Advertising, what it can and cannot do
Popular opinion often credits advertising with a wider range of effects than is reasonable.
In fact its key characteristics, that it delivers massages via advertising media, means it has a more distant relationship with its target audience than do several of its relatives in the marketing communications mix.
As a result, it is unlikely to be able to clinch a sale, except in the special case of direct response advertisements. A more realistic role is longer term brand-building, which it can do by:
- Building awareness
- Conveying information
- Telling a story
- Establishment an identity
- Creating a predisposition
These are, of course, generalized common aims; more specific objectives must be set for individual advertising campaigns.
In practice those all too often include the requirement to ‘increase sales’ within the period of the campaign, which is normally comparatively short-term.
Such an objective typically places an unfair burden on advertising management and advertising agencies by ignoring:
- The crucial gap between responding favorably to advertising and being persuaded to take up the product.
- The time lag between being convinced and deciding to act accordingly
- The concurrent positive or negative affects of the advertiser’s decisions about other elements of the marketing mix, such as price
- Entirely external; determinants, such as personal economics, social norms or the activities of the advertiser’s competitors
Advertising, what it can and cannot do
