In today’s business world, marketing is one of the fundamentals without which a business company would have significantly less possibilities of success in the market. There are several methods for marketers to develop new ideas and advertise new products and services. Among these methods, or advertising formats, the media plays a very important role. Television, the newspaper, the radio, the internet, etc. are all used by marketers for their advertising campaigns. But as in many other areas, even here the usage of these mediums of transmission for the marketer’s message to the public can produce positive or negative side effects. In this short paper we will try to give two advantages and disadvantages for each of them.
Television is probably the most used medium of marketing in the world today. TV ads cover a wide range of products and services. The major strength factor, positive factor, of using television as an advertising format is that by it your message will reach a large audience. Since television is the most used media, then more consumers will likely watch the advertising of your product or service. Another positive factor is that in this format of advertising, you can combine audio, video and text messaging within the same advertising. This combination strengthens the message and has a major impact on consumers. But there are also negative effects of using television. First of all, it is a very expensive advertising format. It surely will have a big impact on your marketing budged. The pricing per second of a television ad also differs according to the time it or event it will be transmitted. During an important event or a peak hour, when the viewing rate is high, the price per second of the ad also will be very high.
Another negative effect is that new technology is allowing consumers to ‘zap’ the ads during a program or show to be viewed at the end of that program. Obviously their impact decreases. Also, cable or direct television formats now are increasingly becoming ad free and this is another problem.
Radio is another format of advertising. Its positive factors can be that it reaches a considerable audience and delivers them an audio message. Another advantage factor is that it is relatively cheaper than using television. On the other side, a major disadvantage for the radio is that it only has the option of delivering audio messages. In a radio ad you cannot use text or video to transmit your message to the consumer. The second disadvantage is that radio listeners have been gradually declining over the last decades. This is a problem for marketers as their message from radio ads is reaching less and less consumers.
The newspaper and magazines (the printed press media) is another advertising format with the advantage of combining text messaging with various designs and figures for delivering the message. These figures act as ‘eye attracting’ factor in order to get customer attention. Another advantage is that it is a relatively cheap format of advertising compared to television. The disadvantage is that the number of readers has been gradually declining for the printed media during the last two decades. Furthermore it is a ‘slower’ media compared to radio and television in the sense that it reaches a limited number of consumers at a specific time of the day not 24 hours a day.
Direct mail has the advantage of making the message personalized to the consumer. It reaches directly to individuals or families so you can personalize your advertising message for them. Another advantage is that it is cheaper than the above-mentioned forms.