What are the major types of Advertisements

There are many classifications for advertising on the basis of business concerns, media and marketing strategies. These are some of the common types of advertising:

1.       Product Advertising

Product advertising communicates the features and benefits of a product to customers. Companies use product advertising when they want to launch new products, announce changes to existing products or increase sales of those products. Product advertisements must reflect the interests of the target audience. An advertiser developing a campaign for a food product would create messages and select media that appeal to a wide consumer audience. A campaign for a business product, such as a machine tool, would use media that appeal to different groups influencing the decision to buy, including plant managers, production engineers and finance directors.

2.      Broadcast Advertising

Broadcast advertising is popular all around the world. It consists of television, radio, or Internet advertising. The ads on the television have a large audience and are very popular. The cost of the advertisement depends on the length of the ad and the time at which the ad would be appearing. The prime time ads would be more costly than the regular ones. Radio advertising is not what it used to be after the advent of television and Internet, but still there is specific audience for the radio ads too. The radio jingles are quite popular in sections of society and help to sell the products.

3.      Direct Response Advertising

Direct-response advertising is a method of direct marketing whereby a product is promoted through an advertisement that lets the customer purchase directly from the manufacturer. Direct response advertising has become very popular in recent years owing primarily to changing life-styles. The convenience of shopping through the mail or by telephone has led to the tremendous increase in direct-response advertising

4.      Online Advertising

Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web for delivering marketing messages to attract customers. Online ads are delivered by an ad server. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads that appear on search engine results pages, banner ads, in pay per click text ads, rich media ads, Social network advertising, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam.

5.      Outdoor Advertising

Outdoor advertising makes use of different tools to gain customer’s attention. The billboards, kiosks, and events and trade shows are an effective way to convey the message of the company. The billboards are present all around the city but the content should be such that it attracts the attention of the customer. The kiosks are an easy outlet of the products and serve as information outlets for the people too. Organizing events such as trade fairs and exhibitions for promotion of the product or service also in a way advertises the product. Therefore, outdoor advertising is an effective advertising tool.

6.      Covert Advertising

It is a form of indirect advertising through media. There is no actual ad, just the mention of the product in the movie. Actors using certain product like I phone, Ray-Ban, Yamaha bike, etc are examples for covert advertising. It is also known as product placement or in-film advertisement.

7.      Public Service Advertising

Public service advertising or PSAs are advertisements for the public causes. There are lots of important matters such as AIDS, social integrity, energy conservation, illiteracy, pollution, poverty and so on all of which need more awareness as far as general public is concerned. PSA’s are not aimed at financial gains. This type of advertising has gained much importance in recent times and is an effective tool to convey the message.

8.     Print Advertising

The print media has been used for advertising since long. The newspapers and magazines are quite popular modes of advertising for different companies all over the world. Using the print media, the com-panies can also promote their products through brochures and fliers. The newspaper and magazines sell the advertising space and the cost depends on several factors. The quantity of space, the page of the publication, and the type of paper decide the cost of the advertisement. So an ad on the front page would be costlier than on inside pages. Similarly an ad in the glossy supplement of the paper would be more expensive than in a mediocre quality paper.