What Are The Advantages Of Print Advertising In India

What are the advantages of print advertising? How does it apply to your country?

Print advertising is a different from televisions and other motion, sound etc. form of advertising. Print media is a form of advertising that conveys one message topic at a time with a solitary thought or idea. Examples of print advertising are done through magazines or newspapers. Print advertising has many benefits that are used for strategic purposes. In general the advantages of print advertising are the following:-

Ð'* Provides more and detailed information. For example, people who cannot afford a TV or no time rely on newspapers for accurate news and therefore advertisements can easily reach to these audiences.

Ð'* The availability of the message is unlimited in terms of time.

Ð'* Guaranteed that the information is unlikely to change.

Ð'* Easy to reach to a specified target audience. For example, basketball shoes advertised in a sports magazine to reach to the "athletic" audience.

Ð'* Easy to reach to a mass audience. For example, a product that has just been introduced into the market looking to set a foundation in the market. In India, newly opened IB curriculum Ganga International School has advertised to reach the mass audience in India mainly through newspapers and magazines like Today. They have also advertised their school through state magazines which reaches out to local cultures and expresses the benefits in the local common language. The messages created are delivered with clarity.

Ð'* Print form of advertising also is an ideal medium to carry any add-on elements like coupons, samples, contact information etc. For example a cologne advertisement in magazines usually attached to a sample paper with its smell on it. Another example, in India food menus are attached to newspapers sold in stands next to offices where office goers can order their daily meal.

Like I mentioned above, there are many different mediums of print advertising and each carry their own advantages: -

Newspapers: - In general let us look at the obvious advantages of newspapers. They allow you to reach to a huge number of people in a given geographic area, flexibility in choosing the ad size and the placement of the ad in the newspaper, it can be as large as you need it to be and communicate as much information as you need to convey, readers can go back to your ad again and again meaning the exposure of the ad is not limited like TV commercials for example, your firm can take quick turns in adapting to the market changes and conditions as it takes just one to two days to run another ad and such. Newspapers as we know are very cheap to purchase and but can create similar impacts to that of other print media, delivering the message and becoming successful.

Advantages

- Cover many geographic regions from international, to within the country or even distributed only locally. This means that its range of market coverage is vast and can be used to introduce a new product for low costs. For example, the advantage of the Times of India, an English newspaper distributed nation wide, was the best medium used by Honda when it introduced its new Eliminator bike, to reach out to all parts of India. It delivered the message clearly by stating that you can pick up your Eliminator at the nearest Honda showroom. In addition, Honda could also have used the advantages of local newspapers as they are cheaper and their target audience is more segmented. They could advertise locally and create a closer relationship with the culture, by communicating in the language they speak etc. When distributing locally means cutting down the target audience to a certain culture. For example, Vintner Wine which is produced and distributed only locally in the state of Meghalaya advertises its product on local newspapers. These newspapers reach out to the local market where the brand is available for its customers. Instead of advertising through a nation wide newspaper does not make sense because the product is only available within the state, so advertising in local newspapers then do the work and concentrate on the region where there is availability for Vintner Wine.

- For products with a very obvious competitive advantage will benefit from comparison shopping by consumers. In other words your product with the obvious competitive advantage will put consumers who are yet to decide on what to buy to finally know that your product is worth your purchase. For example, Honda manufactures bikes which have unquestionably higher mileage, cost effective, more facilities and better servicing than the Bajaj. When Honda advertises its bikes it highlights its advantages over the Bajaj and so in result when people reading are trying to make up their minds, they will definitely look for the bike with better specifications and services, which in this case is Honda.

- Newspapers are as we know are up to date and provide credible information to readers and because of their positive outlook on the news they perceive the advertisements in the same way as well. For example, in India when there is a job posting in the classified section, because not all are computer literate or they do not own a computer, the most popular way for human resource of a firm to reach out to the unemployed is through newspapers.

- Like mentioned, newspapers are geographically flexible where advertisers can choose in which markets to advertise. Newspapers also offer production flexibility where advertisers can choose from full page ads, black and white ads, supplements (newsletters attached). For example, North East Bottling is a small firm which was established for distribution and has been advertised in local newspapers. Their tight budgets had been restricted to half a page black and white ads. This flexibility gave North East Bottling the flexibility to choose format and size of the ads.

- Newspapers are a way to reach out to many audiences and in addition provide a link between the national advertiser and the local retailer. The local retailer can advertise the product similar to the nationalized advertising campaign.

- Newspapers most of the time have a short life span, but in some cases where they are used for references can be stored for long. For example, in libraries newspapers and other similar sources are stored.

- Coupons, discount coupons and other such other supplements are used often to advertise products and this is an accurate way of measuring the impact of the advertisement. For example, Lay's potato