solved During this week’s readings, an understanding of the advertising will

During this week’s readings, an understanding of the advertising will be emphasized, as well as, a basic understanding of how these messages are developed. Advertising is the primary means by which a company communicates to its customers about its products and brands, and position in the marketplace. Claims made in ads should be accurate and consistent with all a company’s messages and actions. TV commercials and print ads represent much of the typical advertising budget, but companies also advertise their brands in everything they do. Thus, many advertising gurus prefer the more general term “Integrated Marketing Communications” (IMC), which is broad enough to include other media (e.g., public relations, direct marketing), and it reminds the marketer to be sure the message has a holistic nature and is consistent and complementary across all media choices and executions. Advertising has both short- and long-term effects. Several of the short-term effects of advertising can be shown. For example, customers’ memory of ads and brands and attributes are easily measured. Attitudes are also easily surveyed and may be compared to prior attitudes (measured previously) to assess any change in valence. Advertising is a means of communication. Marketers must understand the basic model of dyadic communication. In the classic model, there is a source (e.g., the firm), a message (e.g., the ad), and a receiver (e.g., customer). The source intends to send out certain information, which is encoded (i.e., expressed in a certain way) and then transmitted. The receiver then decodes the message. Hopefully, the receiver interprets the content of the message in a manner like what the sender had intended. But there can be errors along the way. That is why copy testing (marketing research examining the content of the ad) is important, before launching the full ad campaign, to learn whether the intended target segment understands the message as the company intended. Goals must be set before ads can be evaluated. There are several classes of advertising communications messages. Rational or cognitive ads include one- and two-side arguments, comparative and non-comparative ads, product demonstrations, and dramas. Emotional ads include humorous and fear-inducing appeals, images, and endorsements. Advertising is tested via concept testing and copy testing. The content of what is measured depends on the corporate strategic goals of the ad campaign, and those assessments can include: Memory tests (recall and recognition), Attitudinal tests (enhancement of the favorability of the product and brand), and Behavioral measures (likely to purchase the brand or generate positive word-of-mouth)During this week’s readings, Integrated marketing communications (IMC) will be discussed, along with how the impact of Social Media is changing the Marketing landscape. IMC refers to the idea that marketing planning should ensure that a company’s various advertising efforts send a coherent story across the different customer touchpoints. Most companies spend on their entire communications package (i.e.