The 10 Characteristics Of Advertising
Advertising
Marketers spend a lot of time analyzing the details of each marketing campaign. Advertising are regularly released, but it never hurts to take a good look at the basics. Also, seeing what we are doing from the ground up can help us step back and get new ideas flowing.
Returning to this base, we marketers advertise, but have you ever wondered what precisely this consists of? Whether it is analog or digital media, the truth is that all advertising campaigns share a series of common characteristics. Let’s see what they are.
10 Fundamental Characteristics Of Advertising
We will know the essential characteristics of general advertising in the digital environment.
1. Promotional Purpose Advertising
Promotional purpose advertising is a type of communication that aims to publicize a product or service and encourage sales.
It is widespread to call advertising “propaganda”, but in reality, these are two concepts that should be well distinguished. Propaganda seeks to influence the ideology and ways of thinking of the population; an obvious example would be the propaganda of different political parties at election time. In contrast, advertising does not focus on influencing ideologies but buying habits.
2. Its Primary Function Is To Persuade
To achieve its primary goal (increasing sales of a particular product or service), advertising must convince consumers that the product or service is better than the competition, solve a consumer need, or improve their lives in some way.
To do this, advertising uses various resources: appealing to consumers’ emotions, gaining their trust with arguments of authority or using logical reasons to justify the purchase of the product.
Secondarily, advertising can also inform about the existence of a new product or remind one of an existing one.
3. It Is Located Within The Marketing Strategy Of The Company.
The most visible side of advertising is undoubtedly creativity, but there are also a lot of strategies behind a campaign. Advertising always responds to a specific business objective aligned with the global interests of the brand or company.
Thus, the advertising strategy should be framed within the overall marketing plan and respond to the same planning (annual or quarterly).
4. It Addresses A Particular Target Audience.
Traditionally, advertising has used mass media such as radio and television to reach the broadest possible audience, but always to influence a specific segment of the public.
Every brand has a buyer persona” or profile of the ideal client to which it is directed, for example, “professional women between 30 and 40 years of age”. The content of the advertising messages is specially designed to appeal to the feelings and needs of that audience.
5. It Has A Cost For The Advertiser.
For companies, advertising means investing time, resources and, of course, money. Generally, the advertising model is based on the fact that the broadcaster of the advertisement or advertisements charges a certain amount in exchange for its diffusion.
Advertising is expected to increase the company’s profits, and this benefit exceeds the cost invested. The ROI or “return on investment” formula is used to calculate the relationship between the two. A positive ROI indicates that the advertising campaign has been successful.
6. Seek To Be Original
One of the most apparent characteristics of advertising is market saturation. Consumers receive hundreds of advertising impacts a day in different formats, and obviously, they cannot respond to all of them. For this reason, advertising seeks to stand out from the competition using unexpected designs and resources. Another way to attract the consumer’s attention is to emphasize the novelty of the product or service being advertised.
7. Employ A Variety Of Creative Resources
Videos that tell stories, impressive images, unforgettable speeches, catchy jingles. If there is something that stands out in advertising and makes it immediately identifiable, it is the use of creativity. The best creativities are those that manage to surprise, excite and remain in the memory of the public, all while remaining faithful to the principles of the brand.
8. Use Repetition
Advertising seeks to generate a memory of the brand and its values . Generally, a single advertising impact does not achieve this goal, especially in an environment as saturated as the current one. Therefore, an essential aspect of advertising is to seek the repetition of messages.
The optimal thing is that each consumer within the target audience receives enough impacts to remember the brand and its message, but not so many that it is annoying or saturates them. It is also interesting to consider that the consequences can be repeated through the same medium (for example, seeing the same television ad several times) or transmitting the same message by adapting to different channels (cross-channel or multi-channel advertising).
9. It Usually Offers Personalized Content.
More than a traditional advertising feature, this is an increasingly important trend in recent times. To achieve the maximum effect on the consumer, it is no longer just divided into broad segments but is increasingly personalized to the characteristics and needs of a particular user. Thus, for example, we have emails with personalized content that are activated when a user performs a specific action.
10. Advertising Must Be Ethical.
Due to its persuasive capacity, it is considered that advertising must be controlled to prevent misleading or unfair campaigns. Several public bodies regulate the ethical aspect of advertising, but it is also essential that advertisers and agencies take responsibility. And it is that in the end, honest and clean advertising reflects the values of the advertiser, contributes to improving its brand image and can only benefit you in the long term.
Also Read: IoT Advertising: What It Is And 5 Ways To Revolutionize Advertising
