AdvertisingClassification of Advertising:Advertising to consumer markets

National AdvertisingAdvertising done by large companies on a nationwide basis or in most regions of the country. Most of the ads for well-known companies and brands that are seen on prime-time TV or in other major national or regional media are examples of national advertising. The goals of national advertisers are to inform or remind consumers of the company or brand and its features, benefits, advantages, or uses and to create or reinforce its image so that consumers will be predisposed to purchase it.Retail/Local AdvertisingAdvertising done by retailers or local merchants to encourage consumers to shop at a specific store, use a local service, or patronize a particular establishment. Retail or local advertising tends to emphasize specific patronage motives such as price, hours of operation, service, atmosphere, image, or merchandise assortment. Retailers are concerned with building store traffic, so their promotions often take the form of direct-action advertising designed to produce immediate store traffic and sales.Primary- versus Selective-Demand AdvertisingPrimary-demand advertising is designed to stimulate demand for the general product class or entire industry. Selective-demand advertising focuses on creating demand for a specific company’s brands. Most advertising for products and services is concerned with stimulating selective demand and emphasizes reasons for purchasing a particular brand. An advertiser might concentrate on stimulating primary demand when, for example, its brand dominates a market and will benefit the most from overall market growth. Primary-demand advertising is often used as part of a promotional strategy to help a new product gain market acceptance, since the challenge is to sell customers on the product concept as much as to sell a particular brand. Industry trade associations also try to stimulate primary demand for their members’ products, among them cotton, milk, orange juice, pork, and beef.

ADVERTISING TO BUSINESS MARKETSBusiness-to-Business AdvertisingAdvertising targeted at individuals who buy or influence the purchase of industrial goods or services for their companies. Industrial goods are products that either become a physical part of another product (raw material or component parts), are used in manufacturing other goods (machinery), or are used to help a company conduct its business (e.g., office supplies, computers). Business services such as insurance, travel services, and health care are also included in this category.Professional AdvertisingAdvertising targeted to professionals such as doctors, lawyers, dentists, engineers, or professors to encourage them to use a company’s product in their business operations. It might also be used to encourage professionals to recommend or specify the use of a company’s product by end-users.Trade AdvertisingAdvertising targeted to marketing channel members such as wholesalers, distributors, and retailers. The goal is to encourage channel members to stock, promote, and resell the manufacturer’s branded products to their customers.

How advertising works? The hierarchy of effects metaphor implies that for advertising to be successful it must move consumers from one goal to the next goal much in the same way that a person climbs a ladder- one step then another and another until the top of the ladder is reached.Although a variety of hierarchy of effects models have been formulated, all are predicated on the idea that advertising moves people from an initial state of unawareness about a brand to purchasing that brand eventually. The stages of the hierarchy are shown in figure.When the brand was first introduced to the market, consumers were initially unaware of the brand’s existence and of its special featuresThe initial advertising imperative was to make people aware of the brand name.The ad in other word must influence consumer expectations.To the extent the consumer develops this expectations, she or he may undertake a trial purchase of the brand.Upon using the brand, the consumer will from belief about the brand’s performance benefits and an overall attitudes or evaluation toward the brands.As long as the brand continues to satisfy expectations and a superior brand is not introduced, the consumer may become a brand loyal purchaser of the brand

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What makes advertising effectiveness?

Brand loyalty

Belief reinforcement Attitudes reinforcement

Beliefs Attitudes

Trial

Expectation

Awareness

Unawareness

Advertising is effective if it accomplishes the advertiser’s objectives. Although it is impractical to provide a singular, all purpose definition of what constitutes effective advertising, it is possible to talk about general characteristics. At a minimum, good advertising satisfies the following considerations:

1) It must extend from sound marketing strategy. Advertising can be effective only if it is compatible with other elements of an integrated and well-orchestrated marketing communication strategy

2) Effective advertising must take the consumer’s view: Consumers buy product benefits not attributes. Therefore, advertising must be stated in a way that relates to the consumer’s rather than the marketer’s needs wants and values.

3) Effective advertising is persuasive. Persuasion usually occurs when there is a benefit for the consumer in addition to the marketer.

4) Advertising must find a unique way to break through the clutter. Advertisers continuously compete with competitors for the consumer’s attention. This is no small task considering the massive number of print advertisements, broadcast commercials and other sources of information available daily to consumers.

5) Good advertising should never promise more than it can deliver.6) Good advertising presents the creative idea from overwhelming the strategy.

The purpose of advertising is to persuade and influence: the purpose is not to be cute for cute’s sake or humorous for humors’ sake. The ineffective use of humor results in people remembering the humor but forgetting the selling message/

There are some universal standard provided by the former D’Arcy, Masius Benton and Bowles agency for developing its creative efforts and help achieve superior creativity consistently.

D’Arcy, Masius Benton & Bowles’ universal advertising standards are given to below:

Does this advertising position the product simply and with unmistakable clarity?

Does this advertising bolt the brand to a clinching benefit?

Does this advertising contain a power idea? Does this advertising design in Brand Personality? Is this advertising unexpected? Is this advertising single-minded? Does this advertising reward the prospect? Is this advertising visually arresting? Does this advertising exhibit painstaking

craftsmanship?

Major decisions in Advertising:

Setting the advertising objectives:

An advertising objective is a specific communication task to be accomplished with a specific target audience during a specific period of time. Advertising objectives may be classified by primary purpose-

i) informative advertisingii) Persuasive advertingiii) Reminder advertisingiv) Assisting other company effortsv) Adding Value

Informative advertising: Informative advertising is used heavily when introducing a new product category. In this case, the objective is to build primary demand. For example:Telling the market about a new productSuggesting new uses for the productInforming the market of a price changeExplaining how the product worksDescribing available servicesCorrecting false impressionsReducing consumers’ fearsBuilding a company image.

Persuasive advertising: Here the company’s objective is to build selective demand. Suppose, some companies try to persuade the consumers that its brand offered the best quality for their money.For examples, Building brand preferenceEncouraging switching to your brandChanging customers’ perception of product attributesPersuading customer to purchase nowPersuading customer to receive a sales call

Reminder advertising: Reminder advertising is important for mature products-it keeps consumers thinking about the product. Expensive Coca-Cola television ads primarily remind people about Coca-Cola rather than informing or persuadingFor example;Reminding consumer that the product may be needed in the near futureReminding consumer where to buy itKeeping it in consumers’ mind during off-seasonsMaintaining its top of mind awareness.

Adding Value: There are three ways by which companies can add value to their offerings, innovating, improving quality or altering company consumer perceptions. Advertising adds value to brands by influencing consumers’ perceptions. Effective advertising causes brands to be viewed as more elegant, more stylish, more prestigious and perhaps superior to competitive offerings.

Assisting other company efforts:Advertising plays a significant role in assisting other company efforts to convince the customers. Advertising presells a company’s products and provides salespeople with valuable introductions prior to their personal contact with prospective customers. Advertising legitimizes or makes more credible the sales representatives’ claims.

Requirements for setting good advertising objectives:Advertising objective is a specific statement about a planned advertising execution in terms of what that particular advertisement is intended to accomplish. Now we will discuss some criteria that good advertising must follow Objectives must include a precise statement of who, what and when. Objectives must be quantitative and measurable Objectives must specify the amount of change Objectives must be realistic Objectives must be internally consistent Objectives must be clear and in writingBudgeting Methods:Setting the advertising Budget:Method of setting the advertising Budgets:There are four common methods used to set the total budget for advertising. Such as are given to below:Affordable Method: some companies use the affordable method. They set the promotion budget at the level they think the company can afford. Small businesses often use this method because the company can not spend more on advertising than it has. They start with total revenues, deduct operating expenses and capital outlays and then devote some portion of the remaining funds to advertising.Percentage of sales Method:In using the percentage of sales method, a company sets a brands’ advertising budget by simply establishing the budget as a fixed percentage of past or anticipated sales volume. For example, a company allocates 3 percent of anticipated sales to advertising and that the company projects next year’s sales for a particular brand. In this method, the company set the advertising budget at a certain percentage of current or forecasted sales or as a percentage of the unit sales price.

Competitive Parity Method: the competitive parity method sets the advertising budget by basically following what competitors are doing. They monitor competitors’ advertising or get industry promotion spending estimates from publications or trade associations, and then set their budgets based on the industry average.

Objective and task method: in this method, the company sets its promotion budget based on what it wants to accomplish with promotion. Specifying objectives determining the tasks to be performed and estimating the cost for performing that tasks. This is known as the objective and task method. The following steps are involved when applying the objective and task methods.

The first step is to establish specific marketing objectives that needs to be accomplished.

The second step is to assess the communication functions that must be performed to accomplish the overall marketing objectives.

The third step is to determine advertising’s role in the total communication mix in performing the functions.

The fourth step is to establish specific advertising goals in terms of the levels of measurable communications response required to achieve marketing objectives.

The final step is establish the budget based on estimate of expenditures required to accomplish the advertising goals.

Budgeting Considerations in Practice:Advertising decision makers must consider several different factors when establishing advertising budgetsWhat is the advertising objective? A key consideration underlying ad budget determination is the objective that advertising is designed to accomplish. that is the level of the budget should follow from the specific objective established for advertising; more ambitious objectives require larger advertising budgets. if advertising is intended to increase a brand’s market share, then a larger budget is needed than would be required if the task were simply to maintain consumer awareness of the brand name.

How much are competitors spending? Competitive advertising activity is another important consideration in setting ad budgets. in highly competitive markets, more must be invested in advertising in order to increase or at least maintain market position.

How much money is available? a third major consideration is the amount of funds available for advertising. in the final analysis, advertising budget setting is determined in large part by decision makers’ perceptions of how much they can afford to spend on advertising.

Developing advertising strategy:Advertising strategy consists of two major elements;

i) creating advertising messageii) selecting advertising media

Creating advertising message: the creative department first created good advertisements. Advertising can succeed only if commercials gain attention and communicate well. Good advertising messages are especially important in today's costly and cluttered advertising environment.Message strategy: the first step in creating effective advertising messages is to decide what general message will be communicated to consumers- to plan a message strategy. Developing an effective message strategy begins with identifying customer benefits that can be used as advertising appeals. Message strategy statements tend to be plain, straightforward outlines of benefits and positioning points that the advertiser wants to stress.The creative concept will guide the choice of specific appeals to be used in an advertising campaign.

The advertising appeal refers to the .+approach used to attract the attention of consumers and to influence their feelings toward the product, service or cause. An advertising appeal can also be viewed as something that moves people speaks to their wants or needs and excites their interest. The appeal can be said to form the underlying content of the advertisement. Advertising appeal tend to adapt themselves to all media. There are three types of appeals, such as are given to below:

i) Rational/ informational appeals:ii) Emotional appealsiii) Moral appeals

Rational/informational appeals: Rational appeals relate to the audience’s self-interest. They show that the product will produce the desired benefits. It focus on the consumer’s practical, functional or utilitarian need for the product or service and emphasize features of a product or service and or the benefits or reasons for owning or using a particular brand. Rational based tend to be informative and advertisers using them generally attempt to convince consumers that their product or service has a particular attributes or provides specific benefit that satisfies their needs.Many rational motives can be used as the basis for advertising appeals including comfort, convenience, economy, health and sensory benefits such as touch, taste and smell and rational motives are quality, dependability, durability, efficacy, efficiency and performance etc.Weilbacher identified several types of advertising appeals that fall under the category of rational approaches such as areAds that use a feature appeals focus on the dominant traits of the product or service.A competitive advantage appeal is used, here the advertiser makes either a direct or an indirect comparison to another brand and usually claims superiority on one or more attributes.A favorable price appeal makes the price offer the dominant point of the message.News appeals are those in which some type of news or announcement about the product, service or company dominates the ads.Product/ service popularity appeals stress the popularity of a product or service by pointing out the number of consumers who use the brand, the number who have switched to it, the number of exports who recommend it or its leadership position in the market place.

Emotional appeals:Emotional appeals stir up either negative or positive emotions that can motivate purchase.Emotional appeals relate to the consumers’ social or psychological needs for purchasing a product or service. Communicators may use positive emotional appeals such as are love, pride, joy and humor etc. sometimes they negative emotional appeals such as are fear, guilt and shame. Many feelings or needs can serve as the basis for advertising appeals designed to influence consumers on an emotional level.Personal states or feelings social based feelingsSafety arousal/stimulation RecognitionSecurity sorrow/grief StatusFear pride RespectLove achievement/accomplishment InvolvementAffection self-esteem EmbarrassmentHappiness actualization Affiliation/ belongingJoy pleasure RejectionNostalgia ambition AcceptanceSentiment comfort ApprovalExcitement

Moral appeals:

Moral appeals are directed to the audience’s sense of what is right and proper. They are often used to urge people to support social causes such as a cleaner environment, better race relations, and equal rights for women and aid to the disadvantaged.An example of a moral appeal is the March of Dimes appeal, “God made you whole. Give to help those He did not”

Advertising appeals should have three characteristics; First, they should be meaningfulSecond the appeal must be believableThird , the appeal should also be distinctive

Celebrity Endorsers:Television stars, movie actors, famous athletes and dead personalities are widely used in magazine ads, radio spots, and television commercials to endorse the products. By definition, a celebrity is a personality who is known to the public for his or her accomplishments in areas other than the product class endorsed. Celebrities are great demand as product spokespersons, perhaphs as many as one-fourth of all commercials employ celebrity endorsements.Advertisers and their agencies are willing to pay huge salaries to those celebrities who are liked and respected by target audiences and who will, it is hoped favorably influence consumer's attitudes and behavior toward the endorsed products.How are celebrities selected:A survey of advertising executives illuminates the factors these executive consider when making their celebrity selection decisions. The major considerations in order of decreasing importance are

i) Celebrity credibilityii) Celebrity and audience matchupiii) Celebrity and Brand matchupiv) Celebrity attractivenessv) Miscellaneous considerations.

Celebrity Credibility: A celebrity's trustworthiness and expertise is the primary reason for selecting a celebrity endorser.People who are trustworthy and perceived as knowledgeable on a particular issue are best able to convince others to undertake a course of action.

Celebrity and audience matchup: The celebrity must match up the characteristics of the audiences. The demographic of the celebrities must matchup with the demography of the audiences.

Celebrity/Brand Matchup: Advertising executives require that the celebrity's image, values, and decorum be compatible with the image desired for the advertised brand. Sachin tendulker matches up well with Pepsi, because his image fits well with that brand.

Celebrity attractiveness: in selecting celebrity spokespeople, advertising executives evaluate different aspects that can be lumped together under the general label attractiveness. These include friendliness, likability, physique and occupation as some of the more important dimensions of the attractiveness concept.

Miscellaneous Considerations: Finally, ad executives in selecting celebrities consider additional factors such asi) how much it will cost to acquire a celebrity's servicesii) the likelihood that the celebrity will get into trouble after an endorsement is

establishediii) how difficult or easy he or she is to work withiv) How many other brands the celebrity is endorsing.

Message executionMessage execution: the advertiser now has to turn the big idea into an actual ad execution that will capture the target market's attention and interest.. the creative people must find the best style, tone, words and format for executing the message. Any message can be presented in different execution styles, such as the following;

Advertising execution styles:Once the specific advertising appeal that will be used as the basis for the advertising message has been determined, the creative specialist or team begins its execution. Creative execution is the way an advertising appeal is presented. An advertising message can be presented or executed in numerous ways:1) Straight sell or factual message: The ads relies on a straightforward presentation

of information concerning the products or services. Here the focus of the message is the product or services and its specific attributes or benefits. It is commonly used in print ads.A picture of the product or service occupies part of the ads and the factual copy takes up the rest of the space.They are generally used in the advertising with an announcer generally delivering the sales message which the product or service is shown on the screen.Ads for high involvement products as well as industrial and other business to business products generally use this format.

2) Scientific/Technical Evidence:In this method scientific or technical evidence is presented. Advertisers often recite technical information, result of scientific or laboratory studios or endorsements by scientific bodies or agencies to support their advertising claims. For example, an endorsement from the American council or dental therapeutics on how fluoride help to prevent cavities was the basis of the campaign that made crest the leading brand on the market.3) Demonstration: It is designed to illustrate the key advantages of the product or service by showing it in actual or is some stage situation.TV ad is particularly well suited for demonstration executions. The benefits or advantages of the products can be shown right on the screen.4) Comparison: Brand comparisons can also be basis for the advertising executions. It offers a direct way of communicating a brand’s particular advantage over its competitors or positioning a new or lesser known brand with industry leaders. Comparisons executives are often used to execute competitive advantage appeals5) Testimonial executions: Here a person praises the product or service on the basis of his or her personal experiences with it. The testimonial must be based on actual use of the product or services to avoid legal problems and the spokesperson must be credible. For example, apple computer made effective use of testimonial as part of its switch campaign which features computers uses from various walks

of life discouraging why they switched from wind owns from windows based machines to Macintoshes.A related execution technique is the endorsement where a well known or respected individual such as a celebrity or expert in the product or service area speaks on behalf of the company or the brand.

6) Slice of life: it is generally based on a problem or solution approaches. This ads portrays a problems or conflict that consumers might face in their daily lives. The ads show how the advertised products or services can solve the problems.

7) Animation: an advertising execution approach that has become popular in recent years is animation. With this technique animated scenes are drawn by artists or created on the computer and cartoons puppets or other types of fictional characters may be used.Cartoon animation is especially popular for commercials targeted at children

8) Mood or image: This style builds a mood or image around the product, such as beauty, love or serenity. No claim is made about the product except through suggestion. Bermuda tourism ads create such moods.

9) Musical: this style shows one or more people or cartoon characters singing a song about the product. For example, one of the most famous ads in history was a coca cola ad built around the song. I would like to teach the world to sing.

10) Personality symbol: this style creates a character that represents the product. The character might be animated or real. Such as Marlboro man. This style involves developing a central character or personality symbol that can deliver the advertising message and with which the product or service can be identified. This character may be a person.

11) Fantasy: an execution technique that is popular for emotional types of appeals such as image advertising is fantasy. Fantasy executions are particularly well suited for television, as the commercial can become a 30 second escape for the viewer into another lifestyle. Cosmetics ads often use fantasy appeals to create images and symbols that become associated with the brand.

12) Dramatization: another execution technique particularly well suited to television is dramatization where the focus is on telling a short story with the product or service at the star. The purpose of using drama is to draw the viewer into the action it portrays.

13) Humor: this technique can also be used as a way of presenting other advertising appeals. Humorous executions are particularly well suited to television or radio.

14) Combinations: many of the advertising techniques can be combined to present the advertising message. For example, animation is often used to create personality symbols or present a fantasy. Slice of life ads are often used to demonstrate a product or service.

Format elements make a difference in an ad's impact as well as in its costs. A small change in ad design can make a big difference in its effect. The elements of the print ad must effectively work together. The creative tactics for print advertising are given to below;Creative Tactics for print advertising:

The basic components of a print ad are thei) the headlineii) the body copyiii) the visual or illustrationsiv) the layout

Headlines: the headline is the words in the leading position of the ad-the words that will be read first or are positioned to draw the most attention. Headlines are usually set in larger type and are often set apart from the body copy.The most important function of a headline is attracting readers’ attention and interesting them in the rest of the message.Research has shown the headline is generally the first thing people look at in a print ad. Only 20% of readers go beyond the headline and read the body copy.The headline must put forth the main theme, appeal or proposition of the ad in a few words.Types of headline: Headline can be categorized as direct and indirect headline.Direct headlines are straightforward and informative in terms of the message they are presenting and the target audience they are directed toward. Common types of direct headlines include those offering a specific benefit, making a promise or announcing a reason the reader should be interested in the product or service.

Indirect headlines are not straightforward about identifying the product or service or getting to the point. But they are often more effective at attracting readers’ attention and interest because they provoke curiosity and lure readers into the body copy to learn answer or get an explanation.The technique for writing indirect headlines include using questions, provocations, how to statements and challenges.

Subheads:Subheads are usually smaller than the main headline but larger than the body copy. They may appear above or below the main headline or within the body copySubheads are often used to enhance the readability of the message by breaking up large amounts of body copy and highlighting key sales points

Body Copy:The main text portion of a print ad is referred to as the body copy. Advertising body copy can be written to go along with various types of creative appeals and executions-comparisons, price appeals, demonstrations, humors, dramatizations and the like.

Visual Elements: The third major components of a print ad is the visual element. Visual portions of an ad must attract attention, communicate an idea or image and work in synergistic fashion with the headline and body copy to produce an effective message. Many decisions have to be made regarding the visual portions of the ad:

what identification marks should be included; whether to use photos or hand-drawn or painted illustrations; what colors to use and what the focus of the visual should be.

Layout: a layout is the physical arrangement of the various parts of the ad, including the headline, subheads, body copy, illustrations and any identifying marks. The layout shows where each part of the ad will be placed and gives guidelines to the people working on the ad.The layout can also guide the art director in determining the size and types of photos.

Selecting advertising media:The major steps in media selection arei) deciding on reach, frequency and impactii) choosing among major media typesiii) selecting specific media vehiclesiv) deciding on media time

Deciding on reach, frequency and impact:To select media, the advertiser must decide what reach and frequency are needed to achieve advertising objectives. Reach is a measure of the percentage of people in the target market who are exposed to the ad campaign during a given period of time. Frequency is a measure of how many times the average person in the target market is exposed to the messageThe advertiser must also decide on the desired media impact-the quantitative value of a message exposure through a given medium. For example, for products that need to be demonstrated, messages on television may have more impact than messages on radio because television uses sight and sound. The same message in one magazine may be more believable than in another message. The more reach, frequency and impact the advertiser seeks, the higher the advertising budget will have to be.

Choosing among major media types: the media planner has to know the reach, frequency and impact of each of the major media types. The major media types are newspapers, television, direct mail, radio, magazines, outdoor and the internet etc. each medium has some advantages and limitations.

Medium Advantages Limitations

Newspapers Flexibility, timeliness, good local market coverage, broad acceptability and high believability

Short life, poor reproduction quality, small pass along audience.

Television Good mass-market coverage, low cost per exposure, combines sight, sound and motion, appealing to the senses.

High absolute costs, high clutter, fleeting exposure, less audience selectivity

Direct mail High audience selectivity, flexibility, no ad competition within the same medium, allows personalization

Relatively high cost per exposure, Junk mail image.

Radio Good local acceptance, high geographic and demographic selectivity; low cost

Audio only, fleeting exposure; low attention; fragmented audiences

Magazines High geographic and demographic Long ad purchase lead time;

selectivity; credibility and prestige; high quality reproduction; long life and good pass-along readership.

high cost; no guarantee of positions

Outdoor Flexibility, high repeat exposure; low cost; low message competition; good personal selectivity

Little audience selectivity; creative limitations

Internet High selectivity; low cost; immediacy; interactive capabilities

Small, demographically skewed audience, relatively low impact; audience controls exposure

Media planners consider many factors when making their media choices.i) The media habits of target consumersii) The nature of the productsiii) Types of messagesiv) Costs.

Selecting specific media vehicles:The media planner must now choose the best media vehicles-specific media within each general media type. For example, television vehicles include ER and ABC World News Tonight. Magazine vehicles include Newsweek, Poeple, In Style and Sports Illustrated etc.Media planner must compute the cost per thousand persons reached by a vehicle. The media planner must also consider the costs of producing ads for different media.In selecting media vehicles, the media planner must balance media cost measures against several impact factors. First, the planner should balance costs against the media vehicle's audience quality.The second, the media planner should also consider audience attention.The third, the planner should assess the vehicle's editorial quality-Time and Wall street Journal are more believable and prestigious than the national Enquirer.

Deciding on media timing:The advertiser must also decide how to schedule the advertising over the course of a year. Obviously, the company would like to keep their advertising in front of consumers at all times as a constant reminder of the product and brand name. The primary objective of scheduling is to time promotional efforts so that they will coincide with the highest potential buying times. Three scheduling methods are available to the media planner-

i) Continuityii) Flightingiii) Pulshing

Continuity refers to a continuous pattern of advertising, which may mean every day, every week or every month. The key is that a regular pattern is developed without gaps or non-advertising periods. Such strategies might be used for advertising for food products, laundry detergents or other products consumed on an ongoing basis without regard for seasonality.A second method, flighting, employs a less regular schedule, with intermittent periods of advertising and non-advertising. At some time periods there are heavier promotional expenditures and at other there may be no advertising. Many banks for

example spend no money on advertising in the summer but maintain advertising throughout the rest of the year. Snow skis are advertised heavily between October and April; less in May, August and September and not at all in June and July.

Pulsing is actually a combination of the first two methods. In a pulsing strategy, continuity is maintained, but at certain times promotional efforts are stepped up. In the beer industry, advertising continues throughout the year but may increase at holiday periods such as Labor Day.

Evaluating advertising:The advertising program should evaluate both the communication effects and the sales effects of advertising regularly. Measuring the communication effects of an ad-copy testing-tells whether the ad is communicating well. Copy testing can be done before or after an is printed or broadcast. Before the ad is placed, the advertiser can show it to consumers, ask how they like it and measure recall or attitude changes resulting from it. After the ad is run, the advertiser can measure how the ad affected consumers recall or product awareness, knowledge and preferences etc.

The sales effects of advertising are often harder to measure than the communication effects. Sales are affected by many factors besides advertising such as product features, price and availability. One way to measure the sales effect of advertising is to compare past sales with past advertising expenditures. Another way is through experimentation.