Abstract
Businesses employ a variety of marketing strategies, all of which aim at improving the volume of sales. Among them is advertising, which comes in as the most commonly used form of marketing criteria. The mode of marketing may appear in form of writings in papers, magazines, and articles amongst others.
It can as well be aired through televisions or radios. Whichever means preferred to present the advertisement, the sellers or rather the producers of the advertised product must have the target audience in mind. They should further consider the market segment that the ad will suit.
The message included in any ad should address fully the needs of the customer. Otherwise, the ad is useless. The sellers must take time to design the details as well the factors in place that are worthy including in the ad primarily to make sure that the target audience sees, likes and goes for the advertised good or service.
Promotion
Advertisement, or simply ad, forms one of the subsets of marketing strategies. Advertising simply means communicating a given aspect of message to a given audience, viewers or listeners to persuade them to take some action for example, of buying a given product, service or agreeing to a given ideology.
A sponsor on electronic or print media like television commercial, magazines, direct mail, websites or text messages among many others must pay for the airing of an advertising message (Mullin & Walker, 2010, p.34). The ad of my choice is that of ‘aqua fresh’, a toothpaste brand.
The choice of the brand follows the evident creativity employed in the ad that strategically drives home the intended message. The ad is a visually appealing package, well able to push one into an impulse buying of the brand.
The ad, aired on the local television, highlights the salient benefits that the buyer gains from using the product. It points out the faster elimination of germs in the teeth as well as its ability to strengthen weak teeth of the users. It makes the teeth clean all the time. It also highlights the lasting fresh breath, which makes its users feel free to talk and socialize with others without any worries.
Furthermore, the ad manages to differentiate its brand from those of the competing products like Colgate. It does this by affirming their approval from the dentistry society as the best toothpaste, which has no side effects to the users. The ad targets a specific market segment audience.
The ad targets exclusively every person able to use a toothbrush and willing to sacrifice for his/her teeth. However, the most targeted segment is the youth at school level. The segment heavily uses toothpaste based on the rules set in learning institutions requiring every student to keep his/her teeth clean.
The market segment targeted by the ad is good and strategic based on the huge population of scholars right from the school level through colleges to the university level. The ad still can be improved to appeal its target audience.
Though the ad has employed creativity appealing to the target segment, it too needs to capture the things that interest the youth. For instance, it needs to be humorous and catchy to attract the interest of the youth making them have fun while using the product.
For instance, it should provide information on how students can achieve their dreams by using the toothpaste like giving them space to engage in discussion without fear of being repressed by their colleagues.
The ad is well created. However, some loopholes do exist, which might trigger negative emotions on the target audience. The ad seems lengthy, a case that often bores the viewers once run in between some favorite programs on the television. Furthermore, the ad does not enlist some of the side effects that the product has, which may discourage the users from buying the product.
It is therefore important for the ad to put in more improvements in the way it is adapted in order to capture the viewers’ attention influencing the prospective buyers into buying it (Pfeifer, 2010, p.349).
One of the recommendations is that the ad should provide relevant information that will benefit the users after brushing their teeth with the brand like how the frequency of brushing teeth using the brand fosters the health of the teeth.
It also ought to specify the duration of changing from one brush to another and other valuable information relating to use of toothbrush. Furthermore, the ad should use people or events that suit a given targeted audience group (Pergelova & Prior, 2010, p.40). The ad should also incorporate music and humor to attract the attention of the buyers triggering them into using the product.
Conclusion
Advertising is a major way of promoting a given product, service or ideologies. It is therefore paramount for the sellers or the producers of particular goods or services to come up with a catchy criterion of persuading their target segment into buying their products.
They therefore, ought to consider the quality of the message to use for their advertisement. Does it meet the needs of the buyer? Does it specify the available varieties? Otherwise, advertising is a good way of reaching the buyers. The well structured it appears, the more the buyers it attracts.
References
Mullin, J., & Walker, O. (2010). Marketing Management: A Strategic Decision Making Approach. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Pergelova, A., & Prior, D. (2010). Assessing Advertising Efficiency. Journal of Advertising, 39 (1), pp. 39-54.
Pfeifer, C. (2010). Determinants of Promotions in an Internal Labor Market. Schmalenbach Business Review (SBR), 62 (4), pp. 342-358.