Advertising: Product Display And Profitability
The essence of being in business by any business outfits is to
produce for sales and profits. In order to remain in business an
organization must generate enough sales from its products to
cover operating costs and post reasonable profits. See samples of
Free research projects for students on advertising. For many
organizations, sales estimate is the starting point in budgeting or
profit. It is so because it must be determined, in most cases,
before production units could be arrived at while production units
will in turn affect material purchases. However, taking decision on
sales is the most difficult tasks facing many business executives.
This is because it is difficult to predict, estimate or determine with
accuracy, potential customers’ demands as they are
uncontrollable factors external to an organization. Considering,
therefore, the importance of sales on business survival and the
connection between customers and sales, it is expedient for
organizations to engage in programs that can influence
consumers’ decision to purchase its products. This is where
advertising and brand management are relevant. Advertising is a
subset of promotion mix which is one of the 4ps in the marketing
mix i.e. product, price, place and promotion. As a promotional
strategy, advertising serves as a major tool in creating product
awareness and condition the mind of a potential consumer to take
eventual purchase decision. Advertising is a form of
communication through mass media about product, services or
ideas paid for by an identified sponsor. Since communication is
transfer of idea, attitude, information, mood, and so on from one
person to another through a medium: it may be quite correct to
define advertising as a form of communication. This is because in
advertising, persuasive messages about the products, service or
idea are made through a channel. This no doubt is similar to the
communication process of a source sending a message through a
channel to a receiver for a feedback.
In Nigerian economy, many manufacturers attempt to
stimulate the demand for their products (goods/services). They
are not satisfied merely to produce and trust to the chance that
consumers will become aware of their products through the
impersonal interplay of the market. It is believed that if a better
product is produced, consumers will not necessarily take special
pain of informing themselves of its existence, its worth, its
satisfying qualities and where it can be purchased. See samples
of project topics and materials on product display.
Advertising provides information that facilitates the job of the
seller, helps customer make quick decision, informs customer of
the presence of a product, price which it is being sold and
placement (where it is available) thereby giving room for
economy of time, energy and money in trying to look for the
product. It also announces a new product, indicates new uses of
existing products, reminds customer of an existing product, about
the desirable qualities, stimulates or generates enquires and
builds corporate image to mention a few. The effectiveness of
these is expected to result in increased sales and profit. Profit can
be viewed as the excess of total revenue over and above the total
cost. Profit making in any organization is a function of many
factors. There is prudence in vigorously and diligently pursuing
organizational goals and objectives. One of such goals is
maximization of the wealth of the owners in an environment
where social responsibility is openly embraced.
ADVERTISING
Advertising is impersonal communication of information about
products, services or ideas through the various media, and it is
usually persuasive by nature and paid by identified sponsors it
consists all activities that involve presenting to a group, non-
personal, oral or visual sponsored messages regarding a product,
service or idea “Advertising is directed to groups of people and is
therefore non-personal. Companies usually sponsor advertising in
order to convince the public that their products will benefit them.
More so, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services,
companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. Marketers see
advertising as part of an overall promotional strategy. Other
components of the promotional mix include publicity, public
relations, personal selling and sales promotion. Advertising allows
a company to tell the benefits of a product to a potential
customer. Advertising can be in a newspaper or magazine, on
radio or TV, a billboard, internet or a variety of other means.
Advertising is generally paid for, as opposed to publicity, which is
usually free.
FUNCTIONS OF ADVERTISING
There are four main functions of advertising:
1. Economical function: The nature of the economical function
of advertising is first of all to stimulate sales and increase the
volume of profits from the sale of a certain product for a certain
unit of time. Advertising informs, creates the need for a product
or service, and encourages people to purchase. The more people
have responded to the ad, the better it is for the economy and the
economical wellbeing of society.
2. Social function: Advertising information has a significant
impact on the formation of the consciousness of each individual.
When advertising is addressed to consumers, besides the
promotion of a product, it also helps to form ideological values of
the society and at the end has an effect on the character of social
relations causes consumer instincts, encouraging people to
improve their financial state, improves the culture of
consumption. Comparing different products and services, the
consumer, in any case, tends to get really the best.
3. Marketing function: Advertising is an important component
of marketing. Advertising entirely connected to the tasks of
marketing, whose final aim is the full satisfaction of customer
needs concerning goods and services.
4. Communicating function: Advertising is also one of the
specific forms of communication. It is designed to perform an
appropriate communicating function, linking together advertisers
and consumer audience by the means of information channels.
PRODUCT DISPLAY
Retail product displays are the fixtures in your store that hold or
promote your products. The look of retail product displays relies
heavily on your visual merchandising strategy. You or your visual
merchandiser can arrange displays to showcase your products
and increase sales. The merchandise display happens to be a
special presentation of the products of a store that is used to
attract and even entice consumers. A well designed display
will infuse exactly the right message into the minds of consumers.
And if your display is placed in strategic areas of the store, your
product can be exposed to a lot more potential customers than if
it's sitting on a shelf.
PROFITABILITY
Profitability is the primary goal of all business ventures. This is
simply a cash transaction between the business and the lender to
generate cash for operating the business or buying assets.
Profitability is a measurement of efficiency – and ultimately its
success or failure. A further definition of profitability is a
business's ability to produce a return on an investment based on
its resources in comparison with an alternative investment.
THE EFFECT OF ADVERTISING AND PROFITABILITY
The role play by advertising in the sales growth of an organization
cannot be treated with just a wave of hand. Sales promotion in
the form of advertising in promoting product and service
awareness among consumers cannot be overstressed.
Advertisement provides a platform for firms to create awareness
about their products or services and how consumers can make
the best out of such products. Thus, for advertising to be
effective, it must have an appeal, attract attention, commands
interest, inspire conviction and must provoke interest.
Advertising is an important tool of marketing as it helps the
business achieve competitive advantage by selling its products
and overcoming the rivals. Companies spend money on the
advertisements and publicity in order to make sure that the
masses are aware of its products, their features and advantages
over the competitors. Basic purpose of advertisement is to
increase the sales of the advertised products/companies.
Logically there has to be an impact of advertisement on sales
because that is the reason why companies resort to advertising
spending. What remains to be seen is though, which companies
spend (more heavily) on advertising and which do not. A company
that has a higher amount of sales revenue can afford to spend
more on advertisements when compared to a company with lower
sales revenue.
CONCLUSION
Companies need not only to produce good quality products, but
also to inform consumers about their benefits, as well as to
achieve clear positioning of their products in the minds of the
consumers. In order to make a new product to succeed, it must
have the desired parameters for consumers, to be unique, and
consumers should have the information about its characteristics.
To do this, companies need to use different means of promotion
that is an essential part of a series of the marketing activities, a
kind of information output to the consumer. The main way of
promoting of products is the advertising. Advertising is any paid
by a specific sponsor form of non-personal presentation and
promotion of ideas, goods and services. Organizations use
advertising to tell about themselves, about their products and
services, or about some of their activities for an audience
selected in a certain way and with the hope that this message will
cause a responding reaction.