Advertising

Objectives
• Many specific communication and sales objectives can be assigned to advertising. Advertising can
be defined as any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or
services by an identified sponsor.
• As you can see, the aims of advertising should be specific, answering questions like:
• Who is targeted?
• How many?
• What product or service?
• What shall the (change in) perception of the product be?
• To what extent?
• In what time frame?
• The advertising objective should emerge from a profound analysis of the current marketing
situation. For instance, if the product is mature, the company is the market leader, but brand
usage is low, the appropriate aim of advertising should be to stimulate more usage (persuasive
advertising). On the other hand, if the product is rather new to the market, the company is not
the market leader, but the product is superior to the market leader’s product, then the
appropriate aim of advertising should be to inform the market of the brand’s superiority
(informative advertising).
• Three main Aims of Advertising
• Informative Advertising
• Informative advertising is especially relevant in the pioneering stage of a new product category. The objective is to build primary
demand. To support this objective, informative advertising provides information about the features of a new product or service in
order to initiate the decision-making process of consumers. For instance, the yogurt industry initially had to inform consumers of
the nutritional benefits of yogurt.

• Persuasive Advertising
• Persuasive advertising becomes relevant in the competitive stage. The company’s objective is to build selective demand for a
particular brand. It has to persuade consumers of the fact that its products or services offer more value than competing products or
services. For instance, BMW attempts to persuade consumers that its cars deliver more driving pleasure than Mercedes-Benz cars.
• Some persuasive advertising uses comparative advertising, which makes explicit comparisons of the attributes of two or more
brands. For instance, Burger King used comparative advertising for its attack on McDonald’s: Burger King directly compared its
flame-broiled burgers to the fried ones of McDonald’s to gain advantage. In some countries, comparative advertising is not
permitted. In addition, a company should always make sure that it can prove its claim of superiority and cannot be counterattacked
in a vulnerable area, which may result in an “advertising war”.

• Reminder Advertising
• Finally, reminder advertising becomes relevant in the case of mature products. At this stage, consumers are aware of and informed
about the features of a product. Also, they are persuaded of its benefits. However, these benefits must be repeated to remind
consumers to buy the product. For instance, Coca-Cola ads in magazines are intended to remind people to purchase Coca Cola.
• A related form of Reminder Advertising is Reinforcement Advertising, which aims to assure current purchases that they have made
the right choice. For instance, automobile ads often depict satisfied customers enjoying special features of their new car.