Introduction:
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 than competing brands or services – or if the advertising in not on behalf of a brand but for instance a public service – to change their behaviour.
Modern advertising developed with the rise of mass production in the late
19th and early 20th centuries and has now developed as an essential part of influencing behaviour – across a wide spectrum of interest groups.
Many advertisements are designed to generate increased consumption of those products and services through the creation and reinvention of a
“brand image" . For these purposes, advertisements sometimes embed their persuasive message with factual information. Every major medium is used to deliver these messages, including television, radio, cinema, magazines, newspapers, video games, the internet, direct mail, billboards, outdoor posters and sponsorship (the list is getting longer as new media are developed).
Advertising is often placed in these media by an advertising agency acting on behalf of the client company or other organization, therefore they are acting as agents.
Organizations that frequently spend large sums of money on advertising that sells what is not, strictly speaking, a product or service include policical parties, government departments, interest groups, religious organisations, non-profit organisations and charities. However, just like brands they are competing for the consumer’s attention – if not to consume a product – to influence their behaviour. Money spent on advertising has increased dramatically in recent years. In
2007, spending on advertising has been estimated at over $150 billion
(£100 bn in the United States and $385 billion worldwide (£257 bn).
While there might have been a decline in the recessionary years, it is