Question

In the 21st century, with an intensely competitive consumer market, advertisers increasingly used digital technology to call greater attention to products. In 2009, for example, the world's first video advertisements to be embedded in a print publication appeared in Entertainment Weekly magazine. The thin battery-powered screen implanted in the page could store up to 40 minutes of video via chip technology and automatically began to play when the reader opened the page.

For an advertisement to be effective, its production and placement must be based on a knowledge of the public and a skilled use of the media. Advertising agencies serve to orchestrate complex campaigns whose strategies of media use are based on research into consumer behavior and demographic analysis of the market area. A strategy will combine creativity in the production of the advertising messages with canny scheduling and placement, so that the messages are seen by, and will have an effect on, the people the advertiser most wants to address. Given a fixed budget, advertisers face a basic choice: they can have their message seen or heard by many people fewer times, or by fewer people many times. This and other strategic decisions are made in light of tests of the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.

There is no dispute over the power of advertising to inform consumers of what products are available. In a free-market economy effective advertising is essential to a company's survival, for unless consumers know about a company's product they are unlikely to buy it. In criticism of advertising it has been argued that the consumer must pay for the cost of advertising in the form of higher prices for goods; against this point it is argued that advertising enables goods to be mass marketed, thereby bringing prices down. It has been argued that the cost of major advertising campaigns is such that few firms can afford them, thus helping these firms to dominate the market; on the other hand, whereas smaller firms may not be able to compete with larger ones at a national level, advertising at the local level or online enables them to hold their own.

Finally, it has been argued that advertisers exercise an undue influence over the regular contents of the media they employ--the editorial stance of a newspaper or the subject of a television show. In response it has been pointed out that such influence is counteracted, at least in the case of financially strong media firms, by the advertiser's reliance on the media to convey a message; any compromise of the integrity of a media firm might result in a smaller audience for the advertising.

For the assessment, you will write an objective summary of the article. Additionally, you will make an inference about the relationship between advertising and the price you pay for a product and/or service.

Answer 1

Answer:

1) During the 21st century a new tool has been added to the advertising market, technology because it can address to a greater number of people and can be shared with a click. For an advertising campaign to be successful, a demographic study as well as the knowledge of social media will shed light on the consumer’s behaviour and best context to get the message across. Strategic decisions happen all the time, for example, whether to focus on a greater audience with fewer repetitions of to aim to a specific group more times. In a free-enterprise economy, advertising gains importance as it highlights which products are available in the market. The power of media to massify a product has aroused controversy as to who is paying for the extra service and the power of small brands. Another debate relates to the advertisers’ power to choose media content but it has been argued that the audience has their own preferences.

2) Advertising determines the final price you pay for a product. When an advertising campaign is launched to make a product visible, market and audience studies are carried out together with an intensive analysis of mass media. All these strategies come with a price that is added to the cost of production. “The consumer must pay for the cost of advertising in the form of higher prices for goods” ("Advertising," 2012), in other words, a mass market good comes with an added value we have to pay for.

Reference

"Advertising." Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online School Edition. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2012. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.