The Ultimate Guide to Advertising: Objectives, Importance, Types, and Functions

Advertising is all around us! It’s everywhere, from the online ads we see while surfing the web to the billboards we pass by.

Advertising is an important factor in helping any business reach its target audience and effectively solve their problem. In this post, we will discuss the main objectives of advertising, its importance, types, functions, and everything else you need to know about it.

So let’s begin.

What is advertising?

To explain it in simple words, advertising is the act of communicating a message about a product, service, or idea, to its target audience, using paid methods. 

The main goal of advertising is to persuade people to take a desired action.

Definitions of advertising

According to John E. Kennedy, “An advertisement is salesmanship in print”.

According to the Advertising Association of the UK, “Advertising is any communication, usually paid-for, specifically intended to inform and/or influence one or more people”.

Importance of advertising

Advertising helps a business in multiple ways, which makes it a crucial tool for the business. Here are some of the major importance of advertising:

1. Increase sales

The first and foremost reason why businesses use advertising is to increase sales. When businesses use advertising effectively, it helps them reach their target audience and promote their product or service the right way. As a result, when businesses reach the right audience in the right way, sales increase.

2. Increase brand awareness

You start a business, set everything up, and do everything necessary to get things going, but then… nothing happens! Your business remains where it was before with zero results. Do you know why? Because nobody is aware of your brand. 

Advertising helps businesses reach out to their potential customers and communicate about the brand to increase awareness. This helps businesses build strong brand identities in the market.

3. Build credibility

By showcasing the product or service through advertising, businesses can demonstrate their expertise and knowledge in their industry. This helps businesses take on a strong spot in the market. 

Furthermore, advertising with social proof such as testimonials and trust, helps businesses build credibility and trust in the eyes of the target audience.  

This overall improves the brand credibility of the business helping them differentiate from its competitors.

4. Target a specific audience

With modern technology and the evolution of digital marketing, businesses can now target a specific audience based on their age, group, gender, interests, location, and many other factors. This helps businesses get the best use of their money as they can target the exact audience they want to, resulting in higher conversions.

5. Encourage brand loyalty

By advertising and maintaining a strong presence in the minds of the customers, businesses encourage those existing customers to perform repeat business with their brand. Consistent advertising increases the likelihood of their customers returning to them in the future.

Objectives of advertising

Now let us talk about some of the objectives of advertising. Here are the three main objectives of advertising:

1. To inform 

The first and foremost objective of advertising in a company is to inform the audience. The information can be anything related to the product or the brand, including its price, features, benefits, and so on. This step aims at making the audience aware and educating them about the brand and its product or service. 

2. To persuade

Your advertising campaign will be of no use if it never drives results. That is why advertising aims at persuading the audience to take a desired action, whether it is to purchase the product or service, visit the website, or anything else. This can be achieved by highlighting the product’s unique selling point.

3. To remind

Another objective of an advertising campaign is to remind the customers about a product or service they have already purchased. This is important as it helps the business stay in the minds of the customers every time they think about your industry and encourages repeat business with them.

Other objectives of advertising

• Introducing a new product or brand – Advertising helps a business introduce a new brand or product in the market to customers. It informs the audience about the new product or brand entering the market, its features, benefits, and uses, to attract more audience. 

• Create demand – Advertising aims to create demand in the market by explaining and showcasing the features of the product or service. It understands the pain points of the audience and addresses them to educate the audience on how the product or service can help them solve it, and creates demand.

• Reduce cost – Advertising helps businesses reduce the cost of production by increasing demand and expanding the scale of production. 

• Differentiation – Another major objective of advertising in a company is to differentiate the brand and its products or services from alternatives, to stand out from its competitors.

• Increase sales and profit – Advertising’s most important goal is to take necessary action to promote the product or service and increase its sales and profit. 

Functions of advertising

As we all know, the ultimate goal of any advertising campaign is to persuade the audience to buy the product or service the company is selling. However, advertising also serves many other functions beyond just promoting the product. Let’s discuss some of the functions of advertising:

1. It provides information

The first and primary function of advertising is to inform and educate the audience about the product or service the company is selling. This helps businesses provide proper information on the features, benefits, and price of the product or service so that customers can make informed decisions on whether or not to buy the product or service. 

2. It generates sales

Advertisements showcase the benefits and uses of the company’s products or services and thereby persuade their audience to make a purchase. It understands the pain points of the audience and addresses them to make the audience realize the potential of the product or service and generate sales. 

3. It maintains a good public image

Effective advertisement does its best to communicate the company and its product’s benefits and achievements to the audience. This helps the company maintain a good public image in the market and also boosts credibility as it positions the company to be knowledgeable and experienced in the field.

4. It introduces a new product or brand

Advertising helps a company introduce a new product or itself in the market. This helps the company increase brand awareness as it communicates to the audience about the brand and its products as well as its benefits. These kinds of advertisements enable the company to take on a strong position in the market right from the beginning. 

5. It differentiates 

Effective advertising helps a brand differentiate itself from its competitors as it highlights the unique features and benefits of the brand and its products or services. This enables the brand to put on a strong fight against its competitors and acquire more customers. 

Features of advertising

Advertising is an excellent tool that helps businesses achieve their goals more effectively. However, before a business uses this tool, it must first understand the features of advertising. 

Here are a few features of advertising:

• Non-personal presentation – Advertising is a tool that does not deliver a message to an individual face to face. An advertising campaign would not be able to create personal touch as it uses mass media to deliver the message.

• A mode of communication – Advertising enables a business to connect itself with its audience and communicate to them about the product or service. 

• A paid service – Advertising is a service that doesn’t come for free. You must pay a fee to effectively set up and run your advertising campaign.

• Generate demand – Advertising helps a business create demand in the market by setting up effective campaigns that promote the brand and its products or services.

• Increases sales – Advertising aims at informing the audience about the product or service and driving more and more customers to increase sales. 

• Persuasion – The primary goal of any advertising campaign is to persuade the audience to take the required action, helping businesses achieve their goals effectively. 

• Target a specific group – An advertisement targets a specific group of audiences based on various factors, such as age, gender, location, interests, etc. 

• Includes a call to action – Advertisements include a call to action making it clear to the customers on what step to take next, resulting in higher conversion rates.

Advantages and disadvantages of advertising

Ok, now we all know that advertising is essential for any business to grow, however, we must also understand the major advantages of disadvantages that advertising provides to any business that performs it. Let us start with the advantages of advertising:

Advantages of advertising

1. Introduction of a new product 

Advertising plays a significant role in introducing a new product in the market and helps the company take on a good position. 

2. Targeted marketing

Advertising enables businesses to perform based on age, gender, location, interest, etc. This helps businesses target the exact audience that they want to target and thereby increases the potential of the advertising campaign. 

3. Increase sales

An effective advertisement with proper information about the product or service and its uses, features, and benefits, persuades the audience to purchase it. This helps businesses acquire more customers and increase sales volume.

4. Competitive advantage

Sometimes companies may face high competition in the market which can be difficult to beat. In such cases, using advertising campaigns can help the company take a step ahead of its competition and reach out to more audiences. 

5. Repeat business

Advertising to existing customers enables the business to stay in the minds of their customers and pop up every time they think about your industry or related products. This helps the business to encourage brand loyalty among their customers and persuade them to perform repeat business.

6. Improve brand image

Advertisements that are effective and entertaining help the business improve its connection with the audience. This improves the brand image as it presents the company to be knowledgeable and experienced in its field. Furthermore, advertisements that also provide testimonials quickly earn the trust of their audience.

7. Expansion of the market 

Advertising helps any business explore more areas of the market and acquire an audience outside their present areas. Such effective advertisements can reach multiple market audiences. 

8. Measurable results

Advertising campaigns can be easily measured based on the number of views, clicks, impressions, and many other factors. This allows businesses to evaluate the effectiveness of their campaign and make changes if needed. 

Disadvantages of advertising

1. Cost

The first and biggest disadvantage of advertising is the cost that it includes. Setting up an advertising campaign is not easy. It requires you to plan, organize, design, and execute effectively with lots and lots of cash being burned at each stage. This can risk many small businesses as they would not have enough funds to put in such expensive advertisements and can miss the opportunity. 

2. Creates a monopolistic situation

As discussed above, small businesses and startups may often find it difficult to put in the money required to run advertisements. Large corporations, on the other hand, can easily do it. This frequently leads to big companies taking on a much stronger market position and creating a monopolistic situation, leaving small businesses and startups unrecognized in the market.

3. Consumer skepticism

With lots and lots of companies running and bombarding consumers with advertisements regularly, consumers have now become more skeptical of advertisements. Many consumers believe that companies that run advertisements are less trustworthy because they have to pay to reach them.

4. Legal issues

Sometimes companies may create advertisements that go against legal laws, without being aware of it. This often puts the company in a risky position and may lead it to lose its market share. 

5. Confusing the buyers

Advertising that makes false claims about the product or service may confuse the buyers and lead them to feel cheated after purchasing it. This often results in the company losing its customers’ trust and risking its future in business. Furthermore, these kinds of advertisements make the consumer lose trust in any future advertisements they see.

Types of advertising

Companies can use various methods for their advertising purposes. Here are some of the most popular types of advertising:

1. Print advertising

Print advertising is the type of advertisement we often see in newspapers and other magazines. This helps companies place their advertisements on materials their audience reads to reach their target audience more effectively.

2. Television advertising

Television advertising is the type of advertisements we see on our TVs in the ads break. Companies use this method to run 30 to 60 seconds ads on televisions to reach their audience. These kinds of ads are generally more creative and can easily grab the attention of the viewers.

3. Mobile advertising

Mobile advertising is the practice of delivering advertisements on mobile devices. This type of advertising can take many forms, including display ads, video ads, in-app ads, and SMS. With a big rise in the use of mobile phones, these kinds of mobile advertising can result in being highly effective for companies.

4. Social media advertising

Social media advertising is the process of running ads on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, etc. This helps businesses reach their target audience and promote their products or services while entertaining the audience, to increase conversions. 

5. Paid search advertising

Paid search advertising, also known as pay-per-click advertising, is a form of online advertising where businesses pay every time a user clicks on the ad. Companies bid for certain keywords on search engines and pay each time someone clicks on their ad from the SERP. 

6. Display advertising

Display advertising is the practice of running online ads that appear in the form of banner ads, or text ads, on websites, apps, and social media platforms. These ads can be targeted to a specific audience based on demographics, location, behavior, etc. 

7. Outdoor advertising

Outdoor advertising is a form of advertising that involves placing ads in public spaces, typically outdoors, such as on billboards, posters, transit shelters, and so on. These kinds of advertisements are generally useful for targeting audiences based on geographic locations.

Advertising examples

As of now, we know everything about advertising, let me share some of the best advertising examples. Here they are:

1. Nike – “Just do it”

Nike’s “just do it” campaign is one of the most popular campaigns all around the world, that encourages people to pursue their goals and dreams. In this campaign, the company featured popular athletes pushing hard to achieve their dream, with the brand always in the background. 

2. Coca-cola – “Share a coke”

Another advertising campaign that provided really good results was Coca cola’s “share a coke” campaign. In this campaign, the company printed popular names on their bottles, to encourage the consumers to share them with their friends. The campaign resulted in millions of teens trying Coca-cola drinks. 

3. Apple – “Think different”

The “Think different” campaign was created by Apple in 1997. The major goal of this campaign was to position Apple to be an innovative brand that always tries to be creative and comes up with innovative products. The campaign celebrated the achievements of many influential figures such as Alber Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., and so on. 

4. Amazon – “Smile”

Amazon’s “smile” is a great campaign that encourages people to support charity while shopping on the app. Every time you make a purchase using the smile program, a portion of the price goes to any charity of your choice. 

5. Spotify – “Thanks, 2016. It’s been weird” 

Spotify’s “thanks, 2016. It’s been weird” was one of the most popular and humorous campaigns. In this campaign, the company featured lots of billboards, social media posts, etc, highlighting their users’ weird and unusual listening habits. For example, one of their billboards wrote “Dear person who played ‘Sorry’ 42 times on Valentine’s Day, what did you do?” This creative campaign led many people to share their campaign on social media and created a more personal touch with the users.

6. Volkswagen – “Think small”

Volkswagen’s “think small” campaign was one of the best campaigns ever created by the company. The campaign’s main target was to promote the company’s new “Volkswagen Beetle” which was small and quirky. In this campaign, the company printed simple black-and-white ads highlighting the features and benefits of the car.

7. Google – “Year in search”

Google’s “year in search” campaign is one of the most effective campaigns. In the campaign, at the end of each year, the company launched a video featuring the most searched topics and trends of that year. The videos are generally inspiring and emotional, leading lots of people to share them on social media and other channels. The campaign is a great success that performs its best to strengthen the connection with its users.

FAQs

Conclusion

So this was the complete post on advertising with its importance, objectives, functions, and everything else you need to know about it. 

Feel free to comment below, if you have any doubts.