From the street cries of merchants selling their wares to today’s sophisticated electronic means of reaching customers, advertising careers have experienced a dramatic evolution. In its earliest days, advertising allowed merchants to go from street to shop, adopting symbols and later written signs to show the goods and services they offered. With the invention of paper and advances in education that enabled more and more people to read, tack-up signs became common. It wasn’t until printing was introduced in the 15th century, however, that advertising was truly revolutionized. Merchants began printing and distributing handbills by the hundreds. Advertisements in newspapers became a familiar sight by the 17th century. By the end of the 1800s, magazines were carrying ads of all kinds.
Advertising Careers List
- Advertising Account Executives
- Advertising and Marketing Managers
- Advertising Workers
- Antiques and Art Dealers
- Art Directors
- Auctioneers
- Automobile Sales Workers
- Business Managers
- Buyers
- Cashiers
- Counter and Retail Clerks
- Demographers
- Entrepreneurs
- Florists
- Franchise Owners
- Graphic Designers
- Jewelers and Jewelry Repairers
- Marketing Research Analysts
- Media Planners and Buyers
- Merchandise Displayers
- Personal Shoppers
- Public Opinion Researchers
- Purchasing Agents
- Retail Business Owners
- Retail Managers
- Retail Sales Workers
- Sales Representatives
- Statisticians
- Stock Clerks
- Supermarket Workers
- Telemarketers
- Writers
The advertising industry formally emerged in the 1840s, when newspaper-advertising solicitors began representing groups of newspapers. In 1865, a new system was introduced: buying newspaper space and dividing and selling it to advertisers at higher prices. Other forms of advertising also came onto the scene. By the early 1900s, for example, outdoor posters developed into the billboard form, and the merchants who used them were the principal advertisers. In 1922, radio station WEAF in New York City offered program time to advertisers. The use of television advertising began just before the end of World War II. Today, the Internet is catapulting the world of advertising into a whole new realm, allowing vendors not only to target and reach customers but to interact with them as well.
Today, most national advertising and much of local advertising is prepared by advertising agencies. A modern advertising agency is composed of researchers, copywriters, artists, telemarketers, buyers of space and time, other specialists, and account executives who represent the agency to its clients. The size of an agency is determined by the amount of advertising it bills to its clients. Many agencies are small, billing less than $10 million a year. Part of an agency’s income results from commissions that are equivalent to 15 percent of the advertiser’s cost of placing the ads. While some agencies bill clients on a fee basis, others use a fee/commission combination.
Large advertising agencies usually handle a variety of accounts, while some of the smaller agencies specialize in a single field. They may handle only financial accounts, for example, or hotels, book publishers, or industrial clients. Some agencies are known for their expertise in selling package goods. Others excel in retail and department store promotion or selling on the Internet. Almost every agency develops some distinctive quality to help sell its services.
Along with targeting a well-produced message to its intended audience, the placement of ads in the most effective media is extremely important to the success of an advertising campaign.
The newest mass medium to hit the scene, the Internet, is a worldwide, computer-based network consisting of online services, Web sites, newsgroups, and more. The Internet allows advertisers and marketers to precisely target customers, accurately measure response, and clearly identify consumer needs. Through the Internet’s Web sites, consumers themselves provide companies with information about their interests, demographics, preferences, and needs, either through registration surveys or indirectly by the choice of Web sites they visit. With more than 600 million users, the Internet is drawing advertisers in droves. In the first quarter of 2006, companies spent about $2.3 billion on Internet advertising, and increase of 19.4 percent compared to the first quarter of 2005.
Internet advertising’s mainstay is the banner, a narrow rectangle across the top of the screen that can blink, flash, or be static. An offshoot of the banner is the skyscraper, which is the vertical equivalent and runs in a narrow margin on either side of a Web page. Since surfers have become used to banners and skyscrapers, they get less attention, so some advertisers place their messages in large boxes that are hard to ignore. Another trend in Internet advertising is the pop-up window, a separate window that opens while a Web page is loading.
Many other media also allow advertisers to showcase their offerings. Television, for example, provides opportunities to show products in actual use. Through a TV ad, an advertiser can design a message that appeals to both the eye and the ear at the same time. Advertisers usually include their messages during the course of various television shows to achieve the desired reach and frequency. Rating services like A. C. Nielsen and Arbitron measure the sizes of audiences through the use of home meters and diaries. According to the Television Bureau of Advertising, 98.2 percent of U.S. households had a TV set in 2006 and the average time per household spent viewing TV was eight hours a day in 2006. The reach and frequency of a TV commercial are determined from this raw data. The newest trend in advertising and marketing is the placement of products or mention of services in actual television shows and films. For example, advertisers interested in promoting a specific soft drink might arrange to have it placed in the background of a scene or have a main character drink it.
In addition to network television, advertisers are increasingly turning to cable TV. Developed in the late 1940s simply as a means of improving reception, cable television today reaches more than 67 percent of all American households, with almost 74 million current subscribers. Appealing to specific audiences, such cable channels as MTV, HBO, The History Channel, Cable News Network, and ESPN, allows advertisers to target specific audiences with ease.
There are more than 575 million radios in the United States, according to the CIA: The World Factbook. Radio commercials are designed to deliver messages on behalf of local and national advertisers. While radio production techniques are relatively inexpensive and a radio commercial reaches large audiences, listeners conjure up different pictures in response to radio ads than they do with visual ads.
Magazine advertising offers special values not found in other media. Magazines are kept longer than daily newspapers, for example, and may be picked up and read several times or passed on from one reader to another. Thus, the actual number of readers may be considerably higher than circulation figures indicate.
Many advertisers send direct mail to prospects from carefully maintained lists. Such lists can be bought from firms that compile information about buyers with specific interests and income levels. As a rule, the more specialized the list, the higher the price. Nearly all direct mail seeks to encourage some kind of buying action, often with return cards or coupons, and is frequently used in conjunction with other types of advertising.
Outdoor advertising, such as billboards, posters, and electric signs, is favored by national advertisers, as well as local businesses that want to attract passersby. Those who create outdoor posters design them with the five-second flash in mind, since that amount of time is the estimated exposure of the message to the average motorist. This means that the message must be very short and instantly understood.
Transit advertising is displayed in or on such public vehicles as subway cars, buses, and commuter trains. The messages in transit ads can be longer than those on outdoor signs, because passengers have more time to look at these ads.
Some companies have in-house advertising departments, while others work with agencies. Similarly, many large companies have their own marketing departments, with smaller organizations often using outside marketing services. How a product is marketed can determine its success or failure. Advertising plays a key role in this process.
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