If you were to create a self-cleaning textile, the world may want to beat a path to your door to acquire some from you, but first of all they will have to know that the textile exists, that it is available for purchase, and they have to know where your door is. This means advertising.
There are two classifications of advertising: institutional and product. Institutional advertising markets the name of your company in general and product advertising markets a product or range of products or services. The type of advertising that a business needs, depends on the products or services that it allows.
Moreover, some kinds of advertising lend themselves better to institutional advertising rather than product advertising. For example, a shop sign, a sign-written van or a promotional calendar are better suited to institutional advertising, while a newspaper or magazine advert would be better for advertising the latest special offer.
There are few facts and figures available that reveal the astonishing growth of the mass consumption society as well as those dealing with the expansion of the advertising industry. For instance, prior to the Second World War, US average annual expenditure on advertising per year had been about $2 billion for decades.
In 1950, as the post-war economy started to pick up , American businesses spent $5.7 billion to advertise its goods and services. By 1960, that figure had doubled to $12 billion. By 1970, American business was spending $20.
Between 1970 and 1990, as the children Baby Boomers became adults and started earning and spending, advertising expenditure went through the roof, so that by 1986, it had reached $100 billion.
That phenomenal rate of increase could not be maintained, but by 1999, total expenditure on all forms of advertising topped $215 billion . The last available figures are for 2007 and they stand at $280 billion.
In 1999, nearly 60% of all advertising dollars were spent on adverts in newspapers, magazines, on the radio and on TV. By 2007, that figure had fallen to about 54% as the Internet started to have an effect on advertising trends. These trends are expected to continue as every firm is expected to have its own website these days.
The country’s biggest advertisers are the manufacturers of cars, food, soft drinks, tobacco and beer and they filter most of their expenditure through about 13,000 advertising agencies., who usually create the ads and buy the space or air time from the media too.
These agencies have been transformed over the last decade by mergers. The most successful advertising agencies these days are huge international concerns. WPP, the largest advertising agency in the world, billed $37 billion in 2008 and had this to say about itself:
“Our total revenue in 2008 surpassed that of all our competitors, regaining the No.1 worldwide position for the third time”.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with researching promotional wall calendars. If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars