Advertising
ADVERTISING
CONTENT TABLE
Lecture 1: Setting the scene & MarCom basics ...................................................................................... 2
Lecture 2: Advertising & ad industry .................................................................................................... 16
Lecture 3: Media planning .................................................................................................................... 29
Lecture 4: Ethics & Society.................................................................................................................... 42
Lecture 5: Ad Avoidance ....................................................................................................................... 52
Lecture 6: Advertising to children and adolescents .............................................................................. 65
Lecture 7: Influencers & Endosers ........................................................................................................ 79
Lecture 8: Emotions .............................................................................................................................. 91
Lecture 9: Music ................................................................................................................................. 103
Lecture 10: Congruity ......................................................................................................................... 116
Lecture 11: Guest Lecture – Nick Moors............................................................................................. 126
Lecture 12: Images .............................................................................................................................. 142
Lecture 13: Advertising effectiveness ................................................................................................. 149
1
, Advertising
LECTURE 1: SETTING THE SCENE & MARCOM BASICS
SETTING THE SCENE
Notes:
Sometimes the prof describes this course with this image. In this course we drink
the blood of creatives. The idea behind it is the following: the whole of marketing
communication and certainly of advertising, which is a subcategory of marketing
communication, people with a creative mindset and with great creative skills
making decisions that the prof thinks are not only creative decisions but also
strategic decisions. Strategic decisions that are implying that there is some of a lot
of academic research evidence available that could provide input for every decision
to be made whether it is a good idea. Giving the fact that not too much evidence
boils down to the room where decisions are made it implies that a lot of advertising,
already before it is going into production is deemed to be unsuccessful.
So we see a lot of advertising where we do believe the creative part in the decision
making has been to strong, the strategic part not strong enough, result in ads that do look good but might
underperform, but the problem is that this is one of the exceptional industries where if you create an ill product
(an add that doesn’t work well) it doesn’t really come hunting for you. The industry will typically react by putting
more money into advertising. So, we see more and more money going to advertising because everybody believes
that it is necessary, but we all believe that we hate advertising, there is a lot of money going to advertising
resulting in more ads, resulting in more people making ads, without really studying how to make them, resulting
in even worse ads. So, we see more and more ads that are of worse and worse quality in terms of their expected
effectiveness. That is why the prof thinks that this kind of summarizes the perceptiveness that we have in this
course, we try to be quite critical against the advertising industry, but we also try to provide a couple of examples
that all boil down to things that you could think of as creative decisions, should I use an influencer or an endorser?
Should I use music in my ads, yes or no? That are creative decisions but there is a lot of strategy behind that, that
can really guide you as to when and why these decisions would be good if you make one type of decision or the
other. That is not the only part you have to be critical about, we as students should be critical against the prof.
Article came at a time when the advertising
industry first started having blown due to the covid
lockdowns. There are the drop consumer
opportunities due to covid because you cannot
make ads because people cannot go shopping so
covid had negative effects on the advertising
industry. In 2022 we had a sport summer that is
positive for the ad industry.
2
, Advertising
ARTICLE: GLOBAL AD MARKET FACES ‘CAR CRASH’ NEXT YEAR AMID COST OF LIVING
CRISIS
Notes:
The prof is highlighting some trends, fears,
opportunities in the ad industry in the next
couple of slides. We see an article from the
Guardian, that came at a time where the ad
industry suffered a major blow during the
lockdowns. Because all of the sudden with
global lockdowns, there is a drop in
consumer opportunities, if people
aren’t allowed to go shopping then
there is also a decreased tendency in
advertising. Certainly, in the
traditional advertising that is
focused on the real life setting
instead of the digital setting. Then it
was overcompensating for the blow
it first had, then in 2022 we had a big
sport summer what is always good
for advertising, that is always resulting in a lot of advertising spend. But then end of summer 2022, there were
news reports saying that there is a ‘car crash’ coming up for advertising industry. There was supposed to be a
huge blow in 2023. Luckily, we are one year later and we have the figures in front of us. The figures go to 2029,
so as always this is prediction, this is the most recent update coming from July 2024. We see that there is no ‘car
crash’ in 2023. In the article was said that the 8.5 billion global advertising market was facing the prospect of a
‘car crash’. It was said that it would really drop sharply, it didn’t, it never does. It really takes covid to have a ‘car
crash’ in advertising spend and even there the bar maybe should have been higher but wasn’t, and there was a
bit of a compensation in 2021. If you draw a line it is all still right. If we have a look at other figures, we see a
stronger effect. But this is spending growth, if we map growth rather than absolute numbers, then you do indeed
see that traditional advertising really suffered immensely during Covid and digital also overcompensated and
then just had steady growth over the years. Going back to the previous figure, TV advertising takes up a lot of
the money, it is not only TV advertising but also like YouTube video’s or just in a TV format. Influencer advertising
is a very small portion of all the advertising spend and it grew but it is really not the amount of what people
would think nowadays. Students would think that influencer advertising would be half of the advertising budget.
People always forget about search advertising as it being one of the primary ad spend categories. We don’t
encounter them that much on a daily basis compared to all of the other categories, we probably see much more
influencer ads, or tv ads, … than search ads but they are very expensive per ad, because we know that people
are specifically looking for something and then we can offer them a very specific for exactly that what they are
looking for. You have to pay a lot more for those ads, much more than an influencer that rambles over something
that you are probably not interested in.
3
, Advertising
THE RELEVANCE OF AN ADVERTISING COURSE?
Notes:
TV is dead. This is an older article. He is quite provocative in his titles and texts, but it is a topic we need to discuss
more during the lectures. The prof already showed us figures on advertising spend, he already suggested that a
lot of the ads that we see are not effective and that the industry reacts in a very curious way by putting more
money into it. Which is strange. It is a little bit like gambling and having lost a couple of thousand euros already
and then thinking ‘yeah but I can fix this by putting in more money’, that is probably not the best way while the
metaphor is quite striking. Already in the 1960’s a very influential person in the marketing, had his legendary
phrase saying that “I know that half the money spend on advertising is wasted, but I don’t know which half.” That
was in the 1960’s, the reaction was that they don’t know which half of it was wasted but they knew that half of
it was good, so they were going to spend more up until the point that we don’t see additional profits coming in.
We are still doing that. The problem is that even though we have more knowledge than ever, there is even less
than half of the money that is giving returns, so more than half of the money is wasted. John Dawes posted about
a study suggesting that over 200
US brands in their campaigns there
was an average advertising
elasticity of around 0.03. An
advertising elasticity means that
for every one dollar additionally
invested in advertising you get a 3
cent return in regard to sales. That
is not the best deal you can make.
In the past we had the idea that is
was 0.1 or 0.2 rather than 0.03.
That means that advertising
elasticity and hands the return on
investment of advertising is way lower than typically thought. The industry reacts but not only in terms of
spending, so it is on the one hand the advertising spending more but it is also those on a media side of advertising,
because advertising always happens on a medium. Advertising is always a triangular relation between a
consumer, an advertiser and a medium. It is also media finding new tricks to harvest the money of the advertisers.
One of the tricks is Made for advertising websites. Website specifically crafted to boost the KPI of digital
campaigns. To boost KPI means to boost your report that you can bring back to the advertiser saying that a lot
of people clicked on ads or saw the ad, … without actually having true benefits for the advertiser because basically
these are just garbage contact points with consumers, so these are websites tricking advertisers into the idea
that their ads reach people. This is something that has been around for as long as the internet exist. But in its
newer versions, this is a warning coming from the iab (internation association for digital marketing). Think of
advertising in a stakeholder system, that is continually looking for a balance point. A stakeholder system where
consumers shouldn’t be too fed up with advertising, we are well past that point. A lot of consumers are well fed
4
ADVERTISING
CONTENT TABLE
Lecture 1: Setting the scene & MarCom basics ...................................................................................... 2
Lecture 2: Advertising & ad industry .................................................................................................... 16
Lecture 3: Media planning .................................................................................................................... 29
Lecture 4: Ethics & Society.................................................................................................................... 42
Lecture 5: Ad Avoidance ....................................................................................................................... 52
Lecture 6: Advertising to children and adolescents .............................................................................. 65
Lecture 7: Influencers & Endosers ........................................................................................................ 79
Lecture 8: Emotions .............................................................................................................................. 91
Lecture 9: Music ................................................................................................................................. 103
Lecture 10: Congruity ......................................................................................................................... 116
Lecture 11: Guest Lecture – Nick Moors............................................................................................. 126
Lecture 12: Images .............................................................................................................................. 142
Lecture 13: Advertising effectiveness ................................................................................................. 149
1
, Advertising
LECTURE 1: SETTING THE SCENE & MARCOM BASICS
SETTING THE SCENE
Notes:
Sometimes the prof describes this course with this image. In this course we drink
the blood of creatives. The idea behind it is the following: the whole of marketing
communication and certainly of advertising, which is a subcategory of marketing
communication, people with a creative mindset and with great creative skills
making decisions that the prof thinks are not only creative decisions but also
strategic decisions. Strategic decisions that are implying that there is some of a lot
of academic research evidence available that could provide input for every decision
to be made whether it is a good idea. Giving the fact that not too much evidence
boils down to the room where decisions are made it implies that a lot of advertising,
already before it is going into production is deemed to be unsuccessful.
So we see a lot of advertising where we do believe the creative part in the decision
making has been to strong, the strategic part not strong enough, result in ads that do look good but might
underperform, but the problem is that this is one of the exceptional industries where if you create an ill product
(an add that doesn’t work well) it doesn’t really come hunting for you. The industry will typically react by putting
more money into advertising. So, we see more and more money going to advertising because everybody believes
that it is necessary, but we all believe that we hate advertising, there is a lot of money going to advertising
resulting in more ads, resulting in more people making ads, without really studying how to make them, resulting
in even worse ads. So, we see more and more ads that are of worse and worse quality in terms of their expected
effectiveness. That is why the prof thinks that this kind of summarizes the perceptiveness that we have in this
course, we try to be quite critical against the advertising industry, but we also try to provide a couple of examples
that all boil down to things that you could think of as creative decisions, should I use an influencer or an endorser?
Should I use music in my ads, yes or no? That are creative decisions but there is a lot of strategy behind that, that
can really guide you as to when and why these decisions would be good if you make one type of decision or the
other. That is not the only part you have to be critical about, we as students should be critical against the prof.
Article came at a time when the advertising
industry first started having blown due to the covid
lockdowns. There are the drop consumer
opportunities due to covid because you cannot
make ads because people cannot go shopping so
covid had negative effects on the advertising
industry. In 2022 we had a sport summer that is
positive for the ad industry.
2
, Advertising
ARTICLE: GLOBAL AD MARKET FACES ‘CAR CRASH’ NEXT YEAR AMID COST OF LIVING
CRISIS
Notes:
The prof is highlighting some trends, fears,
opportunities in the ad industry in the next
couple of slides. We see an article from the
Guardian, that came at a time where the ad
industry suffered a major blow during the
lockdowns. Because all of the sudden with
global lockdowns, there is a drop in
consumer opportunities, if people
aren’t allowed to go shopping then
there is also a decreased tendency in
advertising. Certainly, in the
traditional advertising that is
focused on the real life setting
instead of the digital setting. Then it
was overcompensating for the blow
it first had, then in 2022 we had a big
sport summer what is always good
for advertising, that is always resulting in a lot of advertising spend. But then end of summer 2022, there were
news reports saying that there is a ‘car crash’ coming up for advertising industry. There was supposed to be a
huge blow in 2023. Luckily, we are one year later and we have the figures in front of us. The figures go to 2029,
so as always this is prediction, this is the most recent update coming from July 2024. We see that there is no ‘car
crash’ in 2023. In the article was said that the 8.5 billion global advertising market was facing the prospect of a
‘car crash’. It was said that it would really drop sharply, it didn’t, it never does. It really takes covid to have a ‘car
crash’ in advertising spend and even there the bar maybe should have been higher but wasn’t, and there was a
bit of a compensation in 2021. If you draw a line it is all still right. If we have a look at other figures, we see a
stronger effect. But this is spending growth, if we map growth rather than absolute numbers, then you do indeed
see that traditional advertising really suffered immensely during Covid and digital also overcompensated and
then just had steady growth over the years. Going back to the previous figure, TV advertising takes up a lot of
the money, it is not only TV advertising but also like YouTube video’s or just in a TV format. Influencer advertising
is a very small portion of all the advertising spend and it grew but it is really not the amount of what people
would think nowadays. Students would think that influencer advertising would be half of the advertising budget.
People always forget about search advertising as it being one of the primary ad spend categories. We don’t
encounter them that much on a daily basis compared to all of the other categories, we probably see much more
influencer ads, or tv ads, … than search ads but they are very expensive per ad, because we know that people
are specifically looking for something and then we can offer them a very specific for exactly that what they are
looking for. You have to pay a lot more for those ads, much more than an influencer that rambles over something
that you are probably not interested in.
3
, Advertising
THE RELEVANCE OF AN ADVERTISING COURSE?
Notes:
TV is dead. This is an older article. He is quite provocative in his titles and texts, but it is a topic we need to discuss
more during the lectures. The prof already showed us figures on advertising spend, he already suggested that a
lot of the ads that we see are not effective and that the industry reacts in a very curious way by putting more
money into it. Which is strange. It is a little bit like gambling and having lost a couple of thousand euros already
and then thinking ‘yeah but I can fix this by putting in more money’, that is probably not the best way while the
metaphor is quite striking. Already in the 1960’s a very influential person in the marketing, had his legendary
phrase saying that “I know that half the money spend on advertising is wasted, but I don’t know which half.” That
was in the 1960’s, the reaction was that they don’t know which half of it was wasted but they knew that half of
it was good, so they were going to spend more up until the point that we don’t see additional profits coming in.
We are still doing that. The problem is that even though we have more knowledge than ever, there is even less
than half of the money that is giving returns, so more than half of the money is wasted. John Dawes posted about
a study suggesting that over 200
US brands in their campaigns there
was an average advertising
elasticity of around 0.03. An
advertising elasticity means that
for every one dollar additionally
invested in advertising you get a 3
cent return in regard to sales. That
is not the best deal you can make.
In the past we had the idea that is
was 0.1 or 0.2 rather than 0.03.
That means that advertising
elasticity and hands the return on
investment of advertising is way lower than typically thought. The industry reacts but not only in terms of
spending, so it is on the one hand the advertising spending more but it is also those on a media side of advertising,
because advertising always happens on a medium. Advertising is always a triangular relation between a
consumer, an advertiser and a medium. It is also media finding new tricks to harvest the money of the advertisers.
One of the tricks is Made for advertising websites. Website specifically crafted to boost the KPI of digital
campaigns. To boost KPI means to boost your report that you can bring back to the advertiser saying that a lot
of people clicked on ads or saw the ad, … without actually having true benefits for the advertiser because basically
these are just garbage contact points with consumers, so these are websites tricking advertisers into the idea
that their ads reach people. This is something that has been around for as long as the internet exist. But in its
newer versions, this is a warning coming from the iab (internation association for digital marketing). Think of
advertising in a stakeholder system, that is continually looking for a balance point. A stakeholder system where
consumers shouldn’t be too fed up with advertising, we are well past that point. A lot of consumers are well fed
4
