The word ‘advertise’ is derived from the Latin word ‘advertere’ which means ‘notice’. In this sense, advertisement means notification. Today, it denotes self-recommendation. In modern business advertisement is of paramount importance. The real worth of an article is of secondary importance: What is important is the way in which the public attention is drawn to the article. Whosoever has goods to sell has to devise some way to attract the notice of his prospective customer. Businessmen have not only got to reach the market with their wares, but they have to create and enlarge it also. For this they must advertise their goods extensively. An American expert observes, “The business that considers itself immune to the necessity of advertising sooner or later finds itself immune to business. ” Without proper advertisement diamond passes off as imitation-stone; with proper polishing and advertisement initiation-stone will draw the public attention as precious diamond.
Advertisement is both an art and a science. It is as creative an activity as composing a poem or writing a play or a novel. Some of the advertisements are so artistically designed that they please to aesthetic taste of the people and motivate them to go in for the article. But good advertisement is also a science and a technique. Formal and regular coaching in this technology is imparted keeping & rind the psychology of the buyers. The advertisers have to keep in mind three factors; the psychology of the buyers, their income charts and the trends in fashion. Customers have to be wooed and won. A woman’s delicate beauty is praised or man’s pride in his masculinity is roused, and so on.
There are numerous forms and methods of advertisement in, vogue. People in the past engaged town criers to advertise their goods by the beat of drums pr the blowing of trumpets. Today, things have become modernized and sophisticated. Newspapers, periodicals, signboards and big hoardings, posters and handbills, slides, loudspeakers, radio-broadcast advertisements, sponsored serials on the TV, and the crude writings and posters on the wall—these are the modes commonly used today. Sometimes even a helicopter or an airplane is hired to advertise an article, or, during elections to canvass for some effluent party or candidate. Not only walls or roads, but even buses and railway trains are made use of.
In this jet-age of cut-throat competition and world-wide market, the usefulness of advertisement cannot be gained. It has now developed into a technology and has been giving, sustenance to a large number of people and agencies associated with it, It helps manufacturers to promote the sale of their goods, to expand the existing markets and to explore new markets for their products It helps them to counteract the adverse effect of seasonal fluctuations in demand and to augment salesmanship. It educates customers about the various brands of products and their quality, so that the buyer knows what to buy, how to buy and where to buy. He no longer gropes in the dark, to be duped and fleeced by clever merchants.
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There, it makes the salesman’s job easier. Now he does not have to empty out the whole shelf and convince the buyer hoarse. Now the buyer is not pleased with “just any brand of tea” that will not do. He (or she) needs ‘Lipton’s Taaza’ or ‘Brooke Bond’. Besides this, advertisement increases the retailer’s turnover. The advertisements are often so lucrative and persuasive that buyers are prompted to go in for a product even though they have no need for it. Above all, advertisement helps the society in general. They fetch regular income to the press, encourage the artists, promote industrial research and leads to rise in the standard of living.
To be good, effective and enticing, the advertisement should be brief and catchy. It should aim at catching the eye or, the ear of the buyers. It can be done by a catchy slogan, a humorous cartoon, an attractive photograph, a persuasive and terse statement or a good sponsored programme. They should avoid verbosity and monotonous repetition. They should cultivate an aesthetic taste among people. But more important than this is that advertisement must avoid three mighty abuses–first, the brazen, often obscene and indiscreet exploitation of female form for all odd advertisements; second, an advertisement can never be a substitute for quality. Perhaps, this is why Shakespeare said, “A good wine needs no bush”, and thirdly an advertisement should not cheat and should not become a social and public nuisance by polluting the atmosphere and corrupting the young generation.
Advertisement is a public display of the exhibitionist instinct in man. But it should be used judiciously so that it serves the interests both of the producers and of the public.