COMMUNICATION THROUGH ADVRTISEMENTS: A CRITICAL THINKING

Advertisement is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume a particular brand of products or service. It leaves an alluring influence on people. This is why they feel an urge within themselves to buy a product instantly. In any kind of mission, goals and objectives should be clearly understood else the whole planning will be entirely ineffective regardless of the amount of input resources. However, with the advent of scientific and technological development the advertisement has become diverse and has got new dimension now a day. Accordingly companies try to attract the customers with eye catching advertisement using attractive strategies, persuasive message or tricks. By keeping this in mind when advertising a product in the market, like Mini and Smart, the objectives and consumer profile is kept in mind to make the marketing strategy a hit. Accordingly the first impression of both advertisements shows that the promotions are just tools to communicate brand message and to attract customers directly (Tuckwell, 1998).
Promotional activities and other marketing strategies are carefully formulated in order to gain maximum customer attention and direct focus is needed when an advertisement is planned. There  are no such fixed strategies which retailers or wholesalers can specifically enjoy with, but should always be kept as a pulling devise as to take the number of sales and profit margin at  the highest peak (Bovee et at., 1995). The effectiveness strategies of two well known product mini and smart depends on the aim that each companies is trying to show through advertising the products. Advertisements is made only for motivating customers to make purchase are not likely going to be very fruitful.  Rather if it is designed in such a way that will rise interst in the consumer mind to search for more information or to test t if possible is likely to be more effective in absence of contact or any explanation of sources available.
Every business wants more and more purchase transactions from their targeted audience, but this intention should not shared with the consumers; it should not be shown direly in the advertisement as it will be a disaster in terms of outcome. A better approach is just to create an interest for tying out the product in the minds of customers and just create enough hype so the consumer knows that the product exist in the market.  The both of these two advertisements have differentiated themselves and have an appeal to the potential customers that have created their own features. In the same way Smart and Mini work according to the needs of the potential customer but in their own manner.  In the mini advertisement the mainly concerned thing is on the round corner that helps to turn flawlessly while at the other hand smart speaks about the 90 degrees parking in busy place. Other tricks they have used to show a similarity that includes the use of attractive photography that can draw attention easily to the readers. Both companies carefully perform with camera and use those angles of the photographs which will appeal the potential buyer the most. This will not guarantee a good’s selling but at least would be highly influential.  it is also effective in reinforcing  customer attitude (Cialdini,1993).
Jones (1992) suggested that a successful advertisement campaign has either single or the combination of logical and emotional flavour. Present advertisements work according to the needs of the customer without using these two tactics properly. With the presence of such high class technology in hand, lack of quality and human’s sentiment is purely missing.  From this point of view it can be clearly stated that these two advertisements are trying to use the communication techniques as a basis form to attract customers.
Some strong and promising advert strategies are calculated by Tuckwell (1998) i.e. Testimonials, Endorsements, Product demonstration, Product-as –a-hero, Torture test and Product comparison.
For vehicles and automobiles, usage of Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is highly effective as it completely caters to the needs of an advertisement for the targeted audience as stated by Petty and Cacioppo (1986). It has been found that a vast majority of advertisements in many industries based on emotional appeals Healy (2007). In the case of the adverts in question, the emotional appeal is on the shapes of the cars. This could be enhanced by appealing expressly to the prestige that is attached to the ownership of the cars.

Basically, ELM model explains that ideas can be shaped and changed from low involvement conditions to high involvement conditions with loyalty of certain brand. The motive behind the implementation of ELM model here is that the contrived advertisement will demonstrate the reason virtually as for why the watching audience should purchase the car just. Its aim is to delicately generate the attitudinal and behavioural brand loyalty aroma. Depending on the effectiveness advertisers will use appeals. They can choose the informational and transformational or in between them (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
 When concerned with emotional appeal that is present in any advertisement, it can either be positive like pride and happiness while negative emotions include broadcasting fear and harm (Witte, 1993). Thus, the ELM model clearly uses the positive and high energetic, emotional appeal towards buying the showcased car to its customers. Aaker et al (1992) has also stated that this methodology mould up emotional appeal techniques according to the perception the viewers have set in their minds as then the success rate would be quite pleasing for the vehicle manufacture and the subscribed advertising agent company.
The success of an advertisement solely depends upon how effectively the campaign has conveyed its objective to the viewer or the targeted customers.  The Elaboration likelihood model in this case plays a crucial role for the effectiveness of advertisements where two basic methods of persuasion are used. The central route of persuasion focuses on careful evaluation of persuasive communication by the customers as it requires high elaboration approach and is attached with the high involvement of purchases.  According to Petty and Cacioppo (1986), they think that when the central route (mainly consist of ideas and concepts related to the advertised product) are communicated perfectly, the success rate is like to be high. This is all because the audiences were presented with some logical stuff which they thought were respectable and were highly appreciated (Benoit et al., 2001).
On the contrary, one of the main disadvantages of using the central route is that the audience should get highly influenced by the broadcasted concept via means of advertisement because not only the sales of a product would reach the sky and will maintain its position for a longer time, but sense of brand loyalty would rise among the customers.
The two advertisements are more relevant to the peripheral route of persuasion as they use low elaboration message that are irrelevant to the actual content presented in the advertisement to attract potential customers. These two advertisements deliver a mix of marketing and public relations. As clear, no doubt peripheral persuasions are able to bring out behavioural changes to the customers but they need to be repeated frequently to get the effective result that can have a long lasting effect (Marketini, 2010).
Evaluation is a vital element of a communication campaign that may repeat of pre-campaign research to review the attitude of customers. With the increasing competition the major challenges within the industry is the brand image, brand Name, brand design, brand communications. It is considered that a strong brand image is an organization’s most valuable assets online and offline. In doing so the target market focused on those people who are not pleased with the other product. In addition to this maintaining high quality and consistency with the product design, image that can show an effective means of communication. That also helps to increase loyal customers of the brand (Berkowitz, 2007).
Advertisement of products helped customers as a medium communication to know more about these two product’s features. The planning approaches started with the understanding customer needs, wants, values and their perceptions. The advertisements mainly focused on the audience choice, needs, wants, values and their perceptions and determining this can lead to increase the effectiveness of the campaign (Kotler & Armstrong, 2008). As a result of changing consumer tastes and their mind companies today are facing new marketing challenges that call for new thinking and solutions. Analyzing the perception of customers and their behaviours about the products is the main concern to anticipate the customer perception properly. As customers are the main focus of the advertisements without analyzing or identifying their requirements or perception that what they and will satisfy their need or demand the business cannot be succeed. As a result while setting target market specific customer segments need to be addressed as their demand or want is changing time to time. This analysis helps the business to coordinate each other. The idea on these two advertisements emphasized on the market oriented, collaborative approach that might assist marketers to cope with these challenges. Theories suggest that the attitudes and perception of customers varies depending ontheir awareness, knowledge or preference. Consequently in the two advertisements Mini targets people who know how to keep pace with the technologies offered by the car on the other hand smart targets women who wish to drive a small vehicle in busy cities. Generally the target markets of mini vehicles include mostly the college students who have deep passion for technology and want variations, terrific performance, like variety of models, amazing top speed, want impressive specifications. On the whole the most  important thing is that that attract customers is that it has the capability to turn flawless at any corner of the road making sure that buyer have a smooth and no bumpy ride. On the contrary for smart car the target market basically focuses on the customers that adhere to lifestyles and that contributing to the green life and is concentrate on the improvement on the environment.  In addition to this there is a little space for parking as a result the small size with 90 degree parking attracts buyer to purchase who often do shopping. That is why a specific market segment has established. These two sorts of differentiation lead to different market orientation (Tuckwell, 1998).
Branding aim is to add value to a product. It helps consumers or buyers to identify the product that might benefit them and it also tells about the quality and consistency of the product. And advertising is more than any other business function deals with attracting customers and encourage them to buy the product. It is tactical tool kit for establishing strong positioning in the target market. In order to convey the message major medium like television, magazines, newspapers, video games, the internet and billboards at place like airports, doctor’s office and busy places can be used. However, in targeting customers there were some class of using the cars. Generally aged people are not using the car and as a result more emphasis on the current users. In order to make loyal of the customers new model, features are offering but even though some customers segment basically who have already uses these car and want to taste another cars are switching to another brand as gas price has been increase as a result therefore timing couldn’t be better (Jones, 1986).
In addition to this competitors always try to attract more customers than other companies. But the specific features allow to customers to buy the vehicle include high safety sensors with round corner in mini cooper and 90 degree parking which is know has differentiated them from competitors’ products. More importantly they are providing safety and consider environmental condition such as with low noise, harness and vibrations. This additional features allow customers that it will benefit them (Kotler, 2003).
















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