Ashoka Universal School, Ashoka Marg
Academic Session – 2021-22
Mass media and Communication
Unit 5 – Advertising – Notes
Syllabus for Unit 5 - Advertising
(i) Definition
(ii) Functions of Advertising
Building brand image; creating consumer awareness and demand; increase in sales;
promotion of competition in the market; maximising of profits: a brief understanding of each.
(iii) Models of Advertising
A basic understanding of: AIDA (Attention Interest Desire and Action)
(iv) Principles of Advertising
A brief understanding of creativity, research, consistency, Duration and Frequency of
Campaign, Simplicity, Ethical, Unique Selling Point
Definition of Advertising –
Advertising - “Any paid form of non-personal presentation or promotion of ideas, goods or
services by an identified sponsor.”
Keywords for the Definition –
Paid Form – Advertisements are paid by the company who wants to promote their products
or services.
Non-Personal – Advertisements are always Impersonal
Promotion – To make the customers aware of the products and services
Identified Sponsor – A person or company who is promoting the product or service is the
identified Sponsor
Functions of Advertising –
1. Building Brand Image
Advertising helps in creating a good image of the company and reputation for its products.
A favorable image of the company and the products increases the capacity of the company to
survive competition.
Through effective advertising, Reliance, Tata, Honda, etc have become household names.
By building a good brand image, advertising enables business firms to obtain repeat orders
2. Creating Consumer Awareness and Demand
Advertising creates consumer awareness regarding various products and services in the
market.
It provides education and knowledge to consumers about new products and their diverse uses.
People become aware of the source and availability of different products and need not search
them out and can make a better choice among different varieties.
It sustains regular demand by smothering out seasonal fluctuations. By suggesting new and
more frequent uses of products, advertising helps to maintain steady demand
3. Increase in Sales
Advertising helps to increase demand, expand markets and enhance sales of existing
products.
By repeated Advertising, a producer can create new customers and enter new markets
It creates new wants and increases sales.
Advertising helps in mass selling of products and services.
4. Promotion of Competition in the market
Advertising is very important for meeting or facing competition.
By creating Brand loyalty and Image, Advertising helps to maintain sales and market share.
It creates preference for a particular product, opens doors for salesmen and helps in
reinforcing point of purchase.
It also helps in reducing the costs of creating and maintaining demand.
Dealers, Distributers, Retailers and Wholesalers prefer products and services that are well
advertised.
5. Profit Maximization
Advertising helps the organizations to increase the sales of the products and services.
It also helps the company to introduce new products by creating awareness and gaining
customer acceptance.
Effective advertising helps in overcoming consumers resistance to new products. I
Advertising stimulates their interest and persuades them to buy the products and services that
are well advertised.
Advertising also facilitates mass distribution of products.
In a way, due to steady demand, brand image and meeting competition, advertising helps to
increase the profits of an organisation.
Advertising Principles –
1. Creativity in Advertising - Creative Advertising campaigns are proven to be more
effective at getting results.
Creativity can help brands to create a following, as well as promote their products
It turns out that many people believe that a brand is high-quality and worth their
attention, simply because they’re impressed by the effort that went into producing such a
creative advertisement.
2. Research in Advertising
‘Research’ is a systematic and objective investigation of a subject or problem to find out
relevant information or principles. The researches may be conducted as follows:
Product Appeal Research
Advertising Message
Research
Advertising Media
Selection Research
Advertising Effectiveness
Research
It helps to –
 To Enhance Awareness
 To know Attitudinal Pattern
 To know People’s Action/ Re-action
 Analysis
3. Consistency in Advertising
 Consistency aids brand recognition simply by increasing the number of times we
see the logo and brand elements.
 Consistency can also create subconscious connections between a brand and real life
situations or settings.
Four types of Consistency while designing ads
1. Visual Consistency - It increases learnability of the product.
2. Functional Consistency - It increases the predictability of the product.
3. Internal Consistency - It improves the usability and learnability of the product.
4. External Consistency – It help in design consistency across multiple
ystems/products.
4. Duration and Frequency of Campaign
Frequency is the average number of times that a person within your target audience has
the opportunity to see an advertisement over the campaign period.
Reach measures the number of potential customers who see/hear the advertising campaign.
The question at the heart any advertising campaign is how many exposures are ideally
needed to reach a target person and within what time frame
5. Ethical
Ethics is one of the most important Principle in the Advertising Industry.
It Governs the way of Communication between the seller and the buyer.
An ethical ad is one which doesn’t lie, doesn’t make fake or false claims and is in the limit of
decency.
Three morals that are required to be followed are –
 Truthfulness
 Social Responsibility
 Upholding Human Dignity
6. Unique Selling Point
USP is the one thing that makes a business better than the competition.
USP plays to the strengths of the business and should be based on what makes a business
Brand or product uniquely valuable to the customers.
Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer - “Buy this product, for this
specific benefit.”
An Example - The USP of McDonald's is Quality, Service, Cleanliness & Value for money
which means we focus on providing our customers high quality products, served quickly with
a smile, in a clean and pleasant environment at an affordable price