“Like many other commonplace words - think of art, love and justice, for example - advertising is surprisingly hard to define with precision” (Fletcher, 2010). Various research have been conducted with reference to this topic and there are no misconstrued definitions of the word. Advertising can be approached in distinct ways - as a business, a creative communication process, a social phenomenon, and a fundamental ingredient to the free-enterprise systems. Albert Lasker, owner of a prominent advertising agency in the beginning of the 20th century called Lord & Thomas, is generally perceived as the father of modern advertising in today’s society. At the time, he defined advertising as “salesmanship in print, driven by a reason why” (Arens, 2005). However, this was long before the advent of radio, television or the internet. During that time, the nature and scope of the business world and advertising, were quite limited. Yet now, the nature and needs of business have changed and so have the concept and practice of advertising.

 

Today, definitions of advertising abound. “Journalists, for example, might define it as a communication, public relations, or persuasion process; businesspeople see it as a marketing process; economists and sociologists tend to focus on its economic, societal, or ethical significance” (Arens, 2005). Each of these perspectives has some merit, but for now, using the following functional definition will be necessary:

 

“Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through various media” (Bovee, 1992).

 

Let’s take this definition apart and analyze its components. First of all, what is non-personal? According to Taflinger (1996), there are two primitive ways to sell: personally and non-personally. Personal selling requires the seller and the buyer to be present, and advertising or non-personal selling, does not. This is because advertising is typically directed to groups of people rather than to individuals. Advertising, as mentioned above, is actually a “very structured form of applied communication, employing both verbal and nonverbal elements that are composed to fill specific space, and time formats determined by the sponsor” (Arens, 2005). “…paid for…” is reasonably straightforward. “If an ad is created and placed in the media, the costs of creation and time or space in the media must be paid for” (Taflinger, 1996). Of course advertising is intended to be persuasive, the word itself is listed on the dictionary as, “being good at persuading someone, to do or believe something through reasoning or the use of temptation” (Oxford, 2014). “The purpose of advertising is to identify, [inform] and differentiate one product from another, in order to persuade the consumer to buy that product in preference to another.” Arens asserted that, in addition to promoting tangible goods (apples, tea bags, books), advertising helps publicize the intangible services of bankers, beauticians, etc. Increasingly, advertising is used to advocate a wide variety of (economic, political, religious, social) ideas (2005).

 

Mohan examined advertising using a different approach that is not similar to other researchers. He is convinced that advertising is not directed at selling but at achieving the objective of gaining acceptance for a worthwhile idea (2008). “It may also be an instrument for developing basic motivations for creating resources for buying goods and services or generating favorable conditions for the acceptance of an idea”. These ideas, which are developed based on research, will be converted into information. Information comes in many forms, whether it is complete or incomplete, biased or deceptive. According to Taflinger (1996), complete information is describing a product in detail to an audience: what it is, what it looks like, how it works, what its benefits and drawbacks are. Nevertheless, it is not used in advertising because information must of necessity be incomplete. This means to not discuss the product in a detailed manner or to be partial towards an argument. Bias information about a product is that which emphasizes the benefits and ignores the poor. By not revealing the drawbacks, advertisers will seem to look as if they understood and could provide human needs. Mohan (2008), explored and analysed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and positioned his own explanation of advertising in it. Advertising has both forward and backward linkages in the process of satisfaction across the entire spectrum of needs. As mentioned, the explicit function of advertising is to make the potential audience aware of the existence of the product, service, or idea which would help them fulfil their felt needs and spell out the differential benefits in a competitive situation. “On advertising also lies the onus, at least marginally, of motivating prospects to strive for creation of resources for fulfilling the needs, or alternatively, to aid reallocation of available resources” (Mohan, 2008). To him, advertising “is a measure of the growth of civilization and indication of the striving of the human race for betterment and perfection”.