Components of an Advertisement (How to Advertise?)

The Components of an Advertisement
We can factor an advertisement into seven important components;
1. The Headline
The Headline is the most read part of an advertisement. So advertisers try to tell maximum part of the product story through the headline. A headline will introduce the product or makes the promise statement or puts a question. It basically tries to attract the attention of the readers and create curiosity so the audience or reader sees further. The major types of headlines are:
• Direct promise of benefit
• News about the product
• Curiosity or provocative, and
• Command headlines
Direct headlines make a direct promise about how the product will benefit the readers. Readers are often interested in what is new in the product so the words ‘new’, ‘improved’, etc. are often used in headlines. Such headlines provide some new ‘information’ and are called news headline.
Sometimes the promise or benefit is not offered in the headline. Instead an indirect approach is adopted by either posing a question or making a provocative statement, the headline tries to create a lot of curiosity about the product. It also forces the readers or the audience to see the copy and the promise is made in the copy of the Ad. In command headlines, the readers are urged to buy the product by promising a reward. For example, ‘buy one, get one free’ or ‘buy for the price of two’. Usually they command or ask the consumers to buy.
Another type of headline is the select headline. This is directed at the headline scanners. Such a headline selects it own audience and can reach selected groups by either addressing them directly or by discussing their specific problems.
2. The Sub-Headline
This is not always used in ads. However, when the advertiser wants to say a lot at the beginning but the headline cannot do the job, then the subheading is used. The headline and subheading together can contain a longer message. The subheading usually spells out or elaborates the promise made in the headline or it stresses on the product’s unique features.
3. Slogan
It is a phrase or a sentence that describes the benefit derived from the product or one of the product’s most important attributes. The term slogan comes from the Gaelic words sluagh gairm, meaning battle cry. These days it is the battle cry in the field of sales and marketing. It consists of a single phrase by which an advertiser conveys an important idea, which will presumably lead readers or audience to remember and think favorably of this company. Slogan is thus a short and catchy phrase that gets the attention of the audience, is easy to remember and comes off the tongue easily. Slogan can of different types:
• Slogan that emphasizes product or reward- every product has some reward to offer consumers. It may have some hidden quality that differentiates a product from the competitors.
• Slogans that emphasizes action to be taken- the slogan might urge directly that you use the product or service.
4. Body Copy
When the headline usually makes a claim, the body copy elaborates upon it and provides supporting proof. When the headline poses a question, the subheading answers it. The amount of detail in an advertisement should be sufficient to answer the questions arising in the minds of a prospective buyer. And if the consumers require more details or information, then they can be requested to come back to the company for information booklets or can be invited to come to the retailer or dealer for more information or demonstration.
Sometimes the consumer wants a proof or evidence of the claims made in the advertisement. So proofs about quality, performance, durability, etc. are provided through arguments, proofs by experts, testimonials by users or through demonstrations in the body copy.

5. Visualization
The headline is a major attraction –getting device. Another device is the visual impact of the ad. This is the combination of the visuals used in the advertisements and the visual treatment given to other elements of the ad. This visual impact becomes strong if the idea has been properly visualized.
Visualization means to think in terms of visuals or pictures. And one need not be an artist or painter to be able to visualize as all it require is thinking.
For example think about the picture, which comes to your mind when you think the word ‘flower’. It could be a bouquet of flower or a garden full of beautiful flowers. These kind of perceptions need to be portrayed in the advertisements. A visualizer need not draw or paint these things but can just describe these and leave the drawing to the artists.
Visuals and pictures help people dream and project themselves in to another time, place, or situation. Pictures appeal to our hidden and suppressed emotions. Also pictures communicate ideas quickly and easily and also there is no chance of misinterpretation. Visuals not only attract attention, they hold the interest and often tell maximum part of the story. Visuals also identify the product, arouse interest, create a favorable impression of the product or the advertiser, clarify claims made in the copy, make demonstrations, emphasize the unique features of the product. And finally the visuals provide continuity for all advertisements in the campaign through the use of similar visuals.
6. Layout
Layout has two meanings. One means the total appearance of the advertisement, its design, the composition of the various elements. The other meaning is the act or process of placing the elements (copy, visuals, etc) together.
A layout could be the first pencil sketch, which puts the idea on paper or could also be the final piece after finishing touches. Good layouts are unimaginative. The various stages of a layout are:
• Thumbnail sketches- Advertising people usually work in pairs. A copywriter and a visualizer sit together and create ideas. The first thing they do is to come up with as many ideas as possible. And as they get the ideas they put them on paper, which is called thinking on paper. This helps in many ways-it records all the ideas options on paper, it gives some kind of a shape to the idea without using any expensive color, wasting much paper, etc. and without spending much time and efforts.
• In the thumbnail sketch the various elements of the advertisement are just schematically or diagrammatically represented. For example, a thick serrated line represents the headline. Thinner serrated lines represent the subheading and the slogan. Straight lines or dotted lines represent body copy. Boxes crossed inside represent visuals. Also thumbnail sketches are very small in size. Only the shape is proper-being proportionately smaller.
• Rough sketches- in the rough stage, bigger layouts are made so that more details can be accommodated. Hand lettering is done for the headlines and other copy parts that are to be composed in bigger type sizes. A rough sketch of the visual is pasted. These rough layouts are presented to the agency creative director for approval. Then the rough layout is further polished.
• Comprehensive stage- the rough layout is still small in size, with no color, with no proper borders and no proper lettering and visuals. Now it is enlarged to its actual size. All the copy is lettered or composed. Proper borders and other marks are put on the layout. Photographs and other visual are cut from other places or Photostatted and pasted. Some coloring-particularly using crayons, water colors, etc is done. This stage is called the comprehensive stage. As the name suggests this layout is easy to understand. This layout is presented to the client for approval. Once the client approves the layout, it is then ready for the final finishing touches.
• Art work-this is the final stage of layout. Here care is taken to look into each minute detail. The copy is properly composed or lettered. Proper photographs, paintings, sketches, or graphics are used. Other elements like borders etc are properly places. Coloring is done. Finishing artists give the final touches. This stage is now ready to be printed. All these various stages of preparing the layout are beneficial in a many ways. First these stages save time, money and efforts. If you prepare a final layout without taking the approval and it gets rejected, then all the material used, efforts and time spend are wasted. Also working on only one idea curtails the various other possible options.
A layout starts with a blank piece of paper. What the layout artist does is to place the copy, visuals and other elements on it. This placing of elements is not just mere decoration. What is required is a good, clear vision and interpretation of the selling concept of the story. A good layout allows all its elements-visuals, headlines, subheadings, body copy, charts, maps, logo, borders and other elements-to work together to do the job of telling the product story.
A good layout takes into consideration the principles of balance, proportion, unity, contrast, harmony, rhythm, and direction. And finally a good layout must be attractive, must create an appropriated mood or feeling, must have individually to stand out fr9om the clutter of advertisements.
7. Trademark
The term trademark includes any word, symbol or device or any combination there of adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify his goods and distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by others in the market. Trademarks are important because of two reasons:
• It increases the credibility of the firm because the buyer buys the product only after looking at the brand name.
• Registration of trademarks prohibits duplication.

Types of Advertising Agencies
Advertising Agencies can be classified by the range of services that they offer. Also, advertising agencies range in size from one man shows to large firms that employ thousands of people. Accordingly, different types of advertising agencies are:
• Full service agencies
• Creative boutiques
• In-house agencies
• Specialized agencies
• Media buying services
Full-service agencies- as the name implies, a full service agency is one that handles all phases of advertising process for its clients: it plan, creates, produces and places advertisements for its clients. In addition, it might provide other marketing services such as sales promotion, trade shows, exhibits, newsletters and annual reports. In short a full service agency will provide four major functions:
1. account management,
2. creative development and production,
3. media planning and
4. buying and research services.
One major point that differentiates a full service agency from other is that the personal work full time and the services provide are extensive. The services usually provided by a full service agency include collecting and analyzing market data, proposing strategy, preparing and producing the ads, placing the ads in approved media, verifying the advertisements appearance (publication, broadcasting, etc), invoice the client, collect the bills and pay the media and other suppliers.
Creative boutiques- it is an organization that specializes in the actual creation of advertisements. In general, boutiques create imaginative and interesting advertising themes and produce innovative and original advertisements. A company that uses a creative boutique would have to employ another agency to perform the planning, buying and administrative functions connected with advertising.
Full service ad agency studies the product or service and determines its marketable characteristic and how it relates to the competition. At the same time the agency studies the potential market, possible distribution plans and likely advertising media. Following this, the agency makes a formal presentation to the client deadlines, it’s finding about the product and its recommendation for an advertising strategy.
In-house agencies- such agencies are owned and supervised by advertisers or the client organizations. The organizational structure and functioning of in-house agencies are similar to full service agencies in most cases. The advertising director of the company usually heads an in-house agency. In house agencies are organized according to the needs and requirements 9of the company and are staffed accordingly. Some companies solely depend on their in-house agencies for their advertising needs. Others depend both on their in-house agency and outside agencies. Some other companies allow their agencies to take outside jobs.
Specialized agencies- there are many agencies, which take up only specialized advertising jobs. Certain fields like medicine, finance, outdoor advertising, social advertising, etc. require specialized knowledge. So there are agencies, which concentrate only on areas and employ people with the required talents. These agencies are usually small in size.
Media buying agencies-it is an organization that specializes in buying radio and television time and reselling it to advertisers and advertising agencies. The services sells time to the advertisers, orders the spots on the various stations involved and monitors the stations to see if the ads actually run.
This trend for special media buying agencies started in the 1970s. Such agencies have a lot of contacts in the media and offer very low commission on media rates. Media buying agencies complement the creative boutiques. Also large companies use their specialized negotiating talents for buying media space and time.

The Planning process of Advertisements Campaigns include the following activities:
1. Situation Appraisal- before planning any activity, one requires relevant information regarding the situation. For planning an Ad campaign, we require information about the target market or consumer, the company or product and the competition. The three important research areas are:
• Consumer research and market research
• Product and company research
• Competitive research
2. Situation Analysis- (analyzing strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats) From all the information collected, campaigns planners find out the strengths of the product. These strengths could be in any area. The strength often leads to new opportunities to be explored. Weaknesses make the product vulnerable to threats from others.
3. Structural or Strategic Planning- Advertising is an art and a science. While the art comes from writing, designing and producing exciting advertisements, the science comes from scientific methods of research and strategic planning. Strategic planning is the process of making intelligent decisions. It starts with finding out what to do, deciding how to accomplish the objectives. It also decides whom to address (the target audience), how to distinguish the product, how much to spend (budgeting), and how long to run the campaign.
4. Creative Planning- it includes developing a theme, the creative strategy and finally deciding the creative tactics. The theme needs to be a strong concept to be able to hold all there different and diverse ads together. A powerful theme brings about ‘synergy’ to the campaign. A theme must always relate to and reflect the campaign objectives. Another step of creative planning is finding the creative strategy. The creative strategy outlines the impressions the campaign wants to create. Some common creative strategies are:
• Generic Strategy- this is used by market leaders who ignore the presence of competitors
• Pre-emptive claim strategy- here the brand is the first to pick up a particular feature. In the minds of the people, it becomes associated with that brand.
• Unique selling proposition (USP) strategy- here the campaign talks about some features, which is unique to that advertised brand and is not available in others.
• Brand image strategy: when there are no strong differentiating features among the competitors, then branding try and create images.
• Product Positioning- some times products or brands are positioned different from competing brands.
5. Media Planning- the ultimate goal of advertising is to reach the target audience with the advertising message. Thus, the major decisions in media planning, which needs to be taken, are:
• Which media to be used?
• Where to advertise (geographic region)?
• When to advertise (timing and scheduling)?
• How intense the exposure should be (frequency)?
Media planning is a ‘behind the scene’ part of advertising. It plays an integral role in merging the science of marketing with the art of advertising. A media planner has to find out about the availability of various media, the media rates, their reaches and also analyze their effectiveness.
http://www.mbaknol.com/marketing-management/steps-involved-in-advertisement-planning/


Role of Advertising Agency
The major role as advertising agency is to work alongside the clients to develop and sustain the brands that they mutually serve, through consumer understanding and insight and through creative and media delivery skills to provide best advice and the best execution thereof to those clients for the advertising of those brands.
“Buildings age and become dilapidated. Machines wear out. People die. But what live on are the brands.”
Brands are much more than mere products and services. Brands, if successful, are clearly differentiated entities with which consumers can and do form a mutually beneficial relationship over time, because of the values – rational and emotional, physical and aesthetic – that consumers derive from them. The importance can be summed up as follows:
” A product is something that is made, in a factory: a brand is something that is bought, by a customer. A competitor can copy a product; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly out-dated; a successful brand is timeless.”
The role of advertising and the advertising agency is to help effect this transformation from product or service to brand by clearly positioning the offering to the consumer – its role and its benefits – and by communicating the brand’s own personality. In short its role is to provide meaningful differentiation via the consumer connection.
As one wise head in advertising once said, “nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising”. Typically advertising is playing this role, along with other parts of what we call the marketing mix, in highly competitive market places.
Most advertisers assign this job of informing the target audience and creating images to advertising agencies. Thus, the advertising agencies plan, prepare and place ads in the media. But even an advertiser can do all these things. The management can do planning of ad campaigns. For preparing ads, creative personal can be hires. And the advertiser for placing the ads can buy media space or time. So, why hire an advertising agency?
The reason can be enlisted as follows:
• Expertise and experience- An advertising agency brings together people with the required expertise and experience of the various sub-disciplines of advertising. Thus, it has the copywriters, visualizes, researchers, photographers, directors, planners and people who get business and deal with clients working in ad agencies. An agency moulds all these people into a team and gives them a highly conducive work atmosphere. The agency makes the best use of their talents and experience to deliver rapidly, efficiently and in greater depth than a company or organization could do on its own.
• Objectivity and professionalism- Advertising agencies are highly professional. Objectivity is a major virtue of ad agency. They operate in a strange way. While they take up advertising for others, agencies hardly advertise themselves. Ad agencies being outside intermediaries can be objective. They thus will offer independent and detached viewpoints and suggestions based on objective analysis.
• Cost effective- If an organization wants to hire people to do its advertising, it can not provide them work all through the year. Also most experts in the fields of advertising like directors, musicians, photographers, charge huge amounts and are often not affordable. Moreover, hiring, organizing and managing all talents required to produce advertising campaigns is not an easy thing. And the fact that 98% of advertisers the worlds over hire as agencies is proof enough about the cost effectiveness of the agencies. Also the kind of consistent, powerful and compelling advertising that can be created by using the expertise, experience, objectivity and professionalism of ad agencies cannot be measured economically.
Functions of Advertising Agencies
Today advertising agencies are found in virtually every major city on the world and their role in stimulating economic growth is solidly established. To understand advertising, we need to examine the functions of an Ad Agency. These are: -
• Talent & Creative productions: The basic function of an Ad Agency is providing talent. The creative efforts of the art director, the detailed analysis of the research director and the political understanding of the campaign director, are just a few examples of the many abilities of Ad Agency personal have to offer. A business organization or person will contract the services of an ad agency to help market a product. This function involves processing the information collected from the client and through research and designing communication material in the form of advertisements and other publicity material. This also includes planning creative strategies, copy or script writing, visualization, designing, layout, shooting of films, editing, giving music, etc.
• Research: The second function of an Ad agency is research. In order to distribute the message to the public successfully, the agency must first know all that it can about the product. One of the first jobs is to research the product and the company, one must learn, one possibly can about both. The research must even take one close to the heart of the firm’s inner operations. Ad agencies use research as a tool to test consumer reactions to products and services.
• Distribution & Media planning: The third important function of an ad agency is distribution. Here you decide what type of message you will create for the company and what media will be most helpful in sending this message to the public. On the basis of the media habits (access and exposure) of the target audience, agency people prepare a media plan. This plan includes which media to be used, which part of the media to be used, when to place the ads and for how long to place the ads, etc. media planners keep track of the viewer ship, listener ship and readership of all kinds of media.
• Monitoring Feedback: By monitoring consumer feedback, a decision on whether to revise the message, the medium, the target audience or all of them can be made. Ad agencies are developing to reach the target audience. As information is the backbone of all advertising, to prepare ads, one requires information about the product, its competitors, the market situation and trends, information about the audiences (their likes and dislikes and media habits) also need to be collected. Some of the most effective advertising includes advertisement written in their native language. All of these specialized campaigns are creating new demands on agencies and are requiring new talents for people who work in advertising.
In addition, many agencies also offer a variety of allied services. These include:
• Merchandising
• Public relations
• Organizing exhibitions and fairs
• Preparing all kinds of publicity material
• Planning and organizing special events (event management)
• Direct marketing

Types/Classification of Advertising
1. Product – Related Advertising
It is concerned with conveying information about and selling a product or service. Product advertising is of three types,
1. Pioneering Advertising: This type of advertising is used in the introductory stages in the life cycle of a product. It is concerned with developing a “primary” demand. It conveys information about, and selling a product category rather than a specific brand. For example, the initial advertisement for black – and – white television and color television. Such advertisements appeal to the consumer’s emotions and rational motives.
2. Competitive Advertising: It is useful when the product has reached the market-growth and especially the market-maturity stage. It stimulates “selective” demand. It seeks to sell a specific brand rather than a general product category.
3. Retentive Advertising: This may be useful when the product has achieved a favourable status in the market – that is, maturity or declining stage. Generally in such times, the advertiser wants to keep his product’s name before the public. A much softer selling approach is used, or only the name may be mentioned in “reminder” type advertising.
2. Public Service Advertising
This is directed at the social welfare of a community or a nation. The effectiveness of product service advertisements may be measured in terms of the goodwill they generate in favour of the sponsoring organization. Advertisements on not mixing drinking and driving are a good




Advertising and visuals
"Words are easily forgotten, but pictures stay in our minds." - Paul Lester.
For thousands of years people have tried to entice consumers to buy their products. From dish detergent to potato chips, the use of visual advertising has been employed. So what makes an advertisement convincing? Well, some basic guidelines for effective advertising are:
• The product must be reliable.
• The product must be something that the consumer deems as a necessity.
• The product must be priced correctly.
• The product must save labor or be deemed by the consumer as important.
• The product should be helpful
• The product should be stylish and attractive
• The product should be repeatedly advertised.
With these guidelines in mind, let's look at some popular advertising campaigns of recent times.
The Absolut vodka campaign has been popular throughout the 80's, 90's, and into the new millennium. So what are the elements of visual advertising that have made their ad so popular?



Well, liquor wouldn't necessarily be a product deemed necessary by the individual. It is also one of the higher priced fine spirits, so it might not be the most cost efficient product. It's not truly labor saving. Then what about this ad makes it so popular? It is stylish and hip. What Absolut ads lack in promoting their product as necessary and labor saving, they make up in an artful representation of their bottle. This repeated use of presentation in different mediums keeps a fresh look for Absolut and keeps people coming back.
Another ad campaign made popular by repeated advertisements is the Taco Bell dog commercial that saturated television commercials in the late 90's. While many of us, the consumers, weren't sad to see this lovable chihuahua is gone, this ad increased Taco Bell sales by the millions.

Again, while it is a popular ad, it does not follow ordinary rules of advertising. It does not present the consumer with reasons as to the necessity of the product. Nor are tacos labor saving in any way. This commercial uses humor as its persuasion. A little chihuahua begging for Taco Bell is in some way amusing. Does this make it more marketable?
Coca - Cola - The American Way
"Before McDonald's or EuroDisney, there was Coca-Cola. No export served as a more potent symbol of the American way of life than Coke." -Richard Pells.
We know that Coca-Cola is known the world over. Why? Many believe it is because of its shrewd marketing approach, especially considering visual advertising. Coca- Cola may just be a soft drink, but there is something about it that represents freedom, spirit, American lifestyles, and of course, refreshment. So what makes this product so popular the world over? Some say it is the imperialistic marketing scheme of Coca-Cola executives to force Coca-Cola down the throats of foreigners. Others credit the marketing of Coca-Cola. Let's analyze Coke's advertising and uncover the mystery…

As you can see, this Coke ad appeals to our senses, even though we are only using our eyes. The beads of water forming on the bottle, the ice surrounding, it tells us that this beverage is cold and desirable. The spray from the bottle almost comes right out at you. It makes you crave it more because it's right there. While the sensory cues are very important in the selling of Coke, there is a more important marketing tool…Product recognition.
You'd have to be out in the most remote regions of the Himalayans to not recognize the Coke label. The bold red background and old glass bottle with the Coca-Cola insignia is hard not to notice. Especially with the global market employed by Coca-Cola, you can't really get away from it. So, does it really work? Yes. Coca-Cola has remained the top selling soft drink bottler for over fifty years.
Advertising and the New Age
"Visually dominated advertising provides the consumer with a perception of greater
familiarity with the product." -Elizabeth C. Hirschman.
In the age of the Internet and popular television, it might be assumed that as a whole we have abandoned written media. But the reality of it is that as humans we remember about 10% of what we hear, 30% of what we read, and about 80% of what we see. Considering this evidence, it is easy to see why we are such a visually dominated society. Paul Lester, a leading psychologist in visual advertising says,
"We are becoming a visually mediated society. For many, understanding of the world is being accomplished, not through reading words, but by reading images."
What does this mean for the advertisers of tomorrow? They, like us, will have to adapt accordingly. That means better advertising on the Internet, without saturating our eyes. More images spliced with words. Better understanding of the products through visual analysis.
Organizations are about the people who make them a success and humans are more drawn to images of others than to stock images of buildings or places.
An article in Business Week about the importance of putting a human face on presentations notes the importance of emotion and communications. The article points to Dan Hill, in his book Emotionomics, who writes, "Humans are extremely visual: We think largely in images, not words."
Hill believes that 80% of what people retain is visually based. "It's important to be rationally on-message. But it's even more imperative to be on-emotion. A company's message will only be successful if it attracts interest and emotionally appeals to the
http://www.suite101.com/content/the-importance-of-visual-communications-a134394#ixzz17ccQWPRt
Visual Communications, Communications Management With Stock Images, Photos
However, images should be used not just as illustrations of an article or idea. Instead, think of photography as adding extreme value to support key communications messages by grabbing audience attention.
Using high-impact visuals communicates quickly and can leave a lasting impression. However, achieving organizational objectives with good photography takes creativity and brainstorming.
For example, an article on an intranet about an improvement in vision care benefits could include a photograph of several employees who wear glasses. Better yet, a photograph of an employee with glasses and his or her family deepens the human touch that can only be achieved with visual communications.
Chromatics
Chromatics is the field of how eyes perceive color and how to explain and organize those colors in the printer and on the monitor. The Retina in the eye is covered by two light-sensitive receptors that are named rods and cones. Rods are sensitive to light, but not sensitive to color. Cones are the opposite of rods. They are less sensitive to light, but color can be perceived.[11]