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Advertising is regarded with suspicion because of its perceived manipulative powers and its intrusion into our lives. ‘The good, the bad, and the ugly’ looks at the positives and negatives of advertising, including cigarette and alcohol advertising, and brand advertising. Since the middle of the 19th century, advertising has been increasingly regulated by laws and controls. Television advertising was statutorily controlled from its inception. Studies show that brand advertising can be ineffective for products that are well-established and satisfy a basic need. Advertising can sell new brands but its role in social engineering is minimal. Advertising has, however, helped discourage drunken driving and this is due to a strong emotive element. ...Less

Can advertising be moral? The tripartite of advertising (advertisers, media, and agencies) ought to include a fourth element: the public. This is the group the critics of advertising are concerned about when they question the morality and benefits of advertising. The public should be viewed as overlapping and interacting with the other three groups. To explore the morality of advertising it is necessary to explore how advertising affects people. What is the role of advertising in society? It creates employment, provides the public with free and inexpensive media, it supports media independence, it provides information, it pushes prices down and quality up, and it spreads awareness of brands. ...Less

We use the word ‘advertising’ to cover all kinds of publicity. Within the advertising industry the word is used more specifically as one type of marketing communication. Every advertisement attempts to bridge a gap between the sender and receiver. Critics hostile to advertising attempt to draw a line between informative and persuasive advertising but in reality this line is impossible to draw. The core of advertising concerns mass consumer advertising in the major media (television, radio, newspapers, magazines, posters, radio, cinema, and the Internet). What strategy does it employ to achieve its aim? What does the public expect from advertising? ...Less

The second part of the advertising tripartite is the media that carry the advertisements. What is this ‘media’? Since the arrival of the Internet and digitization, advertising media is in a state of flux. When choosing a medium the advertiser needs to ask: how many people does the medium reach? How much does it cost to use that medium? How persuasive is that advertising medium? In the last decade the Internet has taken over a huge share of the advertising market worldwide. Though the relative size and importance of each medium is different from country to country, the fundamentals stay the same. ...Less

Advertising is not a modern phenomenon. Invented in classical Athens, it developed further in Rome, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. After the fall of the Roman Empire, advertising experienced a lull. It reappeared in Britain and France during the 13th century. Paper advertising followed in 1450 after the invention of the printing press. By the 1800s it was so widespread that the British government taxed newspaper advertising. When did illustrations first appear in advertisements? What did the ‘advertising agent’, who first appeared in the 18th century, do? How far back can we trace the notion of the advertising tripartite of the advertisers, the media, and the advertising agencies? ...Less

Some argue that selecting the media and creating advertisements are part of the same process of producing a cost-effective campaign. Creative and media agencies rarely communicate as they should. The personalities and talents of the individuals who work in each agency are very different, which explains why they split. What does the media agency do? How do they find the target market? How do they liaise with the creative agency? The media agency has a dual role: a strategic role in planning the campaign, and a negotiating role in buying the campaign. The media agency needs to look for intelligent ways to spend the available budget. ...Less