Advertising - Essay 21

There are many different kinds of advertising (on the radio, on television, in newspapers, in magazines, and on billboards). In your opinion, which one of these kinds of advertising is the most effective? Why? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

All advertising media share a common goal; to reach as many consumers as possible and convince them to buy a certain product. They all employ similar strategies to achieve this objective, but some are more effective than others. In my opinion, television is the most effective because of several advantages it has over other advertising media.

For one thing, I believe television advertising has a greater power to engage its audience than print and radio media have. While print appeals only to the sense of sight and radio only to hearing, television appeals to both sight and hearing simultaneously. Moreover, a television advertisement is a moving film and therefore is quite successful at presenting the illusion of reality. The characters in a television commercial seem alive. For these reasons, we are probably more likely to pay close attention to a television commercial than to a radio commercial or an ad in a magazine.

Secondly, the advantage of television advertising over other advertising media is related to the costs involved in producing television commercials. Because of the extremely high cost of advertising on television, the companies which can afford the expense can also afford to do intensive market research. In other words, they can study market trends and buying habits in order to target a very specific consumer audience.

Finally, of all the advertising media, television reaches the widest audience. With a television in nearly every household and the average person watching several hours of television per day, television presents an enormous possibility of exposing a product to a large number of people.

In conclusion, the advantages of television advertising make it by far the...