Advertising
Advertising is publicity but not all publicity is advertising. It is the business of selling goods, services and ideas by inducing people to want them. It is drawing attention of public by big public announcement t o a commodity or service with the aim of selling it.
Advertising may also be defined as the purchase of space in the
press, or time over the radio and television to promote the sale of products
or ideas, and to build up the corporate image of an institution. Advertising is
one of the forces of modernisation and cuts across Ideologies.
Any advertising campaign should contain in it the broad ingredent of
public interest. The specific categories of public interest advertising are:
1. Corporate Advertising
It explains the continuing research, engineering and management
efforts a company makes to improve its products or services. It can be
called the voice of management speaking not only to customers, but also
to investors, suppliers, distributors, employees -present and potential – and
leaders of public opinion.
2. Public Relations Advertising
It discusses the problems, policies, social philosophy, or economic
goals of a company or industry, illuminates some aspect of the Nation’s
scene; discusses the basic principles of its enterprise, notably with respect
to foreign collaboration for the reader to shed light on the economy or the
society in which he lives.
3. Public Service Advertising
It is designed to promote voluntary individual actions to solve national
problems such as better roads, prevention of floods, better health care,
family planning and rehabilitation of the handicapped. Also encouraging
cultural activities, tourism, secularism, buying of Unit Trust Certificates,
voting in national elections, reducing prejudices, and other worthwhile
causes.
Publicity
Publicity is the technique of ‘telling the story’ of any organisation or
cause. It is the umbrella term which in its meaning covers all the
techniques employed to get a story across to the public. It is weapon of
war, an instrument of sales, a tool of politics. Basically publicity is news.
It has to be news, that is, be of interest to be carried. Publicity includes
advertising because advertising, like publicity, tells the story. But in
general usage, publicity is used to describe those expressions where the
medium is not paid for; whereas advertising consists of paying for the
medium to get the story told.
Advertising vis-a-vis Publicity
If public relations may be broadly considered, as it is by many, as the
act of right living, or ‘being a good citizen’, publicity is the act of telling the
world about right living or good citizenship.
The role of public relations is to make a light worth projecting. The
art of publicity is the act of projecting the light.
Propaganda
Propaganda describes the political application of publicty and adver-
tising ,also on a large scale, to the end of selling an idea, cause, or
candidate or all three.
It was first given general currency by the Roman Catholic Church
to refer to the dissemination of its doctrines.
There are two types of propaganda. The rational propaganda in
favour of action that is in consonance with the enlightened self-interest of
those who make it and those to whom it is addressed. The other is non-rational propaganda that is not consonant with anybody’s enlightened self-interest but is dictated by, and appeals to, passion.
Diplomacy
The Oxford English Dictionary calls it the management of interna-
tional relations by negotiation’, or, ‘the method by which these relations
are adjusted and managed.’
Sir Ernest Satow’s ‘Guide to Diplomatic Practice’, a sound work
which has been the Bible of British Diplomats for many years, wrote
Diplomacy is the application of intelligence and tact to the conduct of
official relations between the governments of independent states.
Promotion
Promotion describes commercialisation of publicity, and publicity
and advertising jointly, usually on a grand and co-ordinated scale, to the
end of selling a product or products.
Campaigns
Campaigns consist of concerted, single-purpose publicity programmes,
usually on a more or less elaborate scale, employing co-ordinated publicity
through a variety of media, aimed at a number of targets, but focussed
on specific objectives. A campaign objective may be the election of a
candidate, the promulgation of a political issue or cause, the reaching of
a sales goal, or the raising of a quota of funds.
Lobbying
Lobbying is a kind of tool generally used by a group of persons like
members of legislatures who conduct a campaign outside the legislative
chamber, that is, at the lobby, to influence members to vote according to
the group’s special interest; it is also used by shareholders of business
corporations during the Annual General Body Meetings to pass a
‘resolution’ or elect a ‘director’ to the ‘board’ in the interests of a group
of shareholders.
In a basic sense, lobbying entails the exertion of influence, smooth
and measured pressure and any other exercise of persuasion-cum-
pressure. In essense, it means a group putting its point of view forward
in an attempt to win the other group’s support.
Public Affairs
Public Affairs may be defined broadly as a significant and substantial
concern and involvement by individuals, business, labour, foundations,
private institutions and government with the social, economic and political
forces that singly or through interaction shape the environment within
which the free enterprises exist.
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