What is advertising and how can it help your company?

At its most basic and perhaps fundamental, advertising is ??turning attention?? to your product or service for the purpose of increasing sales or keeping the loyalty of already existing customers. In the age of the Internet, you can potentially turn 6 billion people??s attention toward your product or service.

However, it is not quite so straightforward. Your company??s message has to compete with thousands of other messages vying for your potential customers attention, including those of your competitors. So the man or woman on the street (and that includes you and me) have actively devised ways to filter out the vast majority of advertising messages from junking up our thoughts.

This is why a simple ??good price, nice product?? type of advert can only have limited success unless someone is actively seeking out what you have to offer already. Even if they are, however, what is going to make them choose your product over others? Ease of access, quality, price and friendly service all can be factors. What people actually buy when they are buying your products are the benefits.It might be a service that frees up their time. Sometimes ??associations?? with the lifestyle that a product or service offers can be a benefit. Sometimes there may be an unforeseen benefit.

This all sounds nice and simple. Yet simply stating or demonstrating the benefit might only work in a limited sense. The real creative job of an advertising agency is to ??dramatise the benefits?? of your product or service. Why? Simply put, human actions deep down, spring from emotional wells (although we may intellectualise the reasons for our actions after the fact). People remember and act on things that make them feel emotions. A blank piece of information we are much more likely to forget. (Case in point, remember your first big crush at school? Remember what you were learning in class at the same time?)

Of course, creating something that is memorable is not an end in itself; the advert must also be clearly branded and give a reason to buy or take action. We believe strongly in tying in the tangible benefits with the benefits of association. Simply started, if your adverts look intelligent, cool, classy, funny, if they make people think, are commonsensical or whatever other association your target market identifies with, then those people are going to want to be associated with your product. In buying your product, they will be making a choice that says something to themselves and others about their lifestyle choices and beliefs. But at the same time, they will be buying your product for a tangible quality.

P.S. One last sneaky bit. You know how in a film there??s that moment when you are shouting at the screen ?C ??You need to jump out from behind the door and use the SX2 defibrillator device!?? when before you watched the film you didn??t even know an SX2 defibrillator device existed or how and when to use one? Suddenly you??re an expert and know exactly how and when best it should be properly applied. And if someone isn??t using one as and when you want or expect you are going to get angry and throw popcorn at the screen? Well film is sneaky like that and advertising can be sneaky like that too.