Advertising

'Advertising is attempting to influence the buying behavior of your customers or clients by providing a persuasive selling message about your products and/or services.'

     (Sbinfocanada.about.com)

      'Mass Media communication where space is bought. Can be     corporate, brand or product based'  

(Source: Innovative Marketing Communications by Masterman & Wood, 2006, pg 76)

According to Clow and Baack (2004), as individuals we are, on average, subjected to at least 600 advertisements per day. This is a figure that has increased quickly as a result of an ever-expanding variety of media.
Pickton and Broderick (2001) propose that the key benefits of advertising are that it can reach mass audiences, increasingly now on a selective targeted basis, and that it does so at relatively low costs. They maintain that it is therefore both efficient and effective in reaching the right targets. They also maintain that it is effective for brand maintenance and arguably brand development in that it can reach high numbers for awareness and demonstrate brand differentiation.

An example of this can be seen for both Crufts and the Nero tour as both are targeting selected audiences.
 For instance, Crufts are placing their advertisements within dog magazines which are then targeting those who have a high interest in dogs and/or showing them and these may have a loyal following who buy these magazines weekly/monthly. They also have Facebook,Twitter and YouTube channels that target those who actively seek out information and this includes those who are perhaps more technologically adept. Those that access this information online may not purchase the magazines/newspapers or vice versa. Therefore they are reaching out and reaching higher numbers of potential stakeholders.

For the Nero 'Second Reality' UK Tour, I have noticed advertisements in Music magazines such as NME which as I have discovered, targets mainly males aged between 17-30. Therefore, this is targeting a very specific market. They have expanded this by also advertising via social media by advertising their tour on their fanpage both on Twitter, Facebook and Myspace as well as other music sites.


I found this interesting piece of research which shows that each social network actually seems to target slightly different audiences. I found this on iCrossing.com. 
This chart below shoes Myspace has a younger demographic (on average) compared to Facebook, with Myspace being most popular with 18-24 year olds and Facebook popular with 25-34 year olds. Therefore when placing advertisements on different sites, different audiences are targeted. 
Nero has advertisements places on both myspace and Facebook whereas Crufts has placed adverts on Facebook and Flickr. 

When looking into this further, there seems to be some subtle differences between the male : female user ratio for each sites. Facebook has the highest female following and actually looking at it, females use these sites in general ever so slightly more than males. With the exception of flickr which is interestingly more popular with men. 

 

However, this research was published in 2009 so this could have all changed now but thought it would be interesting just as it shows there are some differences between each site.

References:
Lyons, G. (2009). Social Media Demographics: Facebook’s for girls!.Available: http://connect.icrossing.co.uk/social-media-demographics-facebooks-girls_1562. Last accessed 24th Feb 2012.


Masterman,G and Wood, E.H. (2006). Advertising. In: Innovative Marketing Communications. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann. 


Ward, S. (). Advertising. Available: http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/marketing/g/advertising.htm. Last accessed 23 Feb 2012.