1. A
Project Report
on
The Phenomena of Advertising directed towards
Children and Children as Influencers in Advertisement
And
Brand Audit for Oxemberg
In partial fulfillment of the requirements of
Master of Management Studies
conducted by
University of Mumbai
through
Rizvi Institute of Management Studies and Research
under the guidance of
Dr. Garima Sharma
Submitted by
Furkaan Khan
MMS
Batch: 2015 – 2017.

2. CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Mr. Furkaan Khan, a student of Rizvi Institute of Management
Studies and Research, of MMS III bearing Roll No. 38 and specializing in Marketing
has successfully completed the project titled
“To study the Phenomena of Advertising directed towards Children and
Children as Influencers in Advertisement”
And
“Brand Audit for Oxemberg”
under the guidance of Dr. Garima Sharma in partial fulfillment of the requirement of
Masters of Management Studies by University of Mumbai for the academic year
2015 – 2017.
_______________
Dr. Garima Sharma
Project Guide
_______________
_______________
Prof. Umar Farooq Dr. Kalim Khan
Academic Coordinator Director

3. DECLARATION
This is to certify that I have completed the Project titled “The Phenomena of
Advertising directed towards Children and Children as Influencers in Advertisement”
and “Brand Audit for Oxemberg” under the guidance of “Dr. Garima Sharma” in partial
fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of “MASTERS in
MANAGEMENT STUDIES” from “RIZVI INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT
STUDIES AND RESEARCH, MUMBAI”.
This is an original work and I have not submitted it earlier elsewhere.
……………………….
(FURKAAN KHAN)

4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Written words have an unfortunate tendency to convert genuine gratitude into stilled
formality. However, I feel this is the best way to express my appreciation concerned.
Working on the project of “The Phenomena of Advertising directed towards Children
and Children as Influencers in Advertisement” and “Brand Audit for Oxemberg” has
been an incredible experience for me. For this wonderful experience I would like to that
a lot of people without whose co-operation and support working on the project would
not have been so pleasurable and interesting.
I would like to thank Mumbai University for having project as a part of M.M.S
Curriculum. I would also like to thank Siyaram Silk Mills Limited for given us an
opportunity to conduct the Brand Audit.
The success of this project depends upon an exact blending of hard work, unity,
cooperation and guidance by my project guide Dr. Garima Sharma. It is her guiding
light shed on path to gain knowledge that ensured the success of this report. For the
Brand Audit, I would like to thank our company guide Mr. Shazan Siddiqui without
whose guidance it would have not been possible to conduct the audit so effectively.
These acknowledgements are the one way where I can actually thank the people who
have been instrumental in making of the project .without their help it would have been
very difficult task for me to try and plan this project and actually make it.
I would like to thank my Parents and many more who directly or indirectly involved in
the making of the project, whose constitutive as unconditional help went long way in
the due course of this project.

5. Executive Summary
Being management graduates, it becomes crucial to ensure that our studies encompass
carious aspects of the world of business. From the latest developments to historic cases,
every area needs to be covered so as to enable an individual to be abreast with the world
which he plans to enter. Accordingly, it becomes a task to ensure that one summer
project is able encompass multiple areas. Keeping this in mind, the project has been
divided into two sections so as to cover two different studies undertaken.
Section I
Section I deals with the phenomena of Advertising directed towards Children and
Children as Influencers in Advertisement. The study begins with a detailed introduction
to the world of advertising wherein the history of advertising from the era before Christ
to the modern online format have been discussed. This is followed by topics which
discussed the advertising effectiveness and the tools used to do them along with their
importance. It is concluded by talking about the criticism which advertising faces due
to various reasons such as misrepresentation, fraud and consumerism.
Moving ahead the study takes up the phenomena of advertising directed towards
children. The topic extensively covers areas such as the reason behind doing so, the
tools used for targeting children such as television, print and even modern format such
as advergames. Following this, the effects of advertising on children was taken up
wherein several researches were cited as to how advertising has effects on children.
This is then followed by the attempt made by psychologist to assist advertisers in
targeting kids along with the ethical debate on such an association. Another area that is
covered was the nature of legislations relating to advertising directed towards children
globally in comparison to India wherein it was found that there is still a lot to be done
like countries the United States, United Kingdom and Australia to name a few.
This is followed by another area concerning children i.e. Children as Influencers in
Advertisement. Like the previous topic, this also covers the timeline of the phenomena
of using people for advertisements, the logic given and even the pros and cons of the
same. This is followed by narrowing down to children in advertising which talks about
the reason for the use of children, specifically when dealing with kid’s products, the

6. current state of use of children as well the objections to the practice which talked about
the psychological effects on children once they are part of the industry at an early age.
Finally, there are some examples of children who became advertisers at an early age
and how they have moved ahead in life wherein it is understood that the way one moves
in life solely depends upon his/her capacity and that work pressure is just one of the
many functions
Section II
Section II deals with the brand audit conducted for Oxemberg. It begins with talking
about the apparel industry in India as it is in this industry that Oxemberg operates. This
is followed by the followed by a brief introduction to the company wherein the
background of the Oxemberg and its parent brand Siyarams is discussed. Further, there
is an attempt to explain the marketing mix and the STP (segmentation, targeting and
positioning of the brand) where it is explained as to how the brand wants to develop a
perception of a youthful brand for the young men of India for all occasions.
Also, there is an explanation regarding the brand equity and its performance which talks
about its distribution network and the future plans. The research was conducted using
questionnaire and the results are displayed under findings. From the analysis it was
clear that although Oxemberg is considered a good brand in terms of quality it faces
issues when it comes to awareness and availability. The brand also doesn’t seem to have
any benefits from its celebrity endorsement campaigns by Saif Ali Khan. However, the
brand seemed to have a good connect with existing customers and thus, it was suggested
that the brand should focus on attracting new customers as repeat purchase is highly
likely.

7. Contents
SECTION I - THE PHENOMENA OF ADVERTISING DIRECTED TOWARDS
CHILDREN AND CHILDREN AS INFLUENCERS IN ADVERTISEMENT ..........1
1. Research Proposal......................................................................................................2
1.1 Need & Significance............................................................................................3
1.2 Type of Research .................................................................................................3
1.3 Objectives of Research ........................................................................................4
1.4 Scope & Limitations ............................................................................................4
1.5 Tools used for Data Gathering.............................................................................4
1.6 Sources of Data....................................................................................................4
1.7 Process of Conducting the Study.........................................................................5
2. Introduction to Advertising........................................................................................6
2.1 Advertising at a Glimpse .....................................................................................7
2.2 History of Advertising .......................................................................................13
2.3 Types of Advertising..........................................................................................17
2.4 Advertising Effectiveness..................................................................................22
2.5 Criticism of Advertising ....................................................................................27
3. Advertising directed towards Children ....................................................................33
3.1 Introduction to the Phenomena ..........................................................................34
3.2 Tools used in Children Targeted Advertising....................................................36
3.3 Effects of Advertising on Children....................................................................43
3.4 Psychologist and Advertisers.............................................................................53
3.4.1 Role of Psychologist in assisting Advertisers.............................................54
3.4.2 The Ethical Viewpoint................................................................................56
3.5 Legalities Associated with Advertising directed towards Children...................60
3.5.1 Legislations in different Countries..............................................................62
3.5.2 Legislation in India .....................................................................................69
4. Children as Influencers in Advertisement................................................................73
4.1 Introduction to the Phenomena ..........................................................................74
4.2 Using People for Advertising.............................................................................75
4.2.1 History of Endorsement..............................................................................75
4.2.2 Pros & Cons of using Influencers ...............................................................78

8. 4.3 Children in Advertisement.................................................................................82
4.3.1 Logic behind using Children.......................................................................82
4.3.2 Current Scenario of Children in Advertisement .........................................87
4.4 Objections to use of Children ............................................................................90
4.5 Some Child Celebrities of the Past ....................................................................94
5. Conclusion ...............................................................................................................97
6. Bibliography ..........................................................................................................100
7. Appendix................................................................................................................105
SECTION II - THE BRAND AUDIT FOR OXEMBERG .......................................109
1. Introduction to Ready to Wear Apparel Industry ..................................................110
2. Introduction to the Company .................................................................................114
3. Marketing Mix .......................................................................................................116
4. Segmentation – Targeting – Positioning................................................................120
5. Brand Equity..........................................................................................................126
6. Performance...........................................................................................................128
7. Research Proposal..................................................................................................130
7.1 Need & Significance........................................................................................131
7.2 Type of Research .............................................................................................131
7.3 Objectives of Research ....................................................................................132
7.4 Scope & Limitations ........................................................................................132
7.5 Research Design...............................................................................................133
7.6 Sources of Data................................................................................................133
7.7 Tool used for Data Gathering ..........................................................................133
8. Sample Design .......................................................................................................134
9. Analysis Technique - BAV Model ........................................................................136
10. Findings................................................................................................................142
11. Recommendations and Conclusions ....................................................................163
12. Appendix..............................................................................................................166
13. Bibliography ........................................................................................................171

9. Table of Figures
Figure 1: Age .............................................................................................................143
Figure 2: Income........................................................................................................144
Figure 3: Recall Breakup of Brands Associated with Saif Ali Khan.........................145
Figure 4: Degree of importance given attributes of an apparel .................................146
Figure 5: Breakup of Category of Ready To Wear Apparel used by the respondent 147
Figure 6: Frequency of different Brands Recalled in case of Ready To Wear
Apparel.......................................................................................................................148
Figure 7: Purchase Frequency of different Brand......................................................149
Figure 8: Rating given to different Attributes to different Brands ............................150
Figure 9: Ranking of different Brands for different Attributes based on Friedman
Test.............................................................................................................................151
Figure 10: Overall Rating of Different Brand............................................................152
Figure 11: Location of Oxemberg purchase with Reference to the Perception of
Availability ................................................................................................................153
Figure 12: Association between Purchase Frequency and Brand Recall...................155
Figure 13: Break-up of the Respondent's Source of Information Regarding
Oxemberg...................................................................................................................156
Figure 14: Break-up of Respondent's Perception of Brand Oxemberg .....................157
Figure 15: Category Break-up of the Respondent's view of Relevance of
Oxemberg...................................................................................................................158
Figure 16: Category Break-up of Respondent's Purchase of Oxemberg ...................159
Figure 17: Purchase Location of Oxemberg Products ...............................................160
Figure 18: Break-up of Respondent's Experience of Oxemberg ...............................161
Figure 19: Probability of Repeat Purchase of Oxemberg by Respondents................162

10. 1
SECTION I - THE
PHENOMENA OF
ADVERTISING
DIRECTED TOWARDS
CHILDREN AND
CHILDREN AS
INFLUENCERS IN
ADVERTISEMENT

11. 2
1. Research Proposal

12. 3
1.1 Need & Significance
The 21st
Century is marked by commercialization being the biggest force. The world is
filled with people who are eager to sell you anything and everything. Competition fuels
this phenomena leading to strategies by companies to rise above the rest. No one is spared
from the attack of consumerism, not even children. Innovations and technology have led
to development of products and services primarily targeted as kids. Moreover, the role of
kids has evolved from being dependent entities to influencers in many areas. Thus, kids are
not only part of the target audience, but also lead the selling spree in terms of advertising.
Several companies rope in children as advertisers to push their product ahead of
competition. However, being young and far less mature, this becomes an area of concern
considering the kind of effects these phenomena have of children. Hence, it is imperative
for an individual to understand advertising targeting children as well as advertising by
children as influencers. Psychology has pointed out some harmful effects which need to be
understood in order to make the right decisions in regulating such activities. Also, one must
look at how various authorities have responded so far to these phenomena and use it as
points of reference in concluding one for ourselves.
1.2 Type of Research
It is an Exploratory Research. The Major purpose of exploratory research is to gain
familiarity with a phenomenon or acquire new insight into it. Exploratory research often
relies on secondary research such as reviewing available literature and/or data, or
qualitative approaches such as informal discussions with consumers, employees,
management or competitors, and more formal approaches through in-depth
interviews, focus groups, projective methods, case studies or pilot studies.
The Internet allows for research methods that are more interactive in nature.

13. 4
1.3 Objectives of Research
● To understand the phenomena of Children as Influencers in Advertisement.
● To understand how advertisers target kids.
● To understand the effects of advertising on kids.
● To find out the ethical viewpoint regarding advertising directed towards children
● To find out regulations regarding advertising to kids across different countries.
1.4 Scope & Limitations
Scope
The scope of the study will cover several aspects of the phenomena of Children as
Influencers in Advertisement and advertising to kids. Also, and introduction to the concept
of advertising along with its history, developments and criticism would be covered.
The study would try to cover reports, articles, publications and web-articles on the subject
of study
Limitation
The time frame given to complete this project was 2 months. Working on the project it was
realized the time being one of the major constraints considering the topic of our project.
Also, being students, access to major publications and research reports was limited due to
availability, time and cost constraints.
1.5 Tools used for Data Gathering
Being an Exploratory Research, data was gathered using multiple secondary sources such
as research articles on portals such as J-Gate and Ebscohost, online research journals and
other published articles on the concerned topics.
1.6 Sources of Data
For the study, Secondary Data was collected from internet by browsing various websites,
research journals, publications and reports.

14. 5
1.7 Process of Conducting the Study
The process of working on the project was designed keeping in mind the nature of the
project. Being an Exploratory Research, the first and foremost step was to finalize the scope
of the study. This was done by preparing a Relevance Tree to understand the topics that
need to be covered. Accordingly, the topics were finalized. Once, the chapters and the
expected content was decided, the study began with trying to collect data and understand
each of the topics in the decided sequence. For this various websites, research journals,
publications and reports were referred and as accordingly, the chapters were covered.

15. 6
2. Introduction to
Advertising

16. 7
2.1 Advertising at a Glimpse
The world has become a global market. The modern market is more dynamic, competitive
and consumer oriented. The entire marketing process is aimed at satisfying consumers
more effectively than competitors. Consumer satisfaction can be achieved by receiving
information from market as well as sending information to the market.
In order to inform, attract and convince customers, a marketer undertakes a number of
activities. Advertising is one of the powerful means to communicate to and inform the
consumer about the offerings of the company. In today’s world, advertising has become a
dominant element of the promotional mix. Many times, especially in case the company
offerings are difficult to differentiate from those of the competitors in terms of product, the
entire promotional efforts are replaced by advertising alone. Even if not so, major portion
of the promotion budget is consumed by advertising. Advertising is powerful and popular
that it is sometimes taken as equal to marketing. Mass media are used intensively to
advertise various products. Marketing without advertising seems to be impossible. It
therefore becomes important to understand the gamut of advertising.
The word advertising comes from the Latin word ‘ad vertere’ meaning ‘to turn towards’.
Some of the definitions given are as follows:
 According to William J. Stanton, “Advertising consists of all the activities involved in
presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored message
regarding a product, service or idea; this message, called an advertisement, is
disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor.”
 Philip Kotler defines advertising as “any paid form of non-personal presentation and
promotion of goods, services, or ideas by an identified sponsor.”
 Frank Presbrey says “Advertising is a printed, written, oral and illustrated art of selling.
Its objective is to encourage sales of the advertiser’s products and to create in the mind
of people, individually or collectively, an impression in favor of the advertiser’s
interest.”

17. 8
 According to William Santon, “Advertising consists of all activities involved in
presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored identified
message regarding a product, service, or idea. The message, called an advertisement,
is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor.”
 As per the dictionary of the American Marketing Association, advertising is defined as
“The placement of announcements and persuasive messages in time or space purchased
in any of the mass media by business firms, nonprofit organizations, government
agencies, and individuals who seek to inform and/ or persuade members of a particular
target market or audience about their products, services, organizations, or ideas.”
Advertising is any non-personal promotion of ideas, goods or services of an identified
business known as sponsor. The message which is printed or disseminated is known as
’advertisement’. The cost is borne by the sponsor. Advertising is used for communicating
business information to the present and prospective customer. It usually provides
information about the firm, its product qualities, place of availability of products, etc.
Advertisement is indispensable for both the seller and buyer. In the modern age of large
scale production, producers cannot think of increasing sales without advertising.
From the above explanations, one can deduce the following characteristics of advertising:
1. It is one of the many tools used for market communication; others being sales
promotion, personal selling and publicity. Advertising is however, the most popular
and influential of all the tools mentioned.
2. It is type of non-personal or mass communication with a large target audience. A large
number of people are addressed at the same time.
3. It is not free of cost. Advertisers, called sponsors, have to spend money for preparing
message, buying media and monitoring advertising efforts. It is the costliest option of
market promotion. Company has to prepare its advertising budget to appropriate
advertising cost.
4. Advertising is a popular and widely used means for communication with the target
audience. It is not only used for business and profession, but is widely used trusts,
government agencies, educational institutions and others to inform and attract various
target audiences.

18. 9
5. Advertising can be undertaken to achieve varied objectives. It can be aimed at
increasing sales revenue, create and improve brand image, face competition, create
awareness about certain services, build relations with public or to educate people.
6. Advertising message can be written, oral or visual form. Mostly messages are
expressed in a joint form such as oral-visual, audio-visual, etc.
7. Advertising mostly involves one-way communication. Messages move from company
to customer, from sponsor to audience. Message from consumer to marketer is not
possible via advertising.
8. It is difficult to say that advertising messages always reveal the truth. In many cases,
exaggerated facts are advertised. However, due to certain legal provisions, the element
of truth can be fairly assured. But assurance of complete truth is difficult. Most
advertisements tend to be erotic, materialistic, misleading and producer-centered.
9. Advertising is done using any of the several media to convey the message. Widely used
media are print media (newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, booklets, letters, etc.),
outdoor media (hoardings, sign boards, wall-paintings, vehicles, banners, etc.), audio-
visual media (radio, television, films, internet, etc.) or any other to attract the target
audience.
In the modern world where money is always less in supply as compared to the demand, it
is crucial for businesses to undertake expenditure on various activities with thorough
planning and keeping the desired end result in mind. Advertising is no different.
Advertising is a cost function and involves decisions worth millions. Thus, having certain
well defined objectives prior to going on the spending spree is essential. The fundamental
purpose of advertising is to sell: a product, a service or an idea. In addition to this general
objective, advertising is also used by the modern entities for certain specific objectives
some of which are:
1. To introduce a new product by creating interest for it among the prospective customers.
2. To support personal selling programs. Advertising may be used to open customer’s
doors to salesman.
3. To reach people inaccessible via personal selling.
4. To enter a new market or attract a new target audience.

19. 10
5. To light competition in the market and to increase sales by attracting competitor’s
consumers by way of fierce commercial warfare (Example: Coke and Pepsi, 7up and
Sprite)
6. To enhance the goodwill of the enterprise by promising better quality products and
services.
7. To improve dealer relations. Advertising supports the dealers in selling the product.
Dealers are attracted towards products which are advertised effectively.
8. To warn the public against imitation of an enterprise’s product.
Thus, we can see that advertising in the widest sense, is the flow of a message from the
sender to the receiver. This statement tends to encompass all possible forms of advertising.
So, let us now take a look at participants involved in this flow of message. They are as
follows:
1. Advertiser: Sellers who manufacture and market consumer products are the prominent
group of advertisers. Hindustan Unilever, P&G, Siemens, Larson & Toubro, etc. are
examples of advertisers. Governments and social organizations can also be advertisers.
2. Target Audience: It refers to the recipient of the advertising message. Every message
is either directed to a mass audience or a segment. Advertising desire is to ensure
effective communication with the desired target audience. Advertising message intends
to cover potential users as well as non-users who may become users in the future. The
message is also directed to the users of a competitor’s product so that they may switch
over.
3. Advertising Agencies: An advertiser has two options viz. (i) to design, develop and
produce and advertising message and get it placed in desired media directly through
his own sales or advertising department, or (ii) to entrust the entire job of advertising 6
to a team of highly professionalized, specialized, independent, advertising agency. An
advertising agency is composed of creative people, who conceive design, develop and
produce, advertising message with creative ideas and place it in the desired advertising
media, for and on behalf of its client (the advertiser). The advertising agencies usually
charge a commission of 15% on the media bills from the media owners. In addition,
they charge out-of pocket expenses to their clients, i.e. the advertisers.

20. 11
They employ copywriters, artists, photographers. Typographers, layout designers,
editors and such other creative people.
4. Government Authorities: The business of advertising is regulated by the government
department. The government adopts law and regulation which have a direct or an
indirect bearing on the advertising. Apart from this ASCI (Advertising standards
council of India) and ABC (Audit Bureau of circulation) are also some of authorities
regulating advertising in India.
Advertising has become an integral part of the modern global society. It is a part of
everyday life. Though the methods and tools used may have evolved over the period of
time, the fundamental purpose has remained the same. With more and more technological
advancements, additional uses of advertising are emerging which increase its necessity in
the modern world. Without advertising, modern society cannot survive.
One of the most crucial roles which is played by advertising is that it encourages people to
purchase goods and services. Advertisers often influence members of society to purchase
products based on instilling a feeling of scarcity or lack. It also bridges the gap between
people by communicating varied cultures. It brings variation in social life. It also
contributes to bring about all round development of the economy by increasing demand
and by encouraging economic activities. It fuels the desire to shop, and in turn shopping
stimulates economy. It provides opportunities to people to improve their income. It
motivates people to consume more and thereby improve their standard of living. Effective
advertising generates demand and high demand calls for more production which requires
more of physical and human resources thus creating employment opportunities.
Although advertising is an accepted part of the modern world, there is still a debate as to
how and how much advertising works and the role it can and should perform in the
marketing mix. Nonetheless, organizations across the globe widely use it as tool to sell
their offerings.
Advertising is a very cost effective measure to communicate to a large audience. It helps
create brand image and symbolic appeal for the brand which is very important to companies
selling products/services which are difficult to differentiate on functional attributes.
Advertising creates awareness, interest and desire and drives the consumer to shop.

21. 12
Thus, it can be concluded that advertising, is one of the most important flow of information
in the modern world. Many of our life decisions are shaped by the information we have
received through advertising. It has become essential to promote sales, to introduce new
products, to create good public image, for large scale of production and for educating
people.

22. 13
2.2 History of Advertising
The history of advertising can be traced to ancient civilization. Egyptians used papyrus to
make sales messages, wall-posters and posted notices for runaway slaves. In the beginning,
advertising was verbal, delivered in ancient times by Greek and Roman criers in the market
place shouting the wares of traders. Lost and found advertising was common in Ancient
Greece. In ancient China, the earliest advertising known was oral, as recorded in the Classic
of Poetry of bamboo flutes being played to sell candy.
In Europe, not many references exist to advertising in the Dark Ages. However, this
changed during the Middle Ages due to rise in mercantilism. Image associated with the
trade the shop was engaged in were used as sign post as the local population was unable to
read. Fruits and vegetables were sold in the town square using street-callers to announce
the whereabouts of the stall for the convenience of the customer. The growth of
mercantilism during the Middle Ages changed the approach. Notices called ‘siquis’ were
posted in public spaces.
The modern from of advertising began in the 18th
Century when advertisement promoting
books and newspapers started appearing in newspapers in England. The movable type of
Johannes Gutenberg, which allowed mass production of printed word made mass
advertising possible. Flyers were the first form of printed advertising. The British printer
William Caxton issues the first printed advertisement in 1468to support one of his books.
A leadership position in British advertising was held by Cope Bros and Co tobacco-
company. Although smoking was common for centuries, there were a fair deal of
innovations such as brand names, heavy advertising and market segmentation according to
class. In America, John Campbell publisher of the Boston News-Letter ran the first
advertisement in 1704, a notice from somebody wanting to sell a land on Long Island. In
1729, Benjamin Franklin established the ‘Philadelphia Gazette’ which became a preferred
medium for advertisers. When the weekly ‘Pennsylvania Packet’ and ‘General Advertiser’
became a daily in 1784, it included an entire front page of advertisement for things such as
dry goods, food, wine and tobacco products. In 1836, the French newspaper La Presse was
the first in Europe to introduce paid advertising in pages.

23. 14
The idea of advertising agency emerge in France where newspaper publishers sold space
in bulk to contractors who then sold to interested clients. This mode of sale emerged as
publishers saw it below their dignity to accept ads from advertisers directly. Later on this
concept spread to America and then gradually to the other parts of Europe. The credit of
establishing the first advertising agency goes to Volney Palmer who started an agency in
Philadelphia in 1841.
The modern form of advertising started to appear with the 19th
Century Industrial
Revolution and the overproduction of goods through new manufacturing techniques. This
meant consumer goods companies were in need to stimulating demand. National
Advertising flourished in the 1840s as railroads and improved transportation enabled mass
distribution of the huge volume of goods produced due to developments during the
Industrial Revolution. This led to the emergence of National Brands which ushered in
competition and thereby, fuelled the use of advertisement to promote sales. Gradually, the
agencies evolved from being mere contractors and started to create ad campaigns, plan
marketing strategies and prepare ads as well.
While debates started regarding the ethical and social implications of this new industry,
advertising gained prominence post the 1920s, primarily beginning in the United States.
Consumer spending–fueled in part by the increased availability of consumer credit–on
automobiles, radios, household appliances, and leisure time activities like spectator sports
and movie going paced a generally prosperous 1920s. Advertising promoted these products
and services.
The first major technological advancement to change the face of advertising was the growth
of radio in the 1920s and 30s. People could now hear the advertisements that they once
only saw in print. William M. O’barr claims that radio liberated advertising from its
relationship to literacy by communicating through music, jingles and spoken word.
Advertising agencies were unconvinced initially but soon radio became their modern
medium and advertisers discovered its apparently infinite possibilities. The rise of mass
circulation magazines, radio broadcasting and to a lesser extent motion pictures provided
new media for advertisements to reach consumers with radio being the strongest medium.

24. 15
As a result, the first half of the 20th
Century was a period of strong relationship between
radio and advertising.
A key feature in the history of advertising emerged during 1950s with the emergence of a
new medium i.e. Television. Briggs and Cobley note that television’s rise was a significant
improvement as a national advertising medium. TVs progress had an influence on both
radio and magazines. Radio became a medium used primarily by local advertisers.
Magazines that intended for a particular audiences attracted more advertisers, but general-
interest publications were unable to compete with TV and ultimately went under. American
DuMont Television, which was one of the world’s pioneer commercial television networks,
began the modern practice of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsor. Previously,
they had trouble finding sponsors for many of their programs and compensated by selling
smaller blocks of advertising time to a number of businesses. This later became the
standard for the commercial television industry.
Advertising in the 1970s was remarkably different from before, partly due to the
increasingly realistic television images, color, and the advent of remote control, spurring
ad makers onto new heights of creativity. Viewers were also changing, becoming more
television literate and visually inclined and demanding higher production values.
The development of cable TV as an advertising medium began in the early 1980s. Mass
media began to decay with the advent of cable television in the late 1970s. Till then, O’barr
states that watching options were limited and audience were becoming uninterested.
Advertisement on cable, caused by the spread of specialized programming, shaped more
targeted groups of audience with more closely specific interests. Broadcasting became
narrow casting and advertising became more focused as well.
Coming to the 1990s, the rapid expansion of computers introduced a new ground for
advertising, Word Wide Web. With the intense and rapid growth of internet as a
commercial medium, the media environment became increasingly competitive. The
internet sent information promptly to people’s desktops, cellphones or other mobile
devices, in color, with the ability to play music, show videos and accept customer created
content. Internet provided a new limit altogether, as it combined audio and visual elements
of connectivity and personalization, both basic features of a successful advertisement.

25. 16
Initially, advertising came onto internet as free classified as listings on a bulletin board of
product for sale. However this was to be advanced soon. A company would then set up
shop on the Web with home page that performed a store front. It looked exciting and
presented some of the wares available inside. The internet as an advertising medium has
threatened each form of printed advertising. With the advent of ad server, marketing
through the internet opened new borders for advertisers and contributed to the ‘dot-com’
boom of the 1990s. Entire companies functioned only on advertising revenue, offering
everything from coupons to free internet access.
By the end of the 20th
century, several websites such as Google started a change in online
advertising by providing contextually relevant ad based on a person’s browsing interests.
The rise of the Internet and the progress of digital advertising had and still have deep effects
on the advertising. Thus, given the pace of rise of the internet as an advertising and
marketing platform, it can be said that the relationship between advertising industry and
the internet seems to be the most powerful and prevailing one which has surpassed the
other mediums.

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2.3 Types of Advertising
Some of the advertising which we come across in our daily lives are as follows:
1. Covert Advertising
Covert Advertising, also known as ‘Guerilla Advertising’, is a unique kind of
advertising in which a product or a particular brand is incorporated in some
entertainment and media channel like movies, television shows or even sports. The
products are placed covertly so that consumers will observe them indirectly. Covert
advertising is a vital key to promote and communicate the products by putting a terrific
and long-lasting impact on people’s mind. Covert advertising is very sneakier as it is
exposed to the general public subtly.
Some of the popular examples of this sort of advertising are the use of Hyundai Cars
in the movie ‘Don 2’, playing of the popular Airtel ringtone in several movies and
television shows whenever a cell-phone rings, use of Suzuki Hayate bikes by Salman
Khan in the movie ‘Dabangg-2’, promotion of Bournvita by the protagonist in the
movie ‘Koi Mil Gaya’, etc.
2. Surrogate Advertising
Surrogate advertising is prominently seen in cases where advertising a particular
product is banned by law.
Advertisement for products like cigarettes or alcohol which are injurious to health are
prohibited by law in several countries and hence, these companies have to come up
with several other products that might have the same brand name and indirectly remind
people of the cigarette or beer bottles of the same name.
Surrogate advertising is way to convey the message of a particular product simply by
advertising complementary products like Music CDs, Soda-bottles, mineral water, etc.
Common examples include the advertisement by Carlsberg promoting its glasses’
Bacardi music CDs, Bagpiper Soda, etc.
In an interesting case of covert advertising, The Health Minister had challenged the
name of the Bangalore Indian Premier League cricket team, ‘Royal Challengers’, which
was an obvious and blatant form of surrogate advertising for liquor brand ‘Royal
Challenge’.

27. 18
3. Public Service Advertising
Public service advertising is a technique that makes use of advertising as an effective
communication medium to convey socially relevant messages about important matters.
Unlike traditional commercials, Public Service Advertisements are primarily designed
to inform and educate rather than sell. The first Public advertisings were shown prior
to World War II. During the war, many such advertisings were issued, often citing the
need to be vigilant and support the war effort in every possible way.
In India, Public Service Advertising is used by the government to raise awareness about
social issues as well as to inform about government programs. Their goal is not to make
a big sale, but rather to change public opinion and raise awareness for a problem.
Examples include The Polio Campaign, Swach Bharat Campaign, etc.
4. Celebrity Advertising
Using a famous person’s image to sell products or services by focusing on the person’s
money, popularity or fame to promote the product or service is known as Celebrity
Advertising. The promotion might be through formal advertisements in the media, or
it might occur through the famous person displaying the products by using them or
wearing them. The implication is that the celebrity uses the product or service that
he/she endorses.
Although the audience is getting smarter and smarter and the modern day consumer is
getting immune to exaggerated claims made in a majority of advertisements, there exist
a section of advertisers that still bank upon celebrities and their popularity for
advertising products.
There are several Indian examples where a brand completely relies on celebrity for
advertising. Examples are Amul Macho using Saif Ali Khan. Airtel in its earlier days
used a variety of celebrities like AR Rahman, Shahrukh Khan, etc. International
examples would include the use of Nike products by sports celebrities like Tiger
Woods, Roger Federer, etc. Gillette has been known to have made great progress as a
brand by using Celebrity Advertising.

28. 19
5. Reminder Advertising
It refers to a marketing strategy typically consisting of brief messages sent with the
objective of reminding a target consumer group about a product or service or of
introducing a new theme into an existing marketing program. Reminder advertising
might be used by a business that has already invested considerable resources in initially
promoting their product or service and still wishes to maintain its competitiveness.
Reminder advertising reinforces previous promotional information. The name of
product, testimonials of past customers, public response and sales technique are
repeated in the hopes of reminding past customers and garnering new ones. It is used
to keep the public interested in, and aware of a well-established product that is most
likely at the end of the life cycle.
6. Defensive Advertising
It is type of advertising that is initiated for the purpose of combating a potentially
damaging or negative effect of a competitor’s ad. For example, political campaigns
often involve negative advertisements regarding a candidate, paid for by the opposing
candidate’s political party. Defensive marketing strategies are used by market leaders
to protect their market share, profitability, position of their product, and mind share
against a new competitor. In absence of such tactics, customers may leave your brand
and go to rival companies if they offer a better thus bringing down your market share.
This type of advertising is usually done by market leaders whenever a new threat to
market share appears.
A good example would be the creative war fought between Coke’s Sprite and Pepsi’s
Mountain Dew wherein both firms launched a series of Defensive as well as Offensive
Advertising.
7. Persuasive Advertising
It is a type of product promotion that attempts to influence a consumer in favor of
purchasing particular goods and services by appealing to their emotions and general
sensibilities. A business might engage in informative or persuasive advertising to
encourage first time customers to try its products, in addition to reminding customers
to purchase a product they had previously brought. The idea is to persuade the target
audience to change brands, buy their products and develop customer loyalty.

29. 20
Persuasive advertising is highly competitive where there are similar products in the
marketplace and products are competing for their share of the market. In this situation,
the winning product will differentiate itself from the competition and possess benefits
that are superior to, or compete strongly with, the competition. Comparative
approaches are common place, either directly or indirectly.
8. Reinforcement Advertising
Brand reinforcement is majorly concerned with maintaining brand equity. It makes sure
that the consumers have desired knowledge structures in place so that the brand
continues to have its necessary sources of equity. This could be done by marketing
activities related to brand awareness and brand image that would carry the identity and
meaning of the brand to the consumers.
Reinforcement Advertising is targeted at consumers who have already tried and used
the product and aims at reminding them of its continuing existence and unique benefits.
These promotions are also designed to retain customer base by reassuring purchasers
they made the correct choice. For example, a dealer or manufacturer sends former
customer information about awards and other news concerning a product that has been
purchased.
Example would be the campaign by Hyundai for i10 after it was awarded the title of
‘Car of the Year’, Text messages sent by apparel brands such as Spyker, Killer and
Jack & Jones regarding upcoming discounts and sales, ads of Ford Endeavour wherein
they interview customers, etc.
9. Competitive Advertising
It refers to promotional technique in which an advertiser claims the superiority of its
product over competing products by direct or indirect comparison. If other products are
mentioned by their name, and not as brand ‘X’ or so, the owner of those brand may
challenge the fairness of the comparison in court. It is also known as comparative or
comparison advertising. By establishing a contrast for the consumer and trying to
influence the consumer's buying choice, this company hopes to obtain a larger market
share.

30. 21
We have seen several examples of competitive advertising, specially being used by
Thums-up via indirect comparison. It can also be seen being done by several detergent
Brands
10. Pioneer Advertising
It is the promotion employed in informing the prospects about a new product. It aims
at customer education and usually involves expensive and sustained advertising
campaign. It can also include a series of pre-launch advertising wherein the intention
is to get prospective customers curious regarding the upcoming product
A recent Example would be the promotion campaign for the Lava smartphones starring
MS Dhoni, Launch of the NEXA line of showrooms by Maruti, etc.

31. 22
2.4 Advertising Effectiveness
Advertising effectiveness pertains to how well a company’s advertising accomplishes the
intended objective. As soon as an advertising campaign is done, a need generally arises to
measure the effectiveness of the campaign. The design of the advertising message helps to
determine whether people will pay attention to it, whether they will look at it or hear it,
whether they will remember it and most importantly, whether it has achieved the desired
result i.e. desired sales profitability or results in terms of the change in customer behavior
in bringing goodwill to the company’s product which will naturally, affect the future sales
product.
Small companies use many different statistics to measure their advertising effectiveness.
These measures can be used for all types of advertising. A company’s advertising
effectiveness increases overtime with many messages or exposures. It is not at all possible
to measure advertising effectiveness accurately as there are many factors like making a
brand image, increasing sales, keeping people informed about the product, introducing new
product, etc. which affect the effectiveness of an advertisement. However, one can get an
estimate by assessing certain factors which tend to be affected by the advertisement or
which reflect its degree of success.
Some of the factors which need to be taken into consideration while assessing the
effectiveness of an advertisement are as follows:
1. Reach: Reach refers to the total number of different people or households exposed at
least once, to a medium during a given period. It is just the number of people who are
exposed to the medium and therefore have an opportunity to see or hear the ad or
commercial
2. Coverage: Coverage indicates the degree to which the information reaches the market,
it is expressed as percentage. The greater the coverage, the greater the number of people
exposed to the message.

32. 23
3. Circulation: Circulation refers to the total number of copies sold to a particular
newspaper or a magazine. It applies only to the press media. Circulation only indicates
the potential audience size of a newspaper or a magazine. It does not necessarily mean
that this number of people actually read the publication.
4. Readership: Readership should not be confused with the circulation. It refers to the
number of persons, who actually read the publication.
5. Frequency: Frequency refers to the number of times a person or a household is
exposed to the same advertising message in a programme during a given period.
6. Sales and Profits: This would involve measuring the change in the volume of sales
and profit before and after an ad campaign.
7. Brand Awareness: Brand awareness is another metric of advertising effectiveness.
Brand awareness is the percentage of people who recognize a company's brand of
products. It usually takes many years and lots of ad exposures to build high brand
awareness.
Reasons for measuring effectiveness:
1. To determine the effect of each advertising campaign: Helps in knowing what type of
ad was liked by audience which media and medium to select for advertising.
2. To avoid costly mistakes: Company would like to know whether the money spent on
advertising is effective or not. Suppose, if that ad does not create any effect, then it
would turn out to be a costly mistake. In order to avoid such hiccups, the companies
would prefer to check the effectiveness periodically.
3. Evaluating alternative strategies: companies often test alternative versions of ad in
different cities and different media to determine which ad communication is most
effective
4. To increase the efficiency of the advertising: Most of the time audience will not
understand what the advertiser is trying to communicate example Zoo Zoo ads which
are non-verbal.

33. 24
People have confessed that they take lot of time to understand Zoo Zoo ads or
somebody should explain what it is all about. In case of a lay man he may not even
understand but yes he will definitely enjoy the characters. That is why accountability
is required in advertisements, and hence there is a need to measure the effectiveness of
the same.
The advertising industry, as a whole has the poorest quality-assurance system and is the
most inconsistent product. Unlike most of the business world, which is governed by
numerous feedback mechanisms, the advertising industry receives little objective and
reliable feedback.
Moreover, due to various clichés being developed over a period of time, companies tend
to make mistakes when developing advertisements rendering them ineffective. This is in
part due to several assumptions made by firms at the onset of developing an ad campaign.
Thus it becomes important to identify factors which act as barriers to effective advertising
and ensure they are dealt with so as to be able to achieve effective advertising.
Barriers to Effective Advertising
The first barrier to successful advertising is self-delusion. Most of us believe, that we know
what good advertising is and that there no need for an independent and objective
evaluation. Agencies and clients alike often think that they know how to create and judge
good advertising.
A second barrier is the belief that sales performance alone will tell if the advertising is
working or not. There are so many variable affecting sales, many out of or control that it is
impossible to isolate and quantify the effects of advertising. Moreover, the time period
needed by and ad to deliver results varies greatly from a few weeks in some cases to several
months in others. Also, advertising often has short term effects that sales data might reflect,
long term effects that most of us might overlook and subsequent sales data.
A third barrier is a pervasive effort of many advertising agencies to delay, undermine and
thwart efforts to objectively test the ads. This is due to possibility of the results upsetting
the client or the agency and lead to the agency losing control.

34. 25
The fourth barrier is the creative ego. The assumption that only creative people are
intellectually capable of creating advertisement tend to limit the effectiveness of
advertising. Great advertising tends to evolve over time, with hard work, continuous fine-
tuning based on objective feedback. Creative ego tends to resist such evolutionary
improvements. Big client egos can also act as a barrier because emotion is driving decision
making and not logic, reason and consumer feedback.
The fifth barrier is the belief that competitors know what you are doing which leads to
companies imitating their competitor’s strategy. This limits creativity and may lead to
failure of multiple companies due to imitating each other’s marketing and advertising
strategy.
The sixth barrier is lack of strategy or a poor strategy. The client tells the agency to go
ahead and create a great advertising without providing any strategy guidelines. This leads
to a lot of assumptions on the agency’s end.
A seventh barrier is client ineptness. The work culture, professional relationship and
interaction with the clients tend to discourage creation of great advertising.
The Solution
Given the barriers discussed above, the following measures can be taken to ensure effective
advertising:
1. The client must craft a sound strategy for its brand, based on facts and not self-delusion.
The client must define the role of advertising in the marketing plan and set precise
communication objectives. Once the strategy and positioning alternatives are identified
and tested, it should be locked down and rarely changed thereafter.
2. As creative executions are developed against the strategy, each execution must be
tested among members of the target audience. This will provide a reliable feedback and
help agencies and clients become smarter overtime. Once a conceptual family of
commercials is identified as the optimal campaign, it should be locked down. Long-
term continuity of advertising message is essential to maximizing effectiveness.

35. 26
3. Use the same testing mechanism consistently. There is no perfect mechanism. Some
might work for one company while not for others. The secret is to use one system over
and over so that all parties learns how to interpret the results for the category and
specific brand.
4. If financially feasible, conduct testing at an early stage in the creative process and also
test at the end stage. Early-testing allows ease of fine-tunings the commercials before
going further with expenditure. It tends to be highly predictive of finished commercial
scores. Testing the final commercial gives you extra assurance that your advertising is
on strategy and working.
5. Build your own action standards overtime. As you continue testing, you will be able to
understand what works and what doesn’t work.
6. Use a mathematical model to derive overall score for each execution. It doesn’t matter
that an ad has great persuasion unless it registers the brand name. All of the key
variables must be put together intelligently to come up with a composite or overall
measure of effectiveness.
7. Use the testing as a guide but don’t become slaves to the mathematical model. Make
sure the underlying reasons are taken care of. Decisions should be based on a
comprehensive assessment of the results with some room of deviation. No model or
system can anticipate every marketing solution or give 100% every time. Informed
human judgment remains important.
8. Continuous improvement of advertising should be considered as the primary objective.
9. The goal of creative development and testing should be to identify elements/ideas
essential to advertising effectiveness, and then to make sure that they are communicated
by all advertising executions.
Advertising has the power to persuade, to influence the mind and shape the destiny of the
brand. It can change markets and improve profit margins. The companies that master that
creative guidance and testing systems to consistently develop and deploy great advertising
are highly certain of achieving huge benefits.

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2.5 Criticism of Advertising
While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth in the modern capitalist
world, it comes at a social cost. Unsolicited commercial email and other form of spam have
become so prevalent that they are a major nuisance to users of these services as well as
being a financial burden on internet service providers. Advertising increasingly invades
public space, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation.
Advertising frequently uses psychological pressure on the intended target audience which
may have harmful effects. Let us look at some of the aspects which tend to highlight the
harms of advertising.
Influence
Advertising uses the model of role celebrities or popular figures and makes deliberate use
of humor as well as associations with color, tunes, names and terms. These are factors how
one perceives himself and one’s self-worth. In his description of mental capitalism, Georg
Franck of Vienna University of Technology says, “the promise of consumption making
someone irresistible is the ideal way of objects and symbols into a person’s subjective
experience. Evidently, in a society in which revenue of attention moves to the fore,
consumption is drawn by one’s self-esteem. As a result, consumption becomes ‘work’ on
a person’s attraction. From the subjective point of view, this ‘work’ opens fields of
unexpected dimensions of advertising. Advertising takes on the role of a life councilor in
matters of attraction. The cult around one’s own attraction is what Christopher Lasch
described as ‘Culture of Narcissism”.
Another issue that has surfaces leading to criticism of advertising is that separation of
advertising and editorial/creative side of media is disappearing. Due to this, it is
increasingly getting difficult to tell advertising different from news, information or
entertainment.

37. 28
Increasingly, advertising has switched from providing factual information to the symbolic
connotation of commodities, since the crucial premise of advertising is that the material
object is never itself enough.
Even those commodities providing for the most mundane necessities of daily life must be
imbued with symbolic qualities and culturally endowed meaning via advertising. In this
way , by altering the context in which advertisement appears, things can be made to appear
just about anything and the same thing can be endowed with different intended meanings
for different individuals, thereby offering mass visions of individualism.
Advertising and marketing firms have long used the insights and methods of psychology
to sell products. However, today these practices are reaching epidemic levels, and with a
complicity on part of the psychological profession that exceeds that of the past. The result
is an enormous advertising and marketing onslaught that comprises arguably the largest
single psychological project ever undertaken. Robert McChesney calls it “the greatest
concerted attempt at psychological manipulation in all of human history”.
Hyper-Commercialism
One of the ironies of advertising in the current era is that as commercialism increases, it
makes it much more difficult for any particular advertiser to succeed, hence pushing the
advertiser to even greater efforts.
Product placement in entertainment programming and movies where it has become a
standard practice and virtual advertising where products get placed retroactively into rerun
shows. Product billboards are virtually inserted into Major League Baseball broadcasts and
in the same manner, virtual street banners and logos are projected on an entry canopy or
sidewalks. Advertising precedes the showing of films at cinemas including lavish ‘film
shorts’ produced by companies such Microsoft or DaimlerChrysler. Videogames
incorporate products into their content. Whole subway stations in Berlin are redesigned
into product halls and exclusively leased to companies. Dusseldorf has ‘multi-sensorial’
adventure transit stops equipped with loudspeakers and systems that spread the smell of
detergent. Swatch used beamers to project messages on the Berlin TV-tower and Victory
Column.

38. 29
Opponents equate the growing amount of advertising with a ‘tidal wave’ and restrictions
with ‘stopping the flood’. Kalle Lasn, one of the most outspoken critics of advertising,
considers it “the most prevalent and toxic of the mental pollutants. From the moment your
radio alarm sounds in the morning to the wee hours of late-night TV micro jolts of
commercial pollution flood into your brain at the rate of around 3,000 marketing messages
per day. Every day an estimated 12 billion display ads, 3 million radio commercials and
more than 200,000 television commercials are dumped into North America’s collective
unconscious”. Cristopher Lasch of the University of Rochester states that advertising leads
to an overall increase in consumption in society; “Advertising serves not so much to
advertise products as to promote consumption as a way of life”.
Media and Corporate Censorship
Almost all mass media are advertising media and many of them are exclusively advertising
media and are majorly in the private sector. Their income is generated mainly through
advertising. This dependency has implications for the nature of the media content. In the
view of critics no media that spread advertisement can be independent and the higher the
proportion of advertising, the higher the dependency.
In addition, the private media are increasingly subject to mergers and concentration, with
property situations often becoming entangles and opaque. The development should itself
suffice as a grave threat to democratic culture. Five or six advertising agencies dominate
this $400 million global industry.
Negative and undesired reporting can be prevented or influenced when advertisers threaten
to cancel orders or simply when there is a danger of such cancellation. Media dependency
and such a threat become very real when there is only one dominant or very few large
advertisers. The influence of advertisers is not only in regard to news and information on
their own products and services, but expands to articles and shows not directly linked to
them. In order to secure their advertising revenues, the media have to create the best
possible advertising environment. Another problem considered censorship by critics is the
refusal of media to accept advertisements not in their interest.

39. 30
While critics basically worry about the subtle influence of the economy on the media, there
are also examples of blunt exertion of influence. The US company Chrysler, before it
merged with Daimler Benz had its agency send out letters to numerous magazines,
demanding that they send an overview of all topics before the next issue was published to
‘avoid potential conflict’.
The movie system at one time outside the direct influence of the broader marketing system,
is now fully integrated into it through strategies like licensing, tie-ins and product
placements.
Objectification and Stereotyping
Advertising often uses stereotype gender specific roles of men and women reinforcing
existing clichés and it has been criticized as “inadvertently or even intentionally promoting
sexism, racism, ableism, ageism, etc. At very least, advertising often reinforces stereotypes
by drawing on recognizable ‘types’ in order to tell stories in a single image or a 30 second
frame. Activities are depicted at typical male or female. In addition, people are reduced to
their sexuality or equated with commodities and gender specific qualities are exaggerated.
Sexualized female bodies, but increasingly also males, serve as eye-catchers.
A large portion of advertising deals with the promotion of products in a way that defines
an ideal body image. This objectification greatly affects women, however men are also
affected. Women and men are frequently portrayed in unrealistic and distorted images that
set a standard for what is considered ‘beautiful’, ‘attractive’ or ‘desirable’. Such imagery
does not allow for what is found to be beautiful in various culture or to the individual. It is
exclusionary rather than inclusive, and consequently, these advertisements promote a
negative message about body image to the average person. Because of this form of media,
people may feel high pressure to maintain an unrealistic and often unhealthy body weight
or even to alter their physical appearance cosmetically or surgically in minor to drastic
ways.

40. 31
Sports & Culture
Performance, exhibitions, shows, concerts and most other events can hardly take place
without sponsorship. Artist are graded and paid according to their art’s value for
commercial purposes. Corporations promote renowned artists, thereby getting exclusive
rights in global advertising campaigns. Due to all this, there is only little room left outside
the consumption economy, in which culture and art can develop independently and where
alternative values can be expressed. A last important sphere, the universities, are under
strong pressure to open up for business and its interest.
Competitive sports have become unthinkable without sponsorship. The influence of media
brought many changes in sports including the admittance of new ‘trend sports’ into the
Olympic Games, the alteration of competition distances, change of rules, animation of
spectators, changes of sports facilities, the cult of sports heroes who quickly establish
themselves in the advertising and entertaining business because of their media value, and
last but not the least, the naming and renaming of sports stadiums after big companies. In
sports, adjustment to the logic of the media can contribute to the erosion of values such as
equal chances or fairness, to excessive demands on athletes through public pressure and
multiple exploitation or to deceit.
Public Space
Every visually perceptible place has potential for advertising. Especially urban areas with
their structure and landscape in sight of thoroughfares are more and more turning into
media for advertisements. Signs, posters, billboards, flags have become decisive factors in
the urban appearance and their numbers are still on the increase. Traditional billboards and
transit shelters have given way for more pervasive methods such as wrapped vehicles, sides
of buildings, electronic signs, kiosk, taxis, posters, side of buses and more. Digital
technologies are used to sport urban wall displays.
In urban areas, commercial content is placed in our sight and consciousness every moment
we are in public space. Over time, this domination of the surrounding has become a natural
state. Through long-term commercial saturation, it has become implicitly understood that
advertising has the right to own, occupy and control every inch of available public space.

41. 32
The massive optical orientation towards advertising changes the function of public spaces
which are utilized by brands. Urban landmarks are turned into trademarks. The highest
pressure is exerted on renowned or highly frequented spaces which are also important for
the identity of the city (Example: Times Square, Gateway of India, London Eye, etc.).
Urban Spaces are public commodities and in this capacity, are subject to ‘aesthetical
environment protection’, mainly through building regulations, heritage protection and
landscape protection. These spaces are now being privatized. They are pepped with
billboards and signs, they are remodeled into media for advertising.
Cost
Advertising has developed into a multi-billion dollar industry. In 2014, $537 billion were
spent worldwide for advertising. It is considered to raise consumption. However, few
consumers are aware of the fact that they are the ones paying for every cent spent for public
relations, advertisements, rebates, packaging, etc. since they ordinarily get included in the
price calculation , thereby is termed as unnecessary cost escalation by critics of advertising.

42. 33
3. Advertising directed
towards Children

43. 34
3.1 Introduction to the Phenomena
Advertising is hardly a recent human endeavor; archaeologists have uncovered signs
advertising property for rent dating back to ancient Rome and Pompeii. Town criers were
another early form of advertising. As an industry, advertising did not take off until the
arrival of the various mass media: printing, radio, and television. Nevertheless, concerns
over advertising targeting children preceded both radio and television. The British
Parliament passed legislation in 1874 intended to protect children from the efforts of
merchants to induce them to buy products and assume debt.
In the recent modern age of technology, all the company involve themselves in the
marketing race to put their brand on the top of the mind of the customer, quickly want to
create brand equity, and maintain the brand loyalty has enhancing to influence the children
to a degree that it walking on the unethical grounds, send-off our children in a in danger
environment.
Currently, advertisers showing a variety of new products and services specifically to and
through children for enhancing their sale, creating the brand image in the mind of the
consumer. the mental level of the children not match the young people( Anderson & Levin
1976; McNeal 1987), various types of device are used by the advertiser which include the
fast pace format and different types of the special effects ( Biggens 1989; Huston & Wright
1989), for gaining and holding the attention of children. Such types of all these devices
have paying more attention from both side like consumer groups and researchers group,
who have suggestion that all these types of the advertising rise the range of harmful effects
on the children and may on the young people.
Researchers have question marked the associations children draw between television and
real life (Biggens 1989) the main effect these Relationships have on their gender role
perceptions and development (Courtney & Whipple 1983); their expression of harmful
performance, including violent behavior (Goldberg & Gorn 1978; McNeal 1987), and their
prospect that parents should provide products announce (Goldberg & Gorn 1978).

44. 35
The fundamental purpose of the advertising is to influence audience by delivering them
information or remaindering them of existence of brand at higher level, Advertising aims
to influence audiences by informing or reminding them of the existence of the brand or at
a higher level, in the marketing place company focus on the innovative advertising because
it plead with or helping the intention audience make a distinction a brand from other
challenging brands. A strong theory of advertising propounds that Advertising directed
towards children presents challenges, which can influence children to buy a product that
they have never previously purchased. Kids are not sophisticated consumers. Their idea of
self, time and money are not fully formed. As a result, they be familiar with very little
about their needs, desire and first choice or how to use economic resources logically to
satisfy them.
Commercial appeals to children, however, did not become commonplace until the advent
and widespread adoption of television and grew exponentially with the advent of cable
television, which allowed programmers to develop entire channels of child-oriented
programming and advertising. Opportunities to advertise to children further expanded with
the explosive growth of the Internet, and thousands of child-oriented Web sites with
advertising content have appeared in the past few years. Compounding the growth in
channels for advertising targeting children has been another development: the privatization
of children's media use. A recent study found that a majority of all U.S. children have
televisions in their bedrooms.
Many children also have unsupervised access to computers, meaning that much of the
media (and advertising) content that children view is in contexts absent parental monitoring
and supervision.
These two trends—the growth in advertising channels reaching children and the
privatization of children's media use—have resulted in a dramatic increase in advertising
directly intended for the eyes and ears of children. It is estimated that advertisers spend
more than $12 billion per year to reach the youth market and that children view more than
40,000 commercials each year.

45. 36
3.2 Tools used in Children Targeted Advertising
In order to understand the phenomena of advertising directed towards children, let us begin
by looking at some of the mediums which are favorites of advertisers for targeting children.
As we have seen in the sec ‘History of Advertising’, numerous mediums and tools have
been developed over the period of time to be used for advertising. Some of them which are
well popular and considered effective are:
Television
Children still spend most of their time watching television than they do using any other
type of media, an average of approximately one hour a day among 2 to 8 years old
(Common Sense Media 2013) and more than 2 ½ hours a day of live television among
those 8 and older ( Rideout et al. 2010). Television viewing is gradually from live
programming to view online or on mobile devices (Nielsen, 2011) or to programming that
is either ad free ( such as on premium cable) or recorded on a digital video recorder and
watched later, so the ads can be skipped (Common Sense Media, 2013). In addition some
portions of children’s viewing is on networks that don’t have traditional advertising, such
as PBS or the Disney Channel. Nonetheless, live television viewing continues to dominate
young people’s television viewing and the bulk of their viewing is still on ad-supported
platform.
Children’s exposure to traditional TV ads is most straight-forward type of exposure for
researchers to quantify, and yet even data on this relatively simple measure is hard to
access. Content studies can count the number and type of ads in a representative sample of
television shows, but such studies don’t reflect the mix of programming actually watched
by children (some commercial-free, some prime time, some children’s, some cable, some
broadcast).
One study that relied on Nielsen data estimated that children age 2-11 saw an average of
about 25,600 television ads per year and that more than 40% of their ad exposure was from
shows whose audience is primarily not children (meaning less than 20% of the audience
is children) (Hot et. al., 2007). Some studies focus specifically on quantifying children’s
exposure to particular categories of television advertising such as food.

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For example, a study using Nielsen data determined that children age 2-11 viewed an
average of about 14 food or beverage ads a day in 2004, 12.3 in 2008, 13.4 in 2010 and
12.8 in 2011 (Rudd Center, 2013). Adolescents (age 12-17) saw slightly more, an average
of 13.2 a day in 2004, 13.1 in 2007 and 16.2 in both 2010 and 2011. Studies using Nielsen
data also can quantify number of ads seen in specific categories. For example, the Rudd
Center (2012) determined that, as of 2011, fast-food restaurants, candy and cereal ads
accounted for just under half of all food and beverages ads seen by children and
adolescents.
Cross-Promotions
Advertising directed towards children continues to rely heavily on cross-promotional tie-
ins with popular cartoon characters, sports stars, and Hollywood celebrities. These can
range from free movie character toys offered with children’s meal to sophisticated social
media campaigns aimed at teenagers and featuring popular musicians or movie stars.
There is currently no publicly available official count of cross-promotions aimed at the
youth market nor an agreed upon methodology within the research community for tracking
children’s exposure to such campaigns. News stories illustrate some examples, however.
In mid-2013, the mobile-game developer Zynga formed a number of cross promotional
partnerships to market its newest game. Ad for the movie ‘Despicable Me 2’ were shown
in the new Zynga game, and drawing challenges in the game were built around the movie’s
characters. (Wortham, 2013).
In a Congressionally mandated study of food-industry marketing to children, the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) of the United States used subpoenas to collect advertising data
from companies. This study documented more than 120 cross-promotions in 2009 “tying
food and beverage products to popular movies, TV programs, cartoon characters, toys,
websites, videogames, theme parks and other entertainment venues.
Online Advertising
Online advertising has fundamentally changed the nature of marketing to children. In the
beginning, online ads were nothing but static banner ads i.e. images of a marketing message
with a minimal amount of text.

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Today, online advertising encompasses not only more sophisticated and enticing banner
ads but also advergames, online videos, branded websites, virtual worlds and social
marketing. According to a research published in 2010, 87% of the most popular children
websites include some type of advertising (Cai & Zhao, cited Kunkel & Castonguay, 2012).
Today’s online advertising represents a fundamentally different type of exposure from that
of TV or print. Online advertising is a game changer for several reasons:
 It is often interactive, meaning the child actively engages with the brand.
 It is also often immersive, meaning that the child is in a fully branded environment for
an extended period of time, and the lines between advertising and other content are
blurred
 Online advertising is fundamentally different because it can be built on data about the
child that allows it to be targeted on them based on their interests, location and
demographic characteristics.
All of these factors make it difficult to measure and evaluate the impact of children’s
exposure to online advertising. As American University’s Kathryn Montgomery (2012)
has noted, “Digital entertainment and advertising are now thoroughly intertwined, and this
makes it difficult to isolate advertising as a separate form of communication”- either by the
child or by researchers. It is also difficult to know how to compare the effect of a 30 second
TV ad that is passively perceived by a child to the effect of that child playing a branded
game for 3 minutes or to the effect of his/her interacting with an online ad that has been
targeted especially for him/her. With targeting, a young girl has searched for dolls may see
ads for various new doll products, while a teenager who has downloaded a certain type of
music or searched for books on a particular subject may see ads that are based on those
searches.
It is likely that children’s exposure to advertising is quite high. As of 2010, children age 8
and older are spending an average of an hour and a half on each day using a computer for
fun at home. This includes activities such as visiting social networking sites, playing online
games, watching videos or surfing the internet (Rideout, 2010). It does not include time
spent watching TV online (another 24 min. a day on average), listening to music on a
computer or doing schoolwork.

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Following are some specific types of advertising children are exposed to online:
Advergaming: Advergames are games that are created by a firm for the explicit purpose
for promoting one or more of its brands (Moore & Rideout, 2007). By their very nature,
advergames blur the boundaries between entertainment and advertising content, since
they’re both an advertisement and a game. The mental state of flow that some gamers get
into while playing may also contribute to the blurring of boundaries.
Branded websites: many companies have created branded websites that include content
designed to attract children. These websites, which are promoted in television ads and on
product packaging, may include elements such as games, contests, videos and
downloadable branded products.
Branded websites attract younger children because they’re aimed at children and children
are among users. A study of the websites of companies that marketed food to children on
television found that 85% had websites with content for children (Moore & Rideout, 2007).
Another found that the top cereal brands maintained branded websites aimed at children.
Among the type of content found on branded websites are:
 Viral marketing: These may include efforts to encourage children to send branded
greetings to their friends or to invite their friends to visit the company’s website. Once
the child visitor shares his/her friend’s email address, the company sends the friend a
message promoting the site.
 Online TV ads: Many branded children’s site feature TV ads and use pools and rewards
to induce kids to watch them, multiple times.
 Downloadable Branded Items: many websites include branded items for a child to
download, either onto their computer desktop or for printing and using in the real world.
 Premium offers to encourage product purchase: Nearly a third of sites reviewed in a
2007 study (Moore & Rideout, 2007) included some type or premium offer in exchange
for the child pursuing the product.

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Social Media Marketing: this includes a wide variety of online advertising techniques,
including placing ads on social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook; establishing
profiles for companies on Facebook and other sites for children to interact with; and
embedding promotional content into Twitter feeds and Facebook posts. As of 2012, three-
quarters of all teenagers reported having a profile on a social networking site, and 22% had
a Twitter account. Half of all teens visit social networking sites daily and a third do so
several times a day (Common Sense Media, 2013).
One of the advantages companies have when they use social networking sites to market
their products is the ability to target their message based on the interest of the recipient. A
person’s post on their Facebook account can be used to select the ads they see; similarly
Twitter recently announced that it has developed ‘a new tool that allow marketers to
disseminate targeted message based on the content of the user’s feeds (Shih, 2013). Youth-
oriented brands such as Pepsi and Burger King are among the pioneers of social media
marketing and PepsiCo has restructured its overall marketing approach to focus on social
media (Montgomery, 2013). Coca-Cola has 21 million fans on Facebook and developing
its new marketing campaign using social media (Montgomery, 2013). Companies create a
plethora of both branded and unbranded content to drive users to their social media sites.
Social media marketing may also feature user created content, such as videos created by
young people and then spread virally through company’s social media campaigns. In a
campaign to promote the stuffed animal toy Furby to teen girls, Hasbro invited young
people to create YouTube videos featuring the furry creature. Those videos were then
spread virally through social media posts by top teen celebrities such as Selena Gomez and
Carly Rae Jepsen. This campaign generated 10 million social media impressions
(MediaPost, 2013).
Banner Ads: Banner ads are still used to market to children. Indeed, a study by Yale
University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity calculated that more than 3 billion
display advertisements for food and beverages were viewed on children’s website between
June 2009 and June 2010.

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Mobile Advertising
The advent of mobile advertising to children is another game changer. Now young people
can be reached with advertising messages throughout the day, not only when they’re sitting
in front of the television set or computer. Mobile advertising can be targeted to young
people more narrowly than other online advertising since it can track their locations in
relation to specific retail outlet, fast-food venues.
Mobile advertising can come in the form of small banner ads, branded apps, and “in-app”
advertising. Most mobile Internet use now is conducted primarily through mobile
applications, or “apps” (Nielsen, 2011). When a user downloads an app, the company
behind the app often gains access to significant amounts of information about him or her,
which can then be used to target advertising. Apps may access more than personal
information, too; they can access a teen’s contact list and photos.
Following are some the tools developed for mobile advertising:
 A branded app is similar to a branded website- a specific company creates an
application that offer ways for children to interact with the company or products,
through games or by responding to special offers such as coupons. Marketers believe
that this exposure to branded content on mobile is a great way to create significant lifts
in brand affinity, brand recall and future purchase intent. Companies often offer
rewards to users who download a branded app.
 In-app advertisement can come in the form of banner and poop-up ads that occur
between levels in games, or they can appear as product placement, with characters in
an app wearing branded content or users being encouraged to create outfits for their
mobile avatars using branded clothing. A user can be required to watch an in-app ad to
proceed with the game they were playing or they can earn virtual currency by watching
ads.
 Location based mobile marketing: Mobile marketing also can involve content targeting
children based on their being inside or in the vicinity of a retail location. This can
include texting a coupon to someone who checks in at a fast-food location or scans a
barcode inside a store.

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Integrated Marketing Campaigns
Integrated marketing campaigns aim messages at youth from multiple directions at the
same time. A single campaign can encompass product packaging, Hollywood cross-
promotions, TV advertising, product placement, and mobile social-media messages. The
online components alone can be extensive. For example, Coca-Cola launched an all-digital
integrated campaign in 2013 called “The AHH Effect” (Lukovitz, 2013). It includes a large
variety of what the company calls “snackable” digital content, such as quick videos (cats
playing with Coke boxes) and casual games (“Guide the Bubble”). It also includes cross-
promotions with youth-oriented celebrities including gamers and musicians, as well as a
social-media contest to encourage teens to create their own Coke-related digital content,
with the winning entries given their own URL.

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3.3 Effects of Advertising on Children
Exposure of children to advertising can lead to negative outcomes including parent-child
conflict, cynicism, obesity and possibly materialistic attitudes. For every younger and older
child, not every request for a product leads to a purchase. Being denied a product can lead
to conflict between parent and child. For instance, Aitkin found that when parents denied
children’s request for products, children who were heavy viewers argues about the
purchase 21% of the time, while light viewers argued only 9% of the times. Advertisers
call this ‘nag factor’.
In a review of research, one study found a causal relationship between children’s viewing
of television commercials and their pestering parents in the grocery store. Children also
become cynical as they begin to understand the underlying persuasive message of
advertisers. Even so, children who are repeatedly exposed to attractive messages about
‘fun’ products still want them, even if they are aware of advertiser’s selling techniques.
The implication is that even though children may know something is not what it seems,
that does not stop them from wanting it. Because so many advertisements targeted to
children are of foods that are high in calories and low in nutritional value, concerns have
been raised that food advertisements are partly to blame for children being overweight and
obese. It has also been found by an Academies Panel that was charged by the US Congress
to investigate the role of marketing and advertising in childhood obesity that television
food advertisement affects children’s food preference, food request and short-term eating
patterns. Another purported though rarely studied outcome of children’s commercial
exposure is an increased emphasis on materialism among younger children. Preadolescent
girls, for example, are now purchasing more and more clothing, make-up and other
products that were formerly targeted to an adolescent teen market. It has also been argues
that heavy advertising and marketing campaigns are leading to the sexualization and
exploitation of young girls.

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Several leading agencies and institutions have taken account of the growing concern
regarding the effects of advertising on children and tried to understand the issue to suggest
solutions. Consequently, several researches have been conducted and published in this
directions which have led to several outcomes suggesting on the nature and degree of the
effects of advertising on children. This has resulted in creation of an extensive body of
knowledge in the area of advertising effects on children. We shall now look at and discuss
the findings of some the research.
Study on Impact of Television Advertisement on Children
A study published in the Asia Pacific Journal from January 2016 contained a study titled
‘Study of impact of Television Advertisement on Children’ which highlighted some of the
effects of advertising on children. The research pointed out that majority (77.5%) of the
children recognize different categories of advertisements and could differentiate between
them. Further it was found that celebrity endorsing a particular product (especially sports
persons) tends to influence 49% of children among the sample of 55. Also, the cartoon
characteristics’ used in advertisements were seen to be significantly influential on inducing
buying behavior. Fast food, health drinks and chocolate advertisements tend to remain in
the minds of 82% of children. 80% of the Parents agreed that their buying behavior with
reference to health drinks are influenced by children, and another important point of
concern is that children prefer those health drink which comes with attractive offers such
as free Racket, sports bag, mug etc. The advertisements of fast foods such as noodles, pasta
and other instant snacks attract the attention of majority of the children. It is also seen
children choosing chocolates and noodles over fruits and homemade food (as mentioned
in the options of the questionnaire). Parents accepted that children also influence the
decision of parents in buying automobiles.
It is also identified that children do influence their parents to buy luxurious home
appliances such as Refrigerators, Washing Machines, and Ovens shown in the
advertisements. Thus, from the analysis it was concluded that advertising severely affect
the eating habits of present generation children. Also, parents were influenced by their
children in majority of purchase decision making not only with respect to the products
related to children but also some which were not a matter of children decisions.

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Report of APA Task Force on Advertising and Children
In another attempt, a task force formed by American Psychological Association (APA)
reviewed several researches conducted on the area of advertising and children. In the report
submitted several effects of advertising on children were discussed. Research on children’s
commercial recall and product preferences confirmed that advertising achieved its intended
goal.
They said that a variety of studies using different methodologies found that children recall
content from the ads to which they are exposed. Product preference occurs with even a
single commercial exposure and strengthens with repeated exposures. They highlighted the
point that studies had shown that product preferences do affect children’s product purchase
request and that these request do influence parent’s buying decisions. They further stated
that several studies had found that parent-child conflicts occur commonly when parents
deny their children’s product purchase request that were precipitated by advertising.
Research had also examined advertising’s cumulative effect on children’s eating habits.
They highlighted studies that documented that a high percentage of advertisements
targeting children feature candy, fast foods and snacks and that exposure to such
advertising increases consumption of these products. While consumption of non-nutritious
foods per se may not be harmful, overconsumption of these products, particularly to the
exclusion of healthier food, is linked to obesity and poorer health. Several studies have
found strong associations between increases in advertising for non-nutritious foods and
rates of childhood obesity.
They also found that a variety of studies had identified a substantial relationship between
children’s viewing of tobacco and alcohol ads and positive attitudes towards consumption
of such products. Children find many such commercials attractive and consequently, have
high brand awareness of such products and positive attitude towards them. These products
and their spokes-character were found to be featured in programming and publications
frequently viewed by minors and it was concluded that advertising of them contributes to
youth smoking and drinking.

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Lastly, they also mentioned the concern expressed by critics regarding the prevalence of
advertising of violent media, such as movies and video games targeting children.
They referred to three reports by the Federal Trade Commission of the US which found
considerable support for such charges and while studies have not directly assessed the
impact of such advertising, it was considered highly likely that such ads do affect children’s
media preferences.
Impact of Advertising on Children with Special Reference to Eating Habits
The research titled ‘Impact of Advertising on Children with Special Reference to Eating
Habits’ was published in Abhinav Journal. Conducted by Dr. T.N. Murty, Dr. V.V. Ratnaji
Rao Chowdhary and R. Srinivasa Rao, the research sought to understand the issue by
conducting interview with parents and children.
When parents when asked about the impact of advertisements on ‘Eating habits’ of
children, 79% parents responded that the impact is negative and only 21% responded that
the impact is positive. This is mainly due to those advertisements, which motivate the
children to consume healthy food like milk, Egg, and health drinks. About 60% parents
responded that their children aggressively demand some food item and dominate the
purchase decision due to its advertisement on TV, remaining 40% opinioned that can’t say.
Parents when asked about the circumstances in which they grant the purchase demands of
children initiated from advertisements, 40% responded that they allow the purchase
because the product is useful and needed, 28% allow as the product is affordable, 19%
allow as there is some innovative content, 7% parents allow because owning product is
status symbol and 10% parents allowed the purchase for no specific reason, but just to get
rid of the demand of the children and irritation causing out of it.
Nearly 92 % of the parents surveyed feel that there is need for regulation as far as food
related Advertisements are concerned. Of these about 66% say that, either the
advertisements of unhealthy food products should be banned or the Ad Message should be
regulated by including the warning against excess consumption. 12% parents say that all
the food Ads targeting children should be totally banned.