Goals and Objectives of Advertising - Term Paper Example

 «Goals and Objectives of Advertising» Advertising is a practice common among organizations aimed at informing, educating, convincing and swaying consumers into having favorable tastes and preference for the products or services that they offer. In essence, advertisements are driven by different goals and objectives; some to improve purchase of products or services, others for wide viewership like in the case of TV stations, or for convincing consumers of an organization’s superiority within a field of production and so on. It is aimed at enlightening a large population at once within a stipulated amount of time and have positive impacts as the end results on the objective for which the advertisement was made in the first place, hence supplementing the role of sales representatives. An advertising organization as defined by the American association on the other hand is an independent organization that specializes in developing people or business people who specialize in developing advertisement plans, advertisements, and other promotional tools (Johnson & Lee, 2005). In America the advertisement agencies field have developed gradually since its inception in the 1800s when advertising became a tool for organizations in the USA. Most effectively though in the 1860s with independent advertising agents present in the 1840s and 1850s. This paper therefore studies advertising agency as an American journalistic outcome and its history. DISCUSSION Development of Advertisement Agencies Free agents conducted advertisements in the 1840s who acted to advantage merchants, wholesalers and even manufacturers in their quest to reach larger consumer market both geographically and even nationwide. These agents were categorized as free agents who did more of freelancing advertisements the merchants or authorized agent who were acting on behalf of companies or organization with their full authority and support (Presbrey, 1968). They could not be relied upon though to relay the correct message as was required by the organizations they represented. Improvements were therefore necessary with the growth of the American economy and at a very fast rate. Advertisement developed from the 1840s agents to a situation whereby newspaper publishers then began to sell space for advertisement purposes to different advertiser for their advertisements, this being referred to as space jobbing (Presbrey, 1968). All these however would come to change with the ingenious ideas and mind of one Volney B. Palmer, revolutionize business in the United States when he founded the nation’s first advertising agency in Philadelphia in 1841 (Crouse, 2010). He pioneered the formation of advertisement agencies and went on to engineer changes through the advertisement industry with actions like providing a level business field for every participant within the industry. After leaving the family business that nurtured his skills and knowledge in newspapers, he diverted into the advertisement business that grew gradually finally leading him into representing 1300(one thousand three hundred papers) (Crouse, 2010). These advertisement agencies in effect enabled businesses, merchants, wholesalers and producers reach a larger geographical area and access more people nationally. He did wonders in convincing business people that buying advertisements and going all out to convince consumers was in the long run beneficial to their businesses. Telling then that risking more money to advertise more often than not had positive end results in the profits they realized through the sale of such advertised products. This proved successful and by 1865 well after his death, there was an increase in the number of advertisement agencies to 30(thirty), all that could be traced to him thereby reducing the overeliance on salesmen who always met resistance and had difficult times in convincing people on a product. This being as it may since some were unskilled and had little knowledge of the very same products they were representing. A nationwide essay on advertising that was held in 1850 also helped revolutionalize advertisement and during the baldasty when indusrialization happened, companies then felt the need and enjoyed more the impact of advertisement (Johnson & Lee, 2005). Advantages of Advertisement Agencies over a Plausible Option A plausible alternative to the emergence, embrace and usage of advertisement agencies would have been the individual businesses buying the advertisement space from the publishers and placing them by themselves. These would have a negative financial implication on the companies having to negiotiate on their own the cost of purchasing a space and placing an advertisement in a newspaper. With the economy of USA growing at a very fast rate then, companies needed to reach more consumers but at a cost effective rate and the emergence of advertising agencies came in handy to help negotiate and make the advertisements on behalf of the companies. Like in serving as a knowledgeable liaison between publishers and advertisers, Palmer was able to charge publishers a commission (widely believed to be on a 25 per cent basis) while maintaining repeat business from satisfied advertisers (Crouse, 2010). Main structural factor encouraged and had implications in he emergence of advertisement agencies. These factors as classified could also be analyzed in different ways, the factors being; material, institutional and cultural factors. Institutional factors according to this paper was a major factor that led to the transition process of accepting, embracing and placing the role of advertisement agencies in organization development plans. This is since the emergence of the advertisement occurred at a time when industrialization was at its peak and therefore companies had rapid and sometimes unforeseen growth in competition. They therefore had to counter these effectively in order to remain relevent and in business, while at the same time keeping in check; the class under which they would be classified within the market. In advertising their products, companies had to put in consideration, the religious tastes and preferences of their target market, the location and even educational background of the people they were advertising to. Well consideration of location would also have bearings on the decision made in as far as material factors are considered (Dane, 2006). The emergence of advertisement agencies was also enhanced by the material factors that affected companies in the 1800s during the industrialization period. Geographical consideration for example became a big part and aspect of any decision made in as far as advertisement was concerned. The market was widening geographically throughout the country and far beyond, advertisement was therefore very necessary in order to reach the more consumers. Industrialization also improved the economy from an economy of scope to that of scale making goods more cheap in large scale and therefore advertisement was to enlighten the population was necessary. Technological advancement also encouraged and enabled advertisement since companies had access to infrastructures like computers. Economic implication of the papers being commercialized also made advertisement a way of funding and keeping the publishers in business (Bas, Hess, & Neijens, 2004). In embracing the role of advertisement agencies, cultural factors like; values, ideals and attitudes had influencial roles to play. The management of an organization would impose certain corporate values and standards that reflected the objectives and values of the organization (Kelley & Jugenheimer, 2009). Advertisements would therefore have to assure consumers that their cultural requirements were met. These though if not in line with the cultural beliefs of the employees and even the consumers would have made the company irrelevant. Advertisements therefore enhanced the efforts of companies and their need to reach consumers and with their preferences considered to the latter. CONCLUSION Starting from where salesmen were burdened with the responsibility of informing the target population of the products of an organization, advertisement agents and then to advertisement agencies, the revolution was right on point. Industrialization came with it very many changes and enlargement of compamies being one of them. This therefore had to be countered by companies finding better ways of reaching more consumers but at a very cost effective and efficient way such that their objectives were still met. Advertisement agencies were therefore beneficial in their role to educate and promote consumers on the products availed to them and so it came at a very convenient point in time. Their emergence would therefore not have been at a better time REFERENCES Read More