1.1. The meaning of the terms '' advertising'' and ''promotion''

Advertising is a form of communication for marketing and used to encourage or persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners; sometimes a specific group) to continue or take some new action. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common. The purpose of advertising may also be to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful. Advertising messages are usually paid for by sponsors and viewed via various traditional media, including mass media such as newspaper, magazines, television commercial, radio advertisement, outdoor advertising or direct mail; or new media such as blogs, websites or text messages [1].

Promotion is one of the market mix elements, the specification of five promotional mix or promotional plan. These elements are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity. A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each of the five subcategories, and how much money to budget for each. A promotional plan can have a wide range of objectives, including: sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations, or creation of a corporate image [2]. Fundamentally, however there are three basic objectives of promotion. These are:

1. To present information to consumers as well as others.

2. To increase demand.

3. To differentiate a product.

There are different ways to promote a product in different areas of media. Promoters use internet advertisement, special events, endorsements, and newspapers to advertise their product. Many times with the purchase of a product there is an incentive like discounts, free items, or a contest. This is to increase the sales of a given product.

Like many other commonplace words – think of art, love, and justice, for example –

Conclusion

Advertising is the process of persuading potential customers to buy products or avail of services being offered to them. The process of advertising involves a variety of strategies. Effective and continuous advertising is one of the most important functions of any successful business. It is imperative that the products or services of any business receive the proper exposure, and the way to achieve exposure is through advertising. Sales promotion is any initiative undertaken by an organisation to promote an increase in sales, usage or trial of a product or service (i.e. initiatives that are not covered by the other elements of the marketing communications or promotion mix).

Advertising promotes products and services that businesses are trying to sell. However, this is not the sole purpose of advertising. In addition to promoting a product or service, advertising serves multiple functions for the company and brand. These functions help companies achieve the ultimate goal: selling their products or services.

Advertising communications commit many acts of dubious ethics in their attempts to seduce us into buying. There is a total ban on TV advertising directed at children under 12 years old in Sweden, and there are strict limits on TV advertising of toys in Greece. Young children make demands on parents if they want a product that they see advertised. These demands are not necessarily well-informed by an understanding either of the nature of commercial messages or of the economic implications for parents.

There are certain benefits of advertising for the public. Advertising heavily subsidizes the Internet, so that most websites are available either without cost or at a fraction of their set-up and running costs. The digital media revolution, upon which we are all so dependent, has been provided to us for very nearly nothing – paid for by advertising. This is a totally new public benefit.

Advertising inevitably helps advertising agencies – the smallest sector of the tripartite – as they would not exist without advertising. And advertising agencies are, inherently, founts of creativity. The agencies provide employment to a vast hinterland of freelance creative people.

Nowadays, as we have seen, many of the largest advertisers are retailers, and the great majority of retail advertisements promote low prices. Not only this information is directly helpful for shoppers, it indirectly drives prices down. When one supermarket promotes its low prices for certain goods, other supermarkets swiftly retaliate by cutting their own prices – otherwise they know they will lose customers. Overall, prices fall. For the public, this is a pretty good deal.