Advertising, as well as publicity, is a form of communication whose purpose is to fix the attention of a target (consumer, user, user, voter, etc.), to encourage to adopt a desired behavior: buying a product, election of a politician, encouraging energy conservation, etc. For example, the name of a business, a shop, or a brand, does not automatically imply a publicity act. But it becomes from the moment the intention is sought deliberately to attract attention to the mentioned and / or object to suggest to go to a particular place.
Advertising, “action to make public ” or “state of what is public ” has taken the modern sense of “all means used to publicize a product, industrial or commercial enterprise” in 1830. This date therefore links the development of advertising to the industrialization and the growth of consumer markets.
The advertising is not limited to consumer goods or services. It can also promote men and women boast a tourist place, a governmental organization, as well as sports or cultural events organization. Advertising can target behavior change and the promotion of values considered positive and beneficial to the company level, warn against drugs, encourage respect for the environment, or promote road safety.
“Neither science, nor art,” advertising is a largely empirical technique borrowed from economics sociology and psychology, which tests his insights via panels and market research. Creativity is the heart but it is not an art. Free and impartiality are its default states.
The issue of comparative advertising today is still a debated topic: if the concept itself meets a real echo in the public and consumer groups, the practical implementation of the idea remains controversial.
Most of authors relate or equate advertising a phenomenon peculiar to modern societies propaganda. Within the company, it increases trade and accelerates the diffusion of new products and technical innovations and is a very important economic weight. Many national laws prevent its potential abuses. Toxic or hazardous to health are prohibited from advertising in some countries (tobacco, for example), while at the same regulation protects certain categories of people, especially children, by banning pornographic advertising and strictly governing advertising for them.
So-called anti-advertising movement denounced the advertising invasion fueling criticism and offering a variety of actions to “protect themselves.”
Translated and adapted from Wikipedia under GNU Free Documentation License.
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