Types of Advertising

Ashiqha Sultana
Indian Institute of Mass Communication
What is advertising?
Advertising is a paid form of mass communication that consists of the special
message sent by the specific person (advertiser or company), for the specific group
of people (listeners, readers, or viewers), for the specific period of time, in the
specific manner to achieve the specific goals.
Advertising message can be expressed in written, oral, audible, or visual forms.
Mostly, message is expressed in a joint form, such as oral-visual, audio-visual, etc.
Advertiser can use any of the several advertising media to convey the
message. Widely used media are print media (newspapers, magazines,
pamphlets, booklets, letters, etc.), outdoor media (hoardings, sign boards,
wall-printing, vehicle, banners, etc.), audio-visual media (radio, television,
film, Internet, etc.), or any other to address the target audience.
Types of Advertising

• Product Advertising - Product advertising focuses on promoting specific individual products

• Product advertisements are trying to sell specific products immediately. Product advertising is the
art of building and maintaining product awareness with potential buyers. A good advertising
educates potential customers on why they need the product, how it is used and the benefits derived
from its use. A successful program also tells the consumer how the product is better than similar
offerings by competitors
• The general objective is to increase brand awareness or to demonstrate the differences between
product and competing products in order to sell them.
• Product advertisement serves as an introduction to the product and spreads the word about the
company. Once your customers are aware of the product, advertising is used to inform customers
about its benefits. This will showcase it in the best way and generate a conversation that will
increase customer awareness.
• Service Advertising – Advertising aimed at
publicizing services such as advertising
hotels, airlines, insurance companies etc. these
type of ads aims at services rather than
product
• Service ads aims at creating at attention on the
minds of potential target audience to use the
service.
• Ad agencies often makes these attractive so as
to grab the immediate attention of the target
audience
• Public Service Advertising - Ad agencies,
working with non-profit organizations, create
public service advertisements, also known as
public service announcements or PSAs,
designed to persuade consumers to engage in
behaviors that actively promote healthy
behaviors or good citizenship.
• Media organizations often donate space and
time for the distribution of these messages.
• To gain control over the distribution of their
advertisements,nonprofit organizations and
state and national governments sometimes pay
for these services
• Institutional Advertising - Institutional
advertising focuses on touting the benefits,
ideas, or philosophies of your business, or its
entire industry, to enhance or repair its
reputation rather than selling a product or
service.
• Since institutional advertising attempts to
build a positive image, it's closely related to
public relations.
• The benefits, ideas and philosophies of the
business are conveyed in a lucid manner.
Because of its attempts to create a positive
image, it is closely related to public relations.
In this, the organization markets itself rather
than its products.
• Institutional advertising is also referred to as
corporate advertising or institutional
promotion. It does not attempt to sell anything
directly.
• Institutional advertising just informs the
public of what the institution is doing for the
society in terms of education, health,
environment, etc.
• The channels used for institutional advertising
may be radio, television, print and
digital. Institutional advertising promotes a
company while promotional advertising
promotes a company’s products & services.
• Trade Advertising- This kind of
advertising is carried out by a producer
which is directed towards the wholesaler,
traders and distributors rather than the end
consumers of the product.
• Trade advertising is strategically
important for firms so that they can
establish good relations with the trader,
wholesaler or the distributors associated
with the selling of the company’s
products. It is also known as business to
business advertising.
• The advantages of carrying out trade advertising
is that it is low in cost and can provide a good
means to communicate the message to the target
audience. Also, it helps command a respect for
the product the company launches as it is
intended for specific audience.
• The chances of meeting a new supplier increases
when we adopt to trade advertising. As the
advertising is done in specific trade journals and
media, the chances are high that a new supplier
may get enticed with the product and contact the
company for its rights. One of the major
advantages of trade advertising is that it creates
an image in trader’s mind which eventually
makes him/her to approach the company to sell
its product.
• Financial advertising –Advertising aimed at
selling financial products such as bonds,
debentures and fixed deposits

• Typical products in financial advertising are

publicly offered financial products such as
mutual fund shares or limited partnership
shares

• The object of financial advertising may be to

borrow or lend money, conduct all kinds of
insurance, sell shares, unit trusts, bonds and
pension funds or report financial results.
• Banks advertise their services, which along
with traditional bank accounts include
deposits, loans, insurance, house purchase,
wills and executor-ship and advice on
investment portfolios. Some banks specialise
in certain areas of banking, and others
concentrate on certain kinds of business. 

• In addition to advertising addressed to

customers or clients it can also include
company reports, prospectuses for new share
issues, records of investments in securities and
other financial announcements.
• Comparative advertising - comparative
advertising is the act of comparing one or
more brands. The main goal of comparative
advertisements is to communicate value,
which is often done by showing how one
brand is superior to a competitor brand, or
other brands as a whole. 
• Comparative advertising displays a
comparison of two different brands on
numbered variants like price, quality by
referring the alternative brand by name, visual
illustrations or other distinctive attributes.
Advertisers employ this technique to increase
their visibility in the market and to promote
their product.
• Comparisons can help consumers judge the
merits of competing products so they can
choose the one which best suits their needs and
budgets.
• Advertising can be comparative even if the
advertisement does not mention the
competitor's name or products if the
comparison with those products is obviously
implied.
• As with all advertising, comparative advertising
must not mislead or deceive. The comparisons
you make must be accurate, should clearly
indicate what comparison is being made, and
must be about 'like' products or services
available in the same market.
• Classified Advertising - an advertisement in
newspaper or magazine generally dealing with
offers, job vacancies, houses, apartments, used
cars etc..
• One of the first advantages of this kind of
advertisement is its low cost when compared to
other forms of advertising. This low cost might
allow small and medium businesses to
effectively advertise their products or service
while not burning a hole in their pockets.
• This kind of advertisement has a wide reach.
Classified ads placed in newspapers or
magazines can be seen by everyone reading
them while classified ads placed on online
websites will be seen by every website visitor.
• A surrogate advertisement can be defined as an
advertisement that duplicates the brand image of
one product to promote another product of the same
brand. The surrogate or substitute could either
resemble the original product or could be a
different product altogether but it is marketed under
the established brand name of the original product.
• Surrogate advertisements are used to promote and
advertise products of brands when the original
product cannot be advertised on mass media.
• Some instances of surrogate advertisements are:
Bagpiper Soda, Cassettes and CDs, Royal
Challenge Golf Accessories and Mineral Water,
Imperial Blue Cassettes and CDs etc.