Advertising is a marketing communication that employs an openly sponsored, non-personal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea. Sponsors of advertising are typically businesses wishing to promote their products or services. Advertising is differentiated from public relations in that an advertiser pays for and has control over the message. It differs from personal selling in that the message is non-personal, i.e., not directed to a particular individual. Advertising is communicated through various mass media, including traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, outdoor advertising or direct mail; and new media such as search results, blogs, social media, websites or text messages. The actual presentation of the message in a medium is referred to as an advertisement.
Persuasion or persuasion arts is an umbrella term of influence. Persuasion can attempt to influence a person's beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviors.
Sex appeal is often used in advertising to help sell a particular product or service. According to research, sexually appealing content, such as imagery, used for marketing does not need to pertain to the product or service in question. Rather, such content is utilized as an attempt to shape or shift brand image held by the consumer. As more companies have adopted the ad strategy of "sex sells", the prevalence of sexual campaigns has led to controversy. Consumers in society have voiced concern over the techniques and content used for titillating audiences, often stemming from the fact that such ads challenge conventional morals and cultural standards.
Product placement, also known as embedded marketing, is a marketing technique where references to specific brands or products are incorporated into another work, such as a film or television program, with specific promotional intent. Much of this is done by loaning products, especially when expensive items, such as vehicles, are involved. In 2021, the agreements between brand owners and films and television programs were worth more than US$20 billion.
Visual rhetoric is the art of effective communication through visual elements such as images, typography, and texts. Visual rhetoric encompasses the skill of visual literacy and the ability to analyze images for their form and meaning. Drawing on techniques from semiotics and rhetorical analysis, visual rhetoric expands on visual literacy as it examines the structure of an image with the focus on its persuasive effects on an audience.
Mass marketing is a marketing strategy in which a firm decides to ignore market segment differences and appeal the whole market with one offer or one strategy, which supports the idea of broadcasting a message that will reach the largest number of people possible. Traditionally, mass marketing has focused on radio, television and newspapers as the media used to reach this broad audience. By reaching the largest audience possible, exposure to the product is maximized, and in theory this would directly correlate with a larger number of sales or buys into the product.
Marketing Communications refers to the use of different marketing channels and tools in combination. Marketing communication channels focus on how businesses communicate a message to its desired market, or the market in general. It is also in charge of the internal communications of the organization. Marketing communication tools include advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, sponsorship, communication, public relations, social media, customer journey and promotion.
Communication design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development which is concerned with how media communicate with people. A communication design approach is not only concerned with developing the message in addition to the aesthetics in media, but also with creating new media channels to ensure the message reaches the target audience. Some designers use graphic design and communication design interchangeably due to overlapping skills.
In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue, most of the time persuasive in nature. It helps marketers to create a distinctive place in customers' mind, it can be either a cognitive or emotional route. The aim of promotion is to increase brand awareness, create interest, generate sales or create brand loyalty. It is one of the basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four Ps, i.e., product, price, place, and promotion.
Cosmetic advertising is the promotion of cosmetics and beauty products by the cosmetics industry through a variety of media. The advertising campaigns are usually aimed at women wishing to improve their appearance, commonly to increase physical attractiveness and reduce the signs of ageing.
Music in advertising refers to music integrated into mass electronic media advertisements to enhance its success. Music in advertising affects the way viewers perceive the brand by different means and on different levels, and "can significantly affect the emotional response to television commercials." It also affects the musicians whose music is featured in advertisements.
An advergame is a form of advertising in video games, in which the video game is developed by or in close collaboration with a corporate entity for purposes of advertising a brand-name product. While other video games may use in-game advertising, an advergame is differentiated by the Interactive Advertising Bureau as a "game specifically designed around [the] product or service being advertised". An advergame is considered a type of advertainment.
Celebrity branding or celebrity endorsement is a form of advertising campaign or marketing strategy which uses a celebrity's fame or social status to promote a product, brand or service, or to raise awareness about an issue. Marketers use celebrity endorsers in hopes that the positive image of the celebrity endorser will be passed on to the product's or brand's image. Non-profit organizations also use celebrities since a celebrity's frequent mass media coverage reaches a wider audience, thus making celebrities an effective ingredient in fundraising.
Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development during the 1990s and 2000s changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing. As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly use digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e–books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones, callback, and on-hold mobile ring tones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online advertising.
Advertising to children refers to the act of advertising products or services to children as defined by national laws and advertising standards.
Since the Industrial Revolution, use of the family in advertising has become a prominent practice in marketing campaigns to increase profits. Some sociologists say that these advertisements can influence behavior and attitudes; advertisers tend to portray family members in an era's traditional, socially-acceptable roles.
Gender advertisement refers to the images in advertising that depict stereotypical gender roles and displays. Gender displays are used heavily in advertising in order to establish the role of one gender in relation with the other, and some scholars argue that advertisers are obsessed with gender. Advertisers focus on gender relationships, because people define themselves by gender, and gender can be "communicated at a glance", making it easy for advertisers to use this theme in their work. The effects of advertising on body image have been studied by researchers, ranging from psychologists to marketing professionals. "These days we know that the media and body image are closely related. Particularly, the body image advertising portrays affects our own body image. Of course, there are many other things that influence our body image: parenting, education, intimate relationships, and so on. The popular media does have a big impact, though." This is because thousands of advertisements contain messages about physical attractiveness and beauty, examples which include commercials for clothes, cosmetics, weight reduction, and physical fitness. Researchers have conducted studies in an attempt to see if such advertisements have effects on teenage body image, and what those effects might be. Scholars from the University of Colorado and Millsaps College conducted research that concluded that the images, symbols, and practices of the media are used by the audiences they reach and that media does, in important ways, have the “last word” concerning the way individuals feel about themselves. Women account for 85% of consumer purchases.
Subliminal stimuli are any sensory stimuli below an individual's threshold for conscious perception, in contrast to supraliminal stimuli. A 2012 review of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies showed that subliminal stimuli activate specific regions of the brain despite participants' unawareness. Visual stimuli may be quickly flashed before an individual can process them, or flashed and then masked to interrupt processing. Audio stimuli may be played below audible volumes or masked by other stimuli.
Predatory advertising, or predatory marketing, can be largely understood as the practice of manipulating vulnerable persons or populations into unfavorable market transactions through the undisclosed exploitation of these vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities of persons/populations can be hard to determine, especially as they are contextually dependent and may not exist across all circumstances. Commonly exploited vulnerabilities include physical, emotional, social, cognitive, and financial characteristics. Predatory marketing campaigns may also rely on false or misleading messaging to coerce individuals into asymmetrical transactions. The history of the practice has existed as long as general advertising, but particularly egregious forms have accompanied the explosive rise of information technology. Massive data analytics industries have allowed marketers to access previously sparse and inaccessible personal information, leveraging and optimizing it through the use of savvy algorithms. Some common examples today include for-profit college industries, "fringe" financial institutions, political micro-targeting, and elder/child exploitation. Many legal actions have been taken at different levels of government to mitigate the practice, with various levels of success.
Metaphorical framing is a particular type of framing that attempts to influence people's decision-making by mapping characteristics of one concept in terms of another. What makes metaphorical framing unique from the various other methods of framing is that the concepts being compared do not have to literally relate to each other. The purpose of metaphorical framing is to convey an abstract and/or complex idea in easier to comprehend terms. This is done so by mapping characteristics of an abstract/complex source onto characteristics of the simpler/concrete target. Metaphorical framing is based on Lakoff and Johnson's seminal work on conceptual metaphor theory that states that our cognition, our way of thinking, is metaphorically conceptualized. Metaphorical framing has been used in political rhetoric to influence political decision-making.
