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Advertising is a paid form of non-personal communication or presentation of ideas, goods or

services by an identified sponsor through use of mass or information-directed media. It persuades

consumers to act or behave in a way as advertisers wishes. The main objective of advertising is

to sell things persuasively and creatively. The form and media chosen by advertiser depends

upon the message to be conveyed and audience to be targeted. For instance, commercial firms

may use it to sell products, politicians to attract voters, non-profit organizations to attract funds

and solicit volunteers and government may use it to encourage or discourage activities like

wearing seatbelt or say no to smoking.

The word "advertise" originates from the Latin advertere, which means to turn toward or to take

note of. The prime aim of advertising is to attract attention of viewers and stimulate them to act

in favor of message portrayed. The pervasiveness and creativity in advertising cause viewers to

take note of. Newspapers, magazines, televisions, pop ups on internet, billboards along freeways

or subways, shopping malls, movie theatres, live events all showcase uncountable advertisements

and draws attention of viewers.

The most important function of advertising is identification function. It helps consumers identify

a product, differentiate a product from others and create awareness about it. This helps to create a

need for the product. Next function of advertising is to communicate information about the

product. It provides consumer with features of the product and location of sale. The third and

most important function of advertising is to persuade consumers. It influences viewers to act or

behave in a certain way. It is the persuasive power of an advertisement that attracts consumers to

a particular good or service and to suggest reuse of the product. Thus, advertising serves various

purposes and must be tailored to emphasize those benefits that are important and meaningful for

a particular type of customer or a particular use of the product.

Although advertising has a long back history but its interconnection with consumer psychology

began with research in twentieth century. Psychologists believed advertising as a form of

communication and they related it with theories of psychology. Harlow Gale conducted an

experiment to study the effect of advertisement to attract attention and persuade consumers to

buy. Walter Scott in his book The Theory of Advertising built a theoretical understanding of

advertising on principles of psychological science. Stanley Resor of the J. Walter Thompson

Agency commissioned a study of the demographics and purchasing patterns of consumers to

understand better both what motivated consumers to buy and how to persuade better those same

consumers.

The psychological theories help advertisers to identify the purchase pattern of consumers and

how they interpret advertisements to make purchase decision. Another important aspect of

psychological study is to know the need of consumer and the product is then designed and

communicated according to the consumer need.

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Advertising is useful only if it is able to attract attention of consumers and produce an effect. Themessage will have no effect until the consumer pays attention to it. The hierarchy of effects

model identifies different stages of communication and through it the interrelations of variouseffects with one another. The foremost stage of advertising is getting attention. It involves two

things. First, is to know where the communication should be placed, that is, the right type of

media decision. The media should be decided carefully depending upon the target consumers. Akey task for the advertiser is to identify those media to which relevant consumers regularlyattend and develop a schedule of repetition for the advertisement that maximizes the number of

consumers who will be exposed to the advertising message. This is done to avoid skip of

advertisement by consumer. Mere exposure of advertisement does not necessitate consumersattention towards advertisement. Various characteristics of advertisement increase the likelihood

that consumer will attend to it. Advertisements that include relevant information for the

consumers as well as various creative devices like humor, a well-known celebrity or others

usually attract attention of consumers. But these creative devices must be well integrated withthe message and it should not dilute the prime objective of an advertisement. Second,

challenging dimension of advertising revolves around balancing the repetition of an

advertisement, which is intended to increase the probability of a consumer being exposed to it,with the likelihood the consumer will attend to the advertisement when exposed. Sometimes

excessive repetition causes advertising wearout. So advertisers should use multiple

advertisements that vary in terms of execution and presentation but carry similar message.

The next stage is to process information. Advertising research has demonstrated that the message

must be clear and meaningful to the consumer; if the consumer does not comprehend themessage, it will not have the desired effect. Mere attention of consumer does not solve the

purpose. While creating advertisement the entire focus should be on product and product

message rather than creative clutter. The length of advertisement depends upon the cost as well

as the amount of information to be displayed. Thus, the advertiser must understand how muchinformation individual consumer desire and how much variability exists among consumers with

respect to their willingness to process information.

After processing, next step is to evaluate information. The consumers will need to determine how

believable the information is and how relevant it is to their individual situation in life and to their

behavior as consumers. Advertisers need to make their advertisement believable for which theycan use devices like celebrities, product demonstration, endorsements and others.

The next step is attitude formation. An important communication goal of an advertiser is tocreate a positive attitude toward their product. Attitudes are predispositions or tendencies to

behave or react in a consistent way over time. Attitude influences future behavior. When a

consumer goes to buy a particular product it is this positive attitude that influences choice of the

product. Sometimes, the goal of advertising is to create negative attitude. For example, in variousanti-drug or anti-smoke announcements the purpose is to reduce the usage of the products.

Ultimately, the success of advertising rests on whether it influences behavior and intentions ofthe consumers. Product advertisers want consumers to buy their product; political advertisers

want voters to vote for their candidate; and sponsors of public-service announcements related to

the harmful effects of smoking want the rate of smoking to decline. While such effects are of

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primary interest for understanding the influence of advertising, advertising is only one of many

factors that influence such behaviors. It is for this reason that most advertising research focuses

on other effects in the hierarchy of effects.

Some writers believe that advertising can create needs and stimulate unconscious and deep-

seated motives. This view has led some critics of advertising to argue that advertising is apersuasive tool with the dangerous potential to create consumer needs. It is not able to create

need that already did not exist. It only creates solution to need that already existed. Indeed,

advertising is a relatively weak persuasive tool. Firstly, the failure rate of new products is veryhigh. If advertisers could create needs, they should then be able to compel consumers to buy their

products. Secondly, experts believe that advertising works best when it is working with the

existing interests of the consumers rather than producing counter effect.

Thus, advertising is a medium to create awareness, provide information and persuade consumers

to act or behave in a desired manner. The success of advertising depends upon how well

advertisers understand their target consumers and how target consumers respond to message.