Does Advertising Sell?

I attended a session on advertising at an international media conference held recently and I was quite surprised by the arguments put forward by the ‘scholars’ in their presentations. They insisted that advertising is all about selling and this triggered me to write this post.

There are many definitions of advertising as proposed by marketers, advertisers and academicians time and again but the most apt one is by Kotler and Armstrong that defines advertising as ‘any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services through mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television or radio by an identified sponsor.’ [1]

Of course advertising is an important element of marketing but unfortunately is not capable of selling the products. We need to draw a line between advertising and marketing. Most of the ‘scholars’ look at advertising from marketing perspective and fail to recognize it as a separate entity. Then what exactly is the role of advertising?  Well, advertisements can motivate, inform and persuade target audiences to buy the product BUT it is marketing that does the selling.

The effect of advertising is not immediate; audiences will not see your product ad and buy it immediately. Nothing has that kind of persuasive power but yes, advertising does help in pushing the right alternative in the minds of audiences. Please note that I mean ‘pushing only’ and not the ‘actual process’ of buying.

Consider this: A person wants to buy some snacks to eat. In this case, he/she will not bother more on evaluating alternatives as it is a low involvement product. So, anything that is available and liked by his/her taste buds is consumed. On the contrary, in a high involvement category like Laptops, Cars etc. a consumer will think of various alternatives available before actual decision is made. Enough time is spent on pre-purchase research in order to make a sound decision. It is this stage of consumer decision making where advertising plays a crucial role and advertisements helps your product weigh better over your competition.

As rightly mentioned by Max Sutherland- weighing up of alternatives is one process but what alternatives get weighed up is another![2] Therefore, advertisers need to understand this second process and strategize accordingly.

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[1] Marketing Glossary. (n.d.). Retrieved June 30, 2011, from www.tutor2u.net: http://tutor2u.net/business/marketing/glossary_a.htm

[2] Sutherland, M. ( 1981, Volume 21 No.5). Role of Advertising: Persuasion or Agenda-Setting? Journal of Advertising Research , 5-29.

A study of public opinion on internet as public sphere: A case study of Tata Tea’s Jaago Re! Campaign

Following is the abstract of a research paper presented at an International Conference organized by Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), Singapore, June 24-27, 2011. You may write to me if you are interested in a copy of full paper. 

ABSTRACT

Tata tea has managed to gain success in terms of both market share and brand value over the years that appeals to large number of audiences spread over all demographics. After achieving market leadership through their initial marketing communication focused on physical and functional aspects the brand like packaging, freshness, taste, energy, etc , Tata tea decided to move on to the highest level of Maslow’s Need Hierarchy i.e. self actualization through their campaign ‘Jaago Re’ (Wake Up).

The paper seeks answers to the questions like: What has been the effect of this campaign on public and whether it is leading to generation of public opinion in the public sphere? Is this discourse leading to any meaningful conversation? Does use of Internet help in reaching maximum number of target audiences? What type of feedback is expected from these public sphere discourses?

Researcher used both Quantitative and Qualitative Content Analysis to analyze content collected from 30 videos downloaded from YouTube. The sampling technique used is purposive and convenient sampling of non-probabilistic sampling designs.

Major findings are that internet; does lead to generation of public opinion in the public sphere whether positive or negative is a secondary issue.  Such virtual public discourse is not leading in meaningful direction. Use of YouTube can be useful only in reaching to wider audiences but may not be always useful in reaching to target audiences.

Key words: Tata tea, Jaago re campaign, Public Sphere, Public Opinion, Internet

Are consumer needs really fulfilled?

I know this post is coming after a long gap, almost a year now. In this post, I am discussing on consumer needs and seller’s response to it.

The priority of any business organization is to satisfy the needs of the consumer and here I mean the end user and not the one who spends the money on the product. And these needs vary from consumer to consumer. These needs may be both explicit and implicit. For example, a person comes to a restaurant and orders food. He/she orders ‘Idli-Sambar’- that’s his/her explicit need. His implicit needs include fresh idli, hot Sambar, the time duration in which it is served should be short, and the after taste should be good, etc.

Think of your past purchase and evaluate whether your both explicit and implicit needs were taken care of by the seller. Most of the times our explicit needs are fulfilled and our implicit needs are overlooked.

In the above example, since it belongs to the service industry; chances of your implicit needs getting fulfilled are more. The reason being the additional 3P’s of marketing that are active in case of service industry. To those, who don’t know about these 3P’s I am talking about People, Process and Physical evidence. These 3 P’s are observable then and there by consumers and therefore it becomes more mandatory for sellers to pay special attention to implicit needs of the consumer.

But when it comes to implicit needs in case of other industries especially FMCG market- how many times our implicit needs are fulfilled and we are satisfied with the product completely?