Advertising refers to the whole process or set of informative, educative and persuasive promotion activities aimed at influencing the perception of the consumer and therefore the effective demand for a product or service.
On information, advertising is a medium through which the existing or potential consumers are made aware about (of) the existence (of say a new product or service), price(s) charged per unit, content and even the comparative quality. The educative aspect of advertising is largely to do with usage, that is, advertising spells out the procedure/way(s) of using a particular product e.g. the Kobil Mpishi (gas cooker) etc.
In terms of persuasion, advertising creates a positive perception of a product/service and therefore an urge of taste among consumers who may start buying so that, with time, they develop brand loyalties. Over and above, advertising should also be entertaining as a means of capturing a wider scope of target audience and prolonged attention. Any form of advertising that virtually has all these components is widely expected to be successful in terms of creating, maintaining or even increasing the demand for an existing or new product/service just introduced into the market. One such powerful and effective advertising is that of Omo Pick-a-Box show running every Sunday on KBC
TV, which has kept Omo well ahead of other similar detergents in the market – people have kind of developed some brand loyalty to Omo with Power foam – with the slogan “The Strongest Washing Powder for the Cleanest Wash”.
