Here is a compilation of essays on ‘Advertising’ for class 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Advertising’ especially written for school and college students.
Essay on Advertising
Essay Contents:
- Essay on the Definition of Advertising
- Essay on the Objectives of Advertising
- Essay on the Salient Features of Advertising
- Essay on the Classifications of Advertising
- Essay on the Steps in Advertising Process
- Essay on the Importance of Advertising
- Essay on the Benefits of Advertising
- Essay on the Criticisms of Advertising
- Essay on the Regulation of Advertising
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Essay # 1. Definition of Advertising:
The term has been defined differently by different authorities but more or less convey the same idea.
According to W.J. Stanton, “Advertising consists of all the activities involved in presenting to group, a non-personal, oral or visual, openly-sponsored message regarding a product or service or idea. The message called an advertisement is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by an identified sponsor.”
According to American Marketing Association, “Any paid form of non-personal communication of ideas, goods, or services by business firms is identified in the advertising message intended to lead to a sale immediately or eventually”. Advertising is a specific attempt to popularise a specific product or service at a certain cost.
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According to Prof. Albert Fray, advertising involves “the preparation of visual and oral messages and their dissemination through paid media for the purpose of making people aware of and favourably inclined towards a product, brand, service, institution, idea or point of view.”
Thus, it can be stated that advertising is the principal method of demand creation. Advertising is also called impersonal salesmanship by means of which sales message is conveyed to millions of buyers through printed words or symbols for influencing the consumer’s choice of goods in the market.
Of the four steps in demand creation:
(i) Drawing attention,
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(ii) Stimulating interest,
(iii) Arousing desire, and
(iv) Securing action, advertising is effective in the first three steps, while salesmanship goes in for securing action.
Essay # 2. Objectives of Advertising:
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Advertising is aimed at selling something, whether a product, or service, or an idea. The primary object of advertising is to make the consumers aware as regards the availability and usefulness of a particular product or service. It seeks to establish communication between the producer/seller and the consumer.
The objects of advertising, as listed by Mathews, Buzzel, Levitt and Frank, are as follows:
(a) To make an immediate sale;
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(b) To build primary demand;
(c) To introduce a price deal;
(d) To inform about a product’s availability;
(e) To build brand recognition or image and brand insistence or loyalty;
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(f) To help salesmen by building an awareness of a product among the retailers/consumers;
(g) To create a reputation for service, reliability or research strength;
(h) To increase one’s market share;
(i) To modify existing product appeals and buying motives;
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(j) To inform about new product’s availability, features, or price;
(k) To increase the frequency of use of a product;
(l) To increase the number or quality of retail outlets;
(m) To build an over-all company image;
(n) To effect immediate buying action;
(o) To reach new areas or new segments of peculation within existing areas; and
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(p) To develop overseas markets.
Essay # 3. Salient Features of Advertising:
The concept, content, and scope of advertising reflect the following salient features:
1. It is a paid form of non-personal communication of ideas car goods or services by the business firms.
2. It is a specific attempt to popularise a specific product or service.
3. It is a record containing visual or oral messages through which an advertiser wants to convey.
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4. It is a kind of ‘salesmanship in print’ as it persuades a buyer to possess by drawing his attention, stimulating his interest, and arousing his desire.
5. It is one of the channels of information for the consumers and customers.
Essay # 4. Classifications of Advertising:
Advertising may be broadly classified from the points of view: business aims, coverage, users, and nature of appeal.
This is condensed in a chart below:
(i) Primary Demand Advertising:
Where advertising is aimed at introducing a product or service which has been newly developed or invented, it is known as primary demand advertising. Such advertisements are directed towards a class of customers for products like cars, washing machines, refrigerators, T.V., or watches. This is also described as selective demand advertising.
(ii) Product or Institutional Advertising:
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Where advertising seeks to cash in on the popular brand of a product, such as Dalda, Amul Milk or Butter, Red Label Brooke Bond Tea, it is called product advertising. On the other hand, where it is aimed at capitalising on the name of the manufacturer, who is reputed to produce quality goods, such as Tata, D.C.M., Bombay Dyeing, Bajaj, it is known as institutional advertising.
Product advertising is also called selective or brand advertising.
Institutional advertising is sponsored by the producer or manufacturer. Its purpose is to create goodwill towards the institution. This may be sub-classified into three heads like patronage advertising, public relations advertising, and public service advertising.
(iii) Co-Operative Advertising:
Where advertising is sponsored jointly by the manufacturers, wholesalers or dealers and its cost is borne by them, it is cooperative advertising. This type of advertisement is found in the case of products like electric fans, T.V. sets, etc.
(iv) Commercial Advertising:
Where advertising aims at increasing the sales of any product or service, it becomes business or commercial advertising. It may be selective depending upon the product types such as farm products, professional doctors, engineers, architects, and accountants also fall under this classification.
(v) Non-Commercial Advertising:
This is undertaken by charitable institutions for raising public donations or funds to meet certain special purposes.
(vi) Local/National/International Advertising:
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The advertising circulated to a defined area is local advertising. National advertising, meant for the entire national, is limited within the boundaries of a country. International advertising covers either the whole globe or continent or a specific foreign country.
(vii) Consumers/Industrial/Trade Advertising:
The advertisements relating to domestic or household items fall under consumers advertising. The advertisements relating to the products which are usually consumed by the industries are industrial advertising and the trade advertising relates to a particular trade of wholesaling or retailing.
(viii) Rational and Emotional Advertising:
These categories are not exactly the types of advertisements. These fall within the categories of product or brand advertising and are aimed at selective demand advertising.
Rational advertising, while explaining the medicinal quality or other characteristics of a product, is done for cosmetic and perfumes. Emotional advertising attempts to focus the image of a product by attaching an emotional feeling of at consumer. For example, the advertisement of a Lux-Soap, being, used by a glamourous movie star, raises emotions in the minds of younger girls or housewives.
Essay # 5. Steps in Advertising Process:
The advertising process consists of the following steps and each of them virtually is a decision-making process:
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1. Defining Advertising Goals
2. Preparing the Advertising Budget
3. Designing the Message
4. Selecting the Media
5. Timing of Advertising
6. Getting the Decisions Implemented and
7. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Advertising.
(1) Defining Advertising Goals:
There are many objectives, some are immediate, e.g. to increase the sales or to retain the market, while some ultimate, e.g. creating a new demand, fighting out a competitor, etc.
There are other types of goals also—calling the attention of the buyers or dealers to a new price structure or a new showroom or to build morale of the sales force (because if there is extensive advertisement the sales force is strengthened to mate approaches to the buyers).
(2) Preparing the Advertising Budget:
The concern must prepare a specific budget for advertising expenses. This is a vital step in the process.
The amount of budget depends on various factors:
(a) The scale of production.
(b) The plant capacity.
(c) The availability of the working capital.
(d) Whether it is a budget for a routine advertisement or a campaign advertisement and what type of campaign.
The common methods of preparing advertising budget are:
(a) How much money the concern can afford to pay.
(b) How much percentage of the total sales revenue shall be spent on advertisement,
(c) To spend as much money as competitors are spending,
(d) To spend as much money as will be required to fulfill the ultimate objective. Different mathematical models are prepared for the purposes.
(3) Designing the Message:
There is invariably a message in every advertisement copy which attracts the readers. As time passes new types of copies have to be created for new excitements and to fit in changing circumstances. The copy must have a scientific ‘lay out’ with a caption or heading and then the text.
Generally, pictures are used because pictures are more attractive and explanatory than words. Pictures may be of the product (with their outer and inner views), of the factory, of a user, of a popular figure like a film artist or a player, etc. recommending the product, etc. Different colours are used, whenever possible.
An advertisement copy must satisfy three characteristics: “desirability, exclusiveness and believability”. Advertising agencies engage expert copy writers who have imagination and knowledge and commercial artists for the purpose. Every copy shall create a ‘value’ in the minds of the readers which will have lasting effect.
The different ‘values’ are: curiosity, instinct, emotion, memorising, suggestion, etc. David Ogilvy, a founder of one of the biggest advertising agencies of the world, said “To attract women, show babies or men; to attract men, show women”. The copy must be written from readers’ viewpoint with precision, brevity and without any exaggeration. Each copy must have originality and not, imitating others’ copies.
(4) Selecting the Media:
Perhaps it is more important to select the media or channels through which the message will be communicated. Media selection is a specialist’s job and most of the advertisers depend on advertising agencies who appoint specialised media managers, each manager is expert in a particular kind of medium.
The different media are: newspapers, journals, posters, handbills, cinema slides, hoarding, radio, television, etc. Besides, there are calendars, diaries, various kinds of small gifts in the forms of stationery goods like paperweight, penholders, desk calendars, etc. All these collectively are known as publicity media, not exactly advertising media.
A number of media can be used simultaneously.
Everything depends on three factors:
(a) What is the nature of the product or services,
(b) What is the nature of the potential, buyers,
(c) The budget of expenditure which can be afforded.
Direct mailing of catalogues and price lists (as mostly done for mail order business) is an effective device. For a very big concern with a wide range of products and varying market, computer is used for decision-making in media selection and mathematical models are prepared.
(5) Timing of Advertising:
Advertising must be done at the proper time when there is a buying spree among the customers in case of fashionable goods or gadgets or at the beginning of the season in case of seasonal products. Advertisements of clothes, transistors, hotels, etc., are mostly found just before the Pujas or Diwali as people have the ‘bonus’ money to spend and people are compelled to make purchases on social obligations.
(6) Getting the Decisions Implemented:
All the decisions as discussed above must have to be implemented. Some firms have a separate publicity department and appoint publicity officers to look after the execution of the decisions. In majority cases publicity officers are not asked to execute the decisions but to participate, as experts, in the decision-making process but the implementation is done through Advertising Agents.
In many cases, the producer prepares the budget and determines the goals but leaves the remaining process of advertising in the hands of the advertising agents, who take commission on the total expenditure as well as service charges and direct costs (e.g., block-making, printing, paper, or other materials used, etc.).
(7) Evaluating the Effectiveness of Advertising:
This is the Controlling function of the advertising process. Such evaluation is necessary because on the basis of experience the next phase of advertising will begin. If necessary, modifications have to be made.
There are various methods of such evaluation:
(a) Opinion research:
Potential buyers are individually asked of their opinions about or reactions to the advertisements released,
(b) Recognition and recall tests:
Potential buyers are tested as to whether they remember the advertisements and were impressive to them,
(c) Keying:
Different addresses of the concern are given in the copies of advertisement or coupons are attached to the copies which have to be filled in, detached and sent to the advertiser for further enquiries or orders.
It is watched, orders or enquiries are coming in what number to what addresses or coupons are being sent detached from which newspapers and journals. The advertiser gets an idea which media are more effective. Advertisements will be repeated or intensified through the more effective media.
Essay # 6. Importance of Advertising:
It is advertising that enables the businessman to make continuous mass production for the wide international market. Not only does it convey sales information to potential buyers far and near, it contains positive force determining the action of buyers as well. It applies a veiled method of persuasion to secure patronage for the product. Advertising ensures the introduction and acceptance of a new product in the market.
In the case of existing products, advertising has paved the way for a steadily rising flow of goods to the market. Advertising is a potent and recognised means of sales promotion. When used effectively, it benefits the producers, traders, consumers and country’s economy.
In the modern business world, it is one of the important functions that increases sales, persuades dealers, increases per-capita income, enhances receptiveness of a new product or model, eliminates seasonal fluctuations and raises the standard of living. The relatively insignificant amount with which this marvellous result can be secured has made advertising a boon to the businessmen.
(i) Market Expansion:
Advertising enables the manufacturer to expand the market for products by creating new markets and retaining existing ones. It carries repeated sales messages to millions of buyers and brings customers from remote or inaccessible areas.
(ii) Direct Appeal to Consumers:
Through advertising, manufacturers can appeal directly to consumers and influence their buying habits. Consequently, buyers and producers are freed from the clutches of middlemen.
(iii) Buyers Education in Using New Products:
It helps to overcome old habits of the consumers and to educate them in the use of new products, or in the new use of existing products.
(iv) Removal of Seasonal Fluctuations:
Seasonal fluctuations in demand are eliminated by advertising. Because of creating a steady demand, it has made continuous production more certain and effective.
(v) Reduction in Selling Price:
Advertising speeds up sales and production turnover. Through a large volume of business, it lowers both selling and production costs. As a result, advertising in many cases has reduced the selling price of goods.
(vi) Price Stability:
Manufacturers invariably maintain resale prices of advertised products. Advertisement of resale prices permits to keep prices within reasonable limits; and buyers are assured of more or less the same price, wherever they may purchase goods.
(vii) Quality Products:
Advertising is usually made under a particular brand name, otherwise it becomes too expensive for the business. Because of this practice, advertising tends to create confidence in buyers about the quality of advertised products.
(viii) Promotion of Goodwill:
It acquaints the people with the name of producer and guides them to improve living through better buying. Advertising leads to the establishment of producer’s goodwill which results in repeat sales.
(ix) Freedom of Press:
Advertising helps to maintain the free and independent status of the press. As newspapers are mostly financed by advertising income, they need not be tied down on financial grounds to any party or group.
(x) Higher Standard of Living:
Advertising promotes greater consumption, increased production and larger employment. The effect of these improvements is inevitably reflected in lower prices, better quality and greater variety of goods to the consumer. Advertising contributes towards a fuller way of life through happy and contented living.
Essay # 7. Benefits of Advertising:
Advertising benefits a variety of sections of society, such as:
(i) manufacturers/producers;
(ii) Wholesalers/ retailers;
(iii) Consumers;
(iv) Salesmen; and
(v) The community.
(i) Benefits to Manufacturers/Producers:
(a) Advertising results in an increase in sales and, consequently, increase in profits.
(b) It enables an easy introduction of newly developed products/ services.
(c) It helps build the image of the product and its manufacturer/producer.
(d) It establishes a direct contact between the manufacturer and the consumers such that middleman have no scope to push up prices, and thus assists in maximising the profit margin.
(ii) Benefits to Wholesalers/Retailers:
(a) It is easy to find customers for their goods as the consumers are already aware of the goods being available and their usefulness to them.
(b) Advertising increases demand for the products and helps increase sales which lead to quick turnover and increased profits.
(c) The image of the product and its manufacturer/producer, as built up by advertising, will also add to the prestige of the wholesalers/retailers.
(iii) Benefits to Consumers:
(a) For consumers in general, advertising means a guarantee as regards quality and suitability of the product/ service which is advertised. But, in some cases, it may not really be so.
However, if the claims made in an advertisement are found by the consumers to be true, they take to using that product on a regular basis, thus pushing up its sales. This, in turn, enables the manufacturer/producer to lower the cost, improve the quality of the product still further, and also earn increased profits.
(b) Advertising is the main source of knowledge as regards the place and time of availability of a product or service. This means, the consumers do not have to run from one shop to another to get the desired product or service.
(c) Advertisements by manufacturers/producers of identical products will enable the consumers to compare the merits of individual products, such that they will be in a position to pick and choose the products which best satisfy their needs and desires.
(d) Most modern advertising is highly educative and useful for the consumers. It leads to better standard of living.
(iv) Benefits to Salesmen:
Salesmanship and advertising play a complementary and supplementary role for one another.
The benefits derived by salesmen from advertising are as follows:
(i) Goods which are already extensively advertised on the media are easy to be introduced in the market.
(ii) As advertising will effectively perform the spadework as regards providing useful information about the product/service to the dealers and consumers, salesmen do not have to make much sales efforts.
(iii) Advertising helps salesmen to establish more stable relationships with customers.
(iv) Salesmen are able to measure as to how far advertising has succeeded in creating product awareness among customers.
(v) Benefits to the Community at Large:
(i) Modern advertising has become highly educative in nature. It brings to the people valuable knowledge about goods and services which is not easily available elsewhere. In a sense, advertising is an index to the level of civilisation.
(ii) Advertising leads to an increase in production which, on its part, gives rise to greater employment opportunities, increasing income levels, and better standards of living for the people.
(iii) Advertising helps people to know as to what products are available to satisfy their felt needs and desires. It also creates in them an awareness of the needs which they may not have felt before.
For example, it is only due to advertising that articles, like cars, refrigerators, T.V. sets, etc., which were earlier regarded as luxuries causing wasteful expenditure, can today be seen in many households, whether in urban or rural areas.
Undoubtedly, this has meant extra hours of work for the matters of the family to add to their income so as to meet expenditure on such items. But advertising has succeeded in promoting an awareness about the usefulness of these items. As Sir Winston Churchill put it, “Advertising nourishes the consuming power of man. It creates wants for a better standard of living. It spurs individual exertion and greater production.”
(iv) Advertising revenue leads to low production costs of newspapers and magazines which, in a democratic set-up, are invaluable watch-dogs of the public interest. For example, minus advertising revenue, a copy of the Hindustan Times or the Times of India would sell for more than Rs. 50.
Further, it is because of the huge revenue earned by both radio and television from commercial advertising that the Government has abolished the annual licence fee in respect of radio and T.V. sets.
(v) Advertising helps copy writers and artistes to earn their living. It also enriches the social and cultural life of people.
Essay # 8. Criticisms of Advertising:
Although the merits of advertising far outweigh its faults, the criticisms cannot be neglected.
The following are the important criticisms of advertising:
(i) Unbalanced Advertising:
Advertising is sometimes made in such an excessive and unbalanced manner that it increases the cost of marketing and hence, the price of products rather than reducing prices.
(ii) Combative Advertising:
Advertising, instead of creating new demand, is often directed to transfer customers from one producer to another. Combative advertising represents a sheer waste from the social point of view.
(iii) False Advertising:
Advertising fails to achieve its objectives and destroys public confidence in those cases where false and exaggerated claims are made about the virtues of products in advertising.
(iv) Deceptive Advertising:
Advertising has been used to defraud buyers by inducing them to purchase goods of doubtful value.
(v) Lack of Dignity:
In their zeal for demand creation, advertisers sometimes adopt objectionable practices that are totally devoid of ethical sense, moral value or public decency.
(vi) Propensity to Artificial Living:
Advertising creates tastes and desires for some products in such a way that many persons are forced to buy things beyond their means, and others are discontented for not being able to buy the product.
Essay # 9. Regulation of Advertising:
The importance of advertising can be fully realized provided the abuses thereof are stopped. In order to eliminate the defects of advertising, a number of measures have been devised by the businessmen as well as by the Government.
The usual measures that are applied may be stated as follows:
(a) Obscene advertisements are totally banned by statutes, as they offend public moral,
(b) Noisy advertisements through the use of loud-speakers or beating drums are restricted, since they appear as a public nuisance,
(c) Writings on the walls or other public places are prohibited by injunction,
(d) To guard against deceptive advertising, regulatory laws are enforced by the State.
In our country, the Essential Commodities and Drugs Act has been passed for controlling the sale of medicines, food products and some other essential items. But unfortunately, the legislation has lost much of its strength in the absence of administrative vigilance and rigid enforcement,
(e) The chambers of commerce set up “better business bureaus” to regulate advertising, and
(f) The consumers’ associations or their cooperatives raise some voice against unethical advertising.