Role and Functions of Advertising Agencies

Role of Advertising Agencies The major role as advertising agency is to work alongside the clients to develop and sustain the brands that they mutually serve, through consumer understanding and insight and through creative and media delivery skills to provide best advice and the best execution thereof to those clients for the advertising of those brands. “Buildings age and become dilapidated. Machines wear out. People die. But what live on are the brands.” Brands are much more than mere products and services. Brands, if successful, are clearly differentiated entities with which consumers can and do form a mutually beneficial relationship over time, because of the values – rational and emotional, physical and aesthetic – that consumers derive from them. The importance can be summed up as follows: ” A product is something that is made, in a factory: a brand is something that is bought, by a customer. A competitor Continue reading

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) – Concept, Benefits and Weakness

For a sustainable growth and economic development of a country, innovation and creativity is a very important dimension. Industries and the global markets of the 21st century rest on the intellectual property protection as it is one of the central public policy. By the mid-1990s, a minimum global standard for IPR had been preserved in the WTO Charter through the incorporation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The transfer in international economic policy and the lowering of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers to the embrace of strong IPR is genuinely an issue of controversy. Intellectual property rights (IPR) are legal claims settled by governments within their relevant sovereignties that grant trademark, patents and owners of copyright the exclusive right to exploit their intellectual property for a certain period. The fundamental right for IPR protection is to provide an incentive for innovation by granting IP owners Continue reading

Advertisement Layout – Meaning, Functions and Principles

Layout is the logical arrangement of components of an advertisement in the copy. It refers to the overall structure, the position assigned to the various elements of the advertisement copy and illustrations. It is deciding on the placement of headlines, copy, illustrations, marketer’s name, logo and the amount of free space in an advertisement copy. Thus, the physical arrangement of all the elements of advertisement is called layout. It is concerned with placing all the elements of the advertisement more attractively within the allotted space and time. The pattern of advertisement layout varies according to the medium to be used. According to Sandage and Fryburger, “The plan of an advertisement, detailing the arrangement of various parts and relative spatial importance of each is referred to as layout”. Preparation of an Advertisement Layout An advertisement layout is a plan for the guidance of the printer in arranging the units of an Continue reading

Issue of a share at par and at a premium

In general, an ordinary share in India is said to have a par value (face value) of Rs.10, though some shares issued earlier still carry a par value of Rs.100.   Par value implies the value at which a share is originally recorded in the balance sheet as equity capital. Equity capital is the same as ordinary share capital. The SEBI guidelines for public issues by new companies established by individual promoters and entrepreneurs, require all new companies to offer their shares to the public at par, i.e. at Rs.10.   However, a new company set up by existing companies (and of course existing companies themselves) with a track record of at least five years of consistent profitability are allowed by the SEBI guidelines to issue shares at a premium. It should be noted that when a company issues shares at a premium, it is able to raise the required Continue reading

Characteristics of Retailing

Retailing can be distinguished in various ways from other businesses such as manufacturing. Retailing differs from manufacturing in the following ways: There is direct end-user interaction in retailing. In is the only point in the value chain to provide a platform for promotions. Sales at the retail level are generally in smaller unit sizes. Location is a critical factor in retail business. In most retail businesses services are as important as core products. There are a larger number of retail units compared to other members of the value chain. This occurs primarily to meet the requirements of geographical coverage and population density. Direct Interaction with Customers Retail businesses have a direct interaction with end-users of goods or services in the value chain. They act as intermediaries between end-users and suppliers such as wholesalers or manufacturers. Therefore, they are in a position to effectively communicate the response and changing preferences of Continue reading

Strategic Marketing Tools – Ansoff Matrix and BCG Matrix

Ansoff Product-Market Expansion Grid A useful planning tool in respect of markets and products is the matrix developed by Igor Ansoff, who is regarded by some as the ‘Father of Strategic Management’. Fully titled the Ansoff Product-Market Growth Matrix, the tool was first published in Harvard Business Review, 1957, in Ansoff’s paper Strategies for Diversification. The Ansoff Product-Market Expansion Grid or Ansoff Matrix helps to understand and assess marketing or business development strategy. Any business or part of a business can choose which strategy to employ, or which mix of strategic options to use. This is a fundamentally simple and effective way of looking at strategic development options. Each of these strategic options holds different opportunities and downsides for different organizations, so what is right for one business won’t necessarily be right for another. Think about what option offers the best potential for your own business and market. Think about Continue reading