What are the purposes of advertisements?

Purposes of advertisements
What are the Purposes of Advertisements?

For a given market target, there are six purposes which an advertisement seeks to attain. It is possible to achieve more than one type of objective with one single campaign; but that is both difficult and costly.

Whenever a company seeks to achieve more than one purpose through advertisements, it must make sure that the various purposes are in conformity with its overall marketing strategy. When a company seeks to increase the recognition of a brand name or product as part of its branding policy in marketing, advertisements are the way to go.

Basic purposes of advertisements:

  • Awareness;
  • Reminder to use;
  • Changing belief about the brand;
  • To assist salesmen in marketing products;
  • Generating direct sales;
  • Building the company’s image.

Advertisements create awareness:

One of the most widely accepted purpose of advertisements is to increase the recognition of a brand name or product, or to communicate information about the availability of the product to the public. This is an important objective from many point of view.

First, when a new product enters the market, it does not easily gain the favor of the buyers unless they are well informed about it. That is, an awareness about the product must exist before a favorable attitude toward the brand can be developed. An awareness about the brand is all the more important when several brands compete with each other.

Reminding buyers to use the product:

For discretionary items having an irregular or unusual pattern, an appropriate advertising policy must aim at stimulating the primary demand. To attain this objective, the buyers must be reminded not only to use the product but also to restock it.

Advertising to change belief about brand:

If an attribute is already considered important, buyer will examine the relative strength of different brands with respect to that attribute. Accordingly, the purposes of advertisements are to improve the buyer’s rating with regard to the product advertised vis-a-vis the other competing brands. When the attribute of a product is not peculiar, advertisements are floated to establish the superiority of product over other competing brands.

General purpose of an advertisement is to market a product:

The manufacturer extensively use advertisement for this purpose. Through advertisement, they try to familiarize the customers with their products and tend to promote a favorable attitude toward them before buyers are approached by salesman. That is why, when a salesman approaches a customer, it is relatively easy for him to sell the product.

For example, companies producing machine tools advertise their goods in those trade magazines which are read by their customers. Such advertisements may induce potential customers to purchase the product. At any rate, they create a favorable attitude toward the product so that the salesman may find it easy to canvass support for it.

Some companies assist retailers in arranging window displays and store decorations. This serves a dual purpose: it creates consumer interest and facilitates a favorable reception of the product by the retailer.

In some cases, advertising is used for the purpose of persuading the customer to place an order for the product. Mail order houses through leaflets and catalogs, advertise their products in such a manner that customers are convinced of their value and are tempted to write to the institution to get the product without going to a shopping mall or without going into further details about the product.

Products like books, ready-to-wear garments, slimming machines, toys and sports goods can be profitably sold by direct mail advertisements. Through such advertisements, the company lays stress on price appeal, and uses such slogans as “direct from factory to you.”

Advertisements builds Company’s Image:

The general purpose of advertisements is to build a company’s image. Practically all companies try to build their image through advertisements. Some consider it as the primary objective of advertisement.

For example, Godrej, Lakme, Vimal, VIP have built up an image through advertisement. It is largely assumed that if the company has some image or reputation in the market, it will be easy to sell its product. For example, Vimal’s clothing is very costly; yet it has good sales because of its image.

Selection of Advertising Media:

Advertising is a vehicle through which advertisers communicate their messages to customers to induce them to buy the products or services advertised by them. The following principal advertising media helps to achieve the key purposes of advertisements:

Though a wide variety of advertising media are available to achieve the above purposes of advertisements, yet selection and use of an appropriate medium of advertisement pose a variety of problems, which cannot be altogether solved by the management media specialist or even by an advertising agency.