Part - I

Advertising over the years and ages has been used as a penetrable force with the help of which the marketer not only communicates but also achieves the desired level of marketability for his entire range of products and services. Although this is a very valid contention yet, advertising suffers from certain realities, which comes on the forefront.

From the point of view of realities, although advertising attracts Financial Expenditures on the part of advertiser and in turn stimulates customer involvement and customized interaction and this ultimately contributes towards the growth of over all Economic Activities.

This kind of a situation stimulates the industry Arena and calls for marketers to think in a positive direction as far as positive advertising is concerned.

Advertising has a definite positive impact on the overall marketing scene the world over. Of late we have had instances of various products/brands in the different media sources where it has been the advertisement, alone which has been responsible for stimulating the product Sales.

Brands like Sun Silk Shampoo, Maybelene Lipsticks, Tata Indica Automobiles, Hyundai Santro Zipdrive, Colgate range of oral care products, Gillette range of shaving products and so on are some of the examples coated where the role of advertising has had a positive direction over the entire market place.

But there is a darker side of the story as well. It has been often argued/debated that "Advertising stimulates wasteful expenditure and increases the burden on the consumer".

On the basis of assessment it has been found that the money spent on advertising methods is ultimately added up or a percentage on the product manufacturing cost and this ultimately leads to enhancement of the final price value. This is a known fact to each and every individual but my question is - "Can we really do without advertising?" The answer to this question is - No, and nothing can be done to this regard to substitute Advertising as a modality; therefore the concept of advertising giving rise to wasteful expenditure is probably a way of looking at it from an individual angle.

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* Contributed by -
Nivriti Sweta,
Batch of 2004-2005, MS (Marketing),
ICFAI School of Marketing Studies, Hyderabad.