Advertising and Promotion in Business

Advertising and Promotion in Business

Introduction

Globalisation has shrunk the world for the consumers. Customers can now choose from large range of products and brands and select what is best for them. In this cut-throat competition a product or brand cannot reach the masses without efficient marketing. Advertising and promotion are two most significant aspects of any marketing strategy. Some say no matter how good a product is, in context of quality and manufacturing but lack of good marketing and promotion efforts will restrict its demand in today’s competitive market. In this study we will try to discuss the communication process in advertising and promotion along with its organisation structure with the help of examples. We will also be discussing the ethical issues related to it along with the regulations in the industry. Additionally we will analyse the impact of digital and social media on this industry. We will also be analysing the concept of branding in detail and creative aspects of advertising copy (hawkes, 2007).    

Task 1

Communication process in marketing consists of integrated set of activities which involves identifying the target audience and generating a well-coordinated program of advertisements and promotion to get the desired response from the audience. Its main function can be considered as to encrypt and translate a promotional message which will than reach the target audience. The target audience would be different for different companies and even for the different products of the same company. Thus, it is the task of the marketing team to identify the features of the product and the target audience they will be useful for before creating a marketing strategy to attract them. For instance, target market for a candy company would be kids between the age group of 5 to 15 who would consume their product after watching the TV commercial or any other media source through which company might use. Another company which manufacture electric cars, target audience for them will be everyone who is of the legal age to drive a car. Thus, both companies have different market to target and thus their marketing strategies will differ vastly from each other on the grounds of how to convince the potential buyers to buy their product rather than the competitors. Elements of communication process of advertising can be described as follows-      

• Sender: It is the party or person who creates or sends the message for the target audience.
• Encoding: It means conversion of thoughts or idea into meaningful symbols.
• Message: It is the group of symbols created in the previous process.
• Media: It is the medium through which message will reach the target audience.
• Decoding: The conversion of symbols into meaningful message by the receiver is known as decoding.
• Receiver: The party which receives the message and decode it is the receiver.
• Response: This is the reaction of the receiver upon receiving the message.
• Feedback: This is the portion of the response which is sent by the receiver to the sender.
• Noise: The unplanned disturbance or distortion in the process because of which receives interprets the wrong message or does not understand the original message (clow, 2007).

Task 2

Organization of advertising and promotion industry works in a centralised manner. Its organisation structure is consist of advertising and promotion managers working with innovative team, and purchase and sales agents along with financial team. This organisation structure can be divided into five components. Firstly, there it is the client or company for which the advertisement is made, for example Audi which is a brand owned by German car manufacturer and conglomerate Volkswagen. Second is the advertising agency which will produce as well as distribute the advertisement for the target market. They are hired by the advertisers to produce the part or full advertisement. Volkswagen group selected Omnicom’s PHD as its global media agency in 2016, following the emission test cheating scandal which negatively influenced the image of the brand as well as sales particularly in United States. This company will work with rebuilding brand image of the company on global, national, regional and dealer level. Media organisation works with offering a way to reach to prospective clientele. However, it also creates an environment for the market to understand the message of the company. Another form of advertising organisation is the specialized marketing communication services.  These companies specializes in certain areas of advertisement and promotion and provide services in those areas only. Agencies such as websites which are interactive agencies, public relation firms like ABI, Agenda and sales promotion firms are the specialized marketing services. Last but not the least are the people who provide collateral services. Directors, artists, photographers, writers, printers as well as freelancers who are working in this industry to provide the clients with most innovative plans and ideas every day to be implemented to reach their prospective clientele. All these organisation work together to achieve common goals for their clients and to create an environment and convey a message which translates the idea of the company for which the advertisement is made and make it understandable for the end receiver (craig, 2005).  

Task 3

Whenever a product is made and the manufacturer decides to advertise and promote it in order to aware the market about the product and register its presence among the buyers. This promotion when reaches the consumers must be ethical and create value for the buyers which will buy it.  Ethical advertising can be thus be defined as truthful advertising which present the real features of the product while following the regulations of the related authority and does not misguide the consumers. In United States advertisement agencies are regulated and monitored by Federal Trade Commission. In United Kingdom, Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) regulates the advertisements. For India it is done Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI).These authorities lay down ground rules and regulations for ad agencies and monitor their operations. Any defaulter not meeting the standards set by them in their respective countries is punishable by law. Advertisers have to be particularly cautious while designing advertisements for children who are easily affected by whatever they see, while creating advertisements for potentially harmful products like alcohol and while using psychological tactics to stimulate demand for their product. Ethics in advertising is directly related to the purpose and nature of advertising (borgerson, 2012). When an advertisement is made target audience is identified along with their beliefs and ideals. These beliefs have to be kept in mind while deciding the marketing strategy for them. This will help the advertiser to better understand their perception and design the ad in such a way which persuades a customer to buy their product. Recently, the Vatican issued an article describing the moral principles which should be followed while advertising which are truthfulness, social responsibility and upholding human dignity (ASA, 2017).        

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