Advertising Flashcards
When is advertisement spending up?
When production of goods and services is up
Importance of advertising to consumers
Consumers can know what is available to buy.
Advertising first took off where? Why?
In the US and Canada. Theory that democracy and advertising linked.
Why do some people suggest that democracy and advertising are linked?
People in North America had to formulate individual opinions due to democracy. They relied on information from the media to formulate political information. They also relied on the media to help with individual buying choices.
The media in democratic societies relies on advertising for most of its revenue. Without ads, no media»_space;> no source of information for individual opinions.
Criticism of advertising
Honest persuasion requires presentation of all options. Ads are one-sided = not honest persuasion, but coercion.
Media Plan
Lays out where ads are placed
Studies show that people look towards this type of media the most when ready to buy.
Newspapers
Pros of newspaper ads
Newspapers are hot media. People look towards newspapers the most when ready to buy.
Newspapers are tangible - possibility for coupons, saving ads.
Newspaper readers tend to be older, more educated, and higher earning than TV and radio audiences.»_space;> spend more
Newspaper ads can be ordered up to 48 hours before circulation. Last minute changes to ads
Cons of Newspaper Ads
Newspapers have trouble accessing young adult population - low readership, not picking up this habit as they mature.
Newspaper ads don’t look as good when printed on newsprint, which absorbs ink. (dull)
Traditional Media choices
Newspaper, Magazine, Radio, TV, pre-movie
Magazine pros:
Longer shelf-life than newspapers, large pass-along circulation, beautiful ads, specialized audiences
Shelf-life
Time in which a periodical is in use
Magazine cons:
Last minute changes difficult. Ads must be reserved up to three months in advance.
Radio pros:
Radio is a mobile medium that people carry with them, specialized audiences, last minute changes, inexpensive, wide availability, repeating advertisements to drive home the message like TV
Radio cons:
People tune in and out, listeners are inattentive (cool medium - Marshall McLuhan), no shelf life, no visual imagery
Known as the king of all media, king of all advertising
Television
Television pros
Wide, diverse audience. Moving and visual medium.
Television cons
Difficult to target a specific audience, high production costs and rates. Ad spaces must be reserved for months due to high demand. Ad clutter
Ad clutter
High costs of TV ads lead to shorter and shorter ads. Result is ad clutter - there are so many competing ads that all of them lose impact.
Most advertising dollars spent on which media?
Television
Why has pre-movie advertising been around for a long time, and recently took off?
Most people remember ads shown at the beginning of a movie, unlike other media. Most people don’t despise ads.
Online advertising pros
Inexpensive, many sites with niche audiences allowing for easy targeting (less waste), users can buy products online directly from the ad, without any intermediate steps (encourages buying).
Biggest player in web advertising
Google (search engine)
How Google does Search Engine advertising
Google has ad spaces on thousands of websites, many of them highly specialized, like blogs, and displays user oriented ads from their clients on these sites. If a user clicks a sponsored link, they are taken to a fuller advertisement, and Google charges a click through fee to the client and pays the site for every click through. Google also places advertiser links on its search engine results (even for internal searches) - also have click through fee process.
Elusive target for advertisers
Men 18 and older
advergame
Sponsored online game, usually for an established brand at its own site.
Gaming advertising pros
relatively inexpensive, games have audiences that advertisers struggle to reach - half of americans 6 and older play games. Messages in online games can be changed instantly
Gaming advertising cons
Games take many months to develop, so built in complicated ads need a lot of time.
Lowest Common Denominator Approach
Early advertising campaigns focused on building messages for the broadest possible audience, or the lowest common denominator (LCD)
Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
A result of the LCD approach. Involves emphasizing a single important feature of a product, real or not. Coined by Rosser Reeves
Leo Burnett
Argued that the USP should be real.
For an ad to be effective, what is important?
Redundancy
Why is ad redundancy problematic? What are the solutions to this problem?
Ad redundancy is expensive. Several techniques have been developed in an effort to resolve costs, including barrages, bunching, trailing, and multimedia trailing.
Barrages
Scheduling ads in intensive bursts, called flashes or waves.
Bunching
Short term ad campaigns - eg. ads for school supplies in August and September.
Trailing
Running shorter versions of ads after the original ad has been introduced (on one medium)
Multimedia trailing
Using less expensive media to reinforce more expensive advertisements (like the SuperBowl ad spaces)
Marshall McLuhan said that ads are…
important even after the sale to confirm to consumers that they made a wise choice. Companies want repeat customers.
Two main new advertising techniques
Word-of-mouth advertising and Under-the-radar advertising.
Two types of word-of-mouth advertising
Buzz advertising and Viral advertising.
Problem of traditional advertising that word-of-mouth advertising solves:
Credibility. Testimonies from friends and acquaintances more reliable to us.
Buzz advertising
Have people with a wide circle of products sample your product to talk about it to others. Keep the buzz going using social media.
Three types of social network sites (and what they are):
Broad-reach sites - have most users (Youtube, FB), Demographically-focused sites (www.carp.ca), specific-topic sites - discuss one topic only
Buzz and Social media advertising vs Traditional ads, which is more effective?
Nobody knows, but cheap enough that advertisers do it.
Viral Advertising
Message spreads through the population like a virus via email and social media.
Viral Advertising pros
Cheap and possible to reach a massive audience
Viral advertising cons
Impossible to cancel/control, users can also attach negative information about a product, reducing the effectiveness of a message.
Why under-the-radar advertising was introduced.
Ad clutter - consumers are inundated with more and more ads. Some of them tune out, literally with their remotes. Under-the-radar advertising a proposed solution for ad clutter.
Stealth Ads
Ads, often subtle, in unexpected places
When product placement began
1980s
Is product placement a major revenue stream?
No, but its becoming bigger
Why did product placement take off?
With the advent of TiVos, consumers could skip traditional commercials, and tv networks were therefore losing money. Began to negotiate large deals to incorporate products into the shows themselves, which could not be avoided.
Product placement criticism
Against artistic integrity
Infomercial
Program length broadcasting commercial
How are infomercials even possible?
Airtime cheap during some parts of the day (not prime time).
Zine
Magazines whose entire content is an ad.
Current problems and issues with advertising
Advertising Clutter and Creative Excess
How TV ad times have shortened
From 60 seconds to 15 seconds
CRTC TV commercial limits
12 minutes/hour to 15 minutes/hour today.
Ad clutter less of an issue in what? Why?
Print media. People rely on print media to look at ads for buying advice.
Ad clutter can be resolved through…
demassification. (targeting narrower audiences)
EB Weiss predicted what for the future of ads?
Ad creativity will be curtailed.
Clio Award
Award for ad creativity
Henry McMahan noticed what about Clio award winners?
Many agencies that won the award suffered economically.
Cultural Imperialism
Indigenous cultures replaced by the cultures from more powerful societies (the West) through exports
A technique used to counter cultural imperialism, and what it is.
Tactical media - Opportunistic altering of imported media messages/ads
Advertising regulation general history
Before the 20th century - caveat emptor - let the seller beware - false claims tolerated by newspapers (though some published ad criticism editorials) and advertisers.
After the 20th century - caveat venditor - let the buyer beware - onus on the advertisers to have truthful claims
Advertising industry in Canada must adhere to…
the Competition Act
The Competition Act
It is illegal to create a representation (ad) to the public that is false or misleading in a material respect.
What gives the Competition Act power?
Material respect
Material Respect
Advertisements in Canada will be sanctioned even if they have the potential to mislead the customer.
Material Respect determined by:
subjecting ad to general impression test
General impression test
Examining an ad’s literal and implied meaning for false or misleading statements.
Punishment for violating Competition Act
Fines. Can be steep, especially for repeat offenders.
Advertising Standards Canada (ASC)
Self-regulatory body that oversees advertising in Canada. Provides guidelines for gender portrayal, children’s advertising, and alcohol advertising.
Types of Advertising
Informational/Logical Ads, Image/Lifestyle ads, Corporate Image/institutional ads, Advocacy ads, and Under the radar advertising.
Informational/Logical Ads
Before the electronic era, people processed information through reading or listening to a live speaker. Processing the written word requires processing information in a logical way. Dominant way was to convince someone to buy in a logical way.
Example of Informational/Logical Ads
Catalogues, Car ads (mixture of Image/informational)
Dominant way to sell things before TV and radio
Catalogues
Image/Lifestyle advertising
Dominant strategy of advertising in the Electronic era - our generation. Associate a product with an image.
Implications of Image/Lifestyle advertising
Sometimes means that we care more about the image of a product than the characteristics of the actual product itself.
Corporate image/institutional advertising
To create, maintain, and/or manage a company’s public image. May fit in with other types of advertising as well.
Advocacy Ads
To promote a social or political cause, and/or to associate the advertiser with one.
Advertorials
Ads masquerading as non-advertising media content
Product placement alternative name
plugging
What helped people realize the power of product placement? What did it advertise?
Reese’s pieces in the movie ET
Digital Product placement
Product placed digitally onto old TV shows.
3 criteria for judging advertisements
Creativity/Entertainment value, Selling effectiveness, Social impact
Why do cigarette companies target new smokers, particularly the young?
Old smokers die, and research shows that people are more prone to addiction when young.
Best consumers for the alcohol industry
Heavy users
Smoking and alcohol both ironically cause what?
Impotence
