2.3 The Targets of Advertising

Firstly, advertisings provide information. Pioneering advertising: that is, enterprises provide various kinds of information to target communication partners through advertising campaigns. Such as telling the target market that there will be a new product on the market, introducing a new usage of a product, notifying the public that a certain product will change its price, introducing various available labor services, correcting illusions, explaining how the product is used, and reducing consumption and establishing corporate reputation and so on. Advertisements aimed at providing information to target communication partners are called advertisements for providing information, also called ground-breaking advertisements. The purpose of this type of advertising is to establish basic needs even if the market needs a certain type of product, rather than promoting a brand.

Secondly, advertisements induce purchase. Induced advertising, that is, the company establishes its own brand preference through advertising campaigns, changes the customer's attitude towards the company's products, encourages customers to abandon competitors' brands and instead purchases the company's brand, persuades customers to accept sales visits, and induces customers to buy immediately. Advertisements that target at persuasion, inducement, and persuasion are called inducement advertisements or persuasive advertisements. The purpose of this type of advertising is to establish selective demand, even if the target communication shifts from a brand that requires a competitor to a brand that requires the company. In recent years, in western countries, some induced advertisements or competitive advertisements have developed into comparative advertisements. That is, advertisers compare their brands with other brands in advertising, and use their own strengths to attack others’ shortcomings in order to publicize the superiority of own brand.

Thirdly, advertisements remind consumers to use. Prompt advertising, that is, companies remind consumers through advertising campaigns that they will use a product in the near future such as reminding people in the autumn that they will soon wear warm clothes, and remind them where they can buy the product. Advertisements that target at reminding are called reminding advertisements. The purpose of this kind of advertisement is to enable consumers to think of this product at the mature stage of a certain product life cycle. For example, Coca-Cola spent a lot of money in the off-season to do color advertising in magazines. Its purpose is to remind consumers that they should never forget Coca-Cola. Another form of advertising associated with this is called enhanced advertising, which aims to convince existing users that the choices they make are correct. For example, American car manufacturers often use advertisements to describe their customers as being satisfied with the cars they have purchased in order to strengthen their purchasing options.