Benefits of Hiring an Advertising Agency

Advertising has reached a very high level of importance in today's fiercely competitive world. Cutthroat competition has compelled manufacturers to review their selling strategies and come up with unique and innovative ways to sell their products. This has in turn prompted them to hire advertising agencies to do the legwork for them. There are many reasons why hiring an advertising agency makes sense to a company. A few of them have been discussed in this Buzzle article. Go through them and you'll know the benefits of getting your products advertised by professionals.

Exposure and Experience in the Field
The biggest plus point of hiring an advertising agency has is the immense level of experience that it holds in comparison to a company that is hiring it. Take your own company for instance. If you want to come up with a novel idea to sell your product, you will spend a lot of time and resources trying to come up with the perfect ad. Market research, creativity and the actual realization of the idea can take a very long time by which time the whole demand focus may shift totally. On the contrary, when you hire an agency, due to its tremendous experience in the field, it will know exactly what to do, when to do it and most importantly how to do it! This will not only save you the headache of coming up with your own idea, but it will definitely be better than what you can come up with. Plus, they have a constant exposure to different types of clients, customers and consumers. This gives them an edge over a layman in coming up with ideas to sell a product.

Professional Approach to the Work
Due to the high level of experience and exposure that agencies have over laymen, they also have a strictly professional approach to their work. While a company may consciously or unconsciously end up bringing an emotional approach to the ad, an agency leaves no room for this. However, this does not mean that the client's sentiment is not taken into account. It is the combination of the client's sentiment, the ad agency's creativity and the customer's demand that together make the perfect ad. The agency sees to it that all these ingredients are present in an ad. It adds a level of finesse and class to a crude idea that the client has, thus making its professionalism clearly visible.

Well Versed with Tips and Tricks
Another edge that an advertising agency has over its clients, and this is a point that proves its expertise in the field, is the knowledge of the tips and tricks in transforming a dream of the client into his reality, and in turn, a dream of the customer. An ad agency is a knowledge bank of all the small intricacies that go into making a successful ad. This knowledge comes only from experience. For instance, just like a journalist will know exactly what questions he must ask in order to sensationalize a celebrity's interview, an ad agency knows what appeals and which audience to target and also how to do it, when coming up with an ad campaign for a client.

Media Selection Ability
Choosing an advertising agency to do your work for you has one more very important advantage. Due to its exposure, experience, knowledge and indispensable resources, it also has the ability to know and choose the appropriate kind of media to showcase your ad campaign. Because they are constantly in touch with the media world, they know which media is suitable for what kind of products, they know what demographic to appeal to through which media and also know which media costs how much and how to use these costs to turn in the favor of the client. The agency can guide the client about the above and thus ensure that the campaign is successful.

Diversion of Workload
A company is only as good as the products it manufactures. Hence, the prime focus of any organization should be on the products or services that it manufactures. For your company, the prime focus should be the product that you wish to sell. And for the advertising agency, it is the ad that it makes for you. Needless to say that when the agency's focus is on your product, you'll have less to worry about with regards to marketing strategies and selling tactics. All you have to concentrate on is manufacturing and leave the rest to the ad agency. It will fulfill its responsibility towards you as its client and you will have an impressive ad campaign for your product. Everyone does his own job and reaps his own benefits.

So, it can safely be said that hiring an advertising agency is an endeavor that you can take up in the best interests of your company. After all, a job done by a professional is much superior compared to that of an amateur, isn't it?

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How Advertising Will Looks Like In The Future?

Advertising dates back to the time when owners used announcers to advertise about their products in towns. Advertising is as old as 4000 B.C. and the first advertisement which appeared in the newspaper was in June 1836 in the French newspaper called 'La Presse'. From then, advertising has changed by leaps and bounds. From simple announcements to growth of new avenues, the advertising model has challenged the advertiser to actually use the term 'think out of box'. An advertiser's job has become more and more demanding not just in terms of increasing the revenue of the product, but even understanding the mindset of customers and clients. Many companies are trying to carve out a niche for themselves by trying to create new avenues every time like Apple products do. The situation grows more complex as people have started hating advertisements and do not want to see it during their favorite shows. Here the advertiser really needs to balance such a situation by carefully exploring alternatives and delivering it to the customers in a form, which will attract their interest.

Future of Advertising Agencies

In many papers, you must have read a question which would compel you to think, what will be the future of advertising? One thing is almost certain - advertising cannot and will not be extinct. In fact, advertisers are going to employ more and more research methods in order to successfully understand the client and the crowd.

• With the ever-increasing explosion of forms of digital media, one thing is certainly not going to change - word of mouth advertising, where customers are the spokespersons of the company. Consumers are going to trust their group before making any purchases.
• It is necessary to make consumers the fans or followers of your product. Adding up of fans/followers is being achieved by brands making their presence felt in social networking sites.
• Also the agencies must be able to create catchy ads, which will encourage the consumer to go ahead and buy the product.
• Of course, it's equally important for the agency that the consumer is no longer viewed as a buyer but more as a partner and creator who is going to endorse your brand.
• Another aspect is using analytics for collecting, analyzing and quantifying the data so that the advertiser can understand the impact of the advertisement in the mind of consumer. So it is a necessity to not just form messages, but to create experience which will help in retaining the ad in the mind of the consumer.
• Also, exploring new technologies to advertise is better for long term growth. According to a study, people are bombarded with advertisements that are irrelevant. Thus, avoiding irrelevant ads by the agency must be done as they do not go into increasing revenues for the product.

Changing Times for Advertising

The future of advertising has greatly been dominated by integrated advertising. This modern form of advertising includes forms like digital billboard, social vending machines and online ads and 3-D images.

Digital Billboard: An amazing form of modern advertising is the digital billboard. In the billboard, a camera is installed which is linked to a computer. The images flashed on it change from time to time according to the gender.

Social Vending Machines and Online Ads: These new channels of communication have gained popularity with the people - for instance these social vending machines used by Pepsi were a huge hit among consumers. The advantage while using this machine is, you just have to operate a touch screen through which you can purchase as well as send virtual gifts to your friends by simply text messaging the code.

Three Dimensional Images: This innovative idea which uses a flat screen usually in malls, shops, etc., displays images which have real life effects. Another brilliant discovery made by a Japanese firm is to map out the profile of the customers through facial features. The 3-D images are a new way to convey the message to the consumer. This technology has been successfully incorporated in the movies and now is used by advertisers to display ads in the malls.

The future of advertising is very bright provided the advertiser and the manufacturer take reasonable precautions. Like being truthful to your consumers, though it's a far fetched idea but still it has become a norm. People don't want to trust brands, which are unreliable in delivering their promises. Staying away from excessive advertisements is another option which will guarantee that people will remember your ad more if the message is subtle and simple. Now is the time to change the old conceptions and start embracing the new models, which are the successful mantras in this new world. Concluding this discussion, it's essential to quote Robert C. Gallagher words that say - 'Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine'.

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Manipulation Facts

There are certain things we say in order to convince others of our own ideas. This may happen in our day-to-day life, or at the workplace, or when a student tries to convince his teacher to get a higher grade at an exam, for instance. However, there are ideas that are very well phrased and which most often act in an irrational manner on the target subject and with which one has greater chances of success. Such methods are generally used in the manipulation through publicity.

Manipulation through advertisements uses many persuasion techniques and it is best for us to be familiar with, in order not to be fooled into buying certain products and services we don't really need or even want. It's good to know such techniques no matter on which side you are - whether you are a buyer or a seller, whether you are trying to persuade someone to accept your ideas or buy your things, or you are someone who wants to buy the right product/service, without being unwillingly manipulated and making wrong choices. The success of applying certain strategy depends on the situation. Thus, some work better than the others on a certain scenario, but it all largely depends on the degree of discretion one uses in the act of trying to manipulate others.

One of the simplest techniques of manipulation through advertisement is that of temporal distortion. Sometimes the best way to influence the target person is to act as the thing you want to get from that person has already taken place. Thus, you can refer to a decision that person is trying to make as if it was already made. If you speak to that person as if he/she had already accepted your proposal and even enjoyed it. Also, associating pleasant images with the use of Past Tense makes the proposal seem actually irresistible.

It is known that people feel the need to reward the favors they have been made. A favor can cause feelings of gratefulness and as a result, the subject feels the need to free himself/herself from the psychological burden of owing something to someone else. In order to achieve this, people become more willing to return the favor, even with a greater one than the one they have received. The principle of reciprocity is made of the need to repay a favor, whether it is asked for or not, immediately after accepting it. This typically human feature transcends any cultural or racial differences, regardless of the nature of the favor. This favor can refer to most anything, from a simple smile to physical labor or little gifts. This principle is very easy to use. You offer something to someone and then just wait to be rewarded, or you can give an idea about how to be rewarded.

Yet there is another very efficient method of using this principle. It is more powerful than the simple offering of a gift and then expecting for a reward in exchange. At the same time, it is a bit more subtle. Thus, in order to increase the chances to receive a favor is to ask for another type of favor, which has a higher value and meaning than the one you intend to ask for. The request will most certainly be refused, because the favor is too big. After this refusal however, the request will be decreased to the smaller and real one, the one the asker has initially thought of. Statistically speaking, this last mentioned favor has almost 100% chances. This may happen because of the fact that cultural norms dictate that in exchange for a concession, you must make another concession.

Because the first request is made slower, and thus reduced, you actually make a concession, and the target-subject will be forced to make a concession himself/herself and will do that by accepting the second request, the smaller one. This method works very well because cultural norms have the tendency to overcome even logic.

Although all these may seem as ways that can be used by teenagers to manipulate their parents for instance, and obtain things from them, the grievous thing is they are actually largely employed by the mass media and especially by the advertising industry, without most people's awareness of what is actually going on and how they are fooled and wronged. Beware!

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See How Mere Exposure Affects Advertising

The objective of advertising is to entice consumers to develop a preference for a brand over others to increase sales for the company. This is just the truth in plain, but, brutal words. You may think that, as a consumer, you are immune to these advertising tactics and that, you buy what you think is value for your money and suits your tastes. So, let me burst that bubble for you and dish out some dirt on advertising, called the 'mere exposure effect'. Apart from creating brand awareness, advertising gets you so familiar with a brand that you naturally start preferring it. It mostly has a positive effect on prospective consumers because nobody really looks at an advertisement and thinks, "Hey, I am not going to buy this brand because its advertisements just keep popping up everywhere!". What you may perhaps think is, "It looks good, maybe, it is worth a shot". We perceive absolutely no harm in trying out a new brand once, and judge for ourselves if the product or service is really what it promises to be in its advertisements. Advertising at least becomes successful in alluring you to make the first-time purchase. Today, we are a consumer-centric global economy and consumerism is our new religion.

Mere Exposure Effect in Advertisements

Robert Zanjonc, a social psychologist, advocated the effect of a stimuli on a person that he was repeatedly exposed to. He said that when someone was exposed to a stimuli, with every exposure, the person was liable to become more familiar with the stimuli and fear it less than before, until a point is reached when the person does not react negatively on being exposed to the stimuli. It may also be said that the subject starts exhibiting positive reactions to the stimuli. This theory was applied more universally, than being specific to the effects of advertising, and pointed towards the cognition and affect relationship between the subject and stimuli. An experiment conducted by Professor Charles Goetzinger, in 1968, at the Oregon State University further supported this theory. The experiment showed how human psychology works and reacts when an external stimuli is introduced in the environment. It starts with hostility and soon turns to inquisitiveness, eventually encouraging the subjects to adopt a more positive attitude towards it, following repeated exposure. When you have more face time with a product, prompted through advertising, you become familiar with it even before you have bought it. Constant exposure through television advertisements, print advertisements in journals and magazines, billboard advertising and even online ads create the effect that advertising is aiming for.

One of the best examples of the mere exposure is, as a matter of fact, advertising. However, take the example of online advertising itself. When you are surfing through a website and stop by at a particular web page, there is a high probability that there is at least one online ad on it. It may be a flashy banner or a simple text ad of a few words. However, you cannot negate the fact that you are aware of what that ad is advertising. You cannot ignore an ad when it suddenly pops between the text that you are reading. In fact, the more attractive the online ad is, the more you are likely to get distracted by it and spend time viewing it. Over time, as a person repeatedly views the ad, he will, as expected, show more inclination to the product that was advertised as compared to other products that he may not be familiar with at all. However, the mere exposure effect in advertising is not all that rosy. It comes with its cons. Although, advertising may successfully expose the product or service to more prospective buyers, it brings with it more associations which may or may not always be favorable. You ultimately end up buying what you really liked about the product, based on your perception of its advertisement, your need for the product and/or reviews from other sources. This is not totally contradictory to the previous statements. Advertising can indeed only entice you to make a purchase and in the end, it is up to the consumer's buying decision to take that step.

There is definitely a reason why companies have an entire budget dedicated to advertising and they shell out so much moolah just to attract more customers and increase their buyers' base. It is another thing how advertising moguls play with the consumers' psychology with brilliant campaigns and effective advertising strategies that are the perfect concoction of carefully selected colors, fonts, pictures and words, in an attempt to manipulate consumer behavior. It's not surprising that the supermarkets don't keep the milk at the end of the aisle for nothing.

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