Publicitatea Alternativă, Media Neconvențională și Creativitatea

ALTERNATIVE ADVERTISING, UNCONVENTIONAL MEDIA AND CREATIVITY

Introduction

Through this paper I want to prove that advertising is more complex or difficult than it appears in the eyes of the consumer and to study the alternative advertising, with focus on unconventional media and the creativity of this process. I resorted to scientific literature and critical work in order to fully understand the way advertising functions and try to uncover the internal relationship which gives language its form and functions within media.

The paper is structured in three main chapters. The first chapter contains an overview of the phenomenon of advertising: what it represents, its evolution in time, the means of communication in commercial advertising and the objectives of advertising in a postmodern society. It present in a detailed manner how advertising affects the consumers, what it does for business and society, underlining the fact that despite that advertising is an essential instrument for economic growth it has its social costs. It highlights the functions of advertising as a means of mass communication and emphasized the fact that advertising plays the role of an intermediary between the products and the customers.

The second chapter is meant to distinguish the main features of the advertising discourse, throughout the channels provided by media and especially the unconventional media.

The third chapter represents a personal research in which I emphasize the fact that the language of advertising in unconventional media uses common words with both literal and emotional value, while casting light on the aspects of layout. It questions the normality of the language used in advertising and reveals the fact they the language used in advertising has its occasional artful deviations. It also lays accent on the issue of intertextuality in order to prove that it is an essential component of the advertising message and it sets no boundaries.

The paper will come to an end with conclusions and references.

It is my hope that I have managed to demonstrate that writing this paper enabled me to raise awareness of the complexity and power of this great mechanism of advertising but also provided me an incentive for a different approach to my own experience.

Chapter 1. Overview on advertising

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Definition and short history of advertising

For most specialists advertising includes the techniques and practices used to bring products, services, opinions, or causes to public notice for the purpose of persuading the public to respond in a certain way toward what is advertised. Most advertising involves promoting a good that is for sale, but similar methods are used to encourage people to drive safely, to support various charities, or to vote for political candidates, among many other examples. Advertising represents a form of communication whose purpose is to inform potential customers about products and services and how to obtain and use them. Many advertisements are designed to generate increased consumption of products and services through the creation and reinforcement of brand image and brand loyalty. For these purposes advertisements often contain both factual information and persuasive messages. Every major medium is used to deliver these messages, including: television, radio, movies, magazines, newspapers, video games, the Internet (Internet advertising), and billboards. Advertising is often placed by an advertising agency on behalf of a company. Advertisements can also be seen on the seats of grocery carts, on the walls of an airport walkway, on the sides of buses, heard in telephone hold messages and in-store public address systems. Advertisements are usually placed anywhere an audience can easily and frequently have access: visuals and/or audio and print. Organizations which frequently spend large sums of money on advertising but do not strictly sell a product or service to the general public include: political parties, interest groups, religion-supporting organizations, and militaries looking for new recruits. Additionally, some non-profit organizations are not typical advertising clients and rely upon free channels, such as public service announcements.

Advertising spending has increased dramatically in recent years. According to Nielsen’s quarterly Global AdView Pulse report, global advertising in 2011 totaled USD 498 billion (mainly based on published rate cards and four traditional media types), and Q4 2011 closed with 131 billion, up 6.2 percent over the same period in 2010.

While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth, it is not without social costs. Unsolicited Commercial Email and other forms of spam have become so prevalent as to have become a major nuisance to users of these services, as well as being a financial burden on internet service providers. Advertising is increasingly invading public spaces, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation.

In the ancient and medieval world such advertising as existed was conducted orally. The first step toward modern advertising came with the development of printing in the 15th and 16th centuries. In the 17th century weekly newspapers in London began to carry advertisements, and by the 18th century such advertising was flourishing. The great expansion of business in the 19th century was accompanied by the growth of an advertising industry; it was that century, primarily in the United States of America, that saw the establishment of advertising agencies. The first agencies were, in essence, brokers for space in newspapers. But by the early 20th century agencies became involved in producing the advertising message itself, including copy and artwork, and by the 1920s agencies had come into being that could plan and execute complete advertising campaigns, from initial research to copy preparation to placement in various media. In many countries advertising is the most important source of income for the media (e.g., newspapers, magazines, or television stations) through which it is conducted. In the 20th century noncommunist world advertising has become a large and important service industry.

There are eight principal media for advertising. Perhaps the most basic medium is the newspaper, which offers advertisers large circulations, a readership located close to the advertiser's place of business, and the opportunity to alter their advertisements on a frequent and regular basis. Magazines, the other chief print medium, may be of general interest or they may be aimed at specific audiences (such as people interested in outdoor sports or computers or literature) and offer the manufacturers of products of particular interest to such people the chance to make contact with their most likely customers. Many national magazines publish regional editions, permitting a more selective targeting of advertisements. In Western industrial nations the most pervasive media are television and radio. Although in some countries radio and television are state-run and accept no advertising, in others advertisers are able to buy short "spots" of time, usually a minute or less in duration. Advertising spots are broadcast between or during regular programs, at moments sometimes specified by the advertiser and sometimes left up to the broadcaster. For advertisers the most important facts about a given television or radio program are the size and composition of its audience. The size of the audience determines the amount of money the broadcaster can charge an advertiser, and the composition of the audience determines the advertiser's choice as to when a certain message, directed at a certain segment of the public, should be run.

The other advertising media include direct mail, which can make a highly detailed and personalized appeal; outdoor billboards and posters; transit advertising, which can reach the millions of users of mass-transit systems; and miscellaneous media, including dealer displays and promotional items such as matchbooks or calendars. For an advertisement to be effective its production and placement must be based on a knowledge of the public and a skilled use of the media. Advertising agencies serve to orchestrate complex campaigns whose strategies of media use are based on research into consumer behavior and demographic analysis of the market area. A strategy will combine creativity in the production of the advertising messages with canny scheduling and placement, so that the messages are seen by, and will have an effect on, the people the advertiser most wants to address. Given a fixed budget, advertisers face a basic choice: they can have their message seen or heard by many people fewer times, or by fewer people many times. This and other strategic decisions are made in light of tests of the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. There is no dispute over the power of advertising to inform consumers of what products are available. In a free-market economy effective advertising is essential to a company's survival, for unless consumers know about a company's product they are unlikely to buy it.

In criticism of advertising it has been argued that the consumer must pay for the cost of advertising in the form of higher prices for goods; against this point it is argued that advertising enables goods to be mass marketed, thereby bringing prices down. It has been argued that the cost of major advertising campaigns is such that few firms can afford them, thus helping these firms to dominate the market; on the other hand, whereas smaller firms may not be able to compete with larger ones at a national level, at the local level advertising enables them to hold their own. Finally, it has been argued that advertisers exercise an undue influence over the regular contents of the media they employ–the editorial stance of a newspaper or the subject of a television show. In response it has been pointed out that such influence is counteracted, at least in the case of financially strong media firms, by the advertiser's reliance on the media to convey his messages; any compromise of the integrity of a media firm might result in a smaller audience for his advertising.

1.2. The Evolution of Advertising b#%l!^+a?

Advertising is without questioning, almost as old as commerce. If the product is on sale, the first condition for it to survive on the market is to be known and recognized. Back in the days, it used to be enough to have a sign outside, above the shop`s door. But where did it all begin?

According to Mark Tungate, commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of ancient Arabia. Egyptians used papyrus to create sales messages and wall posters, while lost-and-found advertising on papyrus was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America. The tradition of wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock-art paintings that date back to 4000 BC. As printing developed in the 15th and 16th century, advertising expanded to include handbills. In the 17th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England. These early print advertisements were used mainly to promote: books and newspapers, which became increasingly affordable with advances in the printing press.

The first ad, considered as such, appeared in 1472. It was written in English and it consisted of a small piece of paper, manually distributed, that announced the sale of a prayers` book. 200 years later, the first newspaper ad was published, throughout which a reward was granted for recovering 12 stolen horses. In the American colonies, the first newspaper that was published on a regular basis, Boston News-Letter, began to publish its first ads in 1704.

As the economy expanded during the 19th century, advertising grew alongside. In the United States, the success of this advertising format eventually led to the growth of mail-order advertising. In 1841, the first advertising agency was established by Volney Palmer in Boston. At first, agencies were brokers for advertisement space in newspapers. N. W. Ayer & Son was the first full-service agency to assume responsibility for advertising content. N.W. Ayer opened in 1875, and was located in Philadelphia. At the turn of the century, there were few career choices for women in business; however, advertising was one of the few. Since women were responsible for most of the purchasing done in their household, advertisers and agencies recognized the value of women's insight during the creative process. In fact, the first American b#%l!^+a?advertising to use a sexual sell was created by a woman – for a soap product.

When radio stations began broadcasting in the early 1920s, the programs nearly exploded. This was so because the first radio stations were established by radio equipment manufacturers and retailers who offered programs in order to sell more radios to consumers. As time passed, many non-profit organizations followed suit in setting up their own radio stations, and included: schools, clubs and civic groups. When the practice of sponsoring programs was popularized, each individual radio program was usually sponsored by a single business in exchange for a brief mention of the business' name at the beginning and end of the sponsored shows. However, radio station owners soon realized they could earn more money by selling sponsorship rights in small time allocations to multiple businesses throughout their radio station's broadcasts, rather than selling the sponsorship rights to single businesses per show. This practice was carried over to television in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A fierce battle was fought between those seeking to commercialize the radio and people who argued that the radio spectrum should be considered a part of the commons – to be used only non-commercially and for the public good. The United Kingdom pursued a public funding model for the BBC, originally a private company but incorporated as a public body by Royal Charter in 1927.

During the 1960s advertising turned into a modern approach in which creativity was allowed to shine, producing unexpected messages that made advertisements more tempting to consumers' eyes. The Volkswagen ad campaign-featuring such headlines as "Think Small" and "Lemon" (which were used to describe the appearance of the car)-opened the era of modern advertising by promoting a "position" or "unique selling proposition" designed to associate each brand with a specific idea in the reader or viewer's mind.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s cable television was introduced, particularly MTV. Pioneering the concept of the music video, MTV opened a new way for a new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in for the advertising message. As cable and satellite television became increasingly prevalent, specialty channels emerged, including channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as QVC, Home Shopping Network, and ShopTV.

Marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers and contributed to the "dot-com" boom of the 1990s. At the turn of the 21st century, a number of websites including the b#%l!^+a?search engine Google started a change in online advertising by emphasizing contextually relevant, helpful ads. This has led to an excess of similar efforts and an increasing trend of interactive advertising.

A recent advertising innovation is "guerrilla promotions", which involve unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the advertising message. This reflects an increasing trend of interactive and "embedded" ads, such as via product placement, having consumers vote through text messages, and various innovations utilizing social networking sites (e.g. MySpace).

1.3. Means of Communication in Advertising

1.3.1. Media

Advertising has evolved into a vastly complex form of communication, with literally thousands of different ways for a business to get a message to the consumer. It could be said that cave paintings in some way represented the first forms of advertising, although the earliest recognized version of what we know as advertising was done on papyrus by the Egyptians. And in Pompeii, the ruins suggest that advertising was commonplace. However, today the advertiser has a vast array of choices. The Internet alone provides many of these, with the advent of branded viral videos, banners, advertorials, sponsored websites, branded chat rooms and so much more.

Fortunately, every single tactic available to the advertiser falls into one of the following buckets. Although a few of these are relatively new to the field, most go way back to the very beginnings of modern advertising. A wise man once said, "The person who saves money by not advertising is like the man who stops the clock to save time." In today's fast-paced, high-tech age, businesses must use some form of advertising to make prospects aware of their products and services.

Even a famous company like Coca-Cola continually spends money on advertising to support recognition of their products. In 1993, Coca-Cola spent more dw $150 million to keep its name in the forefront of the public's eye. So the question isn't whether or not you can afford to advertise, you simply must if you want your business to succeed. Unlike advertising on TV and radio, advertising in the newspaper can be examined at your leisure. A newspaper ad can contain details, such as prices and telephone newspaper.

From the advertiser's point-of-view, when it comes to advertising, a lot of people really don't know what they wtnt, where to get it or what to do with it after they have it. This publication will help you learn to determine what type of advertising media is best for you. It also provides guidelines you can use to obtain the advertising exposure you need and will help you identify ways to make your advertising ignore cost efficient.

. Advertising in the newspaper offers many advantages, but it is not without its inherent disadvantages, such: newspapers usually are read once and stay in the house for just a day. Or the page size of a newspaper is fairly large and small ads can look mintisctile and you're not assured that every person who gets the newspaper will read your ad. They may not read the section you advertised in, or they may simply have skipped the page because they were not interested in the news on it.

Radio is a relatively inexpensive way of reaching people. It has often been called the "theater of the mind" because voices or sounds can be used to create moods or itnages that, if crested by visual effects, would be impossible to afford.

Television reaches very large audiences – audiences that are usually larger than the audience your city's newspaper reaches. The area that a television station's broadcast signal covers is called A.D.I., which stands for "Area of Dominant Inffluence."

In conclusion, print media has always been a popular advertising option. Advertising products via newspapers or magazines is a common practice. In addition to this, the print media also offers options like promotional brochures and fliers for advertising purposes. Often, newspapers and magazines sell the advertising space according to the area occupied by the advertisement, the position of the advertisement in the publication (front page/middle page, above/below the fold), as well as the readership of the publications. For instance, an advertisement in a relatively new and less popular newspaper will cost far less than an advertisement in an established newspaper that has a high readership. The price of print ads may also depend on quality of the paper and the supplement in which they appear. For example, an advertisement in the glossy (and popular) supplement of a newspaper costs more than one in a supplement which uses mediocre quality paper.

Outdoor advertising is also a very popular form of advertising. It makes use of several tools and techniques to attract the customers outdoors. The most common examples of outdoor advertising are billboards, kiosks, and also events and trade-shows organized by the company. Billboard advertising is very popular. However it has to be really terse and catchy in order to grab the attention of the passersby. Kiosks not only provide an easy outlet for the company's products but also make for an effective advertising tool to promote the company's products. Organizing special events or sponsoring them makes for an excellent advertising opportunity and strategy. The company can organize trade fairs, or even exhibitions for advertising their products. If not this, the company can organize several events that are closely associated with their field. For instance a company that manufactures sports utilities can sponsor a sports tournament to advertise its products.

Broadcast advertising is a very popular advertising medium that constitutes several branches like television, radio or the Internet. Television advertisements have been very popular ever since they were introduced. The cost of television advertising often depends on the duration of the advertisement, the time of broadcast (prime time/lull time), sometimes the show on which it will be broadcast, and of course, the popularity of the television channel itself. The radio might have lost its charm owing to new age media. However it remains the choice of small-scale advertisers. Radio jingles have been very a popular advertising medium and have a large impact on the audience, which is evident in the fact that many people still remember and enjoy old popular radio jingles

Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television ads, web banners, mobile telephone screens, shopping carts, web pop-ups, skywriting, bus stop benches, human directional, magazines, newspapers, sides of buses or airplanes ("logojets"), taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers, stickers on apples in supermarkets, shopping cart handles, the opening section of streaming audio and video, posters, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising.

Another way to measure advertising effectiveness is known as ad tracking. This advertising research methodology measures shifts in target market perceptions about the brand and product or service. These shifts in perception are plotted against the consumers’ levels of exposure to the company’s advertisements and promotions. The purpose of Ad Tracking is generally to provide a measure of the combined effect of the media weight or spending level, the effectiveness of the media buy or targeting, and the quality of the advertising executions or creative.

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1.3.2. Indirect Advertising

1.3.2.1. Covert Advertising

Covert advertising is when a product or brand is embedded in entertainment and media. For example, in a film, the main character can use an item or other of a definite brand, as in the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character, John Anderton owns a phone with the Nokia logo clearly written in the top corner, or his watch engraved with the Bulgari logo. Another example of advertising in film is in I, Robot, where main character played by Will Smith mentions his Converse shoes several times, calling them "classics," because the film is set far in the future. I, Robot and Spaceballs also showcase futuristic cars with the Audi and Mercedes-Benz logos clearly displayed on the front of the vehicles. Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie The Matrix Reloaded, which as a result contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for, Ford, Vaio, BMW and Aston-Martin cars are featured in recent movie productions.

1.3.2.2. Surrogate Advertising

Surrogate advertising is the type of advertising which inserts a brand or product message banned by law inside an advertisement which is evidently for another brand or product. Advertisements for products like cigarettes and alcohol which are injurious to health are prohibited by law in several countries. For example, a cigarette company might issue public service announcements relating to a topic such as lung cancer, using the company's logo or distinctive brand colors in the ads so that people are exposed to the company's branding without seeing an explicit ad for the company's product. In order to justify the advertisement, the company would claim that it was an appeal to social responsibility. Also, pharmaceutical companies have to face the same advertising restrictions. Some countries have expressed their concern relating the issue of surrogate advertising and started to take serious action against it.

1.3.3. Unconventional media and Advertising Approaches b#%l!^+a?

Increasingly, other media are overtaking television because of a shift towards consumer's usage of the internet. Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the "relevance" of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website receives.

E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising is known as "spam". Some companies have proposed to place messages or corporate logos on the side of booster rockets and the International Space Station. Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising, and the pervasiveness of mass messages.

Unpaid advertising (also called word of mouth advertising), can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it"), spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun (in the United States, "Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex" = tissue, "Vaseline" = petroleum jelly, "Hoover" = vacuum cleaner, and "Band-Aid" = adhesive bandage) — these are the pinnacles of any advertising campaign. However, some companies oppose the use of their brand name to label an object. Equating a brand with a common noun also risks turning that brand into a generic trademark – turning it into a generic term which means that its legal protection as a trademark is lost.

SMS (Short Message Service) text messages have taken Europe by storm and are breaking into the USA. The addition of a text-back number is gaining prevalence as a www address of yesterday. Used as part of your companies 'how to contact us' these can be very effective. These can be a (rented) keyword on a short-code or your own system on a standard number (like Mojio Messenger). The benefit of SMS text messages is that people can respond where they are, right now, stuck in traffic, sitting on the metro. The use of SMS text messages can also be a great way to get a viral (word-of-mouth) campaign off the ground to build your own database of prospects. Interstitial advertisement is a form of advertisement which takes place while a page loads.

Furthermore, the social media syndrome seems to be more present than ever in the advertising industry. For instance, Facebook and Twitter have both emphasized turning regular user content into ads—Facebook through its Sponsored Stories unit and Twitter through its b#%l!^+a?Sponsored Tweets. But that doesn’t mean the death of traditional advertising copy. In fact, Facebook has a new ad unit that blends a friend’s activity (e.g., “Anthony likes Movie X”) with a message from the advertiser.

1.4. The Mission of Advertising Nowadays

The perspectives related to the role of advertising are within the frame of the following three categories:

What does advertising for consumers?

What does advertising for business?

What does advertising for society?

What does advertising for consumers?

One of the most important roles of advertising is to show people how to solve some problems. Efficient advertising must start prom the premise –“Does my product help people?” The advertising must reflect the way in which a product refers to the present-day interests like: health, money and wealth, children growing, relationships with other people which are also extremely important. Maybe the major tendency in modern advertising is placing the consumer in the middle of the marketing process. This is mainly because the big companies consider that the consumer is the most important thing of the process. This generates a relationship in which the products are designed for the consumer and consequently there is no need to convince the consumers that a preexistent product is the one they really need. Obviously this process determined a series of fundamental modifications, extremely positive, in advertising.

What does advertising for business?

It is generally assumed that advertising is the most efficient in a prosperous society. Without advertising the companies would not be able to bring new products on the market or to catch the attention of a great number of consumers quickly enough to bear easily the cost of design, development, producing, and delivering of these products. In other words, advertising is both an instrument and a requirement of a prosperous economy. b#%l!^+a?

What does advertising for society?

The advertising has both positive and negative effects. Obviously the positive result of every advertisement is to contribute to the profitable sale of products. In addition to its economic role, the incomes from advertising sponsor an independent press protected against the government control or other groups with common interests. Apart from being a key-link in the communication process of merchandising, advertising is also a major stimulus for the economic growth and stability. Nevertheless, it is generally observed that advertising should go beyond the correct and profitable interests. It is accepted more and more that advertising should be designed in a favorable atmosphere which has to take into consideration a number of ethical factors. For instance, a recent study focused on managers responsible with advertising showed that they dealt with six fundamental ethical grounds in the ruling of a business:

Treating the customers with maximum correctness

Designing advertisements that are honest, unmisleading, but desirable from a social point of view

Representing the products which are not healthy, or of no use or immoral

Treating well the supplier, the vendor and the means of information

Treating well the other agents

Advertising is made to predispose and reassure a target market. Too many variables are involved in making "sales" and most of them are beyond the control of the advertising.

If this line of thinking is used for a new car purchase, the example tends to work even better. How many people after seeing an ad for a new car rush down to the dealership with cheque in hand? The role of advertising is to get the consumer to pick up the phone, visit the dealership, increase the purchase intent, or merely hold a new or changed opinion about the car. It's then up to the dealer to provide the customer with enough motivation to make the transaction happen. Some of the highest awareness of vehicle advertising comes from new purchasers who want reassurance that they made the right decision.

Ideally your advertising will be most effective if it can do these three things:

Catch the attention of the target market

Put forward a meaningful and valid statement

Make communication credible

Again, the role of advertising is to predispose and reassure. A client advertising umbrellas in a dry spell won't see much in the way of sales. It would be reasonable to conclude though, that by doubling awareness, sales should rise. It doesn't mean, however, that sales should double. There is a relationship between advertising and sales but not a correlation. However, in the future, the specific role of advertising will continue to be the capacity of elaborating an interesting message which certainly will get straight to the potential customers at a certain moment.

As advertising is a means of mass communication, the specialized literature assigns to it four basic functions in the society: b#%l!^+a?

The persuasive function: through its main goal-that of influencing opinions and changing behaviors, advertising creates and adapts its messages according to the code and context which are most likely to get to the target customers. The message of advertising knows the customers a priori and consequently it knows which are their expectations and the way these can be satisfied. Advertising is dynamic by definition and once the flux of the advertising discourses grows, the consumers become more educated; the persuasive function becomes visibly improved.

The poetic function : the facts which are critical in taking a final decision when buying are the following: the ability of advertising to transmit the idea of getting an advantage due to the buying of the advertised product, i.e. the way in which the product is advertised and the way the product presents itself.

The marketing function : the advertising bring its contribution to the selling of products and services of the companies

The educational function (of communication, information, transmission of information): people find by means of advertising about new products and services or about their improvement.

The economic function: an efficient sales promotion may bring new competitors in the economic area. The competition encourages the growth in the quality of the products and forces the prices to drop. The more the advertising gets to a high audience, the more the costs of distribution cut off and this will be reflected in the sale price. In a macro level it is assumed that the advertising is ”the petrol that makes the engine of the economy work”, while in a micro level the advertising has a direct impact on the consumer when taking a decision to buy a product.

The social function: by bringing new opportunities to the people, the advertising contributes to the increase in the production and in the living standard. We receive more b#%l!^+a?than pure information of commercial type, we are the receivers of a great amount of “silent pieces of information” which describes the social rules, the attitudes, the accepted roles, in brief the social model of behavior

For advertising to function within these parameters and to fulfill its objectives of persuasion, marketing, education, economy, and the social objectives, it must be understood by the target audience. What is the target audience? It represents a specific segment of population to which the product or service has a specific “appeal”i.e. a certain calling, searching. The clients from a segment who can be attracted with a high probability of success represent the clients from the target group. The consumer is the one for whom the whole economic process is done, so the product has to be good and has to be advertised correctly in order to get to the clients. In this case the advertising plays an important role, that of an intermediary between the producers and the consumers. This is the main reason why all of the producer and dealers must take into consideration the needs of their clients and of the market.

Chapter 2. Alternative advertising

2.1. Alternative advertising-general view

Alternative advertising is provided to substitute to an original advertisement that a user seeks to bypass in content. A user of an electronic device can request the device to skip the original advertisement. The skipping is enabled however an alternative advertisement representative of the original advertisement is presented to the user. The alternative advertisement is of a lower perceived intrusiveness than the original advertisement.

The invention relates to direct advertising on the user's personal electronic devices. The b#%l!^+a?invention is relevant to broadcast advertising of commercial segments between audio and/or video programs.

Alternative Advertising provides strategic sales and marketing programs to bolster product awareness, strengthen brands, and ultimately deliver outstanding outcomes for businesses. 

The days of just seeing advertisements on TV, in magazines or newspapers, on static billboards and even generic banner ads on the Web are gone. Out-of-home video networks, digital signage and alternative online advertising methods are all currently experiencing enormous growth.

Video networks are popping up everywhere. If you go into a bodega, an ice cream store, or even a cheesesteak restaurant, chances are you'll see a plasma screen hanging on their wall displaying a combination of ads, customized local content and national news headlines. These video networks link dozens or even hundreds of plasma screens back to a single command center where content can be pushed out to a single screen or the entire network instantly. This flexibility enables advertisers to target a specific demographic while updating their content on the fly.

Just about everywhere we go we'll see screens that are a part of a larger video network. Video network operators are putting up screens where people tend to spend a lot of time waiting around – the waiting room of your doctor's office, the gate area in an airport or even outside the pumps at your local gas station. These locations are perfect for advertisers as the medium is unavoidable and, in most cases, people are looking to be entertained.

Another medium popping up everywhere are large digital billboards. No longer are they limited to major concentrated tourist spots . The location of the sign often dictates the type of content that could and should be displayed.

With the advent and proliferation of these new types of media, a strictly PR or advertising approach does not produce the same kind of results they once did. PR, marketing and advertising should be planned and launched together as part of an integrated campaign. Out-of-home, digital signage and alternative Web advertising are all important parts of a successfully integrated campaign

2.2.Traditional Advertising vs. Unconventional Advertising b#%l!^+a?

Traditional advertising can make a brand popular for years. The public tends to view television advertising and major newspaper advertising as a sign that a company is doing well. However, some unconventional advertising methods can allow a small business to sneak into the consciousness of potential customers. You have to learn to walk the line between being gimmicky and reaching people in unusual, but credible ways.

Television Broadcasts

Television advertising is notoriously expensive. Ads on television signal your audience that you are successful and making money. On the other hand, many young people are insensitive and even hostile towards television ads. You may reach them more effectively through Internet broadcasts of shows produced exclusively for an online audience. This kind of advertising costs a fraction of what it costs to place a network ad, and the audience may be more receptive to it, especially if it is not flashy and fits in with the theme of the online broadcast.

Radio, Podcasts and Internet Radio

Traditional radio has been in decline for some time, but it still remains the most credible – and expensive – form of advertising if you want to reach music listeners. However, many young people do not listen to the radio, and they learn about new music through online radio and podcasts. You can advertise though these outlets and stand a better chance of reaching listeners who may view your advertising more favorably because it is associated with their alternate approach to finding new music.

Print Ads

Print ads in major newspapers can be cost-prohibitive for small businesses. You must create your ad for a general readership, and it only lasts for a day. Ezines have sprung up across the Web, catering to a variety of niche markets. Some of these publications will swap ads with you. That means they will run your ad on their website if you run their ad on yours. This low-cost alternative to print advertising can help you reach a niche audience instead of a general readership. While this may be a smaller audience, they may be more loyal than the public at large if they come to identify your business with their special tastes.

Body Painting, Viral Videos and Ambient Advertising

Beware of becoming too alternative. Painting your message on a girl in a bikini can make your business seem cheap and cause it to lose credibility. Viral videos are almost old-fashioned. The public is becoming wary of videos that purport to be fun, but turn out to be poorly-disguised b#%l!^+a?advertisements. Ambient advertising, on the other hand, is catching on. With ambient advertising, you place your logo or message in the environment in such a way that it fits in and enhances the surroundings. This can include sidewalk painting, sculptures and colorful additions to buildings, such as a logo projected on the side of the building at night. Ambient advertising is non-intrusive and subtle, and it can help you overcome advertising resistance as your message seeps into the minds of people who frequent the environment where you place your ambient ad.

2.3. Unconventional media advertising

The large number of advertisements that the consumers are bombarded with every day has made them virtually immune to commercial messages. This is why advertisers are trying to find new, alternative ways to reach the customers, which are comprised by economic literature in the concept of unconventional advertising. Based on a thorough documentary research, this study identifies the existing forms of unconventional advertising by presenting them in the order of their frequency of use and it tries to group the ones with similar characteristics into somewhat larger categories. A better understanding and knowledge of these new forms of advertising can provide marketing and advertising specialists with new strategies to convey the brand message that can grab the attention of any prospect customer.

From the moment we wake up in the morning until we fall asleep at night we are exposed to advertising messages that try to persuade us to buy. Newspapers, magazines, television, internet, and even the streets outside, all of them are suffocated by ads that are trying to get the customer’s attention. However, few of them if any, are capable of driving us to the store just to buy the product they advertised. The ads have become part of our live, influencing us in ways that we are not always aware of.

The increasing number of advertisements that the “wary and cynical” viewers are exposed to every day has forced them to create a shield that can make them virtually immune the commercial message. Moreover, many ads have turned from an incentive to buy into a turn-off for customers. Hence the advertising industry has to find new alternative and more subtle ways to reach the customer and to create brand awareness.

In the past years, more and more companies have allocated a bigger part of their marketing budgets for the unconventional strategies. There are several factors that have contributed to the growth of the importance of the non-traditional advertising:

• the lack of credibility and the inefficiency of traditional advertising

• customer’s reluctance to the advertising message

• the need to reduce the costs of promotion

• the need for differentiation of the products and brands

• consumer’s better understanding of marketing and selling techniques which makes them immune to commercial messages

• the need for a better targeting of the audience which has become more and more fragmented

In nowadays world where customers are truly marketing literate, companies are developing innovative strategies that break through the clutter and grab viewers attention (Martin and Smith, 2008). All these innovative, inventive and unconventional tactics, strategies and techniques used for promoting a product can be comprised in the term “guerrilla advertising” . This term derives from “guerrilla marketing”, a concept introduced by Jay Conrad Levinson in 1984 which refers to an alternative form of marketing that uses unconventional tactics and strategies. Levinson’s first definition of the concept stated that guerrilla marketing was “a body of unconventional ways of pursuing conventional goals. It is a proven method of achieving profits with minimum money” .

Traditional vs. non-traditional b#%l!^+a?

The most important distinction between the traditional or classical and non-traditional advertising comes from definitions of the two concepts. Thus, traditional advertising comprises all the characteristics identified by the American Marketing Association when defining the term “advertising”: “the placement of announcements and persuasive messages in time or space purchased in any of the mass media by business firms, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and individuals who seek to inform and/ or persuade members of a particular target market or audience about their products, services, organizations, or ideas” . The unconventional advertising, however, it’s not a concept that can be defined easily, as is strictly related to the perception of the people and the frequency of use. Thus, an image perceived as shocking or disturbing for some people can seem perfectly normal for others. It has been proven that the repeated exposure of a person to an unusual situation can make that person consider it normal, that is why a frequent usage of an unconventional medium can stop the people from perceiving it unusual and therefore will not attract their attention. This is what happened for example to the internet. The unconventional advertising is permanently changing that is why is virtually impossible to give a comprehensive definition of it. Nevertheless, it can be stated that unconventional advertising comprises all those unusual, non-traditional, innovative and inventive means, methods and strategies of promoting a product, service or brand.

The distinction between traditional and non-traditional advertising has also been made through a virtual “line” that separates the above-the-line advertising from the below-the-line advertising. During 1980’s, the bottom limit of the commission charged by the advertising agencies for the traditional media was 17.65 per cent, whereas for the rest of the media, the unconventional, they were charging a nominal fee with a lower value. This commission threshold became known in the literature as the “line”, and the distinction it created between classical and unconventional advertising is still used today. Traditional or above-the-line advertising comprises the traditional media channels (radio, television, written press, outdoor posters, cinema and lately the internet) whereas the below-the-line advertising refers to the unconventional media. b#%l!^+a?

Credibility is another aspect that differentiates the two forms of advertising. Several studies (http://experiencecurve.com/archives/any-surprise-that-advertising-has-lost-credibility-over-the-years) have proved that nowadays customers trust less the advertisements than they used to do it a few decades ago. This is due mainly to the fact that people stopped believing that the perfect experiences and total makeovers that the ads were promising to them would ever come true. In addition, the customers don’t perceive the ads as reliable ways to learn about products because they believe that the companies are not telling the truth in the ads. However, these facts change when the customers are exposed to promotional messages that they do not perceive as ads. A study (Dalhen, Edenius) that was undertaken in 2007, proved that when placed in a non-traditional medium, the promotional message is perceived as less persuasive. According to Dalhen and Edenius (2007) this makes the message more credible.

The ever-increasing number of products more and more similar has made it difficult for potential customers to choose between them, making the price the most important criteria. Consequently, the companies became aware of the need to differentiate, starting from the way they deliver the brand message. Therefore, the unconventional means of promotion offer a way out of the advertising clutter, creating a lasting image of the brand in the mind of the consumer.

The number of television channels, radio stations, newspapers and magazines is increasing every day, leading to a greater fragmentation of the audiences. This makes it more difficult for the marketers to reach an audience of a certain size. Moreover, the consumer’s lifestyle has changed in the way that they have less free time that they could spent for leisure activities such as watching TV, going to cinema or reading magazines and newspapers. This has also reduced the number of potential viewers of the ads placed in the mediums mentioned above. In addition, the prices for the traditional media keep rising, despite the diminishing returns they offer. However, none of these are considered a problem for the non-traditional advertising. This type of advertising is extremely targeted and reaches the consumers in their natural environment, in the places where they work, where they spent their time off or on their way to and from home. The difference between traditional and non-traditional advertising, is that the last one is more direct and more individual, creating an instant contact b#%l!^+a?between the brand and the consumer.

The forms of unconventional advertising

Kaikati and Kaikati identified six main types of unconventional advertising techniques: viral marketing, brand pushers, celebrity marketing, bait-and-tease marketing, marketing in video games and marketing in pop and rap music. However, they consider these strategies as part of the larger category of stealth marketing. Pavel and Cătoiu (2009) include in the unconventional advertising category the following: elevator advertising, taxi advertising, bathroom stall advertising, mirror advertising, aerial advertising, ambient advertising, body advertising, graffiti advertising. This area is changing constantly in the pursuit to find new ways to break through the advertising clutter. Consequently, more and more forms of unconventional advertising are identified by the economic literature. However, many of them have similar characteristics, and therefore can be grouped into larger categories.

Stealth marketing is an advertising technique that relies on the power of word of mouth and is being referred to as “undercover,” “covert,” or “hidden” marketing. As mentioned before, there are several types of stealth marketing techniques that can be utilized for the advantage of the brand (Kaikati, Kaikati, 2004), however we would like to regroup them into somewhat larger categories: viral marketing, brand pushers, celebrity marketing, bait-and-tease marketing and product placement. What they all have in common is the fact that they all communicate the brand message in a subtle and sometimes unnoticeable way. Martin and Smith (2008) define stealth marketing as “the use of surreptitious marketing practices that fail to disclose or reveal the true relationship with the company that produces or sponsors the marketing message”. Stealth marketing techniques are intended to promote the brand to audience’s subconscious. Its objective is to induce to customers the feeling that they need or want a certain brand, without actually telling them out-loud how great that brand is or that they should buy that product.

As mentioned before, Kaikati and Kaikati (2004) identified six types of stealth marketing techniques. Although we agree to the first four categories we believe that the last two can be comprised into a single strategy under the name of product placement, as this concept comprises b#%l!^+a?the characteristics of both strategies identified by the previously-mentioned authors.

Viral marketing refers to a promotion technique that uses the existing social networks in order to increase brand awareness. Using different approaches, viral marketing encourages customers to recommend a certain brand to their acquaintances spreading the message through a viral process, similar to the proliferation of pathological viruses. Weather it’s through word-of-mouth or through electronic equipments (such as mobile phones or computers) viral promotions are successful as long as the message is being resend over and over again. The message can take the form of video clips, images, text messages or even interactive games, e-books and brandable software. However, the message is not proliferated unless it’s interesting, funny or unusual. Viral marketing is exploiting one of the most important factors of influence on consumer’s decision which is the personal recommendation .

Brand pushers are hired actors who personally slip commercial messages to people that they approach in real-life situations in different locations such as trendy bars, music stores or tourist hot-spots. By being approachable and attractive enough not to raise suspicion the paid actors can slide the advertised product under the prospects’ nose.. An example in this category is the case of Sony Ericsson, which in 2002 in New York, hired actors to pose as tourists asking people to take pictures of them with their new camera mobile phone

Celebrity marketing as part of the stealth marketing category, refers to the situation where a celebrity uses or talks about a product or a brand without it appearing conspicuous (Kaikati, Kaikati, 2004). The main purpose of this technique is to encourage fans of that particular celebrity to purchase the advertised product or brand. When using celebrity endorsers, however, companies must match the image of the celebrity to brand’s image and to the characteristics of the target market.

Bait-and-tease marketing is the strategy of getting people interested in something that later is revealed to be something quite different .Product placement comprises the two categories mentioned by Kaikati and Kaikati (2004) of marketing in video games and in pop and rap music to which is added the marketing in TV b#%l!^+a?shows and in movies. This type of stealth marketing strategy refers to the embedding of logos and brands in TV shows, movies, video games and music videos. The origins of product placement are not yet determined, however, its frequency of use has increased after the placement of Reese’s Pieces in the E.T. movie (Belch, Belch, 2003). The increased number of placements especially in movies and TV in the past decades has made this technique less effective. The growing interest of the younger generations in computer games and in pop and rap music has offered marketers new spots where they can place the brands. These new mediums, however, are not as passive as TV and movies, as they provide the prospects an interaction with the product while playing the game or while reproducing the song that mention the brand .

Ambient advertising is one of the most important forms of unconventional advertising. It is an outdoor form of promotion that uses alternative and unconventional media, called ambient media (Pavel, Cătoiu, 2009) in order to transmit the message. This type of advertising is one of the newest and the most creative, and it’s expanding rapidly. The key to an effective ambient campaign is that the ad must fit the environment it is placed in and the context where the consumer encounters the message. This is why, in the process of developing an ambient campaign the creative team often starts from the environment trying to find a way the brand can become relevant for it and only in the end they create the message. The media used by ambient advertising include leisure parks, sport centers, landscape elements, bus stations and event the streets. Figure 2 offers some examples of ambient advertising.

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Figure 2. Ambient advertising: “Accessorize the city”; “Very, very fresh vegetarian food”; “Salzburg Zoo: More than Zebras”; (www.adverblog.com/archives/2006_11.htm, www.gorilla.ro)

Ambient ads are effective means to build brand awareness and to generate buzz as they are placed in central locations, in some the most familiar places for the audience. They are unexpected and they create a direct contact between the brand and the consumer, bringing them closer together. The younger groups of people respond better to unconventional ads this is why they are the best suited target of ambient advertising. This type of ads “utilizes forms of demographic targeting which permeate consumer consciousness through non-intrusive, continuous, periphery display of advertiser’s information”. The costs of ambient advertising are reduced compared to traditional media, however they can deliver excellent results for the paid value. (Reyburn, 2010) b#%l!^+a?

An important criticism of ambient advertising is the lack of tools that can measure its effectiveness. This aspect can become an impediment in the developing of this type of promotion, as the marketing departments of most of the brands request proof s of the results of the campaigns they spend the money on.

Experiential advertising, often considered a part of ambient advertising is a type of unconventional advertising that “conveys to the customer the real sensation of using the product”. However, while both ambient and experiential advertising use non-traditional media formats, the second engages the audience directly by interacting with them (Ryan-Segger, 2007).

Ambush marketing is a planned effort of a company that isn’t a sponsor of a particular event to give the impression that it is by associating its name indirectly to that event, in order to gain at least some of the advantages of a real sponsor . The main advantage of this type of unconventional advertising strategy is related to the fact that the ambushing company doesn’t have to pay sponsorship rights, which can be very costly sometimes. While the main purpose of ambush marketing is to confuse the consumer about who the sponsors are, a study undertaken in UK in 2009 (Portlock, Rose), proved that consumers with high event involvement are less likely to identify ambush brands as main sponsors. Also, contrary to the opinion that ambushing can damage brand image, the study shows that these brand actually gain awareness and recognition, even though on a lower level than the sponsoring brands. Many of the most known brands around the world at one point or another have used ambush marketing. Some of these famous brands are Nike, Adidas, Coca Cola, Visa, American Express, Lufthansa and so on.

Affiliate marketing refers to the relationship between the website of an electronic merchant and a network of partner website (affiliates), that operate as a virtual sale force (Woods, 2008). The affiliate websites’ aim is to direct traffic to the merchant’s site through advertising materials and commercial messages. The affiliates receive money compensation from the b#%l!^+a?merchant for the visitors directed to its web site. However, the affiliate are paid only when the visitors make a purchase, thus the costs of this advertising technique are one hundred percent covered by results. This is also the most important advantage if this form of non-traditional advertising.

Elevator advertising is another form of unconventional advertising that has been frequently used in the past years. The walls and even the floors of the elevator units can be used to promote products, services and brands either by placing stickers, posters or even products inside the units or by running commercial movies and ads if the elevators are equipped with screen displays (Pavel, Cătoiu, 2009). Amongst the advantages this type of advertising presents there are: the physical and emotional proximity to potential customers due to the placement of the ads in the buildings where , the possibility to target the prospects by selecting the building category such as malls, hospitals or business centers (Pavel, Cătoiu, 2009), it guarantees a captive audience as the elevator ads cannot be turned off .

Bathroom advertising has recently become an attractive form of promotion. The unusual location of this form of advertising inside the restroom area allows us to include in this category both bathroom stall advertising and mirror advertising, promotion techniques mentioned by Pavel and Cătoiu (2009). Bathroom ads can take any form, from billboards placed on the walls of the stalls or close to the dryers, to adhesive stickers glued to the floors and mirrors, and even interactive or scented displays. Although at first companies were reluctant to placing their brands in such locations, the increasing need to grab customer’s attention has made them rethink their attitude. This is due mainly to the fact that research aiming to prove its efficiency has been undertaken. One of the studies shows that 84% of the interviewed people remembered seeing specific ads in the washrooms and 92% were able to name specific advertisers without prompting. The results of another study (Ministreanu, 2007) undertaken in Romania show that approximately 80% of the Romanian restaurant customers recall the ads they saw in the restaurant’s restroom. One of the most important advantages of the bathroom advertising is that it offers a medium that can be gender targeted perfectly . In addition, just like the elevators, bathrooms are captive mediums where potential prospects b#%l!^+a?spend enough time to allow themselves to read the information laying right in front of them.

Transit advertising is a form of out-of-home advertising (Belch, Belch, 2003) and it refers to ads placed on vehicles (on the outside or on the inside) and in transit stations (Koblinski, 2005; Belch, Belch, 2003). The advertising mediums used in transit advertising include public transportation vehicles such as buses, trams, subways or trains, floor displays, island showcases and electronic signs placed in transit stations (Belch, Belch, 2003) and also trucks, cars, scooters and taxis (Cincotta, 2005; Pavel, Cătoiu, 2009). In the past few years a new medium has emerged into this category: the airplane. Just like any other vehicle airplanes started to carry ads on the outside of the fuselage and on the inside on the overhead storage, on the tray-tables (Sharkey, 2003) and on every available surface inside the cabin. Amongst the advantages of transit advertising are the length of exposure, the frequency of exposure (especially in the case of commuters), the geographic selectivity, the flexibility of ad size and location, the varied audience it delivers (Belch, Belch, 2003: Koblinski, 2005). Moreover, transit advertising targets pedestrians, drivers and passengers, is intrusive and demand-led as it follows the population flow throughout the entire day (Pavel, Cătoiu, 2009) and the inside the vehicle ads are delivered to a captive audience. The usage of this type of advertising is best suited for building brand awareness in major city areas, as part of integrated campaigns, but also for triggering purchase impulses (Pavel, Cătoiu, 2009). However, transit advertising also has some disadvantages related to the mood of the audience, the impossibility to control the route of the vehicle and the waste coverage (Belch, Belch, 2003).

Aerial advertising is a form of outdoor advertising, but it is not included in the above-the-line category (Pavel, Cătoiu, 2009). According to Belch and Belch (2003) this category includes airplanes pulled banners, skywriting, and blimps. Pavel and Cătoiu (2009) also mention projected advertising as part of this category, which is the projection of words or logos onto the night sky by using laser beams. These media can be used for reaching specific target markets, in certain locations or during certain events, especially sporting events. For example, Coppertone, a well known sunscreen lotions brand, has often used skywriting over beach areas in order to increase brand awareness (Belch, Belch, 2003). Aerial advertising relies on the surprise element to intrigue consumers and to grab their attention. b#%l!^+a?

Graffiti advertising is perceived as an illegal form of guerrilla advertising. However, this is not always the case. Legal graffiti advertising implies leasing ad space and hiring artists and it may require significant efforts cost wise (Pavel, Cătoiu, 2009). The effects of graffiti advertising are striking: the huge painted images attract the attention of the people that pass by them every day (Hackley, 2005) becoming an excellent way to generate brand awareness, street credibility and word-of-mouth opportunities. This technique used at first to promote new bands and local performances has become lately an advertising method used by many important brands such as Puma or Nike.

Similar to the above-mentioned technique, the reverse graffiti is an eco-friendly method of creating temporary images on walls, sidewalks or other surfaces by removing dirt from those surfaces. This form of art has turned into an unconventional advertising method when several companies started paying artists to put their logos in their works. One of the companies that used this type of advertising is Green Works, a producer of eco-fThe high visibility of this form of advertising is similar to the one of the graffiti advertising, and the ads created this way can last several months or even years, depending on the traffic in the area.

Body advertising is another form of unconventional advertising. According to Pavel and Cătoiu (2009) this strategy refers to the promotional clothing elements wore by people. In this category, the teenagers are the most willing to buy and wear clothing that is advertising for different companies. However, there is another meaning for body advertising, and it refers to placing promotional messages directly on human skin (www.tatad.com). Also known as tattoo advertising, this technique is not new. The people who sell parts of their bodies to tattoo brand logos can receive from a few hundred dollars to hundred of thousands of dollars, depending on the body part, the size of the tattoo . The bearers of these ad tattoos are usually regular people, who are looking for some extra money or free products, or who are loyal customers of a certain brand. However, this strategy has become increasingly popular lately among sports people who reveal more skin while competing, such as boxers. However, no matter if the ad tattoos are b#%l!^+a?temporary or permanent they do catch the attention of the viewer and generate buzz, and more so if they are placed on the skin of someone famous.

A typology of unconventional advertising

As mentioned before, unconventional advertising is permanently changing. This makes it hard to create a comprehensive classification of all the forms of non-traditional advertising that exist. However, we believe that there can be taken into consideration several criteria that can categorize the types of unconventional advertising.

The first of these criteria can be the unconventional element of the advertising. Thus, there can be identified:

• ads that send an unconventional messages. In this category can be included all the advertisements that use traditional media to send an unusual message. This type of advertising is mostly used in campaigns that send a social message.

• ads that use unconventional media. This category comprises all the advertisements that use media channels other than TV, radio, cinema, press, outdoor and internet, such as: elevators, toilets, elements of the surrounding environment, and even human bodies.

• ads that use traditional media in an unconventional way. This category refers to ads that send a conventional message, through a conventional

medium by altering the use of the medium.

Some examples of these categories of unconventional advertising can be seen in the following image (Figure 1).

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Figure 1. Examples of unconventional ads

(www.gorilla.ro)

Another criterion that can be used in the classification of unconventional advertising is the medium where the ad is placed, just like in the case of traditional ads. Thus, there are:

• online campaigns, a category that refers mainly to the viral marketing campaigns and the affiliate marketing.

• offline campaigns, that can also be divided into indoor and outdoor unconventional campaigns. The first of these categories includes elevator advertising, bathroom advertising and any other type of advertisement that is placed indoors. The unconventional outdoor advertising includes ambient advertising, aerial advertising, graffiti advertising, and many other.

However, none of these classifications are nor they intend to be comprehensive, because the large number of identified forms of non-traditional advertising and the … of new ones makes it virtually impossible to categorize them.

Conclusions

In a world where consumer is suffocated by commercials that all sound and look alike, unconventional advertising is the breath of fresh air, delivering messages in unexpected forms that most of the time entertain the viewers. Unconventional advertising is able to pass the protective shield that marketing literate consumers nowadays have built as a protection against the commercial messages that bombard them every day. This happens because unconventional advertising is unexpected and it catches them in locations and situations where they aren’t expecting to be advertised at and where they are off guarded. Also, unlike traditional b#%l!^+a?advertising, the unconventional ads don’t use persuasive messages trying to convince the audience to buy, but rather they address to customer’s subconscious creating memorable images of the promoted brands which last in the mind of the consumer.

There isn’t a perfect solution to advertise a product, however one must take into consideration all the possibilities and choose the one that are better suited for that particular situation. While traditional advertising can reach large numbers of people, unconventional advertising can better target smaller groups. It is impossible to say that one or the other is better. However, a combination of the two can deliver excellent results.

Unconventional advertising forms are numerous and different, but what they all have in common is the fact that they allow companies to break through the advertising clutter that prevents the commercial message to reach the consumer. They offer possibilities to convey the brand message in such ways that it becomes virtually impossible even for marketing literate customers to block it. The power of non-traditional advertising lays in the creativity and innovation that characterize this field. The tactics used more frequently may lose some of their strength, but there still remain infinite possibilities available to be explored and used in the battle to conquer the consumer’s attention.

Traditional Media vs. New Media: Advertising Research

The days when advertising used to be considered as an unwanted expense or was looked upon as a parameter for the failure of the company to not perform well seem to be in the past. Advertising has come a long way today and has emerged as one of the biggest industries in the world. Everything in the field of advertising has changed. From the creative aspect where the earlier ads rated zero in terms of creativity to some highly creative ads that have set eyeballs gazing top the marketing strategies that are much more focused now.

On the lines of advertising latest trend in the industry can be seen in the form of the inclination towards new media advertising. A synonym for Internet advertising, new media advertising has brought a revolution in the advertising industry as it taps the huge potential of the web for branding and promotion purposes. New media advertising has in very little time left behind the conventional media forms because of the innumerable benefits that it provides over them.

Online media advertising unlike its other counterparts provides maximum exposure. And if we are to believe the experts new media advertising is sure we shall witness a boom in the near future not only in Romania but around the globe. New media advertising that your ads can be viewed anytime of the day and people can revert to them as and when they want to. The latest in addition to the stream of new media advertising is cellular phones that are going to take advertising on an all-new level. The concept of paid ads to the recipient has already made a foray and is sure to steer a revolution in the times ahead.

Media promotion allows the advertiser to choose from various kinds if advertisements that best suit his requirements. The advertiser can choose from pop up ads, banner ads, interactive advertising, interstitial ads and even pop under advertisements. This makes new media advertising all the more flexible and easily adaptable to individual needs and preferences.

Cost and flexibility are among other factors that make Internet media advertising an all time favorite these days. Not only is it cheaper in comparison to other media abut also allows for changes much easily. This makes new media advertising a common choice for several small and upcoming businesses.

A growing share of consumer-goods media spending is shifting away from traditional advertising b#%l!^+a?media (television, radio, print, and outdoor). The proliferation of new media alternatives (online advertising, YouTube, social media, mobile, search engines, apps, etc.) is attracting money once spent on traditional media.

Traditional media are also suffering from a long-term trend toward promotional expenditures consuming a larger share of the marketing budget. Many consumer-goods companies are spending less on advertising in total, as their executives strive to please the stock exchange with improved short-term profits. The hope that one’s ads might “go viral” and accomplish advertising miracles on a low budget adds to the upheaval and distracts executives from the hard work of building effective advertising campaigns.

This decline of traditional media advertising in many consumer-goods companies is creating an opportunity for companies that appreciate the power of traditional advertising.

Social media, online, search, and mobile advertising all grab the headlines and attract marketing executives like moths to the flame, but we should not be dazzled or awed by the new media. They have their advantages and can be a part of the media mix, but are probably still a distant “second fiddle” to traditional media. Indeed, we would argue that mastery of the traditional media—especially television, radio, and outdoor advertising is a far wiser strategy than aggressive pursuit of the new media.

Media Choices

The most important concept is strategic-investment spending in media advertising. Think of media advertising as the long-range artillery of marketing. Your goal is a long-term bombardment to take possession of the consumer’s mind and preferences. A brand may have to take financial losses for a year or two while it builds awareness, tells its story, and crafts a brand image. This is the price of marketing success. Media choice is a daunting task in a world of infinite media choice, so here are some guidelines.

Television Advertising

Not only does the term “television advertising” refer to a commercial with color, motion, and b#%l!^+a?sound like those you see on television, it also refers to those same types of commercials you might see on the web, in social media, on YouTube, or on Facebook.

Thusly defined, television advertising is still the gold standard and the most effective of all media for consumer products. Television commercials have the greatest impact and tend to move awareness numbers up swiftly—with sufficient media weight. Generally, the equivalent of 100 GRPs (Gross Rating Points) per week is the lower limit of spending level if you hope to see measurable increases in advertising awareness. Also, television commercials (like all advertising) would be more effective if a higher share were tested among consumers before airing.

Radio Advertising

Radio commercials can be as effective as television commercials, based on sales return per dollar spent on media. However, radio commercials seldom achieve their true potential because they tend to be inferior to television commercials in content and production quality. Typically, radio budgets are much less than television, and radio commercials are rarely tested among consumers. If you plan to use radio, pretest the commercials to make sure they work.

Print Advertising

Print advertising tends to work more slowly than television or radio. Therefore, an especially long period of time (or an especially heavy media schedule) is required to fully evaluate the total effects of print advertising. Print is an important arrow in the media quiver, however, because a share of the population tends to be heavy readers. You won’t reach them with television, radio commercials, YouTube, or sponsorships of tractor races.

Outdoor Advertising

Outdoor advertising (also called out-of-home or OOH) is especially effective as an advertising medium, if used properly. First, the message must be (a) on strategy and (b) expressed in few b#%l!^+a?words.

Outdoor advertising is great at extending or reinforcing the key theme of a television or radio campaign. If some of the visual elements and the key theme of a television or radio campaign can be condensed and shown via outdoor advertising, the awareness-build of television can be accelerated. Outdoor advertising can add a visual element to a radio campaign (e.g., show the retail package), and it can help boost the awareness-build of a print-advertising campaign.

Social Media Advertising

Social media continues to grow in importance and reach. Its ultimate value as an advertising media remains to be seen. Ads and commercials intended for online delivery or social media distribution operate by the same rules as all other advertising. Television-testing techniques, for example, can be applied to commercials that look like television commercials, regardless of where those commercials are aired. Static banner ads are similar to print ads and can be evaluated by those metrics. Many social media and online ads and commercials fall in between these extremes, and require some adjustments in measuring techniques. What’s important is that these ads go through the same research processes as other commercials do.

Strategy

Advertising is primarily a strategic weapon, as previously noted. It’s the heavy, long-range artillery. Its total effects must be evaluated in the context of years, not weeks or months. Advertising cannot compete with sales-promotion and direct-marketing activities in generating short-term sales effects. But in the long term, the cumulative force of strategically sound media advertising can achieve results that cannot be equaled by sales promotion or other marketing activities.

Advertising Effectiveness

Advertising for new products tends to be more effective than advertising for established products (it’s the “news value” of the new product). In other words, it’s easier to create effective advertising for new products than it is for established products. Given the greater effectiveness of b#%l!^+a?new product advertising, one of the most common marketing mistakes is failure to take advantage of this inherent benefit (i.e., the failure to fully exploit the new product advertising advantage). Perhaps up to half of all advertising for established products is not effective, or is only minimally effective, based on Decision Analyst’s research. Perhaps no other industry has a failure rate as high as the advertising industry (with the exception of the promotion industries, direct-marketing industries, telemarketing industries, and other alternatives to traditional advertising).

The persistently high advertising-failure rate results primarily from the lack of an accurate feedback mechanism—a lack of testing and evaluation. If an agency doesn’t know when its advertising is bad or why it’s bad, how can the agency possibly improve its advertising? Marketing research can provide this feedback, but it’s often too expensive for the typical advertisement or commercial.

Among commercials that are effective, the degree of sales effectiveness can vary greatly from one commercial to the next. One commercial might be several times more effective than another. This indicates that the quality of advertising tends to be more important than the quantity of advertising. Nevertheless, the quantity of advertising (i.e., the media weight) must achieve a threshold level for the advertising to have any positive effects. Limited online surveys or telephone tracking research (that can even be done with modest budgets) can monitor the cumulative effects of advertising upon awareness, brand image, and consumer attitudes. This is one of the simplest and most effective ways to make sure that your advertising is doing its job.

Recall of specific messages from advertising is not a very good indicator of advertising effectiveness, and some very effective commercials produce little measurable message recall. Message recall is a positive factor, but its importance should not be overstated. Brand registration, however, is always important (as opposed to message or element recall).

Brand Registration

If consumers don’t remember the brand name, the effectiveness of the advertising is correspondingly reduced. Failure to register the brand name is one of the most common advertising mistakes. The next time you review your advertising, just make sure that the brand name is clearly stated and clearly shown in the commercial. If your brand name is not easy to b#%l!^+a?remember, then more emphasis must be placed on the brand name in commercials.

Ultimate truth is elusive. Advertising effectiveness cannot be determined by any one measure, such as persuasion or recall. Recall is a good measure for some commercials, but not for others. Persuasion scores don’t work very well for brands with high market shares and cannot be relied upon for brands in poorly defined product categories. Purchase intent works reasonably well for new products, but not so well for established products. A large number of important variables must be examined in concert to judge the potential effectiveness of advertising.

Advertising that offends the viewer, or is in poor taste, is almost always ineffective. The only exception to this rule is the commercial that presents a lot of relevant news, where the message is so important that how it is said doesn’t matter much. If viewers like a commercial, its chances of being effective are improved. Likeability, however, is not sufficient in and of itself to ensure advertising success. From the marketer’s perspective, what are the “secrets” to achieving every company’s goal—advertising that really works? There is no simple “success” formula, unfortunately, but here are some guidelines:

Advertising works in the arms of sound strategy. What role is advertising to play in the brand’s marketing plan? What messages must the advertising communicate? What images should the advertising project? These are strategy issues, and they bring us to this conclusion: without sound strategy, the chances of advertising success are very low. Several research techniques are available to identify and resolve strategy issues before creative development begins. Homework and hard work are more likely to yield effective advertising than creative brilliance and flashes of creative genius. Great advertising evolves from research feedback, tinkering, and tweaking. Pretesting each commercial is a laboratory experiment, an opportunity to learn how to re-edit current creative and how to make the next commercial even better.

Big egos (creative egos, client egos, research egos, and agency egos) are barriers to the creation of effective advertising, because big egos tend to substitute wish and emotion for thinking, reasoning, and objectivity. If your agency (or your client) is unwilling to make creative adjustments—based upon objective consumer feedback—to improve the creative product, then you have the wrong agency (or the wrong client).

b#%l!^+a?

Advertising Testing

Test your advertising. Show it to members of your target audience and see how they react. No one (not the client, the agency, or the researcher) is smart enough to know how consumers will perceive and react to a given commercial. If you can’t afford one of the advertising-testing services, test it yourself. Show the new commercial and a couple of old ones, and ask some consumers which one would most influence their interest in buying the brand. If you can’t afford that, then ask your spouse what he/she thinks of your advertising. (The latter method is surprisingly accurate, but often leads to a messy divorce). Once you have chosen an advertising-testing system, stick with it so that you (the agency, the creatives, the brand managers, and the researchers) all learn how to use and how to interpret the test results for your product category and your brand.

“Sticking with” and learning a testing system is more important than which system you select. No testing system is perfect. No testing system can be used blindly. A large dose of intelligent human judgment must always be incorporated into the advertising-evaluation process.

If budgets permit, test at the rough, as well as the finished, stages of creative development. Once you’ve spent $900,000 producing finished commercials, you might not be very open to research that questions the effectiveness of those commercials. Testing at the rough stage can help you refine the creative before spending the big dollars on production. The more rough executions you evaluate, the greater the probability that the winning execution will be effective.

Testing at the finished stage can help guide final editing or re-editing of commercials, help determine how much weight should be put behind the creative, and provide understanding to help guide campaign evolution and the creation of subsequent commercials.

What are its Benefits for the Web?

New media is a marketing and communication tool that uses technology such as video, multimedia and the web to convey a message. This new and innovative form of communication b#%l!^+a?enables anyone to express their ideas and opinions in an interactive way, by using a variety of digital media. Web videos, blogs, social networks, and pod casts are just some forms of new media that have been a successful part of marketing. As new media is becoming more common many businesses, advertisers in particular, have found it a very valuable tool. New media ad spending has grown 38 percent over the last year, and it is expected that these ads will account for over half of all online display ads by the year 2016. Display advertising, including broadband video, is among the fastest growing form of online advertising, expecting to account for larger and larger sums of money spent on ads this year.

With the increased opportunities involving new media, many advertisers are turning to this trend and finding it a powerful and essential marketing tool.

Benefits for Businesses

New media creates the opportunity for a business to be taken to a whole new level. Web video is a new way for businesses to communicate with customers in a more emotional environment. Combining the use of audio and visual effects on the web, can be a much more memorable experience for customers, and have much more of an impact.

Using online video advertising allows businesses to bypass the high costs of producing television commercials; it has be found that consumers are typically more likely to respond better to online video advertisements rather than image advertisements. Studies have shown that video ad click rates are far higher than image ads.

Technology which allows businesses to view what type of customers are purchasing their products, and viewing their videos can be very beneficial to a company. Many companies provide spaces for comments and customer feedback on their websites. Receiving this type of information from customers saves businesses a tremendous amount of time and money, which would otherwise be spent on researching customer’s wants, needs, and opinions.

Placing a video online also gives businesses the opportunity to increase their awareness through circulation of the video. Forty-two percent of web video viewers find videos online by either b#%l!^+a?clicking on an email link or using a search engine to track it down. By making a video available online, the amount of circulation it receives can end up driving a large amount of traffic to a company website, or store. Studies have found that after viewing an online video for a company, fourteen percent of viewers visit the company store and eight percent make an actual purchase.

Web videos are beneficial to a business because they are constantly available. Anyone with the access to a computer or wireless device can instantly have access to whatever they wish. Businesses are also able to change any details online almost instantaneously. Any updates or breaking news that a company wishes to discuss can be changed or added within seconds.

Personal Benefits

New media also benefits people on a personal level. Individuals wishing to sell themselves, their products or services can do so through the internet and new technology. In times before the internet, gaining personal publicity for the average person was either highly expensive, or virtually impossible. Today anyone can place a video online at no cost. Thousands of people express themselves daily using video blogs online. Individuals are able to share family videos and experiences with loved ones who may live far away, or even to complete strangers.

Everyday many ordinary people become well known due to their web videos or video blogs, posted on sites such as You Tube. Thanks to new media it is now possible for ordinary individuals to become instant internet celebrities.

Take Advantage Of Collaborative Communities And Sharing

Web 2.0 is a term used to describe the new generation of the World Wide Web. No longer simply a collaboration of several websites, the web is now thought of as an application that fits somewhere between a traditional web browser, and desktop applications. Web 2.0 is a more interactive form of the web, made up of a collaboration of new technologies such as web syndications, podcasts, blogs, social networks, wikis, and RRS feeds, just to name a few.

A major benefit of all these applications, and the Web 2.0 as a whole, is the ability for users to communicate with one another and share their information online, in a simple and organized fashion. The Web 2.0 allows online experiences to be much more interactive than in the past. b#%l!^+a?

Whereas the old generation of the web was about companies and ownership, the new generation of the web is about sharing and communities. The Web 2.0 is growing at a tremendous rate. With new applications and technologies available, it will not be long until the Web 2.0 completely changes the way we once viewed and used the web.

Alternative advertising research

In 2015 I have conducted a qualitative research project to explore consumer’s expectations of advertising regulation on New Media platforms (specifically iTV, mobile and Internet). I held 12 two-hour group sessions in Bucharest with adults aged between 16- and 60-years old.

Key Findings

• Advertisers risk losing consumer trust if they don’t maintain standards.

• There is a clear expectation that ‘pulled’ advertising should conform to standard, unless clearly signposted otherwise, but there are different expectations of what that standard should be.

• Most consumers assumed that ads had to be truthful on any platform. It was the one area of regulation that respondents did not want weakened, and would like extended across all media platforms.

• With regard to decency, most of the younger respondents, and the more technically literate were more accepting of risqué material (subject to the watershed). With reasonable signposting, most respondents felt that interactive advertising which was ‘pulled’ could be significantly more risqué than broadcast advertising.

• Consumers were for the most part unaware of the restrictions on advertising in areas such as gambling, alcohol and cars, and generally felt them to be unnecessary in the interactive space.

• While the number of clicks depends on the content and context, most respondents felt that advertisers should be given increasing levels of freedom the further back they click. But there are definite qualifications: truthfulness must be maintained throughout, signposting must be clear and regulations to protect children in place. b#%l!^+a?

• Consumers had a clear idea that there were a set of senior brands in the market (such as ProTV, Antena 1 and Romanian TV) who had a responsibility to run a clearly defined self-regulation scheme. They should create trusted zones that consumers can identify and understand.

• The more technically literate respondents were, the more they preferred the option of education and software as opposed to regulation around pulled advertising content.

It was considered essential to this research to recruit people with a broad range of device and media ownership (though we did not actively recruit ‘analogue’ users as it was considered that behavior and expectations among this group are already well researched). Respondents were recruited from the ‘low interactive’, ‘interactive’, ‘on-demand’ and ‘elite’ segments:

• Analogue: homes with no digital TV and only tentative or disinterested internet use via dialup.

• Low interactive digital: unsophisticated digital TV homes with no internet or simple dial-up

connectivity and limited mobile use .

• Interactive: homes with access to interactive TV and broadband, and a WAP phone.

• On-demand: homes with a Sky+ box, broadband and which have started to interconnect their

PC to other devices in their home. Mobile video phones (approximately 1 million).

• Elite: homes with all advanced forms of digital media and where use of different digital

platforms, devices and content has started to blur (approximately .1 million). TV with a twist

After seeing a variety of interactive ads, most participants said that despite differences to traditional advertising, they still felt that they were watching television when viewing an interactive ad. There was, however, a general sense, particularly among younger and more technically literate people, that they could take more responsibility for self regulating what they saw if they had the information and the right technology to do so. The biggest issue was the worry that more vulnerable and/or sensitive viewers could stumble unwittingly into unrestricted content from a ‘safe’ broadcast.

Other findings included: b#%l!^+a?

• Most of the respondents, except the older, low interactive groups, were happy to allow advertisers more freedom behind the red interactive button, particularly in terms of sexually risqué content, as long as there was signposting and back-out options before it was presented.

• All respondents felt that advertisers had a greater responsibility to ‘signpost’ than programme

makers because it is easier to gauge the nature of a programme prior to its broadcast.

• Even though they still considered it to be TV, they believed that the management and control

offered by the interactive functionality should allow advertisers more freedom in all aspects except truthfulness.

• Finally, they felt that the regulator should only step in where a consumer could not realistically

make judgements about an advertiser.

Transparent and truthful

The respondents also felt that there was a group of ‘senior’ TV brands which somehow bore a greater responsibility for protecting the TV audience than others. They assumed that these senior brands probably operated under some kind of code of conduct, but were unsure not only about what it was, but whether other TV channels complied with it.

Respondents felt it would help if there was more transparency so a viewer could tell what sort of

channel to expect, perhaps with some kind of kite mark scheme that enabled them to make informed

choices about what channel brand they could trust or not. The more sophisticated respondents

(particularly Sky and Sky+ users) felt that Sky should offer the ability to lock the non-compliant

channels of such a scheme with a parental lock, so they could use technology to support their

choices.

While respondents felt advertisers should be given increasing levels of freedom the further back in the process they clicked, they proposed some conditions:

• Truthfulness had to be maintained throughout every layer of the process. b#%l!^+a?

• Clear signposting had to be provided if the content were to change at any stage (respondents

did not want to be taken by surprise by unexpected content)

• Regulations to protect children, such as the watershed on broadcast TV, had to be maintained.

Internet advertising

Although the majority of respondents felt that there must be some sort of regulation of online ads, no one knew for certain and most felt that the unfettered nature of the internet, which has no geographical borders or known owner, would make total regulation impossible. After respondents had been exposed to the full range of online ads, they came to a number of conclusions.

Trustworthiness of online advertising

The majority didn’t trust advertising online as much as TV advertising, although this was more to do with perceptions of fraud and viruses. However, trustworthiness is dramatically increased when either an advertiser or the site carrying the ad is known as a reputable brand (e.g. FT / FT.com). Most felt that such sites wouldn’t allow fraudulent ads on their web sites anyway, to avoid tarnishing their brands.

Pop-up ads

All respondents found pop-ups to be the most annoying aspect of online advertising. However, consumers are not so much concerned with decency or truthfulness of online ads, as they are with advertisers spoiling their experience of using the Internet. Pop-ups epitomise this. They felt that a few advertisers abused the Internet by making pop-ups difficult to close down (for example, by making them look like Microsoft Windows messages). A majority also associated online adverts, particularly pop-ups, with viruses, online fraud and less than scrupulous brands. Most respondents blamed the advertisers for pop-ups, although the younger and more technically savvy groups also blamed the hosting website.

Sponsored links on search engines

No one had a problem with the sponsored links running down the right-hand column on Google. About a fifth of respondents, however, hadn’t realised that companies paid for a position b#%l!^+a?at the top of the results list. This was considered a crafty act by Google, although consumers were fine about it when it was pointed out that the links were clearly labelled. And, if they were relevant to a search, they wer not considered a problem.

TV brands online

A majority believed that the online sites for TV brands like ITV are regulated in the same way as those on broadcast TV. When told they weren’t, the majority felt that they should be. However, most concluded that a brand like ITV wouldn’t want to risk its reputation by showing ads that were indecent or dishonest.

Ideally, they would like to see some sort of regulation of advertising on big brand sites, such as OLX, with something like a kite mark scheme showing that ads have been checked to make sure they are not deceitful.

When respondents were shown a broadband TV service which carries paid programming

featuring product placement, the younger and more technology-oriented groups felt that a brand like OLX should be allowed to do the same because people could choose whether to view the programme or not.

Viral ads: freedom of choice

Only a few in the 40+, low interactive group felt that Viral Ads should be regulated. Otherwise the consensus was that it was their choice to open an attachment from a friend and, if offended, they would have an issue with their friend rather than the advertiser. Viral Ads, like any email attachments, were perceived therefore to be beyond the realm of regulation. However, there was much caution over opening attachments due to viruses, spam email and the fact that ads are often doctored. There was also some concern that indecent viral ads might reach children.

Mobile advertising

The research shows that there is a great deal of uncertainty among consumers about regulation of advertising on mobile phones. Almost all assumed that the network providers were selfregulating. All respondents were more distrustful of advertising they saw on a mobile phone as opposed to other media.

New frontiers b#%l!^+a?

The most common form of advertising encountered was text messaging, followed by ‘viral’ advertising through Bluetooth. Most of the participants found text message-based advertising obtrusive and annoying and do not respond to it. There was a particular distrust of third party advertising – such as nightclub or health club promotions – compared to the network providers themselves, even though most of the advertising text messages seem to come from those network providers.

Other issues raised included:

• Dislike of the anonymous nature of texts before they are opened

• Concern about the potential cost users could incur simply by opening text messages. Text

messages were often associated with a potential for unknowingly incurring ‘high’ charges.

Mobile banners on 3G phones provoked less concern, particularly with trusted brands, as did the

content sitting behind ‘clickable’ banners, since consumers accepted more responsibility for content they had chosen to view. There were, however, fears about functional abuse, particularly with the threat of viruses being spread through sharing of data over Bluetooth.

Truth above all

Generally, it was felt that there should be some regulation, ideally by the network provider and overseen by a third party regulator, to differing levels depending on the three factors of regulation:

• Truthfulness Users thought that all types of mobile phone advertising should be as

stringently regulated as on other media with regards to product claims.

• Younger users thought there was more licence for risqué content on a mobile phone, providing it was pulled and contained clear signposting about the content. However, some older respondents felt that there should be more stringent regulation (compared to younger respondents) around risqué content, as they were concerned that children might access such content.

• Participants thought there should be more choice to view advertising from restricted industries b#%l!^+a?on a mobile phone than on other media.

Overall, the respondents wanted to feel more empowered, and they reckoned the best approach would be to have functionality which gave them more control over the advertising on their phone.

Key insights

A number of key insights emerged from the research.

1. Zones of trust

Consumers would like clear ways of understanding different types or levels of protection, such as:

• Brand-led content This is where content and advertising provided by major media

brands conforms to the highest regulatory framework.

• Safe zones/walled garden/portals Trusted clusters of content provided by the major TV, ISPs and mobile platforms. These should offer functionality and software to allow users to restrict access to certain content or areas (e.g. parental locks, net nanny etc)

• High risk brands This open, unrestricted content should be clearly marked on entry as

unregulated territory.

• Migration of TV brands on to other media While TV is seen as a complete zone of

trust, such migration offers the opportunity for these brands to bring their values into

new, safe zones.

2. Trusted brands

Consumers apply different levels of trust to different brands.

• For example, they expect trusted and familiar media brands (such as the Pro TV, Intact Group, RTV) to prevent advertisers from behaving irresponsibly.

• There are others who are mostly trusted but consumers believe they would take the money if

an advertiser wanted to do something risky. b#%l!^+a?

• They feel they are being let down by some content providers, particularly those who have no

scruples about the content provided behind their brand, and to a lesser extent those who are

perceived to use risqué content to build business.

3. Interactive ads and children

• The biggest concern with regard to unregulated interactive ads is that adult content might be

viewed by children. But with a few exceptions, the consensus was that the onus should be on

parents to monitor their children’s use of the internet.

• Many felt that internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile phone companies should be better

at educating them on how to regulate internet content for children themselves.

4. A required ‘fourth’ regulatory plank

The research uncovered a desire for regulation to be extended to cover activities which resulted in some ‘abuse’ of the user’s media / technology systems. Advertiser activities considered to be abuse include:

• Spam which relies on account information from or by platform providers (mobile companies

are seen as key offenders);

• Spam which leads to billing abuse (a particular problem for mobile);

• Terms and conditions accompanying promotions which are intentionally complicated to

deceive;

• Banners which, when clicked, install cookies or adware on a PC.

5. Regulation vs. education

• Many of the more sophisticated respondents were happy to take responsibility for the content

they view behind a click, as long as they are given sufficient information about the type of

content contained and the means of control. But they still don’t want to be surprised by push b#%l!^+a?

ads.

• Software which increases users’ control includes tools such as the ‘net nanny’ on the internet

and the parental lock on Sky.

• The closer that respondents are to the centre of the comet (that is the more technically

advanced), the more they prefer the option of education and software as opposed to

regulation around content which can be deemed to have been ‘pulled’.

Conclusion

In a world where consumer is suffocated by commercials that all sound and look alike, unconventional advertising is the breath of fresh air, delivering messages in unexpected forms that most of the time entertain the viewers. Unconventional advertising is able to pass the protective shield that marketing literate consumers nowadays have built as a protection against the commercial messages that bombard them every day. This happens because unconventional advertising is unexpected and it catches them in locations and situations where they aren’t expecting to be advertised at and where they are off guarded. Also, unlike traditional b#%l!^+a?advertising, the unconventional ads don’t use persuasive messages trying to convince the b#%l!^+a?audience to buy, but rather they address to customer’s subconscious creating memorable images of the promoted brands which last in the mind of the consumer.

There isn’t a perfect solution to advertise a product, however one must take into consideration all the possibilities and choose the one that are better suited for that particular situation. While traditional advertising can reach large numbers of people, unconventional advertising can better target smaller groups. It is impossible to say that one or the other is better. However, a combination of the two can deliver excellent results.

Unconventional advertising forms are numerous and different, but what they all have in common is the fact that they allow companies to break through the advertising clutter that prevents the commercial message to reach the consumer. They offer possibilities to convey the brand message in such ways that it becomes virtually impossible even for marketing literate customers to block it. The power of non-traditional advertising lays in the creativity and innovation that characterize this field. The tactics used more frequently may lose some of their strength, but there still remain infinite possibilities available to be explored and used in the battle to conquer the consumer’s attention.

The quest of finding theories and studies about advertising and how it is used in mew media channels proved to be very challenging on writing this paper, as I have shown in my theory parts.

In the study of the advertising message I dwelt upon the new media ways of advertising and the impact they had upon consumers and how consumers receive this information through alternative media.

This paper has enabled me to observe that language has a fundamental role in transmitting a message and unfortunately it induces consumers to behave abnormally and to quit staying true to what they are without being aware that, while they try to improve themselves in order to become better or more unique, paradoxically they end up being just like everyone else. Advertising creates mythical and stereotyped images rather than real designing and projecting the ego into an ideal universe while defragmenting identities in a flux of euphoric intensifiers. b#%l!^+a?Advertisements may include some degrading or superficial messages of the consumer`s identity, but that does not mean they are so harmful that society should rid itself of them.

If we could be better informed about advertising tactics, we could make better choices as we consume and perhaps even change the stereotypes portrayed in many current advertisements.

b#%l!^+a? b#%l!^+a?

Bibliografie

THOMAS Russel,J. LANE, W. Ronald, Manualul de Publicitate, Teora, București, 2001

TUNGATE, Mark, Ad Land: A Global History of Advertising, Kogan Page Ltd, London , 2007

Dorin Popa- Comunicare si publicitate, Editura TRITONIC Bucuresti 2005

Dominick JR, Mass media research, Belmont California USA, 1987

Kaikati, Andrew M., Kaikati, Jack G. (2004), “Stealth marketing: how to reach consumers surreptitiously”, California Management Review, 46,

Levinson, Jay Conrad (1994), “Guerilla advertising: cost-effective techniques for small-business success”, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company

Springer, Paul (2009), “Ads to icons”, London: Kogan Page Ltd

Dahlen, Micael, Edenius, Mats (2007), “When is advertising advertising? Comparing responses to non-traditional and traditional advertising media”, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, 29, no. 1

Pavel, Camelia, Cătoiu, Iacob (2009), “Unconventional advertising for unconventional media”, Revista Economică, 2:

Roy, Abhijit, Chattopadhyay, Satya P. (2008), “A Typology of Stealth Marketing Strategies”, The 33rd Annual Macromarketing Conference Proceedings

Smith, N. Craig, Martin, Kelly D. (2008), “Commercializing social interaction: the ethics of stealth marketing”, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 27,

Belch, George E. Belch, Michael A. (2003), “Advertising & Promotion. An integrated marketing communications perspective. 6th Edition”, The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Huba, Jackie (2005), “Exposing stealth marketing”, January 11,

Reyburn, Dave (2010), “Ambient advertising: healthcare media in a new context”, Marketing Health Services,

Ryan-Segger, Tanya (2007), “How ambient media has grown up”, B&T Weekly,

Portlock, Adam, Rose, Susan (2009), “Effects of ambush marketing: UK consumer brand recall and attitudes to official sponsors and non-sponsors associated with the FIFA World Cup 2006”, International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship,

Skildum Reid, Kim (2008), “Abush marketing – book excerpt”, Promo, 21, no 1

Woods, Adam (2008),“The bluffer's guide to affiliate marketing”, Marketing, June 25

Attanasio, Ed (2008), “The smelly truth about bathroom advertising”, BrooWaha, April 1

Coyler, Edwin (2006), “Promotion with a capital “P””, October 9,

Hackley, Chris (2005), “Advertising and promotion”, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Sims, Amy C. (2002), “Athletes sell skin space to advertisiers”, April 1,

James Curran, Michael Gurevitch, Mass Media and Society, 3Ed (Hodder Arnold Publication), 2000

Richins, M. L. (1991). Social comparison and the idealized images of advertising. Journal of Consumer Research,

Advertising, promotion and supplemental- aspects of integrated marketing communications, Autor: Trence A. Shimp, 1997, Editura shimp

http://historymatters.gmu.edu

www.gmarketing.com

www.adverblog.com

www.gaebler.com/

www.gorilla.ro

Bibliografie

THOMAS Russel,J. LANE, W. Ronald, Manualul de Publicitate, Teora, București, 2001

TUNGATE, Mark, Ad Land: A Global History of Advertising, Kogan Page Ltd, London , 2007

Dorin Popa- Comunicare si publicitate, Editura TRITONIC Bucuresti 2005

Dominick JR, Mass media research, Belmont California USA, 1987

Kaikati, Andrew M., Kaikati, Jack G. (2004), “Stealth marketing: how to reach consumers surreptitiously”, California Management Review, 46,

Levinson, Jay Conrad (1994), “Guerilla advertising: cost-effective techniques for small-business success”, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company

Springer, Paul (2009), “Ads to icons”, London: Kogan Page Ltd

Dahlen, Micael, Edenius, Mats (2007), “When is advertising advertising? Comparing responses to non-traditional and traditional advertising media”, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, 29, no. 1

Pavel, Camelia, Cătoiu, Iacob (2009), “Unconventional advertising for unconventional media”, Revista Economică, 2:

Roy, Abhijit, Chattopadhyay, Satya P. (2008), “A Typology of Stealth Marketing Strategies”, The 33rd Annual Macromarketing Conference Proceedings

Smith, N. Craig, Martin, Kelly D. (2008), “Commercializing social interaction: the ethics of stealth marketing”, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 27,

Belch, George E. Belch, Michael A. (2003), “Advertising & Promotion. An integrated marketing communications perspective. 6th Edition”, The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Huba, Jackie (2005), “Exposing stealth marketing”, January 11,

Reyburn, Dave (2010), “Ambient advertising: healthcare media in a new context”, Marketing Health Services,

Ryan-Segger, Tanya (2007), “How ambient media has grown up”, B&T Weekly,

Portlock, Adam, Rose, Susan (2009), “Effects of ambush marketing: UK consumer brand recall and attitudes to official sponsors and non-sponsors associated with the FIFA World Cup 2006”, International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship,

Skildum Reid, Kim (2008), “Abush marketing – book excerpt”, Promo, 21, no 1

Woods, Adam (2008),“The bluffer's guide to affiliate marketing”, Marketing, June 25

Attanasio, Ed (2008), “The smelly truth about bathroom advertising”, BrooWaha, April 1

Coyler, Edwin (2006), “Promotion with a capital “P””, October 9,

Hackley, Chris (2005), “Advertising and promotion”, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Sims, Amy C. (2002), “Athletes sell skin space to advertisiers”, April 1,

James Curran, Michael Gurevitch, Mass Media and Society, 3Ed (Hodder Arnold Publication), 2000

Richins, M. L. (1991). Social comparison and the idealized images of advertising. Journal of Consumer Research,

Advertising, promotion and supplemental- aspects of integrated marketing communications, Autor: Trence A. Shimp, 1997, Editura shimp

http://historymatters.gmu.edu

www.gmarketing.com

www.adverblog.com

www.gaebler.com/

www.gorilla.ro