Advertising and marketing

1. Criteria to be addressed:
• Analysis and evaluation of a current advertising or marketing campaign using the
key concepts.
• Marketing theory, principles and practice – The 4 Ps (product, price, place,
promotion).
• Analysis and evaluation of promotional and covert advertising techniques (e.g.
sponsorship, product placement, viral advertising (internet)). Functions and
purposes or different techniques.
• The impact of promotion, advertising and advertising funding upon media content.
Financial/ethical/professional/public service/audience debates around this issue.
• Brands (connotations, importance, advantages, disadvantages etc.).
• Politics and marketing (role of spin doctors; images of parties and party leaders;
political news management; debates around images vs. substance).
The concepts of Media Language, Genre, Representation, Audience, Institution and
Ideology should by now have been addressed during revision of the 7 Key Concepts. For
more assistance with any of the above criteria, please refer to your Advertising and Marketing
handbooks or ask me for advice.
BASICS TO CONSIDER FOR THE ADVERTISING AND MARKETING TOPIC
Try to consider the audience as the consumer. Points for consideration:
• What is advertising? – Review the definition (a paid for communication promoting a good,
service or idea…)
• How advertising works e.g. must be persuasive, not coercive; must be seen by its intended
audience who must be receptive.
• What can make advertising memorable for its audience? – Company loyalty; offer is
‘attractive’; actively seeking to purchase.
• What is marketing? – Review the definition (the whole activity surrounding the selling of a
product, service or idea…)
• The promotion of lifestyles and ideologies, not just products.
OVERT ADVERTISING MEDIUMS
For all of the following, you must consider their effectiveness, advantages and
disadvantages. You must also consider examples of the use of these mediums across a
variety of campaigns:
• Television – 80% of population watching everyday; audience massive and captive; can
be used locally, regionally and nationally; commercials often missed or ignored.
• Press – Most widely used medium (55% of all advertising expenditure); diverse
(national, regional, daily, weekly, special interest, journals); flexible; cost-effective; little
visual impact; easy to become swamped.
• Cinema – Audiences are captive and attentive; allows you to specifically target your
audience; still limited audience available.

2. • Outdoor (posters, not flyers) – High opportunity to see (OTS) rating; cost effective and
can be purchased locally, nationally, regionally; acts as a reminder; cannot be acted
upon straight away.
OVERT & COVERT ADVERTISING
Points for consideration:
OVERT (blatant, obvious, explicit)
• What is overt advertising? – Overt is the explicit use of the media to actively and openly
promote a good, service or idea.
• Persuasive techniques (methods of attracting the consumer) – stereotypes; humour; elite
people; music; reward and punishment; needs, fears and aspirations; utopia; dystopia etc.
• Strategies (the overall objective) – Family fun; bandwagon; repetition; star power; weasel
words; heart strings.
COVERT (hidden, subtle, implicit)
• What is covert advertising? – The more subtle form of advertising that does not involve any
direct selling of a product, service or idea.
• Covert techniques – Product Placement; Sponsorship; Plugging; Promotional Plugging;
Viral advertising (the net).
For both overt and covert advertising, you must be able to refer to specific examples when
discussing techniques and strategies. For example, The British Heart Foundation’s use of
shock-tactics or Coke Zero’s use of stereotypes and viral marketing.
MARKETING THEORY AND PRACTICE
Points for consideration:
• Product, Price, Place, and Promotion; What is the importance of these aspects when
producing a campaign? What stages do marketers go through when manufacturing a
campaign?
• The Aida Theory – Attract attention; Arouse Interest; Create desire; Make the consumer
active.
• Social Discourse – When an event, product, person etc. is given exposure by the media, it
often becomes part of society for whatever period of time. It is talked about, deconstructed
and evaluated until it either established itself into society or fades away. Many events,
products etc. (such as Spider-Man 3) saturate the media and become part of our everyday
lives. The media therefore have the power to create a social discourse surrounding the
product.
• Vortex of publicity – Can be referred to as mutual masturbation. When a magazine
promotes a good or service, consider what else will receive positive publicity from it. E.g. a
specialist issue of a magazine promoting a blockbuster film is also creating positive
publicity for itself, the actors involved, the advertisers who have placed ads in the piece etc.
Think of it as a hierarchy of publicity.

3. PUBLIC RELATIONS
Points for consideration
• Definition of PR – A form of promotion and or management in which the public perception
of a client/product is manipulated to promote a more positive or favourable image without
actually appearing to do so. Can also be used to promote an unfavourable image
• Objective of PR – generate awareness; attract media interest and attention; manipulate
public perceptions.
• Common Techniques – Press releases; promotional stories; photo opportunities; publicity
stunts; leaking stories.
• Critiques – Blurs the distinction between news and publicity; Pushes the Media towards
lifestyle reporting; misleading the general public.
• Spin-doctor – someone who seeks to influence media coverage of a person, organisation,
event in the best possible light. Commonly used within politics. Main techniques employed
include agenda setting, publicity events and stunts, releasing good news at key times.
BRANDS
Points for consideration:
• What is a brand? – Not a product!!! An ‘umbrella’ name under which many other goods are
marketed e.g. Coca-cola, Nike.
• Importance of image when constructing brand identity.
• Advantages of brands – Consumers expect the same quality so are more likely to purchase
from that brand; connection with certain ideologies and lifestyles; acts as assurance.
• Disadvantages of brands – More expensive due to advertising excesses; image and
lifestyle behind brand name are often constructed to hide corruption.
• Give examples of brands and the techniques and strategies they use e.g. Dove’s
empowering ‘Reality advertising’ campaign.
For the advertising and marketing topic, you must also be clearly relating each example back to
theories and issues of audience. Remember, advertisers and marketers always have a target
audience in mind and use the above techniques and strategies in order to manipulate them.
You therefore must consider:
• Audiences are generally segmented through quantitative and qualitative market
research.
• Quantitative market research = concerned with numbers and broad categories e.g.
socio-economic groups, geodemographics.
• Qualitative market research = concerned with lifestyle, attitudes, values and beliefs
e.g. psychographic profiling (VALS).
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
• Uses and Gratifications model (Blumler and Katz 1974) – Audience are active
consumers who may use the media to satisfy their surveillance, personal identity,
personal relationships or diversion needs.