AS1703

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION
ADVERTISING
What is Advertising?
According to the American Marketing Association (as cited in Hanson, 2016), advertising is “any paid form of
non-personal communication about organization, product, service, or idea by an identified sponsor.”
Advertisement serves as a medium of a public notice to promote through a specific commercial message.
Advertising means “dissemination of information or messages for a business purpose, usually intended to
promote commercial transactions, or to enhance a general standing of an entity or business in the
marketplace or the community” (Ad Standards Council, n.d.).
Four (4) Major Groups of Advertising
• The Client
This is the company or the person who has something to sell and who needs promotion. The client’s reason
of advertising may slightly vary such as to introduce a new product or service, to retain existing customers,
or to encourage consumers to switch brands. Whichever it may be, the main goal is to generate and
increase sales and/or awareness.
• The Agency
Ad agencies help the client to develop and produce their advertising campaign through, research,
planning, and creative services. The agencies do research about the clients’ target markets and plan how
they can connect to them knowing that there are different market segments. Most importantly, agencies
create effective ad strategies, concepts, and ideas to make their client’s brand build its value and do good
promotion which will make the target audience buy what they sell.
• The Media
This is the channel of the advertisements. These include print media (newspaper, magazine), broadcast
media (radio, TV), digital media (social media, mobile), cinemas, and the out-of-home advertising (seen
on public vehicles, billboards, bus stops).
• The Audience
These are the specific people that the advertisers and the client want to convince with their message.
The audience members are defined by demographics (age, income, sex, etc.), geographics (where people
live), and psychographics (lifestyle, interest, opinion, personality, attitude, etc.). To make sure that the
right audience are being reached, advertisers thoroughly research and plan for these graphics. Thus,
advertisers can produce effective ads that will really appeal to the target audience.
Advertising Techniques
• Lowest Common Denominator (LCD)
It means that the ad should appeal to many people as possible. This technique aims to draw interest to
the level of understanding of a broad audience at the same time, even if there are audience members who
have a higher level of understanding. The goal is to get the attention and give a message to the broadest
audience possible.
• Unique Selling Proposition (USP, also known as Unique Selling Point)
It is emphasizing the unique feature against the competitors. USP sells and highlights the edge which is
better than of the competition. Additionally, it ensures to uniquely answer the needs of the consumers or
audience.
• Positioning
Unlike the LCD, positioning appeals to a specific consumer. It is how the brand positions in the mind of
their target audience. The advertisers create ads depending on how and what they want the audience

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think about them in a particular category. Positioning could be based on the quality, price, or convenience
that the audience might get from the brand being promoted.
• Redundancy
This technique creates intense repetition. This can be annoying to people, but redundancy can also
establish a recall to the mind of the audience.
• Testimonials
Testimonial technique has been common in advertising. The endorsers or users of the brand state its
benefit and effectiveness. It tries to show to other people how the brand can bring satisfaction to its
consumers.
• Word-of-mouth
This technique can be through making a buzz or spreading a viral ad.
 Buzz advertising becomes possible and strong by the help of the individuals who pass the message to
their friends, family, etc.
 Viral advertising is also becoming a trend with the use of the internet whereas media consumers share
an ad which can rapidly spread and become visible to other internet users.
• Under-the-radar
With people being overwhelmed to advertisements screaming on television, internet, and other
traditional media, advertisers are concerned about losing its appeal to the audience. To address this issue,
stealth ads, product placement, and infomercial are done and produced.
 Stealth ads are the ads that don’t look as if the product is being sold; the audience members are not
fully aware that they are targeted to advertising. They can be as subtle as a small drawing in the middle
of the road.
 Product placement are ads which can appear as part of movie scripts or a prop on TV scenes.
 Infomercial is a commercial in the form of a TV program which is often aired during late night. This is
done through an informative talk show promoting a product wherein audience are usually being
persuaded to participate through calling a toll-free number and using a credit card.
Problems and Issues in Advertising
• Ad Clutter
“Clutter is generally defined as anything that is not part of the program itself; ads, public service
announcements, network promotions, and other gaps between programs” (Hanson, 2016). More than
the annoyance that too much ads between programs may bring to the audience, advertisers are also
worried about it. Advertisers know that they might lose the consumers’ attention if there are many
ads which compete for it.
• Subliminal Advertising
“Message that are allegedly embedded so deeply in an ad that they cannot be perceived consciously”
(Hanson, 2016). These suspected hidden messages are supposed to influence the audience
subconsciously. Though it is unclear how these subliminal messages can affect the buying behavior of
an audience, they are usually associated with sex, religion, or competition. However, subliminal
messages are not always designed to influence negatively.

PUBLIC RELATIONS
What is Public Relations?
It is a two-way model of interaction between the institution and its publics which is defined as the
management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an
organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends” (Hanson, 2016).

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Three (3) Basic Segments of the Definition (Hanson, 2016):

• A management function
It means that it is fundamental in an organization and not just a publicity stunt.
• Mutually beneficial relationships
This means that both parties—organization and public—would benefit from their dealings.
• Success on various publics
Success depends on various publics. Some organizations neglect this which causes their PR campaigns to
fail. Sometimes an organization only consider the company’s perspective without valuing their relation with
the publics.
Public relations is more than just interacting to people. It manages an organization, product, or a person’s
favorable image through a technical process.
Edwin Bernay’s Three (3) Major Public Relations Functions (as cited in Hanson, 2016):
• Informing - sending an information ranging from its employees to its customers. For example, a press
release announcing a new product line.
• Persuading - convincing various publics to change their opinion or idea about a certain product or
organization. An example is a campaign to persuade the public that a certain product won’t bring any
harmful effect on them.
• Integrating - attempting to bring the publics and the organization together toward a common goal or
action. An example is a fundraising event for the community park in a city where a company wants to
become an important part of that community.
Who are the Publics?
A public is “any group of people who share a common set of interests” (Hanson, 2016). They can be divided
into two (2) groups: internal publics and external publics.
• Internal publics are the people who work for the company. At times, they can be easily forgotten and
overlooked, but a company’s maintenance of good relations and communications with them are important
for their morale and responsiveness.
• External publics are the people outside the company whom the organization deals with such as the press
and the customers. It is said that a positive image with the press leads to a positive image towards the
general public.
The Public Relations Process (Hanson, 2016)
The ROPES model: research, objectives, programming, evaluation, and stewardship.
• Research - researching the opportunities, problems, or issues the organization is facing.
• Objectives - setting specific and measurable objective for the PR campaign.
• Programming - planning and implementing the activities necessary to carry out the objectives.
• Evaluation - testing the messages and techniques before using them, monitoring the programming while
it is being delivered, and measuring the results of the programming.
• Stewardship - maintaining the relationships created through the previous steps.

References:
Ad Standards Council. (n.d.). Materials covered by the rules. Retrieved February 28, 2018, from Ad Standards Council:
http://asc.com.ph/our-standards/manual-of-procedures/general-rules/materials-covered-by-the-rules/
Hanson, R. E. (2016). Mass communication living in a media world 5th edition. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Lule, J. (2017). Understanding media and culture: An introduction to mass communication version 2.0. Retrieved from BCcampus Open
Education:http://solr.bccampus.ca:8001/bcc/file/fc9c22c2-f0e7-4a89-b746-
c1fbee176810/1/Understanding%20Media%20and%20Culture.pdf
Vivian, J. (2013). The media of mass communication 11th edition. Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson Education, Inc.

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