CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Etymologically the word Advertising is derived from the Latin word advert ere which means to draw attention. It‟s all about drawing a person‟s attention to buy a product or seek for services. This is why scholars like Hark and O‟ Connor in Eluwa, (1999), define advertising as the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcement. This definition is similar to Frank Jefkin‟s definition cited in Eluwa, (1999), as the means by which we make known what we want to sell or buy. But it is limited from the angle of the media of communication. However, advertising has always been defined by other different scholars in their own perspectives. According to Bovee and Arens (1992, p.7), advertising is a “non personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products (goods and services) or ideas by identified sponsor through various media. Wikipedia, sees advertising as “a form of communication used to encourage or persuade an audience (viewers, readers, or listeners, sometimes a specific group of people) to continue or take new actions.” The American Marketing Association defines advertising as “any paid form of non personal communication about an organization, product, service or idea by an identified sponsor. “Answer.com sees advertising as the activity of attracting public attention to the product or business as by paid announcements in the print, broadcast], or electronic media. Aliede in Okunna, (2002), is of the opinion that advertising is “a form of communication through the media about products services, ideas, personalities or organizations paid for by an identified sponsor.”
Although advertising has been limited to communicating the product with the aim of selling the products by urging and convincing the targeted audience to do something through the use of traditional communication, which covers the communication process by the media which include the radio, television, cinema, newspaper, magazines, bill boards, posters and the internet which of course is the recent advertising media. Every advert message performs and creates brand awareness about the product. Since the internet became commercialized, large and small businessmen saw it as a great opportunity to increase the awareness of their business and, at the same time to increase sales. Advertising may also be to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful. It also seeks to generate increase consumption of their product or services through „‟branding‟‟ which involves the repetition of an image or product name in an effort to associate certain qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers.
Advertising provides numerous benefits to the society. These include making media less expensive and contributing to a large and diverse economy. While advertising has existed in the United State since colonial times, it was industrialization, urbanization and the growth of national transportation network in the 19thcentury that allowed it to become a major industry. Advertising uses a variety of strategy to reach their audience; they may attempt to understand their needs, wants and motivations of audience members through psychographic research. They also target products to specific demographic groups. Advertising has being traced to have started since through the word of mouth which is the basic (and still the most powerful) form of advertising. Advertising has been ever since humans started providing each other with goods and services. Also advertising as a discrete form is generally agreed to have begin alongside newspaper in the seventeenth century. (Wilson, 2000, p.12).