Advertising. [Online]. Available from http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~el6/presentations/pres_c2_hoa/ContempSources.htm [Accessed 30/10/2013] Mooij, M. (2001) The Impact of Culture on Advertising. Advertising Worldwide. 1. p.1-24  Noreen, J. (1983). Advertising and Global Culture. [Online]. Available from http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/c-te-divoire/advertising-and-global-culture [Accessed 30/10/2013] O'sullivan, J. (n.d.). The Social and Cultural Effects of Advertising. [Online]. Available from http://www.crvp.org/book/Series05/V-4/chapter_vi.htm [Accessed 30/10/2013] Rajagopal. (2000) Marketing Concepts and Cases. New Delhi: New Age International. Sabnavis, M. (2005). Can Ads Impact Popular Culture? [Online]. Available from http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/jul/01guest2.htm [Accessed 30/10/2013] University Of Pennsylvania. (n.d.). An Equation for Effective Ads. [Online]. Available from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/an-equation-for-effective-ads-connecting-emotions-to-sales/ [Accessed 30/10/2013] Walia, S. (2013). Comparative Study of Effectiveness of various mediums of Advertising. [Online]. P.1-87. Available from http://www.slideshare.net/ShefaliW/comparative-study-of-effectiveness-of-various-mediums-of-advertising [Accessed 30/10/2013] Williams, J. (2011). The Cultural Impact Of Advertising. [Online]. Available from http://makewealthhistory.org/2011/10/26/the-trouble-with-advertising-2/ [Accessed 30/10/2013] Zinkhan, G. (1991). Self Concept and Advertising Effectiveness. Advances in Consumer Research. 18. P. 348-354.   Read More