Advertising

  
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AdTalk 
From publishing giant Ziff-Davis, a fast look at the advertising industry. 
Advertising Age 
Indepth site targeted at advertising professionals. 
Street Cents 
Online companion to Canada's award-winning youth consumer awareness show. 
CyberGold 
Get paid by advertisers for your time. 
 

 

 

In an effort to increase wide-spread promotion in modern times, businesses increasingly turned to emerging mass-distribution channels of media, such as printed publications like newspapers and magazines, and radio and television broadcasts. Today, advertising is a financial necessity for most publications and telecommunications networks. Newspapers wouldn’t be able to sell for pennies a copy without extensive ad space, and without commercials broadcasting a national television network would be impossible. While many consumers find these commercials a nuisance, most understand why they exist. 

The highly commercialized United States spends more money than any other nation on advertising: over $120 million annually. Of this revenue, over one quarter is spent on newspaper ads, with television commercials slightly behind. The third largest advertising market is direct advertising, where the product is promoted without an indirect medium such as newspapers. Radio and magazine advertising trails far behind the three primary forms. 

Advertising Research 
In today’s highly commercial economy, large corporations rely on advertising companies to promote their products. For a commission , these companies create a viable ad campaign and ensure ads are presented in effective locations. For a company that is spending millions of dollars at one time to promote a single product, a good campaign is very important. Good advertising firms have large staffs with many different skills. Their job is to make the public want the product. First, they have to find out who will want this product, and target the advertisements specifically to them. This is accomplished with demographics: studying the various groups within the population. If the product being promoted is a women’s cosmetic, the advertisement won’t be aimed at men looking to buy power tools and pickup trucks. Where the ad is placed is important. Advertisements for children’s toys won’t be found in news magazines, and luxury car commercial likely won’t appear during Saturday morning cartoons. 

To make sure products are targeted at the most likely buyers, advertisers rely on demographics and statistics. Demographical groups are sections of the general population, determined by such factors as age, sex, income, etc. This basic information categorizes individuals as a certain ‘type’ of person in society, and certain types are more likely to purchase certain products than others. For example, in the past, advertisements from the technology sector where almost always targeted at highly educated younger males with high paying professional jobs. As computers become mainstream in the consumer market, recent studies show that many computer products have very limited appeal to other dissimilar groups, such as girls and families, and the industry is beginning to accommodate them more. 

One other consideration advertising firms need to research is ad placement. Once ads are made, they have to be presented in suitable places. In magazines, advertisers try to put their ads in related magazines, which targeted groups are more likely to read. If the advertiser can afford it, you’ll often find they use slightly thicker or glossier paper. You’ll understand why this is done by flipping through any magazine and seeing which pages it opens up to. In newspapers, which are usually black & white, wealthy advertisers will get the publisher to run their ad in colour, which attracts the reader’s eye. In radio and television advertising, the ad’s audio is processed through a "compressor", which reduces the variances in the commercial’s sound. While you might not notice it, your ears sure will: the ad stands out from the rest of the programming. In television, you’ll also find commercials seem "faster" then shows. Advertisers try to cram more visuals into their 30 or 60 second time slots, making the ad more exciting, and effective, a technique successfully used by Microsoft to promote its Windows 95 Operating System. 

Social Effects 
Today, advertising is one of the most regulated industries in the world, and rightfully so. The persuasiveness  of this communication is amazingly powerful. Governments now try to protect consumers from misleading advertising. The media screens all advertisements they present to avoid offending their viewers. Some forms of media, especially television, don’t even air commercials for tobacco products, which could influence youth to start smoking. In fact, in the recent US tobacco company settlement, the cigarette companies agreed to stop using billboard advertising near schools and other places frequented by youth. 

Many people feel that advertising adds unnecessary overhead costs to everyday products. Studies have shown companies spend over $370 for every person each year to promote products. They claim this increases consumer awareness, and without advertising many products wouldn’t be able to sell enough, resulting in economic consequences. There is also the dilemma of event sponsorship. In Canada, the government wants to prohibit tobacco companies from sponsoring events. While this would reduce their exposure, which could stop people from starting smoking, many events couldn’t survive without this financing, such Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival. This could cause an even greater loss in tourism dollars, as well as jobs and cultural events. 

As technology increases, advertising opportunities follow. Many Internet sites already track who visits their sites, displaying ad banners that match their demographic group. In the future, television will become interactive, and ads will appear based on who you are. This will allow smaller businesses to advertise on a larger scale. Local stores will be able to create T.V. commercials that only air in certain areas. New advertising techniques are already emerging, such as paying people to spend their time viewing ads, pioneered by Internet company CyberGold. While advertising certainly won’t disappear in the near future, it will become easier to live with.