Advertising Is a Form of Communication

Abstract

Advertising is a form of communication that attempts to interpret the qualities of products, services and ideas in terms of consumer needs and wants. Some service firms or organizations embrace advertising to achieve goodwill, high market share and sales. This research work is the extent of advertisement on service firm’s profitability. The objective of the study is to examine the impact of advertising as a tool to promote brand image and customer-base equity in order to make profit. It also seeks to study the nature of advertising as well as the relationship between advertising and profitability. It was recommended that service firms should educate their customers through advertisement on the uses, functions and benefits of their products.

This paper further analyses the results of a detail survey of eighty (80) service firms taken from the areas of technology , advertising and marketing, education, banking and finance and legal sectors located in the parishes of Westmoreland, St James and Hanover.

Acknowledgement

The researcher would like to acknowledge the assistance of Miss Brown in the

preparation of this report and in coordinating of many aspects of this research. The researcher further acknowledges the assistance of the managers and directors of the various firms without which this study could not have been carried out. Thanks is also dedicated to the researchers other external personnel’s who found the time to make errands to and from various service firms which aided in the completion of this research.

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

The word advertising comes from the Latin word ‘advertere’ meaning ‘to turn the mind toward’. The word advertisement first appeared around 1665 A. D. it was used as a heading for commercial information by storekeepers. According to Wikipedia, advertising is defined as any paid form of non personal communication about an organization, product, service, or idea by an identified sponsor. Advertising is the non-personal communication of marketing-related information in a target audience, usually paid for by the service firm, in order to reach the specific objectives of the sponsor.

Advertisement is the tool used to communicate ideas, products or services to persuade or inform. Advertisements have two basic features, the message and the medium, which refer to the meaning or information and the method used to communicate, respectively. Bijmolt and Torres (2009) considered advertising to be the most useful tool to attract customers, and expose a company or individual so that they can promote brand images and customer-based brand equities.

According to Thesaurus freedictionary.com, Service firms can be defined as businesses that make its facilities available to others