Three Main Advertising Objectives

People come across hundreds of advertisements on a daily basis whether they are watching television, reading a newspaper or magazine or traveling. Whether you are at home or outside, you are exposed to a large variety of ads laid by businesses, individuals or other organizations on a daily basis. Ever wondered what are the objectives of the business or organization having laid those ads? There can be several different objectives for laying an ad. Companies try to accomplish different objectives through advertising and promotions. First of all, let’s consider what advertising is.

According to Kotler, advertising is

“Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.”

Kotler.

Setting the objective of advertising is an important consideration related to marketing and before developing an advertising program, the marketing manager must consider setting its objectives first.

What is an advertising objective?

Setting an advertising objective is the first step to creating an advertising program but what is an advertising objective and why do marketers need to set advertising objectives before everything else? While running an advertising campaign, marketers have a specific audience to target within a specific time frame. The advertising objective of the campaign is the specific communication task the marketer is trying to achieve with its target audience and within the given time frame. These objectives are basically classified on the basis of their main purpose. 

There are three main advertising objectives which are to inform, persuade or remind. While there can be several specific purposes of advertising like increasing sales and revenue by growing demand, growing brand awareness and customer base or to encourage switching, most of these purposes can be classified under the three main categories of advertising objectives. These three main objectives are dealt with in detail below:

Inform:

Marketers use informative advertising when their purpose is to inform. This type of advertising is used heavily when a company is introducing a new product. The main objective while using this type of advertising is to build primary demand. Advertisers may use informative advertising for telling their audiences about a new product or new uses of an existing product. They can also use it to communicate a price change or to explain how the product works. Service marketers can use it to describe the available services. Informative advertising is used in other situations also like to correct false impressions or to reduce consumers’ fears which can be caused by different factors. Someone can spread rumors related to a product and its ingredients. In such a situation, marketers can use advertising to correct the audience’s impression of the product and reduce their fear. Apart from that Informative Advertising can also be used to build a company’s image.

Persuade

Persuasive advertising is used when the level of competition in the market increases. The main purpose of the marketer behind persuasive advertising is to build selective demand. Suppose there are two competing brands selling similar products in a market with matching attributes. In order to prevent customers from gravitating towards the rival brand or to build preference for their brand, marketers will use persuasive advertising. They can use persuasive advertising to encourage the customers to switch to their product or brand and to change the consumers’ perception of their product’s attributes. The purpose of persuasive advertising can also be to persuade the consumer to buy the product or to receive a sales call. Companies offer links or toll-free phone numbers on their sites and in advertisements which you can use to receive a free sales call if you are interested in the product.

Remind

Reminder advertising is generally used for mature products that already have a nice customer base and market presence. Here the main purpose of using reminder advertising is brand-recall. Large brands invest large sums in marketing and advertising. They have a strong market presence but the main motive is to keep people thinking about their brand and products. This is done in order to maintain the demand for products that can otherwise start fading from popular memory. Coca Cola is popular globally and still, it spends a fortune every year on advertisements. Its main purpose is to remind consumers that they may need the product in the near future. Marketers want their products to remain at the top of their customers’ minds. During the off-seasons when product demand and use falls, reminder advertising is used to encourage sales or to engage the audiences and keep the memory of the product fresh in their minds. Sometimes, the purpose of reminder advertising is to inform the consumer about where to find the product like the nearest retailer or from an e-commerce platform. However, in most cases, maintaining high brand awareness is the primary motive of marketers behind using reminder advertising.