Space

Space is the most fundamental element of advertising. It forms the basis of every advertisement. The various elements such as pictures and words can only be present in an advertisement if an area is available and that area for you to put it can be generally referred to as space. This element, although present in every advertisement, is seldom noticed by both viewers and advertisers.

For television and radio advertisements, space is essentially the duration of the advertisements. They are more commonly bought in units of 10, 15, 30 or 60 seconds. This provides the advertiser with more flexibility that can be used in the design of the advertisement. Some advertisers prefer 60-second units because they stand out from the others, but the more common ones are the 30-second units. These units, combined with 10-second units that are perpetually broadcasted, tend to be more effective as the viewer is constantly reminded of the product.

For print advertisements, space will be more literal. In newspapers, the space on paper is often divided into two categories, colour and greyscale, with the advertisements that contain colour naturally bearing more cost than the greyscale ones. Within these two groups, they are further divided based on the amount of space and the section it is in. The classified advertisements pages tend to be the cheapest section, although as statistically proven, a well designed advertisement placed there can bring as much sales as a front page advertisement, thus having the same effectiveness.

Of the more recent media of advertising that is widely employed, one would be the use of website banners. For these advertisements, space has a new definition. Now it is in units of clicks, where the advertiser pays for the number of times the viewers click on the banner. This, although providing us with more accurate statistics, is very open to exploitations by publishers who might resort to illegitimate means of obtaining more clicks that will translate into more money the advertisers must pay the publisher.

Space is no doubt the foundation of any advertisement, and it can be used effectively to draw attention to the advertisement. Many books and websites assert that advertisers should learn to use space and stretch its limits to bring the point across as effectively as possible, but very often, people are inclined to think that companies with larger advertisements will generate more sales as they appear more professional, even though it may not be true. Therefore, to draw more audience to the advertisement, advertisers may want to buy more space and employ larger advertisements.

For the different media of advertising, there are further subcategories to allow for more targeted advertising. Within print advertisements, there are magazines that cater to different groups of people in society and have different features such as cars for men or fashion for women. This is similar to television in terms of channels that cater to different parts of the populace. These subcategories help the advertiser to reach out to certain groups of people, that are the most likely to buy the product and therefore help the manufacturers obtain more profit.