What is advertising?

Advertising is recongised as a way of promoting and selling a certain product to develop a company and increase sales. Although, this is the most common aim of advertisment, this is not the sole reason for it. This is becuase not all companies advertise to make money for themselves. E.g charities such as Oxfam advertise to create funds for poor countries such as Kenya. Therefore advertisement can commonly been seens as a way to inform and persuade a group to use a product or service.

Advertising helps companies and organisations due to the fact that it puts something on a larger scale so that an audience is more familier with it.

1) Advertising also:

• make people who have not heard of a brand become aware of it;

• persuade people who know of a brand but haven’t tried it to try it;

• persuade ex-users of a brand to try it again;

• persuade current users to use it more often;

• persuade current users to try using it in different ways;

• persuade a different target market – younger or wealthier

perhaps – to use the brand;

• persuade retailers to stock the brand, so people can easily buy it.

These varying objectives demand varied messages, and so demand

an almost infi nite variety of advertising approaches.

1) Advertisement - A very short introduction - Winston Fletcher