Importance of Advertising for Brands and Products - Essay Example

Importance of Advertising for Brands and Products Introduction Advertising is one of the most effective promotional strategies that can be done through the radio, television, newspapers, magazines and the Internet. Advertising is an integral part of the larger topic of marketing and branding. Advertising is very significant in improving the image and unique name of a product when a consistent theme is used. The paper discusses the role of design and technology in promoting and destroying products and brands in the media; mainly focusing on the various forms of advertising, brand awareness and impact of other promotional strategies. Sales promotion is the most immediate method affected when media advertising becomes saturated. The argument behind advertising and sales promotion topics analysis will be that most designers and information technologists have destroyed the brand names and reduced consumer loyalty. In other words, they pay less attention to the importance of product promotion and increase the number of unnecessary ads in the media particularly the Internet. Chapter 1: Advertising Advertising can be defined as the provision of information to inform, persuade and remind the customers to buy the products and services offered for sale. Being the most widespread and well- known promotional method, advertising enables the marketers to reach many people. Through advertising, you can create consumers’ awareness about new products and services, describe how they are used, their features and persuade the consumers to buy it (Lamb, Hair and McDaniel 2008, p. 56). Usually, designers are hired in marketing and branding in order to enhance the brand image of a product and services. The most common advertising media include the television, radio, magazines, newspapers and the Internet. In these forms of advertising media, designers and information technologists get the opportunity of creating attractive brand images that attracts customers (Pieters, wedel and Batra 2010, p. 51). They use metaphor language colours and letter fonts that are appealing to the captures the attention of the customers. However, in the last few decades, it has been argued that most designers pay less attention to the purpose of advertising and as result create many unnecessary ads in the media. For example, the ad presented below is not clear, such that readers cannot understand the message. The choice of advertising media is very crucial in determining how marketers will persuade, inform and retain loyal consumers (Lamb, Hair and McDaniel 2008, p. 58). Televisions enable communication of the information about a product through the use of colour, sound and motion. These visual and audio capabilities of television are the hotspots for many designers. In the recent past, designers have increased ads on TV and thus enhancing the “wasted coverage” and confusion among consumers. Although many marketers would argue that advertising is an effective promotion method, I would hold that advertisements have constantly lost value in the modern especially due to advanced levels of technology. In other words, advertising in the contemporary world does not significant positive impacts on consumers purchasing behaviour and brand loyalty. This is mainly because designers have increasingly saturated ads in the media making the consumers lack the essence of advertising at large. For example, advertising through the radio enables marketers to choose the most appropriate time of the day to reach the targeted audience. In the recent past, marketers have solved the problem of short exposure time and significantly increased the number of ads on radio. The voluminous ads on radio has resulted to saturation of information about products and services and most consumers today pay less attention to these advertisements. Research shows that some customers do not listen to the ads to make the choices of their preferred products (Ferrell and Hartline 2011, p. 78). The Internet is a fast growing media for advertising with features that enable communication of product information through visual, audio and video messages. It allows interaction between consumers and the marketers concerning various products and services. However, effectiveness of ads on the internet requires the consumers to have certain levels of technological skills and unlimited access to the Internet. Despite the increase in visibility of products online, most designers have not been able to design with focus and attention to reach the targeted market. Instead, they have increased the number of ads such that consumers have many choices. As a result, the internet technology has become the part of advertising media that increases brand awareness and at the same time contributed to product pollution. Apple Inc., for example, placed several ads about iPhone 6 in 2014, which were almost similar. I would argue that the Internet has significantly affected the consumer buying behaviour due to the voluminous ads that confuse consumers. Chapter 2: Brand Awareness and Understanding Branding involves creating a unique and outstanding image and name of a product in the consumers’ minds, mostly through advertising. Effective branding would involve the use of a consistent theme that establishes a difference and significant presence in the market that retains the loyal customers and attracts new ones. Brand awareness and understanding is achieved when consumers fully absorbs the brand name and image in their minds and knows how to use the product or service. Increased brand awareness can be achieved by raising the number of ads and using many types of media with a constant theme. Brand awareness and advertising has significant effects on consumers buying behaviour (Yeshin 2006, p. 450). Although increased brand understanding and awareness increases brand loyalty, I would argue that increased product information among the consumers significantly affects the consumers purchasing behaviour especially due to the growth of internet technology. In other words, advertising through media has increased the element of ‘choice’ among the consumers and negatively affected their buying behaviours. My arguments contrasts with the notion that brand awareness definitely increases consumer loyalty and makes people buy the advertised goods more and more. Research conducted in the past few decades shows that the principle of price elasticity can as well be applied in advertising. The price elasticity concept is based on the argument that increase in prices of commodities beyond some point would not yield any profits to a business. In application to advertising, elasticity would mean that at some point advertising would not increase the sales or brand loyalty, instead, it will lead to the so-called ‘advertising saturation.’ I would argue that advertising saturation is reached because most designers have targeted much in exercising their advertising skills in the media. As a result, the consumers are bombarded with unfocused and confusing product information. Research shows that the unfocused information makes the consumers rely on their old knowledge about a product rather than the convincing many ads in the media. In other words, consumers mostly rely on their first brand understand, but, not the recurring ads in the advertising media. It is important to note that when designers use different fonts and colours and even compete in making ads, they increase the number of consumer choices. In such scenarios, products with weaker brand loyalty are driven out and the original and superior command the market. In the recent past, the internet technology has shown significant impacts on brand loyalty, awareness and understanding. Despite the positive contributions of internet to brand awareness and understanding, I would argue that the Internet has enabled designers and information technologists to saturate the consumers with product information and thus affecting their purchasing behaviours negatively. In the 1950’s, advertising proved success because it made large numbers of consumer understand and recognize the presence of advertised products in the market (Percy 2004, p. 421). As a result, many companies invested much in advertising to increase brand awareness and loyalty, which led to increased sales. Empirical research done since 1950s have shown that the essence of advertising in many consumers have gradually declined over time. This is because there has been brand awareness saturation among many consumers. As a result, many consumers have constantly relied on their original information about products and discarded most of the flourishing ads in the media and particularly the internet (Gelder and Woodcock 2003, p. 90). Chapter 3: Sales Promotion Ability to Prompt Brand Sales promotion is a promotional strategy that is used together with advertising. This chapter discusses the effects of advertising saturation on sale promotion especially due to the emergence of the internet technology. Sales promotion involves providing the end consumer and intermediaries with incentives in order to stimulate the demand for certain products and services. Sales promotions for consumers may include the coupons, samples, sweepstakes, contests and gift with purchase (Shimp 2010, p. 76). Price discounting is another form of sales promotion that is usually implemented by the intermediaries in the supply chain. Most businesses prefer sales promotion to other product promotion methods due to its effectiveness in stimulating sales and brand loyalty during the offer period. However, the sales tend to go down when the offer expires after its period is over. Also, when sales promotion strategy is used continuously, it may yield poor results with time. Despite the sales promotion ability to stimulate brand recognition and awareness, it has also affected the consumers’ buying behaviours negatively. Most sale promotions strategies are implemented through advertising, for example, coupon offers mainly appears in the daily newspaper. The contests and sweepstakes also appear in the advertising media such as television, internet and radio. That is why it is important to discuss the relationship between sales promotion and advertising and figure out how both promotional strategies lead to the increase in the element of ‘choice.’ Consumer oriented sales promotion strategies are effective in creating brand awareness and increasing consumer loyalty. In this type of promotion, consumers are given the opportunity to sample products before purchasing them, participate in contests and sweepstakes (Elliott, Percy and Pervan 2011, p. 109). Therefore, the marketers get the opportunity to get customers feedback, unlike the advertising in the media that involves one way communication. However, marketers has found that sales promotion have lost value in many consumers’ minds mainly due to advertising saturation. As discussed earlier, the current advertising saturation has been brought about by the internet technology where designers pay little focus to their targeted markets and make unnecessary ads on the internet. Due to the increased consumer choices in the internet, advertising as a promotional strategy has significantly reduced its essence in consumer’s minds. In response to these unpleasant advertising results, most marketers have now diverted their attention to sales promotion (Glynn and Woodside 2009, p. 123). Sales promotion is among the many marketing strategies that have emerged due to the counterproductive impacts of advertising saturation. The pictures below are sales promotion aids, which are more or less the same and keep on appearing on the Internet and magazines. I would argue that due to the effects of advertising saturation, therefore, marketers have decided to promote their products and services through sales promotion mainly by releasing coupons and giving other incentives on the national media. The new marketing trend is mainly aimed at retaining consumers and maintaining good brand images. The haste to retain the lost consumer loyalty leads to further saturation of sales promotions in the market. Most designers have now transferred their inability to focus the targeted market from advertising the sales promotion. As a result, they have created voluminous product information to the consumers, which negatively affects their decisions in buying products. Research shows that most consumers enjoy the increased number of ads choices and pay less attention to the flourishing advertisements and sales promotion incentives (Mullin and Cummins 2008, p. 231). Conclusion Based on the discussion, it is evident that advertising and sale promotion has proved little success in maintaining positive consumer buying behaviours and managing the modern pollution of products especially in the internet. These promotional strategies are very crucial in creating brand awareness and understanding, but, can as well destroy the brand loyalty when implemented ineffectively. The most common problems associated with advertising and sales promotion is the saturation of product information among the consumers. The saturated information is confusing and makes consumers rely on their old brand knowledge rather than paying attention to the flourishing ads and sales promotion incentives on the Internet, television, radio and magazines. The new marketing trend of sales promotion has also yielded poor results since most incentives expire over short periods. References List Elliott R H, Percy L & Pervan S 2011, Strategic brand management, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Ferrell O C & Hartline M D 2011, Marketing strategy, Australia, South-Western Cengage Learning. Gelder D & Woodcock P 2003, Marketing and promotional strategy, Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes. Glynn M S & Woodside A G 2009, Business-to-business brand management: theory, research and executive case study exercises, Bingley, JAI Press. Lamb C W, Hair J F & McDaniel C D 2008, Essentials of marketing, Mason, Ohio, South-Western. Mullin R & Cummins J 2008, Sales promotion: how to create, implement & integrate campaigns that really work, London, Kogan Page. Percy L 2004, Advertising and the seven sins of memory. International Journal of Advertising 23(4), 413-438. Pieters R, Wedel M, Batra R 2010, The Stopping Power of Advertising: Measures and Effects of Visual Complexity, Journal of Marketing 74(2), 48-60. Shimp T A 2010, Advertising, promotion, and other aspects of integrated marketing communications, Mason, Ohio, South-Western Cengage Learning. Yeshin T 2006, Sales promotion, London, Thomson Learning. Read More