CHAPTER 11: ADVERTISING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS

Objectives:
★ Discuss the nature and scope of marketing
★ Define the different methods of advertising
★ Identify the important tools used in public relations

Nature and Scope of Advertising

Advertising can be traced back to the very beginnings of recorded history.

Archaeologists working in countries around the Mediterranean Sea have dug up signs
announcing various events and offers. The Romans painted walls to announce gladiator
fights, and the Phoenicians painted pictures on large rocks to promote their wares along
parade routes. During the golden age in Greece, town criers announced the sale of
cattle, crafted items, and even cosmetics. An early “singing commercial” went as
follows: “For eyes that are shining, for cheeks like the dawn/For beauty that lasts after
girlhood is gone/For prices in reason, the woman who knows/Will buy her cosmetics
from Aesclyptos.” Modern advertising, however, is a far cry from these early efforts.
U.S. advertisers now run up an estimated annual bill of nearly $190 billion on measured
advertising media; worldwide ad spending is an estimated $545 billion. P&G, the world’s
largest advertiser, spent more than $4.6 billion on U.S. advertising and $11.5 billion
worldwide.
The term ‘advertising‘ is derived from the Latin word ‘advertere’ that means ‘to
turn the attention’.Advertising is the prominent element of the promotion mix.
Advertising has a huge reach and is pervasive in nature. Every piece of advertising
attempts to seek the attention of your audience towards a product or service. Often, the
advertiser needs to have a unique selling proposition (USP). This unique selling
proposition makes the product or service stand out of the crowd. Advertising attempts to
persuade and influence the audience through the different kinds of appeal. Advertising
broadens the knowledge of the consumers. With this nature of advertising, consumers
can have the know how of the products, brands or services that exist in the market. In
fact, every product or service is designed in a way to keep the consumers satisfied.
Apart from print platforms like newspapers and magazines, its presence can now also
be seen in audiovisual platforms like, films, hoardings, banners and many such
promotional campaigns. The visual and non-verbal elements play a dominant role in
advertising. An eye-catching advertisement uses crisp information and focuses on the
visual treatment to convey the message. The visual elements used in the
advertisements not only convey the information, but also tell a story.
Advertising is often regarded as the most important means of marketing a
company’s services and tools. The scope of advertising is to communicate a message

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to current customers or potentially target new customers. It helps a company get a
message or a piece of information across to their customer base regarding a new
product or special deal.

● Scope of advertising by budget

There is always a budget allocated for advertising and promotion within the
marketing budget. The budget allocated should be in coordination with the type
of advertisement the organization wants. The resources and other requirements
are to be kept in mind for the budget allocation.
● Scope of advertising by deliverables
Once the budget is decided, the marketing plan can be projected further. A
detailed scope of work that deliverables require can be outlined. Agencies can
now develop a proposed resource plan.
● Scope of advertising by allocating deliverables
For creative work, allocating the type of deliverables (TV, online, mobile, press,
magazine, etc) based on the previous campaign requirements can be more
insightful after the previous plan.
● Scope of advertising by strategy
Once the deliverables are allocated, advertising agencies can define the
strategic requirements by brand or category and develop a scope of work based
on past requirements and remuneration for similar strategic deliverables.

Although advertising is used mostly by business firms, a wide range of not-for-

profit organizations, professionals, and social agencies also use advertising to promote
their causes to various target audiences. In fact, the 39th-largest U.S. advertising
spender is a not-for-profit organization—the U.S. government, which advertises in many
ways. For Example, its Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spent $70 million on
the fourth year of an anti-smoking advertising campaign titled “Tips from a Former
Smoker,” showing people who have paid dearly due to smoking-related diseases.3
Advertising is a good way to engage, inform, and persuade, whether the purpose is to
sell Coca-Cola worldwide, help smokers kick the habit, or educate people in developing
nations on how to lead healthier lives. Marketing management must make four
important decisions when developing an advertising program setting advertising
objectives, setting the advertising budget, developing advertising strategy (message
decisions and media decisions), and evaluating advertising effectiveness.

Advertising Strategy

Advertising strategy consists of two major elements: creating advertising

messages and selecting advertising media. In the past, companies often viewed media

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planning as secondary to the message-creation process. After the creative department
created good advertisements, the media department then selected and purchased the
best media for carrying those advertisements to the desired target audiences. This often
caused friction between creatives and media planners. Today, however, soaring media
costs, more-focused target marketing strategies, and the blizzard of new online, mobile,
and social media have promoted the importance of the media-planning function. The
decision about which media to use for an ad campaign—television, newspapers,
magazines, video, a website, social media, mobile devices, or email—is now sometimes
more critical than the creative elements of the campaign. Also, brand content is now
often co-created through interactions with and among consumers. As a result, more and
more advertisers are orchestrating a closer harmony between their messages and the
media that deliver them. As discussed, the goal is to create and manage brand content
across a full range of media, whether they are paid, owned, earned, or shared.

A. Creating the Advertising Message and Brand Content

No matter how big the budget, advertising can succeed only if it engages
consumers and communicates well. Good advertising messages and content are
especially important in today’s costly and cluttered advertising environment. The first
step in creating effective advertising content is to plan a message strategy—the
general message that will be communicated to consumers. The purpose of advertising
is to get consumers to engage with or react to the product or company in a certain way.
People will engage and react only if they believe they will benefit from doing so. Thus,
developing an effective message strategy begins with identifying customer benefits that
can be used as advertising appeals. Ideally, the message strategy will follow directly
from the company’s broader positioning and customer value–creation strategies.
Message strategy statements tend to be plain, straightforward outlines of benefits and
positioning points that the advertiser wants to stress. The advertiser must next develop
a compelling creative concept—or big idea—that will bring the message strategy to life
in a distinctive and memorable way. At this stage, simple message ideas become great
ad campaigns. Usually, a copywriter and an art director will team up to generate many
creative concepts, hoping that one of these concepts will turn out to be the big idea. The
creative concept may emerge as a visualization, a phrase, or a combination of the two.
The creative concept will guide the choice of specific appeals to be used in an
advertising campaign.
Advertising appeals should have three characteristics. First, they should be
meaningful, pointing out benefits that make the product more desirable or interesting to
consumers. Second, appeals must be believable. Consumers must believe that the
product or service will deliver the promised benefits. However, the most meaningful and
believable benefits may not be the best ones to feature. Lastly, appeals should also be
distinctive. They should tell how the product is better than competing brands. For
example, the most meaningful benefit of a refrigerator is that it keeps foods cold.

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 The advertiser now must turn the big idea into an actual ad execution that will
capture the target market’s attention and interest. The creative team must find the best
approach, style, tone, words, and format for executing the message. The message can
be presented in various execution styles:
a. Slice of life. This style shows one or more “typical” people using the
product in a normal setting.
b. Lifestyle. This style shows how a product fits in with a particular lifestyle.
c. Fantasy. This style creates a fantasy around the product or its use.
d. Mood or image. This style builds a mood or image around the product or
service, such as beauty, love, intrigue, serenity, or pride. Few claims are
made about the product or service except through suggestion.
e. Musical. This style shows people or cartoon characters singing about the
product.
f. Personality symbol. This style creates a character that represents the
product.
g. Technical expertise. This style shows the company’s expertise in making
the product.
h. Scientific evidence. This style presents survey or scientific evidence that
the brand is better or better liked than one or more other brands.
i. Testimonial evidence or endorsement. This style features a highly
believable or likable source endorsing the product.
Taking advantage of today’s digital and social media technologies, many
companies are now tapping consumers for marketing content, message ideas, or even
actual ads and videos. Sometimes the results are outstanding; sometimes they are
forgettable. If done well, however, user-generated content can incorporate the voice of
the customer into brand messages and generate greater customer engagement.
Sometimes the results are outstanding; sometimes they are forgettable. If done well,
however, user-generated content can incorporate the voice of the customer into brand
messages and generate greater customer engagement.

B. Selecting Advertising Media

After choosing the message, the advertiser’s next task is to select media to carry
it. The steps/factors here are deciding on desired reach, frequency, and impact;
choosing among major media types; selecting specific media vehicles; and setting
media timing. Then the marketer evaluates the results of these decisions. Later on we’ll
discuss the factors to consider in selecting the Advertising Media.

The Advertising Mix

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 The concept of the advertising mix was developed in the early 1950’s. It is
essentially a toolbox of different media and promotional techniques that a retailer
chooses to fit the needs of their specific marketing objectives. For example, a retailer
that has identified that their clientele are highly mobile, may decide to invest a portion of
their marketing dollars into radio. It’s a great way to reach travellers – particularly to and
from work – and it is an ideal media for high frequency and saturation. It is a very good
fit for reaching this demographic.
Conversely, retailers drawing from a large geographic area may choose
television for its vast coverage and multi-demographic reach. Retailers focused on
specific age-groups or demographics may choose media or promotional techniques that
are particular to those potential customers. Trying to reach seniors? Sponsor the
weekly bingo or perhaps place ads in the senior’s newsletter. Promoting all-natural acne
cream for teenagers? Try social media or on-line promotions. Over-stocked on protein
powders and L-glutamine? Try a coupon campaign in conjunction with your local fitness
club. Melatonin sales plateauing? Why not run ads after midnight on the local radio
station? Trying to boost your cold and flu remedy sales? Perhaps a few well-placed ads
on the Weather Channel will do the trick.
Each of these examples utilizes a specific advertising technique (or media) that is
best suited to reach the desired audience. And each offers the optimum chance of
capturing the attention of that market. Since its inception, the advertising mix has
evolved as the sophistication of the markets has intensified and as the number of
promotional ‘tools’ has increased. For many years, newspaper, radio and television
advertising were the stalwarts of the mix. Nowadays, a retailer can also utilize direct
mail, couponing (with instant gratification via UPC scanning), live and video in-store
marketing concepts, outdoor advertising, transit advertising, google ads, facebook,
instagram, twitter and the whole realm of social media, websites, web sales and
webinars, guerrilla marketing (flash mobs to promote your new location?), product
placements, email campaigns, public relations (a column in your local newspaper is
unbeatable), community outreach programs, award, team and event sponsorships, QR
codes, branded store promotional items, free samples, and so on and so on.

Factors to Consider in Choosing the Advertising Media

The major steps in advertising media selection are (1) determining reach,
frequency, impact, and engagement; (2) choosing among major media types; (3)
selecting specific media vehicles; and (4) deciding on media timing.

Determining Reach, Frequency, Impact, and Engagement. To select media,

the advertiser must determine the reach and frequency needed to achieve the
advertising objectives. Reach is a measure of the percentage of people in the target

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market who are exposed to an ad campaign during a given period of time. For example,
the advertiser might try to reach 70 percent of the target market during the first three
months of a campaign. Frequency is a measure of how many times the average person
in the target market is exposed to a message. For example, the advertiser might want
an average exposure frequency of three. But advertisers want to do more than just
reach a given number of consumers a specific number of times. The advertiser also
must determine the desired media impact—the qualitative value of message exposure
through a given medium. For example, the same message in one magazine (say, Time)
may be more believable than in another (say, the National Enquirer). For products that
need to be demonstrated, television ads or online videos may have more impact than
radio messages because they use sight, motion, and sound. Products for which
consumers provide input on design or features might be better promoted at an
interactive website or social media page than in a direct mailing.
Although Nielsen is beginning to measure media engagement levels for some
television, radio, and social media, such measures are still hard to find in most cases.
Current media measures are things such as ratings, readership, listenership, and click-
through rates. However, engagement happens inside the head of the consumer. It’s
hard enough to measure how many people are exposed to a given television ad,
video, or social media post, let alone measure the depth of engagement with that
content. Still, marketers need to know how customers connect with an ad and brand
idea as a part of the broader brand relationship. Engaged consumers are more likely to
act upon brand messages and even share them with others. Thus, rather than simply
tracking consumer impressions for a media placement—how many people see, hear, or
read an ad—Coca-Cola now also tracks the consumer expressions that result, such as
a comment, a “Like,” uploading a photo or video, or sharing brand content on social
networks. Today’s empowered consumers often generate more messages about a
brand than a company can.

Choosing among Major Media Types. As summarized in the table below, the
major media types are television; digital, mobile, and social media; newspapers; direct
mail; magazines; radio; and outdoor. Each medium has its advantages and its
limitations. Media planners want to choose a mix of media that will effectively and
efficiently present the advertising message to target customers. Thus, they must
consider each medium’s impact, message effectiveness, and cost.
Traditional mass media still make up a majority of today’s media mixes.
However, as mass-media costs rise and audiences shrink, companies have now added
digital, mobile, and social media that cost less, target more effectively, and engage
consumers more fully. Today’s marketers are assembling a full mix of paid, owned,
earned, and shared media that create and deliver engaging brand content to target
consumers. In addition to the explosion of online, mobile, and social media, cable and
satellite television systems are thriving. Such systems allow narrow programming

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formats, such as all sports, all news, nutrition, arts, home improvement and gardening,
cooking, travel, history, finance, and others that target select groups. Comcast and
other cable operators are even testing systems that will let them target specific types of
ads to TVs in specific neighborhoods or individually to specific types of customers. For
example, ads for a Spanish-language channel would run in only Hispanic
neighborhoods, or only pet owners would
see ads from pet food companies.

Finally, in their efforts to find less costly and more highly targeted ways to reach
consumers, advertisers have discovered a dazzling collection of alternative media.
These days, no matter where you go or what you do, you will probably run into some
new form of advertising. Such alternative media seem a bit far-fetched, and they
sometimes irritate consumers who resent it all as “ad nauseam.” But for many
marketers, these media can save money and provide a way to hit selected consumers
where they live, shop, work, and play. Another important trend affecting media selection
is the rapid growth in the number of media multitaskers, people who absorb more than
one medium at a time. For example, it’s not uncommon to find someone watching TV
with a smartphone in hand, tweeting, Snapchatting with friends, and chasing down
product information on Google. One recent survey found that 90 percent of consumers

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now multitask while watching TV and that millennials and Gen X consumers engage in
an average of three additional media activities while watching television, including
internet browsing, text messaging, and reading email. Although some of this
multitasking is related to TV viewing—such as looking up related product and program
information—most multitasking involves tasks unrelated to the shows or ads being
watched. Marketers need to take such media interactions into account when selecting
the types of media they will use.

Selecting Specific Media Vehicles. Media planners must also choose the best
media vehicles—specific media within each general media type. For example, television
vehicles include Modern Family and ABC World News Tonight. Magazine vehicles
include Time, Real Simple, and ESPN The Magazine. Online and mobile vehicles
include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Media planners must compute the
cost per 1,000 persons reached by a vehicle. For example, if a full-page, four-color
advertisement in the U.S. national edition of Forbes costs $163,413 and Forbes’s
readership is 900,000 people, the cost of reaching each group of 1,000 persons is about
$181. The same advertisement in Bloomberg Businessweek’s Northeast U.S. regional
edition may cost only $48,100 but reach only 155,000 people—at a cost per 1,000 of
about $310.22 The media planner ranks each magazine by cost per
1,000 and favors those magazines with the lower cost per 1,000 for reaching target
consumers. In the previous case, if a marketer is targeting Northeast business
managers, Bloomberg Businessweek might be the more cost-effective buy, even at a
higher cost per thousand.
Media planners must also consider the costs of producing ads for different
media. Whereas newspaper ads may cost very little to produce, flashy television ads
can be very costly. Many online and social media ads cost little to produce, but costs
can climb when producing made-for-the-web video and ad series. In selecting specific
media vehicles, media planners must balance media costs against several media
effectiveness factors. First, the planner should evaluate the media vehicle’s
audience quality. For a Huggies disposable diapers ad, for example, Parents
magazine would have a high exposure value; men’s lifestyle magazine Maxim would
have a low exposure value. Second, the media planner should consider audience
engagement. Readers of Vogue, for example, typically pay more attention to ads than
do Time readers. Third, the planner should assess the vehicle’s editorial quality. Time
and The Wall Street Journal are more believable and prestigious than Star or the
National Enquirer.

Deciding on Media Timing. An advertiser must also decide how to schedule the
advertising over time. Suppose sales of a product peak in December and drop in March
(for winter outdoor gear, for instance). The firm can vary its advertising to follow the
seasonal pattern, oppose the seasonal pattern, or be the same all year. Most firms do

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some seasonal advertising. For example, weight-loss product and service marketers
tend to heavy up after the first of the year, targeting consumers who let their appetites
get the better of them over the holiday season. Today’s online and social media let
advertisers create ads that respond to events in real time. For example, Lexus recently
introduced a new model through live streaming from the North American International
Auto Show via Facebook’s News Feed. Some 100,000 people watched the introduction
live in only the first 10 minutes; another 600,000 viewed it online within the next few
days. Oreos reacted in a timely way to a power outage during Super Bowl XLVII with an
outage-related “You can still dunk in the dark” tweet ad. The fast-reaction ad was re-
tweeted and Favorited thousands of times in only 15 minutes. Similarly, Arby’s created
big buzz during a recent Grammy Awards show with a real-time tweet responding to
Pharrell Williams’s infamous Vivienne Westwood hat, which looks a bit like the hat in the
familiar Arby’s logo. The tweet “Hey @Pharrell, can we have our hat back?” earned
more than 80,000 retweets and 45,000 Favorites.

Factors to Consider in Advertising Budget Allocation

After determining its advertising objectives, the company next sets its advertising
budget
for each product.Here are five specific factors to consider when setting the advertising
budget:
1. Stage in the product life cycle—New products typically merit large advertising
budgets to build awareness and gain consumer trials. Established brands usually
are supported by lower advertising budgets, measured as a ratio to sales.
2. Market share and consumer base—High-market-share brands usually require
less advertising expenditure as a percentage of sales to maintain share. Building
share by increasing market size requires larger expenditures.
3. Competition and clutter—In a market with a large number of competitors and
high advertising spending, a brand must advertise more heavily to be heard.
Even advertisements not directly competitive to the brand create clutter and a
need for heavier advertising.
4. Advertising frequency—The number of repetitions needed to put the brand’s
message across to consumers has an obvious impact on the advertising budget.
5. Product substitutability—Brands in less-differentiated or commodity-like
product classes (beer, soft drinks, banks, and airlines) require heavy advertising
to establish a unique image.

No matter what method is used, setting the advertising budget is no easy task.
How does a company know if it is spending the right amount? Companies such as
Coca-Cola and Kraft have built sophisticated statistical models to determine the

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relationship between promotional spending and brand sales and to help determine the
“optimal investment” across various media. Still, because so many factors affect
advertising effectiveness, some controllable and others not, measuring the results of
advertising spending remains an inexact science. In most cases, managers must rely on
large doses of judgment along with more quantitative analysis when setting advertising
budgets.
As a result of such thinking, advertising is one of the easiest budget items to cut
when economic times get tough. Cuts in brand-building advertising appear to do little
short-term harm to sales. In the long run, however, slashing ad spending may cause
long-term damage to a brand’s image and market share. In fact, companies that can
maintain or even increase their advertising spending while competitors are decreasing
theirs can gain competitive advantage. For example, during the Great Recession, while
competitors were cutting back, car maker Audi actually increased its marketing and
advertising spending. Audi “kept its foot on the pedal while everyone else [was] pulling
back,” said an Audi ad executive. “Why would we go backwards now when the industry
is generally locking the brakes and cutting spending?” As a result, Audi’s brand
awareness and buyer consideration reached record levels during the recession,
outstripping those of BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus and positioning Audi strongly for the
post-recession era. Audi is now one of the hottest auto brands on the market, neck and
neck with BMW and Mercedes in global luxury car sales.

Analysing and Evaluating Advertising Results

Most advertisers try to measure the communication effect of an ad—that is, its
potential impact on awareness, knowledge, or preference. They would also like to
measure its sales effect.
Communication-effect research. Communication-effect research, called copy
testing, seeks to determine whether an ad is communicating effectively. Marketers
should perform this test both before an ad is put into media and after it is printed or
broadcast. The table below describes some specific advertising pretest research
techniques. Pretest critics maintain that agencies can design ads that test well but may
not necessarily perform well in the marketplace. Proponents maintain that useful
diagnostic information can emerge and that pretests should not be used as the sole
decision criterion anyway. Widely acknowledged as one of the best advertisers around,
Nike is known for doing very little ad pretesting. Many advertisers use posttests to
assess the overall impact of a completed campaign. If a company hoped to increase
brand awareness from 20 percent to 50 percent and succeeded in increasing it to only
30 percent, then it is not spending enough, its ads are poor, or it has overlooked some
other factor.

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 Sales-Effect Research. What sales are generated by an ad that increases brand
awareness by 20 percent and brand preference by 10 percent? The fewer or more
controllable other factors such as features and price are, the easier it is to measure
advertising’s effect on sales. The sales impact is easiest to measure in direct marketing
situations and hardest in brand or corporate image-building advertising.
Companies want to know whether they are overspending or underspending on
advertising. A company’s share of advertising expenditures produces a share of voice
(proportion of company advertising of that product to all advertising of that product) that
earns a share of consumers’ minds and hearts and, ultimately, a share of the market.
Researchers can measure sales impact with the historical approach, which uses
advanced statistical techniques to correlate past sales to past advertising expenditures.
Other researchers use experimental data to measure advertising’s sales impact. A
growing number of researchers measure the sales effect of advertising expenditures
instead of settling for communication-effect measures.45 Millward Brown International
has conducted tracking studies for years to help advertisers decide whether their
advertising is benefiting their brand.
Measuring advertising effectiveness and the return on advertising investment
has become a hot issue for most companies. Top management at many companies is
asking marketing managers, “How do we know that we’re spending the right amount on
adver- tising?” and “What return are we getting on our advertising investment?”
Advertisers should regularly evaluate two types of advertising results: the
communication effects and the sales and profit effects.
Measuring the communication effects of an ad or ad campaign tells whether
the ads and media are communicating the ad message well. Individual ads can be

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tested before or after they are run. Before an ad is placed, the advertiser can show it to
consumers, ask how they like it, and measure message recall or attitude changes
resulting from it. After an ad is run, the advertiser can measure how the ad affected
consumer recall or product awareness, engagement, knowledge, and preference. Pre-
and post-evaluations of communication effects can be made for entire advertising
campaigns as well. Advertisers have gotten pretty good at measuring the
communication effects of their ads and ad campaigns. However, sales and profit
effects of advertising and other content are often much harder to measure. For
example, what sales and profits are produced by an ad campaign that increases brand
awareness by 20 percent and brand preference by 10 percent? Sales and profits are
affected by many factors other than advertising—such as product features, price, and
availability. One way to measure the sales and profit effects of advertising is to compare
past sales and profits with past advertising expenditures. Another way is through experi-
ments. For example, to test the effects of different advertising spending levels, Coca-
Cola could vary the amount it spends on advertising in different market areas and
measure the differences in the resulting sales and profit levels. More complex
experiments could be designed to include other variables, such as differences in the
ads or media used.
However, because so many factors affect advertising effectiveness, some
controllable and others not, pretesting ads and measuring the results of advertising
spending remains an inexact science. Managers often must rely on large doses of
judgment along with quantitative analysis when assessing content and advertising
performance. That’s especially true in this content-hungry digital age, where large
quantities of ads and other content are produced and run on a virtual real-time basis.
Thus, whereas companies tend to carefully pretest traditional big-budget media ads
before running them, digital marketing content usually goes untested. For digital and
social media campaigns, says one chief marketing officer, “it’s very tough to test [and
measure] just because of the volume [and timing] of the content we are putting out.”

Methods of Advertising

● Purchased Online Ads

Posting ads on websites that receive heavy traffic is one way to get the word out
about your business. Social networking sites such as Facebook have advertising
programs that allow advertisers to target very specific demographics. These ads show
up only next to profiles that meet the specifications of your product's target market. For
the internet in general you'll have plenty of options for ad placement. The best known
service is Google's AdWords, but hundreds of other companies can help you position
your ads on suitable sites.
● Social Media Marketing

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 Social media platforms are an attractive marketing tool for new businesses,
because promoting yourself there has little or no monetary cost. The catch is that you'll
need to invest significant time in building a presence, and making your content
engaging enough to be worth following. Frequent premiums for your followers, in the
form of discounts, giveaways or "flash sales," can help a lot. If you have a tangible
product, you can also generate solid word of mouth by providing evaluation units to
influential bloggers with lots of followers.
● Traditional Newspaper Ads
A traditional form of advertising, daily and weekly newspaper ads allow you to
target specific geographic neighborhoods. Attaching an incentive, such as a coupon, to
the ad can help you judge its effectiveness. Purchasing an ad in a section relevant to
your business – for example, a home improvement business ad in the home and garden
section – can also help you to reach target clients.
● Targeted Radio Advertising
A catchy jingle and quick tag line can enhance a radio ad's effectiveness.
Matching the station you choose with your target demographic is key. If you want to
reach adults aged 35 to 64, an adult contemporary station is a good bet. An alternative
or urban station is good to reach youth aged 18 to 24. At the time of publication, it was
reported that radio reaches around 59 percent of the population daily with a 45 percent
trust rating.
● Local or National Television Advertising
Television ads on local stations might require time and effort to produce, but can
be especially effective if you sell a product or service with a high price point. A national
TV ad can cost as little as $63,000, though this price can vary widely based on market
and programming. You can certainly justify the difference in price if a TV ad can reach
customers who would not respond to radio.
● Public Speaking Events
If the product you sell relates to your own expertise, public speaking can be a
great advertisement. Offer your services to organizations that could benefit from one of
your workshops or lectures. Bring business cards and promotional materials to the
event to encourage your audience to spread the word about your services.
● Door Hangers and Flyers
Canvassing the neighborhood, placing flyers in mailboxes or hanging ads on
doorknobs, is a good way to target a specific area and to make sure your potential
customers have seen your information. Even if most homeowners will discard the
information, gaining a handful of clients may be enough for a positive return on the
marketing campaign investment.
● Event Sponsorship and Appearances
Advertising your product or service through event sponsorship can take many
forms. You might receive an acknowledgement in the event program, have an on-site
location where you can give out a sample product, or your company logo might appear

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on the event posters. One option for events that require a hand-stamp for entry is to
provide the venue with a stamp that bears your company logo; the attendees will then
have your logo close by for a day or two afterwards.

Types of Advertising Agency

1. In House Agencies - In large organizations, there may be a separate whole

department devoted to advertisement headed by advertisement manager
reporting to marketing manager, who in turn reports to top management. In small
firms, there may be a person looking after the advertisement tasks and reporting
to the top management. The advertiser has many advantages in –house agency.
They are their own personnel and their time can be efficiently utilized for better
coordination and control in the advertisement process. Further, they know the
present marketing strategies and have control over distribution tactics. It also
leads to cost saving in terms of commission saved by the advertiser to the
external agency.

2. A Full service agency - This agency offers a full range of communication and
promotion services to their clients. It performs research on behalf of advertisers
and offers creative and media services to their clients. They also offer to prepare
an integrated marketing communication campaign to coordinate all the
promotional tools. They are therefore known for providing both advertising and
non-advertising services. The range of services provided by them include
planning, creating, producing, performing research, buying media, copywriting,
artwork, media planning in the nature of advertising services and pricing.

3. Specialized Service Agencies - With the growth in the need of advertising

agencies and its specialized services, many advertising agencies have come up
that do not provide full range of services but specialize in one or the other
services only. They provide their expert services to either the advertiser or other
ad agencies. The advertising agencies that restrict and specialize in niche areas
like: consumer durable, domestic market, local market or only regional languages
are called specialized agencies. For example, Soubhagya advertising agency
specializes in financial advertising only.
3.1. CREATIVE BOUTIQUES: They include few people ranging from two or
three to a dozen or so and include artists, designers, and copywriters.
They offer creative and artistic services and unlike full service agencies.
They do not involve themselves in strategic planning, target audience etc.
Their focus is only on the development of a creative idea into the message
theme.

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 3.2. MEDIA BUYING SERVICES: They are the independent companies buying
the media time and space on television, radio at bulk against heavy
discounts. Then they sell these media time and space at lower cost than
what an agency or the companies could have acquired. Media time and
space is perishable. When an agency buys the time and space, on behalf
of clients, and makes profit from such an activity, it is referred to as media
buying agencies. A media buying agency is not only responsible for
booking the space and time for their clients, but are also responsible for
providing market research and analysis and guiding them with respect to
ideal space and time for their advertisement. Media agencies have gained
high growth in the last few decades and have become major players on
the advertising stage.
3.3. INTERACTIVE AGENCIES: come up with the growth of Internet
technology and the need for integrated marketing communications.
3.4. DIRECT RESPONSE AGENCIES: The growth of direct marketing has led
to the growth of direct response agencies. Marketing through
infomercials, home shopping networks, mail order, telemarketing and
others forms of direct response marketing is becoming popular. The direct
response advertising agencies offer specialized services to the clients and
help them integrate advertising through various mediums like television,
print, radio, online etc. Besides performing the agency functions such as
media buying, campaign designing and so on, they also assist in database
management function, research and public relations. They help the clients
identify prospective customers and build relationships with the existing
ones.
3.5. SALES PROMOTION AGENCIES: These agencies specialize in providing
services of designing sales promotional programs, identifying suitable
sales promotional tools, carrying pre-sales promotion evaluation,
executing the sales promotion program, performing post-test for
evaluating effectiveness of sales promotional tools.
3.6. PUBLIC RELATION FIRMS: These firms specialize in providing services
that enhance the goodwill and image of the clients’ companies amongst its
publics, namely, employees, labor groups, suppliers, government and
other stakeholders. Their work is to provide inputs to the clients on the
company policies and procedures and how they affect the publics of the
organization. They devise an appropriate blend of various PR tools like,
publicity, lobbying, press release, oral communication, conferences,
speeches, special events, etc.

Public Relations

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 Another major promotion tool, public relations, consists of activities designed to
engage and build good relations with the company’s various publics. Public relations is
used to promote products, people, places, ideas, activities, organizations, and even
nations. Companies use PR to build good relations with consumers, investors, the
media, and their communities. PR is often used to build support for newsworthy
company events and actions. For example, a few years ago when CVS Health
announced its bold decision to stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products in its stores,
even though it meant sacrificing $2 billion in tobacco-related revenues, it knew that the
decision would make headlines. But it left little to chance about how the full story would
be told. Instead, CVS crafted a comprehensive “CVS Quits for Good” public relations
campaign to tell con- sumers, Wall Street, and the health-care community that the
decision would benefit both customers and the company.

Objectives of Public Relations

Within the overall objective of understanding the public and making itself
favorably understood, public relations have these objectives:
1. Creating awareness about the company, its goals, products and services where
this counts.
2. Sustaining the awareness as an ongoing process, keeping in mind what the
competitors are doing, and knowing that public memory is short.
3. Striving to be accepted by the various publics. Special efforts are required to be
accepted by employees. A foreign company has its own requirements for being
accepted on this soil.
4. Creating a bond of trust. In times of rumors, misinformation, etc., a company has
to establish the truth. In normal times, too, a company has to promote its
reliability. Just consider the frequent use of words like believe, trust, reliable,
safe, 100%, etc. in building a company image.
5. Getting cooperation from various quarters. A company has many publics on
whom it has to depend. Government organizations, providers of various services
etc. have to be wooed in such a way that they willingly help the company.
6. Earning recognition. It is not enough to perform feats but it is necessary to get
these noticed and talked about. Through winning awards, certifications etc. and
getting these read and seen, a company gets recognition. Having so-and-so as a
client or collaborator may itself be a recognition. This has to be publicized.

Important Tools in Public Relations

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 Public relations uses several tools. One of the major tools is news. PR
professionals find or create favorable news about the company and its products or
people. Sometimes news stories occur naturally; sometimes the PR person can suggest
events or activities that would create news. Another common PR tool is special events,
ranging from news conferences and speeches, brand tours, and sponsorships to
multimedia presentations or educational programs designed to reach and interest target
publics. Public relations people also prepare written materials to reach and influence
their target markets. These materials include annual reports, brochures, articles, and
company newsletters and magazines. Audiovisual materials, such as videos, are
being used increasingly as communication tools. Corporate identity materials can
also help create a corporate identity that the public immediately recognizes. Logos,
stationery, brochures, signs, business forms, business cards, buildings, uniforms, and
company cars and trucks all become marketing tools when they are attractive,
distinctive, and memorable. Finally, companies can improve public goodwill by
contributing money and time to public service activities.
As previously discussed, the web and social media are also important PR
channels. Websites, blogs, and social media such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram,
Snapchat, Pinterest, and Twitter are providing new ways to reach and engage people.
As noted, storytelling and engagement are core PR strengths, and that plays well into
the use of online, mobile, and social media. As with the other promotion tools, in
considering when and how to use product public relations, management should set PR
objectives, choose the PR messages and vehicles, implement the PR plan, and
evaluate the results. The firm’s PR should be blended smoothly with other promotion
activities within the company’s overall integrated marketing communications effort.

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