Online Advertising Reviews

Billboards and street advertising in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, (2005)

Generally speaking, advertising is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually by an identified sponsor. Marketers see advertising as part of an overall promotional strategy. Other components of the promotional mix include publicity, public relations, personal selling and sales promotion.

Advertising is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Many advertisements are designed to generate increased consumption of those products and services through the creation and reinforcement of “brand image” and “brand loyalty”. For these purposes, advertisements sometimes embed their persuasive message with factual information. Every major medium is used to deliver these messages, including television, radio, cinema, magazines, newspapers, video games, the Internet and billboards. Advertising is often placed by an advertising agency on behalf of a company or other organization.

Advertisements are seen on the seats of shopping carts, on the walls of an airport walkway, on the sides of buses,and are heard in telephone hold messages and in-store public address systems. Advertisements are often placed anywhere an audience can easily or frequently access visual, audio and printed information.

Organizations that frequently spend large sums of money on advertising that sells what is not, strictly speaking, a product or service include political parties, interest groups, religious organizations, and military recruiters. Non-profit organizations are not typical advertising clients, and may rely on free modes of persuasion, such as public service announcements.

Advertising spending has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2006, spending on advertising has been estimated at $155 billion in the United States and $385 billion worldwide, and the latter to exceed $500 billion by 2010.

While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth, it is not without social costs. Unsolicited Commercial Email and other forms of spam have become so prevalent as to have become a major nuisance to users of these services, as well as being a financial burden on internet service providers. Advertising is increasingly invading public spaces, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation.

A Coca-Cola advert from the 1890s.

Future

With the dawn of the Internet have come many new advertising opportunities. Popup, Flash, banner, and email advertisements (the last often being a form of spam) abound. Recently, the advertising community has attempted to make the adverts themselves desirable to the public. In one example, Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie ‘The Matrix Reloaded’, which as a result contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for Rolex watches and BMW cars featured in recent James Bond films.

Each year, greater sums are paid to obtain a commercial spot during the Super Bowl. Companies attempt to make these commercials sufficiently entertaining that members of the public will actually want to watch them.

Particularly since the rise of “entertaining” advertising, some people may like an advert enough that they wish to watch it later or show a friend. In general, the advertising community has not yet made this easy, although some have used the Internet to widely distribute their adverts to anyone wishing to see or hear them.

Advertisement in a rail station in Berlin.

References

1. Memorandum by British American Tobacco from The Tobacco Industry and the Health Risks of Smoking (TB 28) paragraph 272, “Cigarette advertising does not cause people to smoke”, presented before the House of Commons Select Committee on Health 13 January 2000, verifed 2005-12-31
2. Frequently asked Questions: Tobacco Advertising, “persuades non-smokers (especially the young) to start smoking” from ASH
3. Lawrence, Felicity (2004). “The Ready Meal”, Kate Barker Not on the Label, 265, Penguin. ISBN 0-141-01566-7.

• Bhatia, Tej K. 2000. Advertising in Rural India: Language, Marketing Communication, and Consumerism. Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Tokyo Press: Japan. ISBN 4-87297-782-3

Bibliography

• Wernick, Andrew (1991) “Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology and Symbolic Expression (Theory, Culture & Society S.)”, London: Sage Publications Ltd, ISBN 0803983905
• Graydon, Shari (2003) “Made You Look - How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know”, Toronto: Annick Press, ISBN 1-55037-814-7
• Leon, Jose Luis (1996) “Los efectos de la publicidad”. Barcelona: Ariel, ISBN 84-344-1266-7
• Leon, Jose Luis (2001) “Mitoanálisis de la publicidad”. Barcelona. Ariel, ISBN 84-344-1285-3

Links

• University of Texas at Austin’s Advertising related online directory
• American Advertising: A Brief History, George Mason University history essay
• Advertising history according to the textbooks
• Advertising Portal
• [6]Advertising Ephemera and the Advertising Ephemera Collection From the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress
• [7]Broadsides and the Broadsides Collection From the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress
• [8]Advertising Cookbooks and the Advertising Cookbook Collection From the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress

Awareness

• [9] Educating the Consumer about Advertising: Some Issues
• [10] Advertising in the Schools
• [11] Copywriter Brian Millar’s advertising blog

Critical views

• AdBusters, anti-consumerism magazine
• Consumer Angst a critical essay about certain advertisements

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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