ADVERTISING BEYOND PRINT MEDIA:Covert advertising

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Introduction to Mass Communication MCM 101

LESSON 37

ADVERTISING BEYOND PRINT MEDIA

Moving on from the point when we were discussing advertising in the print media, we observe that

the human instinct to persuade fellow beings to buy commodities and ideas on commercial or non

commercial basis by using means other than newspapers and magazines has also been there.

Here we will examine different ways employed by men to further the cause of advertising.

Commercial Advertising Media

Wall paintings

Billboards

Street furniture components

Printed flyers

Radio

Cinema

Television

Web banners

Web popups

Skywriting

Bus stop benches

Town criers

Sides of buses, taxicab doors and roof mounts

Musical stage shows

Subway platforms and trains

Elastic bands on disposable diapers

Stickers on apples in supermarkets

The opening section of streaming audio and video

Posters

Back of event tickets and supermarket receipts

Covert advertising

It is embedded in other entertainment media is known as product placement.

A more recent version of this is advertising in film, by having a main character use an item or other of a

definite brand - an example is in the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character Tom Anderton

owns a computer with the Nokia logo clearly written in the top corner, or his watch engraved with the

Bulgari logo. Another example of advertising in film is in I, Robot, where main character played by Will Smith

mentions his Converse shoes several times, calling them "classics," because the film is set far in the future.

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 Omega Watches, BMW and Aston-Martin

cars are featured in recent James Bond films, most notably, Casino Royale.

Radio commercial

A radio commercial (often called an advert in the United Kingdom, or a spot to people in the

business) is a form of advertising in which goods, services, organizations, ideas, etc. are promoted via the

medium of radio. Many commercials are produced by an outside ad agency and, airtime is purchased from a

station or network in exchange for sponsorship of its programming.

Radio commercials are frequently sold in either 30 second or 60 second increments. While a :60 radio

commercial is twice as long as a :30 radio commercial, it is rarely sold at twice the price. While practices

vary, most radio stations only charge 20-30% more for the longer spot.

While many commercials are professionally produced, radio is not out of reach for the small retail business

owner. Most local radio stations have the ability to produce radio commercials in house using their own

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announcers. At times local radio stations will write and even produce the radio commercials for local retail

advertisers at no additional cost when the merchant purchases a schedule of "spots" on the station.

The first radio commercial is credited to WEAF, New York on August 28, 1922 for the Queens Boro real

estate corporation. The ten-minute live commercial was voiced by H.M. Blackwell, a representative of

Queensboro.

Advertising Media--Audio

The most common audio advertising media is FM radio. Placement of an advertisement on FM

radio costs about as much as an advertisement placed in a metropolitan newspaper. However, radio is more

dynamic than print alternatives because it allows the advertiser essentially to talk with the consumer. Indeed,

many small business consultants believe that an entertaining and informative radio advertising campaign can

be a major asset. Nonetheless, some analysts contend that small business owners should proceed cautiously

before deciding to rely exclusively on radio advertising. Indeed, most businesses incorporate a media mix

when attempting to sell their products or services, utilizing radio advertising in concert with print and other

advertising media. The key for small business owners is to study what types of advertising best suits their

products and services and to use that media to spearhead their advertising campaign.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Radio

Radio stations feature many different programming emphases. These range from music-oriented

formats such as country, adult contemporary, classic rock, and alternative rock to news-or talk-oriented

formats. Since these different formats attract different demographic segments of the total audience,

business owners can take appreciable measures to reach their target audience simply by buying time on

appropriate stations. Another major advantage of radio advertising is that it is inexpensive to place and to

produce, allowing small business owners to place advertisements on more than one station in a given

market. In addition, radio advertising content can be changed quickly to meet changes in the market or to

reflect new business objectives. Finally, radio reaches large numbers of commuters, income-generating

people who often pay more attention to radio advertising than to other advertising media, especially if they

are driving alone.

The costs associated with purchasing radio advertising time reflect this emphasis on reaching the commuter

audience. The four time slots, or "day parts," offered for advertisers by most radio stations are the morning

drive, daytime, afternoon drive, and evening. The two most expensive--but also most effective advertising

slots--are the morning and afternoon drive times.

Although radio advertising is effective, there are drawbacks to consider when deciding whether to create

and place a radio spot. Aspects to consider include competitor clutter, the cumulative costs associated with

long-term radio spots, and the fleeting nature of a radio message. In addition to these drawbacks, several

other legal and procedural guidelines need to be considered. Nation's Business writer Phil Hill provided a

rundown of some of these concerns in his article "Make Listeners Your Customers":

1. If celebrity sound-alike is used, make sure a clear disclaimer is included in the advertisement, saying

that the sound-alike is not the actual celebrities.

2. If working with a station to create an advertisement, always work with a contract.

3. Treat the competition fairly. Federal law mandates that advertisers must accurately depict the

competition.

4. Be prepared to run a radio advertisement often. Industry analysts indicate that an advertisement

needs to be heard by a consumer on several occasions before it is likely to generate a response.

5. Be cautious about excessive reliance on one station. There may be some instances in which a

business's products or services are compatible with only one station (i.e., a dealer in sports

paraphernalia may want to limit his or her radio advertising to the lone sports-talk station in town),

but small businesses that offer less niche-oriented services or products can dramatically expand the

audience they reach if they use more than one station for their audio advertising.

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The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format and

this is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events.

The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known as much for its commercial

advertisements as for the game itself, and the average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this

game has reached $2.5 million (as of 2006).

Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television programming through computer graphics. It

is typically inserted into otherwise blank backdrops or used to replace local billboards that are not relevant

to the remote broadcast audience. More controversially, virtual billboards may be inserted into the

background where none existing in real-life. Virtual product placement is also possible. Increasingly, other

mediums such as those discussed below are overtaking television due to a shift towards consumer's usage of

the Internet.

The vast majority of television commercials today consist of brief advertising spots, ranging in length from

a few seconds to several minutes.

Commercials of this sort have been used to sell every product imaginable over the years, from household

products to goods and services, to political campaigns. The effect of television commercials upon the

viewing public has been so successful and so pervasive that it is considered impossible for a politician to

wage a successful election campaign, in the United States, without airing a good television commerciale.

Characteristics of commercials

Many television commercials feature catchy jingles (songs or melodies) or catch-phrases that

generate sustained appeal, which may remain in the minds of television viewers long after the span of the

advertising campaign. These long-lasting advertising elements may therefore be said to have taken a place in

the pop culture history of the demographic to which they have appeared.

Few examples,

Aiy Khuda meray abbu salamat rahain

Yey dil mangay aur

Aur sonao

Talk shawk

For catching attention of consumers, communication agencies make wide use of humour. In fact, many

psychological studies tried to demonstrate the effect of humour and indicate the way to empower

advertising persuasion.

Animation

Animation is often used in commercials. Techniques can vary from hand-drawn traditional

animation to different forms of computer animation. By using animated characters, a commercial may have

a certain appeal that is difficult to achieve with actors or mere product displays. For this reason, an animated

commercial (or a series of such commercials) can be very long-running, several decades in many instances.

An animated character talking to a real one, is a common sight these days.

Computer

Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based advertising

space are dependent on the "relevance" of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website

receives.

E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising is known as "spam".

Others

Some companies have proposed to place messages or corporate logos on the side of booster

rockets and the International Space Station. Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal

advertising), and the pervasiveness of mass messages

Unpaid advertising (also called word of mouth advertising), can provide good exposure at minimal cost.

Personal recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it"), spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a

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brand with a common noun ("Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex" = tissue, and "Vaseline" = petroleum

jelly) -- these are the pinnacles of any advertising campaign. However, some companies oppose the use of

their brand name to label an object.

Rating

The most common method for measuring the impact of mass media advertising is the use of the rating

point (RP) or the more accurate target rating point (TRP). These two measures refer to the percentage of

the universe of the existing base of audience members that can be reached by the use of each media outlet

in a particular moment in time. The difference between the two is that the rating point refers to the

percentage to the entire universe while the target rating point refers to the percentage to a particular

segment or target. This becomes very useful when focusing advertising efforts on a particular group of

people.

· For example, think of an advertising campaign targeting a female audience aged 25 to 45. While the

overall rating of a TV show might be well over 10 rating points it might very well happen that the

same show in the same moment of time is generating only 2.5 trps (being the target: women 25-45).

This would mean that while the show has a large universe of viewers it is not necessarily reaching a

large universe of women in the ages of 25 to 45 making it a less desirable location to place an ad for

an advertiser looking for this particular demographic. Conversely, a TV show with a low overall

rating point may be more successful at selling ads when its target rating points are high.

Advertising Evaluation

Once the advertising campaign is over, companies normally evaluate it compared to the established

goals. An effective tactic in measuring the usefulness of the advertising campaign is to measure the pre-and

post-sales of the company's product. In order to make this more effective, some companies divide up the

country into regions and run the advertising campaigns only in some areas. The different geographic areas

are then compared (advertising versus non-advertising), and a detailed analysis is performed to provide an

evaluation of the campaign's effectiveness. Depending on the results, a company will modify future

advertising efforts in order to maximize effectiveness.

Summary

Advertising is the paid, non-personal promotion of a cause, idea, product, or service by an

identified sponsor attempting to inform or persuade a particular target audience. Advertising has evolved to

take a variety of forms and has permeated nearly every aspect of modern society. The various delivery

mechanisms for advertising include banners at sporting events, billboards, Internet Web sites, logos on

clothing, magazines, newspapers, radio spots, and television commercials. While advertising can be

successful at getting the message out, it does have several limitations, including its inability to (1) focus on

an individual consumer's specific needs, (2) provide in-depth information about a product, and (3) be cost-

effective for small companies. Other factors, such as objectives, budgets, approaches, and evaluation

methods must all be considered.

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable television and particularly MTV. Pioneering

the concept of the music video, MTV ushered in a new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in for the

advertisement, rather than it being a byproduct or afterthought. As cable (and later satellite) television

became increasingly prevalent, "specialty" channels began to emerge, and eventually entire channels, such as

QVC and Home Shopping Network and ShopTV, devoted to advertising merchandise, where again the

consumer tuned in for the ads.

Marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers and led to the "dot-com" boom of the

1990s. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free

Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, the search engine Google revolutionized online advertising

by emphasizing contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended to help, rather than inundate, users. This

has led to a plethora of similar efforts and an increasing trend of interactive advertising.

A recent advertising innovation is "guerrilla promotions", which involve unusual approaches such as staged

encounters in public places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages, and

interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the advertising message. This

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reflects an increasing trend of interactive and "embedded" ads, such as via product placement, having

consumers vote through text messages, and various innovations utilizing social networking sites.

An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which

make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). Advertising campaigns appear in different media

across a specific time frame.

The critical part of making an advertising campaign is determining a campaign theme, as it sets the tone for the

individual advertisements and other forms of marketing communications that will be used. The campaign

theme is the central message that will be communicated in the promotional activities. The campaign themes

are usually developed with the intention of being used for a substantial period but many of them are short

lived due to factors such as being ineffective or market conditions and/or competition in the marketplace.

Forms of Advertising

Advertising can take a number of forms, including advocacy, comparative, cooperative, and direct-

mail, informational, institutional, outdoor, persuasive, product, reminder, point-of-purchase, and specialty

advertising.

Advocacy Advertising

Advocacy advertising is normally thought of as any advertisement, message, or public

communication regarding economic, political, or social issues. The advertising campaign is designed to

persuade public opinion regarding a specific issue important in the public arena. The ultimate goal of

advocacy advertising usually relates to the passage of pending state or federal legislation. Almost all

nonprofit groups use some form of advocacy advertising to influence the public's attitude toward a

particular issue. One of the largest and most powerful nonprofit advocacy groups is the American

Association of Retired Persons (AARP). The AARP fights to protect social programs such as Medicare and

Social Security for senior citizens by encouraging its members to write their legislators, using television

advertisements to appeal to emotions, and publishing a monthly newsletter describing recent state and

federal legislative action. Other major nonprofit advocacy groups include the environmental organization

Green-peace, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Comparative Advertising

Comparative advertising compares one brand directly or indirectly with one or more competing

brands. This advertising technique is very common and is used by nearly every major industry, including

airlines and automobile manufacturers. One drawback of comparative advertising is that customers have

become more skeptical about claims made by a company about its competitors because accurate

information has not always been provided, thus making the effectiveness of comparison advertising

questionable. In addition, companies that engage in comparative advertising must be careful not to

misinform the public about a competitor's product. Incorrect or misleading information may trigger a

lawsuit by the aggrieved company or regulatory action by a governmental agency such as the Federal Trade

Commission (FTC).

Cooperative Advertising

Cooperative advertising is a system that allows two parties to share advertising costs. Manufacturers

and distributors, because of their shared interest in selling the product, usually use this cooperative

advertising technique. An example might be when a soft-drink manufacturer and a local grocery store split

the cost of advertising the manufacturer's soft drinks; both the manufacturer and the store benefit from

increased store traffic and its associated sales. Cooperative advertising is especially appealing to small

storeowners who, on their own, could not afford to advertise the product adequately.

Direct-Mail Advertising

Catalogues, flyers, letters, and postcards are just a few of the direct-mail advertising options. Direct-

mail advertising has several advantages, including detail of information, personalization, selectivity, and

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speed. But while direct mail has advantages, it carries an expensive per-head price, is dependent on the

appropriateness of the mailing list, and is resented by some customers, who consider it "junk mail."

Informational Advertising

In informational advertising, which is used when a new product is first being introduced, the

emphasis is on promoting the product name, benefits, and possible uses. Car manufacturers used this

strategy when sport utility vehicles (SUVs) were first introduced.

Institutional Advertising

Institutional advertising takes a much broader approach, concentrating on the benefits, concept,

idea, or philosophy of a particular industry. Companies often use it to promote image-building activities,

such an environmentally friendly business practices or new community-based programs that it sponsors.

Institutional advertising is closely related to public relations, since both are interested in promoting a

positive image of the company to the public. As an example, a large lumber company may develop an

advertising theme around its practice of planting trees in areas where they have just been harvested. A

theme of this nature keeps the company's name in a positive light with the general public because the

replanting of trees is viewed positively by most people.

Outdoor Advertising

Billboards and messages painted on the side of buildings are common forms of outdoor

advertising, which is often used when quick, simple ideas are being promoted. Since repetition is the key to

successful promotion, outdoor advertising is most effective when located along heavily traveled city streets

and when the product being promoted can be purchased locally. Only about 1 percent of advertising is

conducted in this manner.

Persuasive Advertising

Persuasive advertising is used after a product has been introduced to customers. The primary goal

is for a company to build selective demand for its product. For example, automobile manufacturers often

produce special advertisements promoting the safety features of their vehicles. This type of advertisement

could allow automobile manufactures to charge more for their products because of the perceived higher

quality the safety features afford.

Product Advertising

Product advertising pertains to non-personal selling of a specific product. An example is a regular

television commercial promoting a soft drink. The primary purpose of the advertisement is to promote the

specific soft drink, not the entire soft-drink line of a company.

Reminder Advertising

Reminder advertising is used for products that have entered the mature stage of the product life

cycle. The advertisements are simply designed to remind customers about the product and to maintain

awareness. For example, detergent producers spend a considerable amount of money each year promoting

their products to remind customers that their products are still available and for sale.

Point-of-Purchase Advertising

Point-of-purchase advertising uses displays or other promotional items near the product that is

being sold. The primary motivation is to attract customers to the display so that they will purchase the

product. Stores are more likely to use point-of-purchase displays if they have help from the manufacturer in

setting them up or if the manufacturer provides easy instructions on how to use the displays. Thus,

promotional items from manufacturers who provide the best instructions or help are more likely to be used

by the retail stores.

Specialty Advertising

Specialty advertising is a form of sales promotion designed to increase public recognition of a

company's name. A company can have its name put on a variety of items, such as caps, glassware, gym bags,

jackets, key chains, and pens. The value of specialty advertising varies depending on how long the items

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used in the effort last. Most companies are successful in achieving their goals for increasing public

recognition and sales through these efforts.

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