ADVERTISEMENT

INTRODUCTION:

Advertising is a form of communication that typically attempts to

persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a
particular brand of product or service. Many advertisements are
designed to generate increased consumption of those products and
services through the creation and reinforcement of "brand image"
and "brand loyalty". For these purposes, advertisements sometimes
embed their persuasive message with factual information. Every
major medium is used to deliver these messages, including
television, radio, cinema, magazines, newspapers, video games, the
Internet and billboards. Advertising is often placed by an advertising
agency on behalf of a company or other organization.

Organizations that frequently spend large sums of money on

advertising that sells what is not, strictly speaking, a product or
service include political parties, interest groups, religious
organizations, and military recruiters. Non-profit organizations are
not typical advertising clients, and may rely on free modes of
persuasion, such as public service announcements.

Advertising spending has increased dramatically in recent years. In

2006, spending on advertising has been estimated at $155 billion in
the United States, and $385 billion worldwide, and the latter to
exceed $500 billion by 2010.

While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth, it

is not without social costs. Unsolicited Commercial Email and other
forms of spam have become so prevalent as to have become a
major nuisance to users of these services, as well as being a
financial burden on internet service providers. Advertising is
increasingly invading public spaces, such as schools, which some
critics argue is a form of child exploitation.

1
 HISTORY
Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters.
Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been
found in the ruins of Pompei and ancient Arabia. Lost and found
advertising on papyrus was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient
Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another
manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to
this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America. The
tradition of wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock art
paintings that date back to 4000 BCE.

As the towns and cities of the Middle Ages began to grow, and the
general populace was unable to read, signs that today would say
cobbler, miller, tailor or blacksmith would use an image associated
with their trade such as a boot, a suit, a hat, a clock, a diamond, a
horse shoe, a candle or even a bag of flour. Fruits and vegetables
were sold in the city square from the backs of carts and wagons and
their proprietors used street callers or town criers to announce their
whereabouts for the convenience of the customers.

As education became an apparent need and reading, as well

printing developed, advertising expanded to include handbills. In the
17th century advertisements started to appear in weekly
newspapers in England. These early print advertisements were used
mainly to promote books and newspapers, which became
increasingly affordable with advances in the printing press; and
medicines, which were increasingly sought after as disease ravaged
Europe. However, false advertising and so-called "quack"
advertisements became a problem, which ushered in the regulation
of adertising content.

In June 1836, French newspaper La Presse is the first to include paid

advertising in its pages, allowing it to lower its price, extend its
readership and increase its profitability and the formula was soon
copied by all titles. Around 1840, Volney Palmer established a
predecessor to advertising agencies in Boston. Around the same
time, in France, Charles-Louis Havas extended the services of his
news agency, Havas to include advertisement brokerage, making it
the first French group to organize. At first, agencies were brokers for
advertisement space in newspapers. N. W. Ayer & Son was the first
full-service agency to assume responsibility for advertising content.
In the early 1920s, the first radio stations were established by radio
equipment manufacturers and retailers who offered programs in
order to sell more radios to consumers. As time passed, many non-

2
profit organizations followed suit in setting up their own radio
stations, and included: schools, clubs and civic groups.[ When the
practice of sponsoring programs was popularised, each individual
radio program was usually sponsored by a single business in
exchange for a brief mention of the business' name at the beginning
and end of the sponsored shows.

In the early 1950s, the DuMont Television Network began the

modern trend of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsors.
Previously, DuMont had trouble finding sponsors for many of their
programs and compensated by selling smaller blocks of advertising
time to several businesses. This eventually became the standard for
the commercial television industry in the United States. However, it
was still a common practice to have single sponsor shows, such as
The United States Steel Hour.

The 1960s saw advertising transform into a modern approach in

which creativity was allowed to shine, producing unexpected
messages that made advertisements more tempting to consumers'
eyes. The Volkswagen ad campaign—featuring such headlines as
"Think Small" and "Lemon" (which were used to describe the
appearance of the car)—ushered in the era of modern advertising
by promoting a "position" or "unique selling proposition" designed to
associate each brand with a specific idea in the reader or viewer's
mind.

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable
television and particularly MTV. Pioneering the concept of the music
video, MTV ushered in a new type of advertising: the consumer
tunes in for the advertising message, rather than it being a by-
product or afterthought. As cable and satellite television became
increasingly prevalent, specialty channels emerged, including
channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as QVC, Home
Shopping Network, and ShopTV Canada.

Marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers

and contributed to the "dot-com" boom of the 1990s. Entire
corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering
everything from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the
21st century, a number of websites including the search engine
Google, started a change in online advertising by emphasizing
contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended to help, rather than
inundate, users. This has led to a plethora of similar efforts and an
increasing trend of interactive advertising.

A recent advertising innovation is "guerrilla marketing", which

involve unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public
places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with
brand messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can

3
respond to become part of the advertising message. This reflects an
increasing trend of interactive and "embedded" ads, such as via
product placement, having consumers vote through text messages,
and various innovations utilizing social network services such as
MySpace.

TYPES OF ADVERTISING

1) COVERT ADVERTISNING:-

Covert advertising is when a product or brand is embedded in

entertainment and media. For example, in a film, the main character
can use an item or other of a definite brand, as in the movie
Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character John Anderton owns
a phone with the Nokia logo clearly written in the top corner, or his
watch engraved with the Bulgari logo. Another example of
advertising in film is in I, Robot, where main character played by Will
Smith mentions his Converse shoes several times, calling them
"classics," because the film is set far in the future. I, Robot and
Spaceballs also showcase futuristic cars with the Audi and
Mercedes-Benz logos clearly displayed on the front of the vehicles.
Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie The Matrix Reloaded, which
as a result contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used.
Similarly, product placement for Omega Watches, Ford, VAIO, BMW
and Aston Martin cars are featured in recent James Bond films, most
notably Casino Royale. Bladerunner includes some of the most
obvious product placement; the whole film stops to show a coca
cola billboard.

2) MEDIA:-

4
poster of pepsi brad drink…..

Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards,

street furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio,
cinema and television adverts, web banners, mobile telephone
screens, shopping carts, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches,
human billboards, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of
buses, banners attached to or sides of airplanes ("logojets"), in-flight
advertisements on seatback tray tables or overhead storage bins,
taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage
shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable
diapers, stickers on apples in supermarkets, shopping cart handles
(grabertising), the opening section of streaming audio and video,
posters, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts.
Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message
through a medium is advertising.

One way to measure advertising effectiveness is known as Ad

Tracking. This advertising research methodology measures shifts in
target market perceptions about the brand and product or service.
These shifts in perception are plotted against the consumers’ levels
of exposure to the company’s advertisements and promotions.The
purpose of Ad Tracking is generally to provide a measure of the
combined effect of the media weight or spending level, the
effectiveness of the media buy or targeting, and the quality of the
advertising executions or creative.

3) TELEVISION COMMERCIAL:-

The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-

market advertising format, as is reflected by the high prices TV
networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events.
The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known
as the most prominent advertising event on television. The average
cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached
$2.7 million (as of 2007).

5
The majority of television commercials feature a song or jingle that
listeners soon relate to the product.

Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television

programming through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into
otherwise blank backdrops or used to replace local billboards that
are not relevant to the remote broadcast audience. More
controversially, virtual billboards may be inserted into the
background where none exist in real-life. Virtual product placement
is also possible.

4) INFOMERCIAL:-

There are two types of infomercials, described as long form and

short form. Long form infomercials have a time length of 30
minutes. Short form infomercials are 30 seconds to 2 minutes long.
Infomercials are also known as direct response television (DRTV)
commercials or direct response marketing.

The main objective in an infomercial is to create an impulse

purchase, so that the consumer sees the presentation and then
immediately buys the product through the advertised toll-free
telephone number or website. Infomercials describe, display, and
often demonstrate products and their features, and commonly have
testimonials from consumers and industry professionals.

Some well known companies in the infomercial business are Script

to Screen, Hawthorne Direct, International Shopping Network and
Guthy-Renker.

5) CELEBRITY ADVERTISING:-

This type of advertising focuses upon using celebrity power, fame,

money, popularity to gain recognition for their products and

Aamir khan in the add of titan watches

6
promote specific stores or products. Advertisers often advertise
their products, for example, when celebrities share their favourite
products or wear clothes by specific brands or designers. Celebrities
are often involved in advertising campaigns such as television or
print adverts to advertise specific or general products.

6) NEWSPAPER, MEDIA AND ADVERTISING APPROACHES:-

Increasingly, other media are overtaking television because of a

shift towards consumer's usage of the Internet.

Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices

of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the "relevance"
of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website
receives.

ebay site sells second hand goods

E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk

E-mail advertising is known as "spam".

Some companies have proposed placing messages or corporate

logos on the side of booster rockets and the International Space
Station. Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal
advertising , and the pervasiveness of mass messages.

Unpaid advertising (also called word of mouth advertising), can

provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal recommendations
("bring a friend", "sell it"), spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of
equating a brand with a common noun (in the United States,
"Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex" = tissue, "Vaseline" =
petroleum jelly, "Hoover" = vacuum cleaner, and "Band-Aid" =
adhesive bandage) — these can be seen as the pinnacle of any
advertising campaign. However, some companies oppose the use of
their brand name to label an object. Equating a brand with a

7
common noun also risks turning that brand into a genericized
trademark - turning it into a generic term which means that its legal
protection as a trademark is lost.

As the mobile phone became a new mass media in 1998 when the
first paid downloadable content appeared on mobile phones in
Finland, it was only a matter of time until mobile advertising
followed, also first launched in Finland in 2000. By 2007 the value of
mobile advertising had reached $2.2 billion and providers such as
Admob delivered billions of mobile ads.

More advanced mobile ads include banner ads, coupons, Multimedia

Messaging Service picture and video messages, advergames and
various engagement marketing campaigns. A particular feature
driving mobile ads is the 2D Barcode, which replaces the need to do
any typing of web addresses, and uses the camera feature of
modern phones to gain immediate access to web content.

A new form of advertising that is growing rapidly is social network

advertising. It is online advertising with a focus on social networking
sites. This is a relatively immature market, but it has shown a lot of
promise as advertisers are able to take advantage of the
demographic information the user has provided to the social
networking site.

OBJECTIONS TO ADVERTISING:-
Though advertising is the most frequently used medium of
promotion of goods and services, it attracts lot of

8
 critism. The opponent of advertising say that the
expenditure on advertising is a social waste as it adds
to the cost, multiples the need of people and
underminessocial values. The proponent however,
argues that advertising is very useful as it increases
the reach brings the pay unit cost of production down
and adds to the growth of economy. It is therefore,
imporatant to examine the major crticism against
advertising and see to the extent to which they are
true. This is taken up as follows:-

1) ADD TO COST:-

the opponents of advertising argue that advertising

unnecessarily adds to the cost of product, which is
ultimately passed on to the buyer in the form of high
prices. An advertisiment on T.V for few seconds. For
example: costs the marketers several lakhs of rupess.
Similarly advertisement in print media say in
newspaper or a magazine cost the marketers a large
amount of money. The money spent adds to cost,
which in an important factor in fixation of price of
product.

True, advertising of a product costs lot of money but it helps

to increase the demand for the product as large
number of potential buyers come to know about the
availability of the products, its features etc. and are
persuade to buy it. The increase demand laeds to
higher production, which brings economies of scale
with it.. as a result, the per unit cost of production
comes down as the total cost is divided by larger
number of units.

2) UNDERMINES SOCIAL VALUES:-

another important critism off advertising is that it

undermines social values and promotes materialism. It
breeds discontent among people as they come to know
about new products and feel dissatisfied with their
present staate of affairs. Some advertisements sow
new life styles, which don’t find social approval.

9
This critism is not entirey true. Advertisemnt in fact helps
buyers by informing them about new products, which
amy be improvement over the existing products. If the
buyers are not informed about the product. They may
be inefficient product. Further, the job of te
advertisemnt is to inform. Customers will buy the
product if advertised product satisfies some of their
needs.

3) CONFUSES THE BUYER:-

Another critism against advertising is that manyproducts

are being advertised which similar claims that the
buyer gets confused which product to buy as which one
is true which one should be relied.. for example we
see similar claims of whitenessor stains removing
abilities in competing detergent brands or claims of
whiteness of tooth, or ‘feeling of freshness’in
competing brand of toothpaste that it

is sometimes confusing to us as to which one to buy.

The supporters however argue that we are all rational

consumers who make our decision for purchase of
product on factors price, style, size, etc. This critism
howevwer cannot be completely overruled.

10
wide variety confuses the buyer which product to buy

4) ENCOURAGE SALE OF INFERIOR PRODUCT:-

Advertising doesnot differentiate between superior and

inferior quality priduct and persuade people to
purchase even the inferior quality products.. in fact
superiority and inferiority depends on the qulaty of
product, which is a reletaive concept. The desired level
of quality will depend on economic status and
perefence of target customers. Advertisemnt will sell
product of given quantity and buyers will buy if it suits
their requirement. No advertisemnt should however,
make false claims about the quality of product, if a firm
makes false claims it can be prosecuted for the same.

5) SOME ADVERTISEMNT ARE IN BAD TASTE:-

Another critism against advertising is that some advertising

is that some advertising is in bad taste. These show
something which is not approved by some people say
advertisemnt showing a woman dancing when not
required or running after a man because he is wearing
a particular suit or using a particular perfume are
certainly not good. Some advertisement disort the
relationship like employee employer and are quite
offensive.

11
CELEBRITIES INFLUENCE ON BRANDS PERFORMANCE:-

EXAMPLE OF AD CAMPAIGNS FEATURING CELEBRITIES,

WHICH RESULTED IN BRAND BUILDING AND GROWTH IN
VOLUES

CADBURY AND AMITABH BACCHAN:- The commercial, a

testimonial by bachchan on factory visit, was launched
to rebuild the trust in the brand. Twelve weeks after
the campaign was launched, the sales reached 90
percent of volumes prior to the worm crisis. Big B’s
presence helped the companny to get rid media
coverage that added to the campaig’s impact.
SANTRO AND SHAHRUKH KHAN: SHAH RUKH khan was
roped in santroad to strike an immediate bond with
customers. Shahrukh is an uncoventional superhero
with the quirky acting style that matched theimage of
santro.
TITAN AND AAMIR KHAN: both are considered to be indian
icon and have made a mark internationally:the
obsession with details is common to both, as also
sense of style. The mangal panday look, which was

12
 unconventional, made the advertisemnt stand out,
along with the fact that Aamir is less exposed than
other celebrities.
MUNCH AND RANI MUKHERJEE: the campaign for munch was
aired on T.V roped rani mukherjee to give “a big brand
feel”. The company got incredibiliy good result in
recall and add was big hit with kids. Rani was used as
customer and not as a filmstar.

shahrukh khan in the add of

santro xing

FUTURE

GLOBAL ADVERTISING:-

Advertising has gone through five major stages of development:

domestic, export, international, multi-national, and global. For global
advertisers, there are four, potentially competing, business
objectives that must be balanced when developing worldwide
advertising: building a brand while speaking with one voice,
developing economies of scale in the creative process, maximising
local effectiveness of ads, and increasing the company’s speed of
implementation. Born from the evolutionary stages of global
marketing are the three primary and fundamentally different

13
approaches to the development of global advertising executions:
exporting executions, producing local executions, and importing
ideas that travel.

Advertising research is key to determining the success of an ad in

any country or region. The ability to identify which elements and/or
moments of an ad that contributes to its success is how economies
of scale are maximised. Once one knows what works in an ad, that
idea or ideas can be imported by any other market. Market research
measures, such as Flow of Attention, Flow of Emotion and branding
moments provide insight into what is working in an ad in any
country or region because the measures are based on the visual,
not verbal, elements of the ad.

TRENDS:-

With the dawn of the Internet came many new advertising

opportunities. Popup, Flash, banner, Popunder, advergaming, and
email advertisements (the last often being a form of spam) are now
commonplace.

The ability to record shows on digital video recorders (such as TiVo)

allow users to record the programs for later viewing, enabling them
to fast forward through commercials. Additionally, as more seasons
of pre-recorded box sets are offered for sale of television programs;
fewer people watch the shows on TV. However, the fact that these
sets are sold, means the company will receive additional profits
from the sales of these sets. To counter this effect, many
advertisers have opted for product placement on TV shows like
Survivor.

Particularly since the rise of "entertaining" advertising, some people

may like an advertisement enough to wish to watch it later or show
a friend. In general, the advertising community has not yet made
this easy, although some have used the Internet to widely distribute
their ads to anyone willing to see or hear them.

Another significant trend regarding future of advertising is the

growing importance of the niche market using niche or targeted
ads. Also brought about by the Internet and the theory of The Long
Tail, advertisers will have an increasing ability to reach specific
audiences. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message
was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible.
However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing
popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs
to social networking sites, provide advertisers with audiences that
are smaller but much better defined, leading to ads that are more
relevant to viewers and more effective for companies' marketing
products. Among others, Comcast Spotlight is one such advertiser

14
employing this method in their video on demand menus. These
advertisements are targeted to a specific group and can be viewed
by anyone wishing to find out more about a particular business or
practice at any time, right from their home. This causes the viewer
to become proactive and actually choose what advertisements they
want to view.

In freelance advertising, companies hold public competitions to

create ads for their product, the best one of which is chosen for
widespread distribution with a prize given to the winner(s). During
the 2007 Super Bowl, PepsiCo held such a contest for the creation of
a 30-second television ad for the Doritos brand of chips, offering a
cash prize to the winner. Chevrolet held a similar competition for
their Tahoe line of SUVs. This type of advertising, however, is still in
its infancy. It may ultimately decrease the importance of advertising
agencies by creating a niche for independent freelancers

DEVELOPING AN ADVERTISEMENT CAMPAIGN:-

An advertising campaign consists of all tasks involved in

transforming a theme into a cordinated advertising program to
accomplish a specific goal for a product or brand. Typically a
campaign involves several different advertising messages,
presented over an extended period of time, using a variety of
media. For example; after seven years coaca cola replaced “always
coca cola” campaign with a message intended to be more of an
invitation than a command. Using “coca-cola enjoy” the company
suggesting that the soft drinks goes along with relaxing.

An advertising campaigns is planned within the framework of the

overall strategic marketing plans as part of broader promotional
program. The frame work is established when management:

 Identifies target audience

 Establishes overall promotional goals
 Sets total promotional udget
 Determines the overall promotional theme

With these tasks completed, the firm can begin formulating an

advertising campaign. The step in conducting a campaign are
objectives, establishing budget, creating message,selecting media,
and evaluating effectiveness.

15
campaign changed from always coca cola to enjoy coca cola

16
HOW MARKETS TARGET KIDS:-

PESTER POWER:-

Today's kids have more autonomy and decision-making power

within the family than in previous generations, so it follows that kids
are vocal about what they want their parents to buy. "Pester power"
refers to children's ability to nag their parents into purchasing items
they may not otherwise buy. Marketing to children is all about
creating pester power, because advertisers know what a powerful

force it can be.

Mc Donald’s happy meal attract children through a gift free with the
pack

According to the 2001 marketing industry book “Kidfluence,”

pestering or nagging can be divided into two categories
—"persistence" and "importance." Persistence nagging (a plea, that
is repeated over and over again) is not as effective as the more
sophisticated "importance nagging." This latter method appeals to
parents' desire to provide the best for their children, and plays on
any guilt they may have about not having enough time for their
kids.

THE MARRIAGE OF PSYCHOLOGY AND MARKETING:-

To effectively market to children, advertisers need to know what

makes kids tick. With the help of well-paid researchers and
psychologists, advertisers now have access to in-depth knowledge
about children's developmental, emotional and social needs at
different ages. Using research that analyzes children's behaviour,
fantasy lives, art work, even their dreams, companies are able to
craft sophisticated marketing strategies to reach young people.
17
The issue of using child psychologists to help marketers target kids
gained widespread public attention in 1999, when a group of U.S.
mental health professionals issued a public letter to the American
Psychological Association (APA) urging them to declare the practice
unethical. The APA is currently studying the Issue.

Virgin mobiles has targeted teenagers ( THINK ZARA HATKE)

BUILDING BRAND NAME LOYALTY:-

Canadian author Naomi Klein tracks the birth of "brand" marketing

in her 2000 book No Logo. According to Klein, the mid-1980s saw
the birth of a new kind of corporation—Nike, Calvin Klein, Tommy
Hilfiger, to name a few—which changed their primary corporate
focus from producing products to creating an image for their brand
name. By moving their manufacturing operations to countries with
cheap labour, they freed up money to create their powerful
marketing messages. It has been a tremendously profitable formula,
and has led to the creation of some of the most wealthy and
powerful multi-national corporations the world has seen.

Marketers plant the seeds of brand recognition in very young

children, in the hopes that the seeds will grow into lifetime
relationships. According to the Center for a New
American Dream, babies as young as six "Brand marketing
months of age can form mental images of must begin with
corporate logos and mascots. Brand loyalties children. Even if a
can be established as early as age two, and by child does not buy
the time children head off to school most can the product and
recognize hundreds of brand logos. will not for many
years... the
While fast food, toy and clothing companies marketing must
have been cultivating brand recognition in begin in
childhood."

18 James McNeal, The

Kids Market, 1999
children for years, adult-oriented businesses such as banks and
automakers are now getting in on the act.

Magazines such as Time, Sports Illustrated and People have all

launched kid and teen editions—which boast ads for adult related
products such as minivans, hotels and airlines.

some of the brands which enjoy brand loyalty

BUZZ OR STREET MARKETING:-

The challenge for marketers is to cut through the intense

advertising clutter in young people's lives. Many companies are
using "buzz marketing"—a new twist on the tried-and-true "word of
mouth" method. The idea is to find the coolest kids in a community
and have them use or wear your product in order to create a buzz
around it. Buzz, or "street marketing," as it's also called, can help a
company to successfully connect with the savvy and elusive teen
market by using trendsetters to give their products "cool" status.

Buzz marketing is particularly well-suited to the Internet, where

young "Net promoters" use newsgroups, chat rooms and blogs to
spread the word about music, clothes and other products among
unsuspecting users.

COMMERCIALIZATION IN EDUCATION:-

School used to be a place where children were

protected from the advertising and consumer
messages that permeated their world—but not any
more. Budget shortfalls are forcing school boards to
allow corporations access to students in exchange for
badly needed cash, computers and educational
materials.

Corporations realize the power of the school

environment for promoting their name and products. A
school setting delivers a captive youth audience and
implies the endorsement of teachers and the educational system.
Marketers are eagerly exploiting this medium in a number of ways,
including:

19
 • Sponsored educational materials: for example, a Kraft
"healthy eating" kit to teach about Canada's Food Guide
(using Kraft products); or forestry company Canfor's primary
lesson plans that make its business focus seem like
environmental management rather than logging.

• Supplying schools with technology in exchange for high

company visibility.

• Exclusive deals with fast food or soft drink companies to offer

their products in a school or district.

• Advertising posted in classrooms, school buses, on computers,

etc. in exchange for funds.

• Contests and incentive programs: for example, the Pizza Hut

reading incentives program in which children receive
certificates for free pizza if they achieve a monthly reading
goal; or Campbell's Labels for Education project, in which
Campbell provides educational resources for schools in
exchange for soup labels collected by students.

• Sponsoring school events: The Canadian Company Showbiz

brings moveable video dance parties into schools to showcase
various sponsors' products.

THE INTERNET:-

The Internet is an extremely desirable medium for marketers

wanting to target children:

• It's part of youth culture. This generation of young people is

growing up with the Internet as a daily and routine part of
their lives.

• Parents generally do not understand the extent to which kids

are being marketed to online.

• Kids are often online alone, without parental supervision.

• Unlike broadcasting media, which have codes regarding

advertising to kids, the Internet is unregulated.

• Sophisticated technologies make it easy to collect

information from young people for marketing
research, and to target individual children with
personalized advertising.

• By creating engaging, interactive environments

based on products and brand names, companies
can build brand loyalties from an early age.

20
MARKETING ADULT ENTERTAINMENT TO KIDS:-

Children are often aware of and want to see entertainment meant

for older audiences because it is actively marketed to them. In a
report released in 2000, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
revealed how the movie, music and video games industries
routinely market violent entertainment to young children.

The FTC studied 44 films rated "Restricted," and discovered that 80

per cent were targeted to children under 17. Marketing plans
included TV commercials run during hours when young viewers
were most likely to be watching. One studio's plan for a violent R-
rated film stated, "Our goal was to find the elusive teen target
audience, and make sure that everyone between the ages of 12 and
18 was exposed to the film."

Music containing "explicit-content" labels was targeted at young

people through extensive advertising in the most popular teen
venues on television, and radio, in print, and online.

Of the video game companies investigated for the report, 70 per

cent regularly marketed Mature rated games (for 17 years and
older) to children. Marketing plans included placing advertising in
media that would reach a substantial percentage of children under
17.

The FTC report also highlighted the fact that toys based on
characters from mature entertainment are often marketed to young
children. Mature and Teen rated video games are advertised in
youth magazines; and toys based on Restricted movies and M-rated
video games are marketed to children as young as four.

21
CASE STUDY

HARD TRUTH ABOUT SOFT DRINKS:-

Laboratory test finds pesticide residues in all cold drinks

tested. Just as it had in bottled water six months ago. How
hollow are the quality claims of soft drink multinationals?
How can Indian consumers be saddled with sub-standard
products? How can companies get away with such bad
practices?

New Delhi, August 5, 2003: After bottled water, it’s aerated

water that has plugged the purity test. In another exposé, Down To
Earth has found that 12 major cold drink brands sold in and around
Delhi contain a deadly cocktail of pesticide residues. The results are
based on tests conducted by the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory
(PML) of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). In February
this year, CSE had blasted the bottled water industry’s claims of
being ‘pure’ when its laboratory had found pesticide residues in
bottled water sold in Delhi and Mumbai.

22
This time, it analysed the contents of 12 cold drink brands sold in
and around the capital. They were tested for organochlorine and
organophosphorus pesticides and synthetic pyrethroids — all
commonly used in India as insecticides.

The test results were as shocking as those of bottled water.

All samples contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides

and insecticides: lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos. In all
samples, levels of pesticide residues far exceeded the maximum
residue limit for pesticides in water used as ‘food’, set down by the
European Economic Commission (EEC). Each sample had enough
poison to cause — in the long term — cancer, damage to the
nervous and reproductive systems, birth defects and severe
disruption of the immune system.

WHAT WE FOUND

• Market leaders Coca-Cola and Pepsi had almost similar

concentrations of pesticide residues. Total pesticides in all
PepsiCo brands on an average were 0.0180 mg/l (milligramme
per litre), 36 times higher than the EEC limit for total
pesticides (0.0005 mg/l). Total pesticides in all Coca-Cola
brands on an average were 0.0150 mg/l, 30 times higher than
the EEC limit.

• While contaminants in the ‘Dil mange more’ Pepsi were 37

times higher than the EEC limit, they exceeded the norms by
45 times in the ‘Thanda matlab Coca-Cola’ product.

• Mirinda Lemon topped the chart among all the tested brand
samples, with a total pesticide concentration of 0.0352 mg/l.

23
The cold drinks sector in India is a much bigger money-spinner than
the bottled water segment. In 2001, Indians consumed over 6,500
million bottles of cold drinks. Its growing popularity means that
children and teenagers, who glug these bottles, are drinking a toxic
potion.

PML also tested two soft drink brands sold in the US, to see if they
contained pesticides. They didn’t.

The question, therefore, is: how can apparently quality-conscious

multinationals market products unfit for human consumption?

CSE found that the regulations for the powerful and massive soft
drinks industry are much weaker, indeed non-existent, as compared
to those for the bottled water industry. The norms that exist to
regulate the quality of cold drinks are a maze of meaningless
definitions. This "food" sector is virtually unregulated.

The Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act of 1954, or the Fruit

Products Order (FPO) of 1955 — both mandatory acts aimed at
regulating the quality of contents in beverages such as cold drinks
— do not even provide any scope for regulating pesticides in soft
drinks. The FPO, under which the industry gets its license to
operate, has standards for lead and arsenic that are 50 times higher
than those allowed for the bottled water industry.

What’s more, the sector is also exempted from the provisions of

industrial licensing under the Industries (Development and
Regulation) Act, 1951. It gets a one-time license to operate from the
ministry of food processing industries; this license includes a no-
objection certificate from the local government as well as the state
pollution control board, and a water analysis report. There are no
environmental impact assessments, or siting regulations. The
industry’s use of water, therefore, is not regulated.

24
It is clear that the regulations have been designed in total disregard
for public health. But what is unfortunate is that the global players
— two giant corporations, who swear by the principles of corporate
responsibility and global standards — have been caught in the act,
taking advantage of the weak and nonsensical regulatory standards
in India. Or, may we say, by fixing the standards to compromise our
health.

QUESTIONNAIRE
Name
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…
Address
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…
Occupation
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…
Contact no: Res …………………………………………………
Mob……………………………….….
E-mail address:
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…

1. Does an advertisement influence your buying decision?

25
  Yes

 No

2. Which promotion method affects you the most?

 Advertisement

 Personal selling

 Discount coupons

 Free gifts

 Any other method

3. Does your buying decision get affected by the brand ambassador of

the product?

 Yes

 No

4. ‘Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye‘ is the punch line of:

 Amul chocolate

 Kit-Kat

 5 star

 Dairy milk

 Perk

5. ‘Drive your way’ is the punch line of which car company:-

 Maruti Suzuki

 Honda

 Hyundai

 Fiat

 Tata

6. Who is the brand ambassador of Vivel soap?

 Priyanka Chopra

 Deepika Padukone

26
  Katrina Kaif

 Kareena Kapoor

 Preity Zinta

7. What do you think about the company whose advertisement you

see on television?

 They have huge funds

 They are selling low quality product

 They are selling high quality product

 Doesn’t bother you

8. Do the schemes like ‘Buy 1 Get 1 free’ etc affect your buying
decision?

 Yes

 No

9. Do you actually avail the discount coupons which are valid for a
limited time period?

 Yes

 No

 Sometimes

 Never

10.Identify the following Brand logos:

27
..................... ..................... ..................... .....................
........ ........ ........ ........

11.Do you think Toon branding helps in the easy recognition of the
product?

 Yes

 No

 May be

12.Identify the following brand mascots:

13.

14.

..................... .....................
........ ....................
........ ................
......... .......

15.Shahrukh Khan is the brand ambassador of which car company:

 Santro

 Wagon-R

 Honda-city

 I-10

 Alto

16.Have you ever switched to the substitute product due to better

schemes offered by other company?

28
  Yes

 No

 Sometimes

17.If a celebrity is using a product, would you also like to use it

because you consider it as a status symbol?

 Yes

 No

18.Does the experts’ opinion and test conducted by company affect

your buying decision?

 Yes

 No

19.Do you think stunts performed by the celebrities in various

advertisement leaves a negative impact on children?

 Yes

 No

20.Do you feel that the men deodorant advertisements shown in

televisions these days are unethical?

 Yes, they should be banned

 No

 Doesn’t bother you

29
30