Definition of Advertising

Advertising as a discrete form is generally agreed to have begun with newspapers, in the seventeenth century, which included line or classified advertising. Simple descriptions, plus prices, of products served their purpose until the late nineteenth century, when technological advances meant that illustrations could be added to advertising, and color was also an option.

An early advertising success story is that of Pears Soap. Thomas Barratt married into the famous soap making family and realized that they needed to be more aggressive about pushing their products if they were to survive. He launched the series of ads featuring cherubic children which firmly welded the brand to the values it still holds today. he took images considered as "fine art" and used them to connote his brand's quality, purity (i.e. untainted by commercialism) and simplicity (cherubic children). He is often referred to as the father of modern advertising.World War I saw some important advances in advertising as governments on all sides used ads as propaganda. The British used advertising as propaganda to convince its own citizens to fight, and also to persuade the Americans to join. No less a political commentator than Hitler concluded that Germany lost the war because it lost the propaganda battle: he did not make the same mistake when it was his turn. One of the other consequences of World War I was the increased mechanization of industry - and hence increased costs which had to be paid for somehow: hence the desire to create need in the consumer which begins to dominate advertising from the 1920s onward.

DEFINITION - ADVERTISING

Advertising is

·        paid form

·        a way of promoting products, services or information

·        a form of communication (between manufacturer and consumer)

·        a physical commodity

·        an integral part of pop culture

·        an important economic force

·        a part of our urban landscape

            Advertising is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Modern advertising developed with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

1.   The non-personal communication of information usually paid for & usually persuasive in nature, about products (goods & services) or ideas by identified sponsor through various media. (Arenes 1996)

2.   Any paid form of non-personal communication about an organisation, product,service, or idea from an identified sponsor. (Blech & Blech 1998)

3.   Paid non-personal communication from an identified sponsor using mass media to persuade influence an audience. (Wells, Burnett, & Moriaty 1998)

4.   The element of the marketing communication mix that is non personal paid for an identified sponsor, & disseminated through channels of mass communication to promote the adoption of goods, services, person or ideas. (Bearden, Ingram, & Laforge 1998)

5.   An informative or persuasive message carried by a non personal medium & paid for by an identified sponsor whose organization or product is identified in some way. (Zikmund & D'amico 1999)

6.   Impersonal; one way communication about a product or organization that is paid by a marketer. (Lamb, Hair & Mc.Daniel 2000)

7.   Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas,goods or services by an identified sponsor. (Kotler et al, 2006)