Written press and advertising

The main advantage of print advertising is that it is tangible and that through it can be communicated detailed information. At the same time, readers can refer to the ad and reread what they missed the first time.

The press includes national and regional newspapers, magazines and periodicals and trade, technical and professional journals. Advertising is a major source of revenue in the newspaper and magazine publishing business, and, without it, the newspaper could cost much. The types of advertisements published include: display , which are advertisements with a border mainly designed and placed by manufacturers and retail distributors, classified , which refer to advertisements in the same type and format as the editorial such as wants and sales, jobs vacant and wanted advertised by companies and the general public respectively and financial , which refer to company reports, prospectuses and so on. (W. G. Leader and N. Kyritsis, 1990)

A very important thing is that in a press advertisement can be presented factual information and at the same time, the readers are in control of how long they take to absorb the information. Allied to this advantage is, as mentioned earlier, the possibility of re-examination of the advertisement at a later date. Unfortunately, it lacks movement and sound and advertisements in newspapers and magazines compete with editorial for the reader's attention. However, on a newspaper or magazine page, it is easy to distinguish advertising from editorial due to the fact that editors and advertisers are careful to design their presentations to emphasize this distinction. For on-line advertising, advertisements can be treated as such. In its way, editorial is also advertising. The usual divisions between advertising and editorial are virtually abolished, because advertisers can also be publishers. Anything on screen can be treated as an advertising element. Thus, the advertiser can use logos, headlines, body copy, product names, symbols and pack designs. Currently there are no restrictions such as those exercised in print advertising, except possibly those relating to legality, honesty and decency in the countries in which they are published.

In fact, newspapers are a shopper's medium, the ad being one of the reasons the newspaper was purchased in the first place. Studies show that readers prefer newspapers with ads to newspapers without. They can be used for creating general awareness of a product or a brand as well as providing detailed product information. For example, in this way, building societies use newspapers both for adverts designed to create brand awareness and liking for the organization, as well as adverts for giving specific details of saving accounts. (Adrian Palmer, 1998,) Daily newspapers tend to have a high degree of reader loyalty, reflecting the fact that each national title is targeted to specific segments of the population; this loyalty can lead to the printed massage being perceived by readers as having a high level of credibility.

On the other hand, magazines permit the advertiser to target his market and do a better job of communicating than newspapers. Magazine readers generally pay to receive the magazine they get, so they are more likely to pay attention to the ads. In addition, since magazines are printed on better quality paper than newspapers, illustrations and photographs reproduce better. Although advertising in magazines may at first seem relatively expensive compared to newspapers, they represent good value to advertisers in terms of their high number of readers per copy and highly segmented audiences. Like many other things, the press as an advertising medium has advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of written press advertising

•  The press is one of the cheapest means of reaching a large number of unknown or unidentified prospective buyers, whether in town, region or even overseas.

•  Advertisements can be inserted quickly, compared with the time required for making commercials for television or designing and printing posters. An advertisement could be inserted in a newspaper virtually overnight, while classified (small linage advertisements) are often sold by telephone.

•  Response can be achieved by means of coupons or the giving of telephone and fax numbers, email and website addresses.

•  Press advertising can be targeted at certain people by using the newspapers or magazines read by them.

•  Both newspapers and magazines can be carried about and read almost anywhere, for example in the house, while travelling, at the place of work, in a waiting room or library.

•  Newspapers and magazines have the capacity to accept a large number of advertisements compared with the limited time available on television or radio.

•  Press advertisements can be re-read and retained, and some publications such as magazines have very long lives, being kept, filed or passed on to other readers.

•  Some publishers encourage enquiries by use of reader-service coupons or cards which make it unnecessary to clip advertisements and write to advertisers individually.

•  Advertisements for particular products or services are often grouped together so that it is economical for each advertiser to buy only a small space.

Disadvantages of written press advertising

•  Short life . A daily newspaper in unlikely to survive more than a day and in some cases the reading life of a newspaper may be exhausted in a few hours, as when newspapers are read on the way to and from work.

•  Poorly printed . Regarding this subject, there are two problems: the first one is the poor quality of newsprint and the second one is the speed with which multi-million circulation newspapers have to be printed. This is one of the most problematic issues of written press and advertising.

•  Passive medium . An effort has to be made to read press advertisements, unlike cinema, radio and TV advertisements, which have captive audiences. Also, advertisements in the press have to compete with the editorial for attention and interest, whereas cinema and broadcast advertising does not occur at the same time as the programme.

•  Static medium . The press advertisement lacks the realism of sound, movement and often the colour of TV or cinema commercials and the sound of radio advertising.

•  Badly presented . Advertisements may be massed together so that they may be overlooked, unless an effort is made to find them. With most other media, each advertisement is presented individually and can be absorbed one at a time.

•  Sometimes, it is made the mistake of taking whole page spaces. In broadsheet newspapers they resemble posters and are too unwieldy for the reader to cope with and absorb, so a smaller space can often be more effective.

•  There is all-day news coverage on TV and radio, which is more up-to-date than printed news can be, but this is often a minor issue in the relation between the written press and advertising. ( Frank Jefkins, 1998)