Advertising management is how a company carefully plans and controls its advertising to reach its ideal customers and convince them to buy.
Marketers use different types of advertising. Brand advertising is defined as a non-personal communication message placed in a paid, mass medium designed to persuade target consumers of a product or service benefits in an effort to induce them to make a purchase. Corporate advertising refers to paid messages designed to communicate the corporation's values to influence public opinion. Yet other types of advertising such as not-for-profit advertising and political advertising present special challenges that require different strategies and approaches.
Advertising management is a complex process that involves making many layered decisions including developing advertising strategies, setting an advertising budget, setting advertising objectives, determining the target market, media strategy (which involves media planning), developing the message strategy, and evaluating the overall effectiveness of the advertising effort.) Advertising management may also involve media buying.
Advertising management is a complex process. However, at its most basic level, it can be simplified into four key decision areas:
Target audience definition: Who do we want to talk to? Message (or creative) strategy: What do we want to say to them? Media strategy: How will we reach them? Measuring advertising effectiveness: How do we know our messages were received in the form intended and with the desired outcomes?
Advertising and advertising management: definitions
Consumers tend to think that all forms of commercial promotion constitute advertising. However, in marketing and advertising, the term "advertising" has a very special meaning that reflects its status as a distinct type of promotion.
The marketing and advertising literature has many different definitions of advertising, but it is possible to identify common elements or themes within most of these definitions. The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines advertising as "the placement of announcements and persuasive messages in time or space purchased in any of the mass media by business firms, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and individuals who seek to inform and/ or persuade members of a particular target market or audience about their products, services, organizations, or ideas".American Marketing Association (AMA), Online: https://www.ama.org/resources/Pages/Dictionary.aspx The American Heritage Dictionary defines advertising as "the activity of attracting public attention to a product or business, as by paid announcements in the print, broadcast, or electronic media".The American Heritage Dictionary, 5th ed., 2015, Online: https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=advertising Selected marketing scholars have defined advertising in the following terms: "any non-personal communication that is paid for by an identified sponsor, and involves either mass communication viz newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and other media (e.g., billboards, bus stop signage) or direct to-consumer communication via direct mail".Czinkota, M.R. et al. (2000), Marketing: Best Practices, Orlando, FL: The Dryden Press and "the element of the marketing communications mix that is non-personal, paid for by an identified sponsor, and disseminated through mass channels of communication to promote the adoption of goods, services, persons, or ideas."Bearden, W. O., Ingram, T.N. and LaForge, R.W., Marketing: Principles & Perspectives, 2d ed. New York: Irwin McGraw-Hill, 1998 One of the shortest definitions is that advertising is "a paid, mass-mediated attempt to persuade".O'Guinn, T. C., Allen, C.T. and Semenik, R.J., Advertising, 2d ed., Cincinnati, Ohio, South-Western College Publishing, 2000
Several common themes emerge in the various definitions of advertising:Tyagi, C.L. and Kumar, A.M, Advertising Management, New Delhi, Atlantic Publishers, 2004, p. 3 Advertising is a paid form of communication and is therefore commercial. Advertising employs non-personal channels (i.e. commercial mass media) which implies that it is directed at a mass audience rather than at an individual consumer and is a one-way communication mode where the sponsor sends messages, but recipients cannot respond or ask questions about the message content. Advertising has an identified sponsor.
In summary, because advertising is paid for, it is one of the many controllable elements of the marketing programme. Advertising is qualitatively different from publicity, in which the message sponsor is either not identified or ambiguously defined. It also differs from personal selling, which occurs in real time and typically involves some form of face-to-face interaction between the message sponsor and the recipient, allowing for two-way communication.
While advertising refers to the advertising message, per se, advertising management refers to the process of planning and executing an advertising campaign or campaigns; that is, it is a series of planned decisions that begins with market research continues through to setting advertising budgets, developing advertising objectives, executing the creative messages and follows up with efforts to measure the extent to which objectives were achieved and evaluate the cost-benefit of the overall advertising effort.Marketing Definitions, http://marketinginformationcentre.ca/marketing_definitions_%28a-b%29.htm
Advertising and organisational responsibilities
In commercial organisations, advertising, along with other marketing communications activities, is the ultimate responsibility of the marketing department. Some companies outsource part or all of the work to specialists such as advertising agencies, creative design teams, web designers, media buyers, events management specialists or other relevant service providers. Another option is for a company to carry out most or all of the advertising functions within the marketing department in what is known as an in-house agency. By definition, an in-house agency is "an advertising organization that is owned and operated by the corporation it serves".Silk, A.J. and Stiglin, M.M., "Build It, Buy It Or Both? Rethinking the Sourcing of Advertising Services," Working Paper no. 15-093, Harvard Business School Its mission is to provide advertising services in support of its parent company's business and marketing objectives. Well-known brands that currently use in-house agencies include Google, Calvin Klein, Adobe, Dell, IBM, Kraft, Marriott and Wendy's.Duggan, B., "In-House Agencies Grow in Importance', 30 August, Association of National Advertisers, 2013 Online: https://www.ana.net/blogs/show/id/26944
Both in-house agencies and outsourcing models have their own advantages and disadvantages. Outsourcing to an external agency allows marketers to obtain specialised strategic, research and planning skills, access to devoted creative talent and provides an independent perspective on marketing or advertising problems. In-house agencies deliver cost advantages, time efficiencies and afford marketers greater control over the advertising effort. In addition, personnel who work within an in-house agency gain considerable creative experience which stays within the company. Recent trends suggest that the number of in-house agencies is rising.Richardson-Taylor, A., "The Rise of the In-House Agency", CMO, 17 April 2015, Online: http://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2015/4/17/the-rise-of-the-inhouse-agency.html
Whether a company chooses to outsource advertising functions to an external agency or carry them out within the marketing department, marketers need an understanding of advertising principles in order to prepare advertising plans, brief agencies about their needs and expectations, or develop their own solutions to marketing problems.
Advertising's role in the promotional mix
The promotional mix is the specific combination of promotional methods used for a brand, product or family of products.Business Dictionary, Online: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/promotion-mix.html Advertising is best treated as a multiplier that can leverage other elements of the promotional mix and marketing program.Jones, J.P., How Advertising Works: The Role of Research, Thousand Oaks, CA,1998, pp 25–30 Therefore, advertising must be considered as part of a broader marketing and promotional program.
The promotional mix includes a variety of tools such as:
Advertising: messages paid for by those who send them and intended to inform or influence people who receive themAdvertising Association of United Kingdom Branded entertainment: the dedicated production of content designed to display corporate or branded messages in an entertaining formatLehu, J-M, Branded Entertainment: Product Placement & Brand Strategy in the Entertainment Business, Kogan Page, 2007 Public relations (PR): the practice of maintaining goodwill between an organisation and its publicsBusiness Dictionary, Online: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/public-relations.html Personal selling: face-to-face selling in which a seller attempts to persuade a buyer to make a purchase.Business Dictionary, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/personal-selling.html Direct marketing: contacting and influencing carefully chosen prospects with means such as telemarketing and direct mailBusiness Dictionary, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/direct-marketing.html Sponsorship: the act of providing money for a television or radio program, website, sports event, or other activity usually in exchange for advertising or other form of promotionCambridge Dictionary, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/sponsorship Product placement: the practice of supplying a product or service for display in feature films or television programsBusiness Dictionary, Online:http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/product-placement.html Sales promotion / merchandising: activities designed to stimulate sales normally at the point-of-sale; includes retail displays, product sampling, special price offers, shelf talkers, contests, giveaways, promotional items, competitions and other methodsBusiness Dictionary, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/merchandising.html Event marketing: a planned activity of designing or developing a themed activity, occasion, display, or exhibit (such as a sporting event, music festival, fair, or concert) to promote a product, cause, or organization.Business Dictionary, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/event-marketing.html Exhibitions/trade shows: events or shows (e.g. fashion shows, agricultural shows) where companies can display their wares or servicesBusiness Dictionary, Online: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/trade-fair.html
Advertising is just one of many elements that comprise the promotional mix. When marketers communicate with target markets across a broad range of different promotional types and media, the potential for contradictory or mixed messages is very real. Accordingly, it is important that advertising is treated as part of a total marketing communications program and that steps are taken to ensure that it is integrated with all other marketing communications, so that all communications messages speak with a 'single voice'. The process of ensuring message consistency across the entire marketing communications program is known as integrated marketing communications.Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A., Advertising and Promotion: An integrated Marketing communications perspective, 6th ed., New York, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2004. Note that Belch and Belch's definition is based on that provided by the Association of National Advertisers.