As business continues to grow in Atlanta and technology improves, the marketing tools used to communicate with consumers is expanding at a rapid pace. This is a blessing and a curse. The added resources and tools make it easier to communicate in a manner that is most appropriate for the type of service, but a marketing resource can become confused with so many options.
The first step toward marketing success is in how to develop and execute a marketing plan. For outside help, they can turn to a marketing firm or agency. If they choose to handle it internally, they can hire a full-time marketing resource (manager or director) or they can just devote a good amount of personal time to it.
After this determination, an owner needs to be aware of all the marketing options available to reach their target market-
-Signage
-Point of sale
-Collateral–brochures
-Direct mail
-Advertising–print, radio, television
-Internet-website, video, email
-Referral marketing-targeting strategic partners
-Trade show events
-Public relations
Due to the relatively excellent business climate in Atlanta, I’ve found vendors here to be plentiful and very reasonable. You can either use your marketing agency’s resources or you can go find them on your own. I would suggest identifying a good graphic designer, printer and copywriter at a bare minimum.
Technology has allowed small businesses to present themselves both in wide-reaching presence as well as in productivity. A good example of this are autoresponders. By setting up emails that are sent out at set times and in response to certain requests by a prospect, timely and consistent information is delivered.
Some of the marketing options are less expensive while others, such as radio and tv or more prohibitive. A better consideration however is whether a marketing tool reaches the intended audience as well as the effective mix of different tools.
The marketing mix of these tools is of paramount importance. I’ve found that some professionals and industries lend themselves toward either a relationship-heavy or relationship-light marketing mix. What I mean is that for, say, engineering firms, an ongoing relationship has to be developed in order to secure business. Within this niche, direct mail will be less effective whereas target referral marketing will be critical.
I have a client who used to market their services (within the construction industry) using solely relationship-building direct mail. After review and collaboration with the customer in addition to some brief interviews of prospects, we decided to alter the approach of the mailing campaign to a deeper relationship-building style and re-shaped the web design in like kind. The results have been much greater in terms of closed business.
A plumbing contractor is an example of a professional that is relationship-light in nature. A plumbing contractor that sees a different client every day would be better off with a lead generating website and a consistent direct mail program. His/her relationships with the clients are shorter and involve less money than that of an engineering firm.
A specific approach for the plumbing contractor might be a referral marketing approach with other roofers and electricians, a direct mail approach to residences or businesses in the area, and a website that offers information on plumbing in exchange for gathering information and implementing an email campaign.
Dynamics change within markets but there are identifiable effective marketing mixes within each niche. A good marketing mind recognizes this dynamic and identifies the correct mix early. If the business owner decides to use an internal resource, then he/she must identify this mix early on or waste a significant amount of money.
About the Author
Scott Campbell owns Impact Marketing, Inc. The company is an Atlanta marketing agency that helps businesses plan and execute the most effective marketing mix.
Atlanta, GA Metro Area LAMINATED ZIP Code Map. Includes the following layers: Counties with Labels, Five Digit ZIP Codes with Labels, Incorporated Cities and Towns with Labels, Interstate Roads, Other Primary Roads, and Other Main Roads. Created and printed at WorkingMaps, who are the leaders in the production of high quality, inexpensive, and fast custom maps. Specializing in ZIP Code maps …
Atlanta, GA Street Detail Metro Area LAMINATED ZIP Code Map, Includes the following layers: Counties with Labels, Five Digit ZIP Codes with Labels, Incorporated Cities and Towns with Labels, Interstate Roads, Other Primary Roads, Other Main Roads, and Local Roads. Created and printed at WorkingMaps, who are the leaders in the production of high quality, inexpensive, and fast custom maps. Spe…
An original vintage magazine ad print from the year published. Print ads make unique gift items that can be framed as artwork. Shipped flat un-framed in plastic sleeve with backing board….
I want to join the Met Police London, but live out of area, where do they advertise for police officers?
I want to join the Met Police London, but live out of area, where do they advertise for police officers? i have been to a couple police meeting and events but wanted to know which papers they advertise, and where to look on the web for any ideas when you will be able to go to one of these events to get an application form, thanks you, i live in essex just outside london area if that’s any help, thanks
Just really need to know where they publish there events really, mainly newspapers
Any particular reason you want to be in the Met? You could try Essex police too…
Never HIGHLIGHT a Book Again! Virtually all testable terms, concepts, persons, places, and events are included.look no further for study resources or reference material. Cram101 Textbook Outlines gives all of the outlines, highlights, notes, and practice-tests for your textbook. Only Cram101 is Textbook Specific. Cram101 is NOT the Textbook.
Where is a good place to look for jobs.internships in marketing/advertising?
in OC?
www.mad.co.uk (its the Official Marketing Week website), www.cim.co.uk (Chartered Institute of Marketing website) www.idm.co.uk (Institute of Direct Marketing website. Media Guardian is pretty good as well as local newspapers. Hope this helps. Thanks
How Female Marketing Execs Shortchange Own Careers
You love advertising, so much so that you’re thinking about starting a career in it. But aside from creative directors who think up the ideas for ads, who does what at an ad agency? Idea Industry: How to Crack the Advertising Career Codes is the first book that breaks it all down and explains what everyone does, which job might be the right fit for you and how you can get that job. We cover the ma…
Every year, over 60,000 commercial roles for all ages, physical types, and ethnic backgrounds are cast by ad agencies, producers, directors, and casting directors across the country. Breaking Into Commercials will show you what it takes to get one of those roles and give you an edge over the competition. This essential guide provides untapped opportunities in regional markets and abroad, and sh…
In today’s competitive marketplace, establishing a creative and comprehensive branding program is crucial to achieving business success. This dynamic new book from best-selling author Robin Landa is an all-inclusive guide to generating ideas and creating brand applications that resonate with an audience. A highly visual examination of each phase of the branding process includes comprehensive co…
Press Release is an excellent e-marketing tool that plays a great role in making a search engine optimization India campaign successful. It helps in increasing the visibility of the website by providing instant exposure for your business, website, products, and services. Press releases create awareness about your business in the e-commerce world by providing it the required publicity. It not helps you to convey your message to the targeted audience but also give your business a tremendous boost. When weighing the cost of advertising via press releases against the fee associated with submitting and distributing the Press Release, it definitely seems invaluable.
A content rich and keywords stuffed press release can help to improve your online business and reputation of your site, you can submit and disseminate your press releases to the target audience by paying a marginal fee and increase the visibility of your website and attain a larger coverage. Whether you are a small or large business, Web promotion India help you gain maximum exposure at relatively minimum cost. We are adept at handling the various issues associated with press release like writing, submission, and distribution.
Press Release helps you to gain wider coverage, achieve top rankings and get targeted traffic to your website by connecting you with popular media outlets, specialized trade journals and other publication houses. Our unmatched technologies and techniques allow you to spread news stories on the popular media hubs and make headlines on news top-tiers like Google News, Yahoo News, and MSN News. Gain maximum benefits for your business by picking our affordable press release services.
SEO benefits of Press Release
-Spot your Press release on the leading news sites -Yahoo News and Google News -Enhance the visibility of your website in the www.dot.com world with huge exposure -Get high powered keyword-rich back links and increase your link popularity -Helps to attain top rankings on major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN -Helps to brings heavy targeted traffic to your website and increase rate of conversion -Help to reach out to the various industry analysts, freelance journalists and newsrooms
About the Author
SoftechStrategies.com offering Internet marketing India , Website designing India, Online marketing Mississauga, Seo India, Web marketing Mississauga, Web development Mississauga
This digital document is an article from Photo Marketing, published by Photo Marketing Association International on August 1, 2003. The length of the article is 1665 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citati…
This digital document is an article from Franchising World, published by International Franchise Association on January 1, 2003. The length of the article is 855 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation D…
This digital document is an article from Franchising World, published by International Franchise Association on August 1, 2005. The length of the article is 1874 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation D…
What industries use sex or innuendo (ie. in advertising) to sell?
There’s obvious ones like shops that sell lingerie, Anne Summers type things
The fashion industry also.
As part of a design group in my degree we have to come up with an advertising campaign that would target a wide range of industries to employ us to graphic design for them. Can anyone think of any others that we could use the same marketing strategy to target?
where to start , have seen it in just about everything
i guess the most famous in the uk would be a chocolate bar
it is called a cadbury flake , and when the girl puts it in her mouth , you dont need to be einstein to work out what its mimicking
A glorious old beer film! Made by the Pabst Brewing Company, this film was used to train their managers and distributors how to sell more beer. The animation is top-quality for the time period, and the acting is campy and delightfully awful. They first show the different types of advertising that the Pabst Company was flooding the market with, including billboards, magazine ads, and more. Most exc…
This silent film explores the manufacturing process, and virtues, of beer in the early 20th century. The video possesses great camp value: through bizarre text boxes one speaker extols the healthiness of drinking large amounts of beer! But, as with most silent films, the most striking aspects of it are the beautiful moving images of now historical brewing facilities. For Good Living is the perfect…
This propaganda piece lobbies against big tobacco and portrays the tobacco industry as a lying, greedy, and cutthroat business that knowingly hides the truth about the health problems caused by smoking cigarettes. Table Of Contents: (1) Up In Smoke (1960) – BYU LDS Department of Education sponsored film that attacks the tobacco industry. This surprisingly progressive film portrays the tobacco indu…
This digital document is an article from Franchising World, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1358 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation DetailsTitle: Stay ahea…
The dynamic modeling and analysis of advertising competition continues to be a topic of importance to scholars and practitioners. The second edition of Dynamic Models Of Advertising Competition reviews empirical and analytical research on the topic and extends the research through analytical and numerical investigation. Three types of model frameworks – Lanchester, Vidale-Wolfe, and diffusion – are combined with two different approaches to developing competitive advertising strategies – perfect equilibria and dynamic conjectural variations – in the analysis of duopoly and triopoly competition. Advertising strategies developed with the different approaches are compared and contrasted to open-loop strategies.
Free Online Advertising Tips – Four Free Advertising Tips
Local small businesses have shoestring advertising budgets and can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars on yellow page advertising or on Google pay-per-click Ads. So here are four free advertising tips to help you save thousands of dollars a months and still get more value from each dollar you spend.
You can use these Four free advertising Tips as much and as you need to.
Free Online Advertising Tip #1 – Register for a free http://104inc.com business account .
When you register you can take advantage of their ”Free” basic listing. This will allow your business to be listed on over 2000+ websites for free. Registering on 104inc.com alone will help your website/store increase online and foot traffic; generate quality leads from targeted local customers. They also offer 45 day free trial of the upgraded package if you fully want to take advantage of their powerful lead generating tools.
Free Online Advertising Tip #2 - Send a press release or newsletter.
You always have the opportunity to write a newsletter or press releases monthly to promote your business. This is one of the best free advertising tips for you to take advantage of.
This monthly newsletter or press release can be mailed or e-mailed to your customers and update them on a unique product or service you offer.
Make your release interesting and offer discounts or sales to your business clients.
People love success stories so make sure to spotlight a success story from the past month or quarter. You might talk about a new product or a client who found success using your product or service.
Then once it is finished, you can submit it to local news outlets or you can publish it online.
The best place to release your story is by using the website at http://104News.com. When you visit the site click on “feedback” on the top right hand side of the website and submit your story.
These first two tips will really help in your quest for free online advertising.
Free Online Advertising Tip #3 – Write an article.
This is the most commonly used free online advertising tips because it simple and works very well.
There are hundreds of places you can post your articles online on a variety of topics.
All you have to do is find a few that deal with your business. You can find a complete list of domains at 104Articles.com then click on the “tab” (More 104 Sites).
Then you simply write up a 100-400 word article and submit it to the editors of your chosen 104Articles.com or any other website in the 104inc community.
You will be able to put a link to your website at the end of your article or the link to your free advertisement profile at 104inc.com (refer to free online advertising tip #1 to set up a profile).
This is where you will put your contact information for your business.
This is a favorite of the free advertising tips and has been used for years by many successful small and large businesses.
Free Online Advertising Tip #4 – Use your vehicle.
One of the most unused free advertising tips is by using your cars, trucks or vans to advertise your small business.
If you think about it, you or your employees drive around for many different reasons. If you have a sign or window sticker, you can attract many new potential clients without much effort.
All you need to do is put your company logo on a license plate or just place a window sticker at the rear of your vehicle.
Please make sure that your logo and contact information is clear and simple. You need to make sure to put this window sticker where it easily can be seen.
One of the benefits of advertising with you car is the potential tax deductions involved. Make sure to talk to your tax advisor or visit 104Accountant.com to find one near you.
If you have any questions about anything you have read today. Please visit 104Solution.com and click “contact us” to ask your questions.
Hope I have been able to save you some money with these free advertising tips.
Put them to use and save as much money as you can!
About the Author
Our story at 104Inc is simple: We like to help others. Imagine a team that consists of family and friends who all have the same passion in life. Imagine a group of individuals who sacrifice so much everyday in-order to attain their goal and one day live their dream. Now, imagine the amount of effort, motivation and discipline it takes for ordinary people like us having a burning desire to accomplish something extraordinary. Here at http://www.104Inc.com, we have the opportunity to do all of that. We have, the aspiration, the zeal and the motivation to help others in areas where they are less fortunate, including our own family and friends.
An original vintage magazine ad print from the year published. Print ads make unique gift items that can be framed as artwork. Shipped flat un-framed in plastic sleeve with backing board….
An original vintage magazine ad print from the year published. Print ads make unique gift items that can be framed as artwork. Shipped flat un-framed in plastic sleeve with backing board….
An original vintage magazine ad print from the year published. Print ads make unique gift items that can be framed as artwork. Shipped flat un-framed in plastic sleeve with backing board….
Quirky, yet interesting, Here’s Looking, is a hybrid film combining science and marketing propaganda. Truly aimed to show off the safety features of Chevrolet automobiles the film compares and contrasts human and animal vision as scientist dissect the eyes of an eagle and a guinea pig. It also explains how bifocal lenses improve vision and safety. Improvements made to glass and the importance of h…
Are you making this common advertising mistake when promoting your business online?
There is one major mistake I see people make when they begin promoting their online businesses and this is it. When they start purchasing advertising, they tend to purchase advertising that has no lasting effect on their business. What I mean by this is they will buy solo ads to be placed in ezines, they will place Craigslist ads or do a direct mail campaign using postcards. While all these methods are good and they work, they are not the best thing to do for the long term.
When many people first start promoting their MLM, CPA offers, eBay products or whatever it may be they focus on only one thing and that’s getting into profits as fast as possible. While this is understandable, it is also killing their business before they even get started. See, a lot of people get into these businesses online with money they really couldn’t afford to spend in the first place. They are looking at the ads they place to be their financial saviour. This is the wrong way to go about it and in my article I’m going to show you a smarter way to work.
You need to be focused on spending your ad budget on marketing that will be around for weeks, months and even years. Some good examples of these would be search engines, blogs, videos etc. View this type of marketing as long term residual advertising. The term residual means do something once and reap the benefits of it forever. Here is a strategy for getting your website indexed into the search engines. Make good use of directories as they are absolute search engine magnets. Using them will get Google, Bing and Yahoo and others to take notice of your website quickly.
Wordpress blogs should be a tool that’s in every marketers bag of tricks as well and here’s why. When you post good and frequent content to your blogs, the search engines will revisit your site often to index it’s pages. When this occurs, your blog posts can get massive exposure based on whatever keywords you chose. Regular websites that never get updated are called static websites and the search engines see no reason to come back and look at them that often. Blogs can be cheap to use and they are extremely powerful so use them.
However, there is a right way and a wrong way to use them. They have what’s called plug ins and they allow your blog to perform certain actions that once again entice the search engines to look at your site often. Plug ins are critical for a blogs success so be sure that you have the correct settings for yours.
Videos are another excellent tool for that long term exposure because once you upload them to Youtube or various other video sharing websites, they will always be there working for you. Yes there is that rare occasion where they can get removed or be flagged. When this happens it’s usually by your competition who was jealous that your video was better than theirs. This happens very rarely so don’t let that stop you from uploading many videos.
Now let’s talk about magazine ads for a minute, they are to be considered a major part of ones advertising portfolio if they are in the budget. Dollar for dollar they are still hard to beat when you want to get the most out of your ad budget. Magazine ads are not one trick pony’s, when they are placed they tend to get read not just when the issue comes out. They tend to get read for months and even years down the road. People will hold onto these and even pass them around from friend to friend. When this happens guess who’s ad gets a free ride.
All forms of social bookmarking and social media marketing are considered long term advertising. When you make a tweet on twitter or post to your friends wall on Facebook or use Myspace, you are creating lasting content about your business. With the millions of people who actively read and post to these websites, you would be crazy not to be in these venues. Surely by now you’ve noticed how much the media talks about social media, it’s in the news daily. More and more people are jumping on this bandwagon so it would benefit you greatly to make sure your website gets noticed on these sites.
In closing let me make this final comment about your online advertising. Make sure that you plant your marketing on a firm foundation by focusing on the long term methods first. Use videos and all forms of social networking first. Use magazine ads if they are in your budget, do some directory submissions for your website. Set up either a blogger or Word press blog and make sure they have all the necessary plug ins like all in one SEO pack and others. Make sure that you post on a regular basis to your blogs so the search engines keep re indexing your pages.
Then once you have that going for you, come back and do the short term things like the solo ads, the postcards and other. You will see that down the road it was the smartest decision you could have ever made.
About the Author
About the author: Craig Wilson is a full time professional Internet marketer who makes his living from the Internet. He is a professional ad copy writer and specializes in researching the best of the best methods for online and offline advertising. To see what website he recommends that can help a person set up a complete short and long term advertising campaign please visit http://www.atotaltrafficexplosion.com
2 Common Advertising Mistakes That Cost Companies Million…
An original vintage magazine ad print from the year published. Print ads make unique gift items that can be framed as artwork. Shipped flat un-framed in plastic sleeve with backing board….
Neal Page is an advertising executive who just wants to fly home to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with his family. But all Neal Page gets is misery. Misery named Del Griffith – a loud mouthed but nevertheless loveable salesman who leads Neal on a cross-country wild goose chase that keeps Neal from tasting his turkey. Steve Martin (Neal) and John Candy (Del) are absolutely wonderful as two guys wit…
12 Most Common Mistakes in Advertising by Roy Williams So your advertising doesn’t work like it should. You’re not alone! Best-selling author Roy H. Williams has identified the most common mistakes that advertisers make over and over again: 1. The desire for instant gratification 2. Trying to reach more people than the budget will allow 3. Assuming the business owner knows best 4. Unsubstantiat…
“This book is a lot of fun … Haig wants to educate as well as to entertain, and at this he succeeds. … Anyone with a professional interest or involvement in brand management should read this book.” — Anthony Di Benedetto, Professor of Marketing, Temple University in Journal of Consumer Marketing…
In the early 1900s, the language of America was becoming colloquial English-the language of the businessman, manager, and professional. Since college and high school education were far from universal, many people turned to correspondence education-that era’s distance learning-to learn the art of speaking and writing. By the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of Americans were sending coupons from newspa…
Advertising – Precious Information Or Vicious Manipulation?
Is advertising the ultimate means to inform and help us in our everyday decision-making or is it just an excessively powerful form of mass deception used by companies to persuade their prospects and customers to buy products and services they do not need? Consumers in the global village are exposed to increasing number of advertisement messages and spending for advertisements is increasing accordingly.
It will not be exaggerated if we conclude that we are ’soaked in this cultural rain of marketing communications’ through TV, press, cinema, Internet, etc. (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). But if thirty years ago the marketing communication tools were used mainly as a product-centered tactical means, now the promotional mix, and in particular the advertising is focused on signs and semiotics. Some argue that the marketers’ efforts eventually are “turning the economy into symbol so that it means something to the consumer” (Williamson, cited in Anonymous, Marketing Communications, 2006: 569). One critical consequence is that many of the contemporary advertisements “are selling us ourselves” (ibid.)
The abovementioned process is influenced by the commoditisation of products and blurring of consumer’s own perceptions of the companies’ offering. In order to differentiate and position their products and/or services today’s businesses employ advertising which is sometimes considered not only of bad taste, but also as deliberately intrusive and manipulative. The issue of bad advertising is topical to such extent that organisations like Adbusters have embraced the tactics of subvertising – revealing the real intend behind the modern advertising. The Adbusters magazine editor-in-chief Kalle Lason commented on the corporate image building communication activities of the big companies: “We know that oil companies aren’t really friendly to nature, and tobacco companies don’t really care about ethics” (Arnold, 2001). On the other hand, the “ethics and social responsibility are important determinants of such long-term gains as survival, long-term profitability, and competitiveness of the organization” (Singhapakdi, 1999). Without communications strategy that revolves around ethics and social responsibility the concepts of total quality and customer relationships building become elusive. However, there could be no easy clear-cut ethics formula of marketing communications.
ADVERTISING – PRESCIOUS INFORMATION OR VICIOUS MANIPULATION?
In order to get insights into the consumer perception about the role of advertising we have reviewed a number of articles and conducted four in-depth interviews. A number of research papers reach opposed conclusions. These vary from the ones stating that “the ethicality of a firm’s behavior is an important consideration during the purchase decision” and that consumers “will reward ethical behavior by a willingness to pay higher prices for that firm’s product” (Creyer and Ross Jr., 1997) to others stressing that “although consumers may express a desire to support ethical companies, and punish unethical companies, their actual purchase behaviour often remains unaffected by ethical concerns” and that “price, quality and value outweigh ethical criteria in consumer purchase behaviour” (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001). Focusing on the advertising as the most prominent marketing communication tool we have constructed and conducted an interview consisting of four themes and nine questions. The conceptual frame of this paper is built on these four themes.
THEME I. The Ethics in Advertising
The first theme comprises two introductory questions about the ethics in advertising in general.
I.A. How would you define the ethics in advertising?
The term ethics in business involves “morality, organisational ethics and professional deontology” (Isaac, cited in Bergadaa’, 2007). Every industry has its own guidelines for the ethical requirements. However, the principal four requirements for marketing communications are to be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Unfortunately, in a society where the course of action of the companies is determined by profit targets the use of marketing communications messages “may constitute a form of social pollution through the potentially damaging and unintended effects it may have on consumer decision making” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999).
One of the interviewed respondents stated that “the most successful companies do no need ethics in their activities because they have built empires.” Another view is that “sooner or later whoever is not ethical will face the negative consequences.”
I.B. What is your perception of the importance of ethics in advertising?
The second question is about the importance of being moral when communicating with/to your target audiences and the way consumers/customers view it. In different research papers we have found quite opposing conclusions. Ethics of business seems to be evaluated either as very important in the decision making process or as not really a serious factor in this process. An example of rather extreme stance is that “disaster awaits any brand that acts cynically” (Odell, 2007).
It may seem obvious that the responsibility should be carried by the advertiser because “his is the key responsibility in keeping advertising clean and decent” (Bernstein, 1951). On the other hand the companies’ actions are defined by the “the canons of social responsibility and good taste” (ibid.). One of the interviewees said:
“The only responsible for giving decent advertising is the one who profits at the end. Company’s profits should not be at the expense of society.”
Another one stated that “our culture and the level of societal awareness determine the good and bad in advertising”.
The increased importance of marketing communications ethics is underscored by the need of applying more dialogical, two-way communications approaches. The “demassification technologies have the potential to facilitate dialogue”, but the “monologic” attitude is still the predominant one (Botan, 1997). Arnold (2001) points out the cases of Monsanto and Esso which had to pay “a price for its [theirs] one-way communications strategy”. In this train of thought we may review ethics in advertisements from two different perspectives as suggested by our respondents and different points of view in the reviewed papers. The first one is that it is imperative to have one common code of ethics imposed by the law. The other affirms the independence and responsibility of every industry for setting its own standards.
THEME II. Which type of regulation should be the leading one in the field of advertising?
The next theme directs the attention towards the regulation system which should be the primary one. Widely accepted opinion is that both self regulation and legal controls should work in synergy. In other words the codes of practice are meant to complement the laws. However, in certain countries there are stronger legal controls over the advertising, e.g. in Scandinavia. On the other hand the industry’s self regulation is preferred in the Anglo-Saxon world. Still, not everyone agrees with the laissez-faire concept.
One of our respondents said:
“I believe governments should impose stricter legal frame and harsher punishment for companies which do not comply with the law.”
Needless to say, the social acceptability varies from one culture/country to another. At the end of the day “good taste or bad is largely a matter of the time, the place, and the individual” (Bernstein, 1951). It would be also probably impossible to set clear-cut detailed rules in the era of Internet and interactive TV. Therefore, both types of regulation should be applied with the ultimate aim of reaching balance between the sacred right of freedom of choice and information and minimizing possible widespread offence. Put differently, the goal is synchronising the “different ethical frameworks” of marketers and “others in society” in order to fill the “ethics gap” (Hunt and Vitell, 2006).
THEME III. Content of Advertisements.
Probably the most controversial issue in the field of marketing communications is the content of advertisements. Nwachukwu et al. (1997) distinguish three areas of interest in terms of ethical judgment of ads: “individual autonomy, consumer sovereignty, and the nature of the product”. The individual autonomy is concerned with advertising to children. Consumer sovereignty deals with the level of knowledge and sophistication of the target audience whereas the ads for harmful products are in the centre of public opinion for a long time. We have added two more perspectives to arrive at five questions in the conducted interviews. The first one concerns the advertisement that imply sense of guilt and praise affluence that in the most cases cannot be achieved and the second one is about advertisements stimulating desire and satisfaction through acquisition of material goods.
III.A. What is your attitude towards the advertisement of harmful products?
A typical example is the advertisement of cigarettes. Nowadays we cannot see slogans like “Camel Agrees with Your Throat” (Chickenhead, accessed 25th September 2007) or “Chesterfield – Packs More Pleasure – Because It’s More Perfectly Packed!” (Chickenhead, accessed 25th September 2007). The general advertisement, sponsorship and other marketing communications means are already prohibited to be used by cigarette producers. Surprisingly, most of the answers of the respondents were not against the cigarettes advertisement. One of the respondents said:
“People are well informed about the consequences of smoking so it is a matter of personal choice.”
As with many other contemporary products the shift in communications messages for cigarettes is oriented towards symbol and image building. The same can be said for the alcohol ads. A well-known example of emotional advertising is the Absolut Vodka campaign. From Absolut Nectar, through Absolut Fantasy to Absolut World the Swedish drink actually aims to be Absolut… Everything.
Advertising of hazardous products is even more harshly criticised when it is aimed at audiences with low individual autonomy, i.e. children. Two main issues in this respect are the manipulation of cigarettes and alcohol as “the rite of passage into adulthood” and the fact that “sales of health-hazardous products (alcohol, cigarettes) develop freely without much disapproval” (Bergadaa, 2007).
III.B. What is your attitude towards the advertisement to children?
Children are not only customers, but also consumers, influencers and users in the family Decision-Making Unit (DMU). Additional difficulty is that they are too impressionable to be deciders in the DMU. At the same time it is not a secret that marketers apply “the same basic strategy of trying to sell the parent through the child’s insistence on the purchase” (Bernstein, 1951). It is not a surprise then that “spending on advertising for children has increased five-fold in the last ten years and two thirds of commercials during child television programs are for food products” (Bergadaa 2007). In the US alone children represent a direct purchases market of $24 billion worth (McNeal cited in Bergadaa, 2007) which certainly is on the top of the agendas of many companies. While exploiting children’s decision-making immaturity advertisers often go too far in dematerialising their products and “teleporting children out of the tangible and into the virtual world of brand names” (Bergadaa 2007). Teenage virtual worlds like Habbo where snack food brands run advertising campaigns are already a fact of life (Goldie, 2007). The imaginative worlds are popular not only online. Hugely successful for creating a fantasy world is Mc Donald’s. The company tops the European list of kids’ advertisers while more than half of the children’s adverts are for junk food.
In some countries there are harsher restrictions to the children advertising.
• “Sweden and Norway do not permit any television advertising to be directed towards children under 12 and no adverts at all are allowed during children’s programmes. • Australia does not allow advertisements during programmes for pre-school children. • Austria does not permit advertising during children’s programmes, and in the Flemish region of Belgium no advertising is permitted 5 minutes before or after programmes for children. • Sponsorship of children’s programmes is not permitted in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden while in Germany and the Netherlands, although it is allowed, it is not used in practice.” (McSpotlight, accessed 20th September 2007).
According to a research by Roberts and Pettigrew (2007) the most frequent themes in children advertising are “grazing, the denigration of core foods, exaggerated health claims, and the implied ability of certain foods to enhance popularity, performance and mood.” But the junk food is not the only reason for parents’ preoccupation. According to a study of Kaiser Family Foundation (Dolliver, 2007) parents are concerned about the amount of advertising of the following products (in order of importance): toys, video games, clothing, alcohol/beer, movies, etc.
The interviewed respondents were unanimous: “The advertising to children should be strictly monitored.” Similar results were obtained in surveys by Rasmussen Reports and Kaiser Family Foundation. Nevertheless, the legal means are just one part of the children’s protection. The other part involves “the decision-making responsibility of parents and teachers” which is “to assist their children in developing a skeptical attitude to the information in advertising” (Bergadaa 2007). The marketers themselves should also be involved in shaping the moral system of our future and “each brand should have its own deontology – a code of practice regarding children – rather than rely on industry codes” (Horgan, 2007).
III.C. Do you think there are many misleading, exaggerating and confusing advertisements. Are many ads promising things that are not possible to achieve?
It will not be exaggerated to state that advertising is in a sense “salesmanship addressed to masses of potential buyers rather than to one buyer at a time” (Bernstein, 1951). Since “salesmanship itself is persuasion” (ibid.) we cannot merely blame advertisers for pursuing their sales goals. However, in the last twenty years or so advertisers have increasingly applied semiotics in their messages and as a consequence ads have begun to function more and more as symbols. One extreme case in this stream of advertising is the creation of idealised image of a person who uses the advertised product. Bishop (2000) draws our attention to two “typical representatives of self-identity image ads” which entice consumers to project the respective images to themselves through use of the products:
- “The Beautiful Woman”; - “The Sexy Teenagers.
Through setting of such stereotypes advertisers not only mislead the public and exaggerate the effects of products but also provoke low self-esteem in consumers. At the same time they promise results that in most cases are simply impossible to achieve. Instead of promoting “‘glamorous’ anorexic body images” communication messages should use “varied body types” and should drop the idea of the “impossible physical body images” (Bishop, 2000).
To question III.C one of the respondents commented:
“The customers of these products [the ones advertised through thin models] are mostly people who do not have the same physical characteristic. For me, this type of advertising is deliberately aimed at people to make them feel not complete, far from attractive social outsiders.”
However, another interviewed stated that: “every person has his own way of evaluating what is believable and what is misleading. Consumers are enough sophisticated to know what is exaggerated.”
Similarly, Bishop (2000) concludes that “image ads are not false or misleading”, and “whether or not they advocate false values is a matter for subjective reflection.” The author argues that image ads do not interfere with our internal autonomy and if people are misled, it is because they want it. It is all about our free choice of behaviour and no advertisement can modify our desires. Perhaps, the truth lies somewhere in-between the two extreme positions.
III.D. What is your attitude towards advertisement that imply sense of guilt, and praise affluence that in the most cases cannot be achieved?
A more specific case of controversial advertising is the one used to “promote not so much self indulgence as self doubt”; the one that “seeks to create needs, not to fulfill them: to generate new anxieties instead of allaying old ones” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). A response of our interviewee reads:
“It is not only a matter of advertising. It has to do with the social inequality and the desire to possess what you can not.”
Hackley and Kitchen (1999) refer to this discrepancy as to “when reality does not match the image of affluence and the result is a subjective feeling of dissonance”. The issue could be elaborated further through the next question.
III.E. Are advertisements stimulating desire and satisfaction through acquisition of material goods moral?
We live in a society which is more or less marked by materialism. Advertisements are often blamed to fuel consumption which is allegedly leading to happiness. The role of promoting satisfaction through acquisition of material goods has become so important that currently the “media products are characterised by relativism, irony, self referentiality and hedonism” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). Is the popular saying “those who die with most toys win” really a motivator in consumers’ behavior and could consumption be the cure of emotional dissonance? This seems to be the case provided a brand succeeds to enter in the evoked set of consumer choices. This new “kind of materialism” goes hand in hand with “the emergence of individualism via sheer hedonism along with narcissism and selfishness” (Bergadaa 2007).
THEME IV. Is the quantity of advertisements justified?
IV.A. Do you think there is too much advertising?
An audit of food advertising aimed at children in Australia by Roberts and Pettigrew (2007) revealed that “28.5 hours of children’s television programming sampled contained 950 advertisements.” Actually, we all are being bombarded by ads on TV, Internet, print media, etc. The amount and content of marketing communications messages puts the consumer’s information processing capacity to a test. The exposure to marketing data overload often leads to diluted consumer’s selective perception. Whether our responses are circumscribed by “confusion, existential despair, and loss of moral identity” or we “adapt constructively to the [communications] Leviathan and become intelligent, cynical, streetwise” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999) is a question open to debate.
Two opposite streams of attitudes were produced in our research. One stance is concerned with the undue quantity of advertisement. The other stream proclaims that “If there is an advertisement, so it is justified by a need.” We agree that the communications overload may indeed have “pervasive effect on the social ecology of the developed world” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). If the increasing communication pollution is not managed properly by both legal and industry points of view yet again the advertising will manage “to hoist its foot to its own mouth and kick out a couple of its own front teeth” (Bernstein, 1951).
CONCLUSION
In preparation of this paper we have used qualitative depth interviews in order to get insights for what actual customers opine. We have also substantiated our presentation with references to a number of influential articles in the field of ethics in marketing communications. Generally, our respondents as well as various authors have taken two opposing stances. The first one affirms that ethics in marketing communications matters considerably, whereas the other one downsizes the importance of ethics, thereby stressing the role of other factors in consumer decision-making, i.e. price, brand loyalty, convenience, etc.
Marketers should understand their “responsibility for the emerging portrait of future society” (Bergadaa 2007). Not only there is a need of legal ethical frame but also professional ethical benchmarks and deontology should be in place. One of the main challenges is to avoid creating “a happy customer in the short term”, because “in the long run both consumer and society may suffer as a direct result of the marketer’s actions in ’satisfying’ the consumer” (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001).
The strength of the advertisement influence exerted on consumers is only one part of the equation. On the other hand we may affirm that consumers are not morally subservient and according to the information process models there is a natural cognitive defense. The communications tools “offer us a theatre of our own imagination” (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). Consequently, we accept the reality in terms of our own experiences. In this sense marketers do not create reality – they are simply a mirror of the society. We may argue that unfortunately this is not always the case.
Advertising is often deservedly seen as the embodiment of consumer freedom and choice. Notwithstanding this important role, when the choice is “between one candy bar and another, the latest savoury snack or sweetened breakfast cereal or fast food restaurant” (McSpotlight, accessed 20th September 2007) it represents anything else but not an alternative and certainly not a healthy one.
The words of Bernstein (1951), said fifty-six years ago are still very much a question of present interest: “It is not true that if we ’save advertising, we save all,’ but it seems reasonable to assume that if we do not save advertising, we might lose all.”
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About the Author
Boyan Yordanof is in the tourism business since 1996. His main interests are in Internet Marketing and more specifically Service Branding in the Hospitality Industry. Boyan is an Internet Marketing Executive at RIU Seabank Hotel Malta.
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