In my view, advertisement is an introduction or letting know about something new of ourselves or what we have to others so that it is familiar to them. Advertisement is a means employed to attract the customers, create awareness and educate customers about the usage and benefits of products, and create the demand. This is because when we see the advertisement, the thought of buying and consuming the product generates and therefore it boosts the sale, etc. Advertisement is a must and important in every field, be it the profit oriented or nonprofit oriented businesses, governmental or non-governmental organizations. It is required everywhere for promotion and creating awareness. Without advertisement it is nearly impossible for the consumers to know about the business or organizations. It gives the businesses and firms a competitive edge because customers are attracted toward those brands and product which are advertised often.
Advertisement can bring good image as well as bad image to the brand, relating to the ethical and unethical advertisement. An example of such can be the beauty products which usually discriminate and look down at dark skin people. Advertisements about tobacco and alcohol, which can influence the viewers to try consuming it, despite it being harmful to human health is another example of unethical advertisement. But most of the time, the viewers fail to understand the concept of the advertisement and this can generate negative feelings towards the products, brand and the company’s image. This is why; advertisements should be carefully planned and designed so that it does not hurt any viewers.
An advertisement about various types of mutual funds, financial loans, financial institutes, etc. helps the viewers to invest their income or procure financial support from various available financial institutions. Advertisements like sanitization, different health care institutes, different health care products and bands like Amway, Lifebuoy, Dettol, medicinal products, etc. educates the viewers to be clean and hygienic and stay healthy. These types of advertisements benefit the viewers and the society.
Advertisements can be expensive because it uses various advertising tools like Mass Media, Print Media, and employs lots of human resources, etc. and so it becomes difficult for the small businesses to afford the advertisement cost and this makes the small businesses to limit their business to expand and face tough competition in the market. However, since it needs lots of human resources for advertisement, it provides employment which automatically helps the economy of an individual and the country.
Using mass communication like television, radio, newspaper, internet, etc. can be effective and productivebecause advertisement can reach out to different corners of the world. At the same time, it saves time and money of the advertisers because of the following reasons: i) theydon’t need to go personally from place to place to advertise, ii) it would save them lot of time to cover the areas, iii) it would save them money that typically would be spent for transportation and iv) because of other resources required for advertisement and to manage these expenses, the business firms will increase the price of their products and the consumers will suffer. Thus, through advertisement, that can be avoided. Therefore, we can say that advertisement is a benefit for both the advertiser and the viewers.
Let us look at the situation in Nagaland. I wonder how many of you know that Nagaland has entrepreneurs coming up with various high standard products. To be very honest, I am also clueless about many of the qualitative products, made in Nagaland. Thus, I believe that lack of advertising agency or firm is one of the reasons. The scope of advertisements in Nagaland is very marginal and non-existent unless one is active in the social media like Facebook or Instagram. Advertising agencies are those agencies which are fully focused on collection of information for creating, designing, coordinating and delivering advertisements for various businesses and organizations. These agencies take all the effort to sell the products of their client and thus helping the companies reach their target customers in the most convenient way.
All companies can do advertisements by themselves but it is true that “one cannot serve two masters at a time”. Therefore, they hire the advertising agencies to do advertisement because these agencies are experts in advertising field. They have a team of different people of different functions such as copywriters, art directors, graphic designers, media channels, etc. These agencies make the optimum use of this people and develop the most suitable advertisement for their client and the customers in the most economical way.
According to my personal perspective, there should be good advertising agencies in Nagaland so that even our Naga businesses and entrepreneurs can grow and expand their businesses. And through this, our local businesses can grow beyond our border, nationally and internationally.
