Broadcast Advertising

Generally speaking, broadcast advertising is radio, television, and Internet advertising. The commercials aired on radio and televisions are an essential part of broadcast advertising.

The broadcast media like radio and television reaches a wider audience as opposed to the print media. The radio and television commercials fall under the category of mass marketing as the national as well as global audience can be reached through it.

The role of broadcast advertising is to persuade consumers about the benefits of the product. It is considered as a very effective medium of advertising. The cost of advertising on this channel depends on the time of the commercial and the specific time at which it is aired. For example, the cost of an ad in the premium slot will be greater than in any other slot.

A radio ad must be aired several times before it actually sinks in the minds of the consumers. Thus the frequency of the ad is important. The type of your target audience is also important. Therefore, one must do a research on which type of audience listens to which channels if they want the ads to be successful. The voice talent in the commercial should be taken keeping in mind the type of audience and the type of commercial.

The television advertising is usually considered the advertising for the corporate giant, though even the small businesses can benefit from it. A strong audio and video combination is a must for the success of the commercial. But it is also important that the audio and video should function well without each other. For example, if a person is not viewing the TV but just listening to it, s/he should get the idea and vice versa.

It is extremely important that whatever has been advertised in the commercial is true. For this reason, organizations such as Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are there to monitor the commercials on television and radio. This ensures that the advertisers are not making any false claims to lure consumers to buy their products.

Most of the radio and television advertisements are paid though there are some public service ads which can be aired for free. The advertisers usually have to pay for the spot which lasts for 30 seconds. In rare cases, this spot can increase to 60 seconds too.

These days radio and television ads are prepared by advertising agencies for their clients. They understand the need of the client and make the commercial keeping in mind the current state of affairs. Broadcast advertising has become a very essential part of marketing in recent times. Companies allocate specific budget for radio and television ads and make an estimate of how much revenue they can earn through broadcast advertising. For example, marketing consultants are hired to determine the return on investment (ROI) for spending on radio and television ads. Sometimes the marketing consultants of these businesses run sample ads to judge its popularity among the viewers.

Internet or online advertising uses the Internet or the World Wide Web for the purpose of attracting consumers to buy their product and services. Examples of such advertising include ads on search engine result pages, rich media ads, banner ads, social network advertising, and email marketing and so on. Online advertising has its benefits, one of them being immediate publishing of the commercial and the availability of the commercial to a global audience. But along with the benefits come the disadvantages too. These days, advertisers put distracting flashing banners or send across email spam messages to the people on a mass scale. This can annoy the consumers and even the real ads might get ignored in the process. Therefore, ethics in advertising is very important for it to be successful.

Whatever the mode of advertising, broadcast advertising is an inherent part of any advertising campaign these days.