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.
great work Mam.
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