Advertising – The Modern Art of Persuasion

It is everywhere around us. It is calling us. It entices our senses. We might have ignored it very often, but it is there; and most of the time, we don’t really notice it, but it already captured our emotions. It influences us; it is persuading us. It is called advertising, the modern art of persuasion. What then is advertising?

Advertising is a non-personal announcement of a persuasive message. It is also a non-personal presentation or promotion of a product to its existing and potential customers. It is referred to as the art of salesmanship because the only goal of advertising is to create sales by any means possible. Advertising is a marketing strategy to, thereby increase or promote sales on products or services.

Advertising can take up different forms. Be it written or orally conveyed, it is still advertising. There are a lot of derivatives that can be called as advertising. These are the following:

1. Billboard Advertising

This is the oldest form of advertising. Billboards are large-sized boards placed in the streets or hanged in the street walls with different product promotions and information. Thanks to the technology-driven world, we now have the so-called electronic billboards which used LED’s to display the message and promotions of a certain company’s products.

2. Media Advertising

This is the type of advertising that uses the mass media. Examples of these media are the radio, the television, or even the Internet. These are sometimes called infomercial.

3. Radio Advertising

This is a broadcast advertising where the audience only hears the promotion of a product or services through a radio. The scope of this advertising is widespread throughout the places where radio signals can reach.

4. Television Advertising

This is a broadcast advertising where the audience can watch and hear the message and promotions of the advertisement. Most of the television advertisements come in the form of a jingle. Study shows that jingle from advertisement capture more audience attention than a written or just a plain message. The retention rate of a jingle to the audience is almost 80%.

5. Print Media Advertising

This advertising is usually found on printed media like newspaper, journals, magazines, tabloids, and fliers. The critical part here is on how to make the art and the message interesting enough to catch the reader’s attention.

6. Online Advertising

This is the type of advertising that utilizes the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Some of these advertisements appear on websites as pop-up messages or in search engines as banners and themes or even texts included in the web page of other sites. Other forms are in the email which appears to be spam or unsolicited emails.

7. Mobile Advertising

The most recent form of advertisement is the mobile billboard advertisement where the billboard is being stuck or attached to trucks that are running around the city. This is very effective because it covers almost every part of the city to where it advertises.

8. Covert Advertising

This is called so because it is a guerrilla type of advertising where the products or brands are being embedded in an entertainment or media. This happens when a character uses or speaks of a certain product in a movie or occasion and events in the television. Most commonly used are soft drinks like Coca-cola or Pepsi, electronic gadgets like laptops from Dell and Sony, and cars like Mercedes and BMW.

9. In-store Advertising

These are advertisements placed in any retail store. The placement of any product in a retail store is also a form of advertisement. Strategic location can become a very good product advertisement, thereby, making the product sold first.

10. Endorsement Advertising

This is a form of advertisement where celebrities endorse the products to the public by way of using them or wearing them in the public or even broadcasting them in the media. This is a very effective way to promote the products and services where most fans usually imitate their idols.

Advertisement has changed the way consumers buy things – the more attracting is the creation of the advertisement, the greater chance that a product or a service will be patronized by the buying public. What can we say? It really is a great art of persuasion.