Task 2

Arguments for and against advertising

Advantages

* Advertising provides information to consumer who may not otherwise discover the product.

* It increases sales, which leads to higher production and possibly more jobs.

* Competition is encouraged through advertising, which should again result in lower prices.

* T.V and newspapers are subsidised through their advertising revenue.

* Employment is created in the advertising industry.

Disadvantages

* Higher prices can be the result if advertising is unsuccessful because increased sales revenue does not cover advertising casts.

* It can lead to exploitation. Advertising can tempt people to buy what they do not need or cannot afford, or encourage them to buy products that may be harmful. (E.G Alcohol), but which have a tempting, advertising created image and appeal it. Can also encourage people to want more materials possessions, and its appeal may be an emotional one, rather than a rational one.

The different methods of advertising

* Informative advertising.

* Persuasive advertising.

Informative advertising is designed to increase consumer awareness of a product. Examples include the classified ads in the local newspaper, new share offers, grants available to firms and entries in the yellow papers. It is usually argued that this type of advertising helps consumer to make a rational choice as to what to buy.

Persuasive advertising tries to convince consumers to purchase a product, often by stressing it the more desirable than any others do. It is argued that this type of advertising distorts consumer buying, pushing them to buy, in reality almost all advertising is persuasive to some extent. Very few major campaigns aim to be entirely informative.

There are many different mediums that advertising can come from.

These are-

Television, National newspaper, Regional newspaper, Magazines, cinema, Radio, Posters, Internet.

Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each medium.

Television-advantages

* Can reach a vast audience.

* Product can be shown in use.

* Creative advertisements can attract attention and have a big impact.

* Increase scope for targeting the audience

Disadvantages

* Relatively expensive for the initial cost.

* The message is short lived and often the viewer wouldn't receive the full amount of information.

* Consumers may not watch commercials.

* Technical information is hard to explain.

* They're maybe a delay between seeing the advert and visiting the shops.

Magazines-advantages

* Colour advertisement where needed.

* Targeting can be linked with features.

* Magazines may be refereed to at a later date.

Disadvantages

* A long time between advertisements.

* Competitor products are also advertised so consumers do get a choice.

* No movement or sound to accompany the advertisement.

Posters-advantages

* National campaigns available.

* Most groups covered.

* May encourage impulse to buying.

* Close to shops.

* Seen repeatedly.

Disadvantages

* Limited amount of information.

* Difficult to measure effectiveness.

* Weather and graffiti can ruin the advertisement, rendering it useless.

In my opinion the most suitable methods of advertising for the new chocoholics would be-

* Posters.

* Television.

Posters are very effective, as they are seen by many people but are also relatively cheap.

Television is the other most effective form of advertising that I think would be best suitable, it is able to 'bombard' the consumers with advertisements and can be used at particular times of the day when it would be most effective. For example Saturday morning television for kids and also after school television for children.

Sales promotion

Sales promotions are the incentives offered to consumers to encourage them to buy goods and services. They are used to give a short term 'boost' to the sales of a product. This is different to building up brand recognition and loyalty, which may be a longer term aim. There is a variety of sales promotions that a business can use.

* Coupons, refunds and loyalty or reward cards. These involve either refunding money to the customers or allowing savings to be made on repeat purchases. Many businesses have loyalty cards. The Boots loyalty card, launched in 1997, had 8.7 million holders by mid 1998.

* Competitions. Prizes are sometimes offered for competitions. To enter, consumers must first buy the product. Tabloid newspapers often use this type of promotion. They try to attract customers through large cash flow prizes in their 'bingo' competitions.

* Product endorsements. These are widely used to by sports goods manufacturers, sports personalities and teams paid to wear or use particular products. A crucial element of competitions between Nike and Adidas, the two leading sportswear manufacturers, is their signing sports personalities in 1998, Nike were lining up Ronaldo, Michael Jordan and Ian Wright against Tim Henman, David Beckham and Naseem Hamed for Adidas.
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* Product placing. The is a recent innovation, it involves a firm paying for products brands to be placed on the sets of films and TV programs, car manufacturers are often eager to see their vehicles driven by popular Hollywood stars in movies.

* Free offers. A free 'gift' may be given with the product an example of this is the music magazine 'Q', which regularly offers its readers free CD's of featured artists.

* Special credit terms. This has been increasingly used by firms. It includes offers such as interest free credit and buy now ...

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