What is ADVERTISING?

Put simply, advertising is any paid message by an identified sponsor, designed to promote ideas, goods or services for exchange.

Most definitions of advertising seem to have five basic components:

* Advertising is a paid form of communication, whether directly or indirectly. Indirect payment would include pro-bono advertising which uses donated space and time.

* The sponsor, meaning the marketer or advertiser, is identified. However, this is changing with new forms and uses of advertising.

* Most advertising tries to persuade or influence the consumer to do something. At a minimum, the point of the message is to inform consumers and make them aware of the product of company. Mostly, it involves positioning a product, service, idea or organisation in the consumer's mind such that it creates or builds a brand relationship. In other words, it is strategic communication driven by objectives and these objectives can be measured to determine whether the advertising was effective.

* Advertising aims to reach the largest possible audience as cost-efficiently as possible that is, in the place or at the time most likely to induce a positive result.

* The message can be conveyed through many different kinds of mass media, which are largely non-personal. This implies that advertising is not directed to a specific person, although this is changing with the introduction of the Internet and interactive media.

A modern definition, then, might be: Advertising  is any form of predetermined, paid communication that uses the media - including forms of interactive communication - to reach audiences in the most cost-efficient way, so as to achieve a marketer's objectives.

(Quoted from Ruth Spence-Stone's book Advertising: Principles & Practice)