Advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade its viewers, readers or

listeners to take some action. It usually includes the name of a product or service and how
that product or service could benefit the consumer, to persuade potential customers to
purchase or to consume that particular brand. Modern advertising developed with the rise
of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[1]

Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or

services through branding, which involves the repetition of an image or product name in
an effort to associate related qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers. Different
types of media can be used to deliver these messages, including traditional media such as
newspapers, magazines, television, radio, billboards or direct mail. Advertising may be
placed by an advertising agency on behalf of a company or other organization.

Organizations that spend money on advertising promoting items other than a consumer
product or service include political parties, interest groups, religious organizations and
governmental agencies. Non-profit organizations may rely on free modes of persuasion,
such as a public service announcement.

A television advertisement or television commercial – often just commercial or TV ad

(US), or advert or ad (UK/US), or ad-film (India) – is a span of television programming
produced and paid for by an organisation that conveys a message. Advertisement revenue
provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television
networks. The vast majority of television advertisements today consist of brief
advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to several minutes (as well as
program-length infomercials). Advertisements of this sort have been used to sell every
product imaginable over the years, from household products to goods and services, to
political campaigns.

The effect of television advertisements upon the viewing public has been so successful
and so pervasive that in some countries, like the United States, it is considered impossible
for a politician to wage a successful election campaign without the purchase of television
advertising. In other countries, such as France, political advertising in television is strictly
restricted,[1] and some, like Norway, even completely ban it.

Many television advertisements feature catchy jingles (songs or melodies) or catch-

phrases (slogan) that generate sustained appeal, which may remain in the minds of
television viewers long after the span of the advertising campaign. Some of these ad
jingles or catch-phrases may take on lives of their own, spawning gags or "riffs" that may
appear in other forms of media, such as comedy movies or television variety shows, or in
written media, such as magazine comics or literature. These long-lasting advertising
elements may therefore be said to have taken a place in the pop culture history of the
demographic to which they have appeared.

Advertising agencies often use humor as a tool in their creative marketing campaigns. In
fact, many psychological studies tried to demonstrate the effect of humour and indicate
the way to empower advertising persuasion.
An animated TV advertisement

Animation is often used in advertisements. The pictures can vary from hand-drawn
traditional animation to computer animation. By using animated characters, an
advertisement may have a certain appeal that is difficult to achieve with actors or mere
product displays. For this reason, an animated advertisement (or a series of such
advertisements) can be very long-running, several decades in many instances. A notable
example is the series of advertisements for Kellogg's cereals, starring Snap, Crackle and
Pop. The animation is often combined with real actors.

Entire industries exist that focus solely on the task of keeping the viewing audience
interested enough to sit through advertisements. The Nielsen ratings system exists as a
way for stations to determine how successful their television shows are, so that they can
decide what rates to charge advertisers for their advertisements.

Advertisements take airtime away from programs. In the 1960s a typical hour-long
American show would run for 51 minutes excluding advertisements. Today, a similar
program would only be 42 minutes long; a typical 30-minute block of time now includes
22 minutes of programming with 6 minutes of national advertising and 2 minutes of
local.

In other words, over the courses of 10 hours, American viewers will see approximately 3
hours of advertisements, twice what they would have seen in the sixties. Furthermore, if
that sixties show is rerun today it may be cut by 9 minutes to make room for the extra
advertisements (some modern showings of Star Trek exhibit this).

In the 1950s and 1960s, the average advertisement's length was one minute. As the years
passed, the average length shrank to 30 seconds (and often 10 seconds, depending on the
television station's purchase of ad time), but more of them are now shown during the
break, while in the '60's, only one or two advertisements would be shown at each break.
However, today a majority of advertisements run in 15-second increments (often known
as "hooks").

TV advertisements are identified by an ISCI code.

Future of TV advertisements
Though advertisements for cigarettes are banned in many countries, advertisements can
still occur by the broadcast of race events.

The introduction of digital video recorders (also known as digital television recorders or
DTRs), such as TiVo, and services like Sky+, Dish Network and Astro MAX, which
allow the recording of television programs onto a hard drive, also enable viewers to fast-
forward or automatically skip through advertisements of recorded programs.

There is speculation that television advertisements are threatened by digital video

recorders as viewers choose not to watch them. However evidence from the UK shows
that this is so far not the case. At the end of 2008 22 per cent of UK households had a
DTR. The majority of these households had Sky+ and data from these homes (collected
via the SkyView[15] panel of more than 33,000) shows that, once a household gets a DTR,
they watch 17 per cent more television. 82 per cent of their viewing is to normal, linear,
broadcast TV without fast-forwarding the ads. In the 18 per cent of TV viewing that is
time-shifted (i.e. not watched as live broadcast), viewers still watch 30 per cent of the ads
at normal speed. Overall, the extra viewing encouraged by owning a DTR results in
viewers watching 2 per cent more ads at normal speed than they did before the DTR was
installed.

Advertising Lacks Credibility

Why would anyone pay attention to a message about a brand they
have never heard of ? Where is the believability in such a message?
If someone calls you on the phone and says, “You don’t know me,
you don’t know my products, you don’t know my company, but I
would like to make an appointment to try to sell you something,” you
would immediately hang up the phone.
On the other hand, if someone calls you on the phone and says,
“You are a customer of Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks is having a cocktail
party to introduce a new line of designer clothes,” you might be
tempted to show up. Saks Fifth Avenue has credibility in your mind.
It’s a name you know.
Publicity provides the credentials that create credibility in the
advertising. Until a new brand has some credentials in your mind, you
are going to ignore its advertising.
{ I N TR O D UC TI O N • XVII}
If you are going to be successful in building a brand, you need to
manage both public relations and advertising properly. The general
rule is, Never run advertising until the major publicity possibilities
have been exploited.
Publicity First, Advertising Second
Advertising doesn’t build brands, publicity does. Advertising can only
maintain brands that have been created by publicity.
The truth is, advertising cannot start a fire. It can only fan a fire
after it has been started. To get something going from nothing, you
need the validity that only third-party endorsements can bring. The
first stage of any new campaign ought to be public relations.
War and marketing have many similarities. Military generals who
fight today’s war with the last war’s weapons are no different from
marketing generals who fight today’s marketing war with advertising
when they should be using PR.
Yesterday it was armor. Today it’s airpower. Yesterday it was advertising.
Today it’s PR.
With publicity assuming the major role in most new-product
Launches, whom do clients consult with on strategic questions? More
and more, they hesitate to ask their advertising agencies for advice
because they know the advice they are going to receive. So they go it
alone without outside help. Or they invite consultants like us to work
with them on strategic marketing issues including PR.
In the future, clients will be looking to public relations firms to
help them set the strategic directions for brands, and advertising will
be forced to follow the lead of PR.
In the future, you can expect explosive growth in the PR industry.
You can also expect to find a new respect for public relations both
inside and outside the corporation.
{ XVIII• I N TR O D UC TI O N }
In the future, you can expect to hear howls of anguish from the
advertising industry. And it’s not just the money. Even more important
to advertising agency executives is the potential loss of their traditional
role as marketing partners.
Marketing has entered the era of public relations.
A Coca-Cola ad from the 1890s
The Product and Creativity
But doesn’t creativity belong in the product rather than in the advertising?
Isn’t the essence of building a brand creating the perception

Advertising and
Creativity

✹ 3
that the brand was first in some new category rather than creating the perception
that the brand’s advertising was some sort of breakthrough
advertising?
Wouldn’t you be less likely to buy a product if you thought the
advertising was great and the product mediocre? And more likely to
buy a product if you thought the advertising was mediocre and the
product was great? And isn’t it true that most people think advertising
itself is irrelevant and just something to put up with in order to watch
television and listen to radio? Or to page through in order to get to the
real reading material in newspapers and magazines?
By focusing on creativity, advertising agencies assume that marketing
is a battle of advertisements rather than a battle of products.
Agencies want to win the advertising war because it means awards,
media recognition, and new business.

Advertising’s emphasis on shock value to create awareness

Advertising and
Awareness
It’s become an article of faith that one of the primary objectives of an
advertising program is to increase brand awareness. And what better
way to increase awareness than by running advertising campaigns that
attract attention.
“Attention must be paid” seems to be the motto of the advertising
crowd. But attention without motivation is a useless attribute. When
Volvo drives an automobile into a steel wall, the crash test captures
your attention, but it also reinforces Volvo’s safety position in your
mind. When an advertisement is all attention and no motivation,
nothing much is accomplished.
The Internet boom in the late 1990s created a major problem for many
dotcom start-ups. With everyone jumping on the Net, how could any
single site generate enough publicity to build name recognition?
To solve the problem, many Internet companies turned to advertising.
Since we can’t get publicity for our dotcom, went the thinking,
we’ll launch the site with a big advertising program.

While many dotcoms have died, others are alive and well and prospering.
The successful sites were all first in a new category combined with
a powerful motivating factor that generated plenty of favorable publicity.
• America Online wasn’t the first Internet service provider, but it
was the first ISP to get into the prospect’s mind, thanks to a generous
helping of PR. Furthermore, on December 1, 1996, AOL
was first to introduce a flat-rate service, a strong motivating factor.
(Initially the service was priced at $19.95 a month. Currently
the service is $23.90 a month.)
• Amazon wasn’t the first Internet bookstore (Powells.com was),
but Amazon was first to get into the prospect’s mind. And it had
the 30 percent discount as the powerful motivating factor.
{ ANDTHERISEOFPR•69 }
• Monster was probably not the first job search site on the
Internet, but it was first to get into the prospect’s mind.
Furthermore, the 800,000 jobs listed on the site is a strong
motivating factor.
• EBay was the first on-line auction site. With 29 million registered
users and millions of items offered, eBay’s motivating factor
is its size and strength.
• Priceline was the first on-line “bidding” site for airline tickets
and hotel rooms. Its motivating factor is the substantial savings
that can be achieved by using the site.
• Travelocity and Expedia weren’t the first on-line travel sites,
but they were the first sites to get into the prospect’s mind. Their
motivating factors are the price and itinerary comparisons found
on the sites.