Methods of Advertising

• To reach the consumer, advertisers employ a wide variety of media. In the United States, the most popular media, as measured by the amount of ad spending, are television, newspapers, direct mail, radio, Yellow Pages, magazines, the Internet, outdoor advertising, and a variety of other media, including transit ads, novelties, and point-of-purchase displays. (These rankings are measured each year by Advertising Age, an advertising trade magazine, and seldom vary.)
• In Canada, newspapers are the most popular advertising medium, followed by television, magazines, radio, and outdoor advertising. Canada is the ninth largest advertising market in the world.
• In 1999 television attracted about 23.4 percent, or $50.4 billion, of the advertising dollars spent in the United States. Television is available to advertisers in two forms: broadcast and cable. Broadcast TV—television signals that are sent over the air rather than through cable wires—generates all of its revenue from advertising. Advertising accounts for about 60 percent of cable television revenues with the rest coming from subscriber fees.
• To run commercials on television, advertisers buy units of time known as spots. The standard units of time are 15, 30, or 60 seconds in length. These spots are purchased either locally or from a national network. Because of the high cost of national network spots, ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars, only large national advertisers can afford to run network television spots. Advertisers wishing to reach a local audience can buy time from an individual station. But even these spots cost so much to produce and run that small and even many mid-sized companies cannot afford them.
• Because television commercials combine sight, sound, and motion, they are more dramatic than any other form of advertising and lend excitement and appeal to ordinary products. Advertisers consider television an excellent medium to build a product's brand image or to create excitement around a particular event such as a year-end auto sale. But TV spots are too brief to provide much product information. As a result, television works best for products such as automobiles, fashion, food, beverages, and credit cards that viewers are familiar with and easily understand.
• In the United States, newspapers are the second most popular advertising medium after television and in 1999 received 21.7 percent, or $46.6 billion, of all advertising dollars. Newspapers enable advertisers to reach readers of all age groups, ethnic backgrounds, and income levels.