Issue 109 Advertisements

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Issue 109 Advertisements

Advertisements can be seen in nearly every corner in today's world. The ultimate purpose of projecting advertisements is to increase the company's profitability. Just like there are thousands of products, advertisements take many forms. Some advertisements involve the image of some people, usually well-known figures, promoting the product through either direct ways like speaking for it or indirect ways like using the product. Since many audience are believed to consciously or unconsciously imitate the behaviour of those well-known figure, they will be more likely to purchase the product.

Such strategy has proven effective in many cases. It has been a norm that many soccer players have been paid to promote sports products. One can easily recall that most top soccer stars can be found in the commercials aired during the 2010 World Cup. Therefore it can be inferred that the companies that sponsored those commercials believe that having some top players wearing their products will be able to increase the sales, as those people who want to run as fast as those stars, etc. may be tempted to wear the same products.

Although this strategy has its merits, it is not a panacea. Whether airing such advertisement will increase profitability depends crucially on the degree to which audience find the way of life depicted in the advertisement attractive or stories believable. Because if a consumer's purchasing decision is largely influenced by the person in the advertisement, he or she will overlook the specifications of the product itself. Such purchasing decision is irrational, which those companies adopting this strategy want to take advantage of. However, it is very likely that such irrational purchasing decision can change dramatically over time. For example, if the star in the advertisement falls out of favour of the public, the image of product that is associated with the star may also be badly damaged.

With the advent of better communication technology, consumers can easily share their opinions about a product between friends. Friends' opinion tends to be more influential as the relationship is closer. This creates a problem for the above advertising strategy. Some consumers, in particular young people, may not feel happy if he or she is following the behaviour of the person in the ad while his or her friends are doing the opposite.

It should also be noticed that there are other advertisement strategies that may be more cost-effective for some industries. Companies may wish to emphasis its philanthropy and social responsibility in the advertisement with the hope that audience may develop some special affinity with the company, therefore increase the company's long-term profitability. Such strategy costs less and may be an attractive alternative to paying some person to speak for the product.

Given the above considerations, the effectiveness of asking some person prompting a product in the advertisement varies between industries and target-audience. A company needs to look into how its target audience forming their purchasing decision in order to determine which advertising strategy is most cost-effective.

harphoonUID: 2522048

Issue 109

'the purpose of many advertisements is to make consumers want to buy a product so that they will be 'like' the person in the ad. This practive is effective because it not only sells products but also helps people feel better about themselves.'

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All comments welcome :)

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