Sociology - Advertising Theory and Practice

RUNNING HEAD: ADVERTISING
SOCIOLOGY
Advertising Theory and Practice

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Executive summary
The main goal of the report is to emphasize on the social cultural and technological change.
In addition, it reflects on its relationship with advertisement by recognizing digital media as a
core trend in advertisement. Advertising is a distinct promotional tool as it assists in
attracting the customers and persuading them to buy the products.
The technological shift has simplified the companies marketing efforts. It has allowed the
companies to have an easy reach with mass population of the country. The change in
sociocultural variables has propelled the organizations to modify their marketing to fulfil
client’s needs and preferences. There are number of companies that are aligning with the
change in sociocultural and technological factors and these are Cadbury, Woolworths,
Starbucks, and Eatfit.
The businesses opt for digital platform and consider social media platform because
they have a high level of customer users. Based on evaluation of different advertising
practice; social media advertising is considered to be best suitable. The advertiser needs to
lay high attention in considering the sociocultural variables of the population. Therefore,
change in technology and sociocultural factors have laid a high impact on advertising
practice.

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Advertisement as a distinct promotional tool.............................................................................3
Media Mix..................................................................................................................................4
Advertisement relation with promotional mix...........................................................................6
Advertising practice...................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
Bibliography.............................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The report reflects on the concept of ‘Advertisement’ via digital media. A high level of
variety has been seen in commercial with the adjustment in technology and socio cultural
factors. It is exceptionally profiting the business enterprises occupied with ad. The business
endeavours are lining up with the technology and creating distinct advertisement practice
(McStay, 2016). The change in sociocultural factors laid a high effect on promotion. The
adjustment in technology and sociocultural elements has a high ground in present publicizing
practice. The upgraded technology is providing them (advertiser) a chance to reach to mass
population. It is allowing them to save their physical efforts and precious time. Some of the
major sociocultural factors include customs, lifestyle, values, buying behaviour, role and
status in the society (Kozenkow, 2018). With the spending years, clients are laying high
spotlight on raising their way of life. Furthermore, a resulting level of adjustment is
additionally observed in other sociocultural variables. The advertiser needs to lay a
reasonable spotlight on lining up with these components in their advertisement procedure.
Focusing on the report structure, the initial section includes the role of advertisement for
promotion and the second part comprises of various media mix including traditional media.
The succeeding part emphasizes on advertising practice with promotional mix (one of the
element of marketing mix). It includes multiple promotional mixes like public relation, direct
marketing, sales promotional and sponsorship and the following part includes the role of
digital media in advertising practice. The key purpose of the report is to focus on the
technology and sociocultural change on advertisement practice and the implication of
advertisers.
Advertisement as a distinct promotional tool
Promotion refers to urging individuals to purchase the items and services of a brand by
performing series of stages. It is a profoundly gainful way to draw in the clients towards the
item and services and it also assembled the client’s wishes to buy the item. The powerful
utilization of advertisement enables the advertiser to gain the correct clients (Hackley &
Hackley, 2017). There are numerous viewpoints that a promoter needs to consider in notice
as it ought to be guaranteed that advertisement is imparted in a correct way. It empowers
picking reasonable words, mottos, and pictures for the commercial. At present, advertising is

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profoundly basic to mindful the clients about the item and therefore the brands are developing
the use of multiple media to advertise (Reeves, 2017).
There are multiple companies that have highly aligned with the change in technology and
sociocultural factors to enable the customers to show high response for personalized service.
Cadbury brand has initiated offering personalized product to the customers. It has named its
product as ‘Madbury’ and it allows the customers to choose their ingredients for the
chocolate. It has highly advertised its product on social media and therefore it suggests that
the company attains wide knowledge about the suitable media for advertisement (Madbury,
2020).
The customers have become highly conscious about their health (social factor) and therefore
many companies have initiated offering ‘healthy food’ to customer. This would be
understood by considering the example of ‘Eat Fit’; it offers healthy food to the customers in
multiple countries including Australia. It advertises its product by depicting the level of
calorie in food items and therefore, it has aligned with the health consciousness factor of
customers (Mamamia, 2018).
The customers show their preference for companies that are engaged in sustainability.
Therefore, Starbucks has effectively known for ‘Green Marketing’ as it advertises its
products through promotional campaign named ‘Green Project and ‘The big picture’
(Ibrandstudio, 2013).
Subsequently, it very well may be expressed that advertisement is a limited time instrument
as this is on the grounds that it gives an opportunity to the brands to show that they are lining
up with the clients sociocultural components.
Media Mix
Media Mix is the advertising channels used for the fulfilment of marketing objectives of the
company. Customarily, clients dedicate their higher time towards radio, TV and reading
newspapers. In this way, these are viewed as noteworthy media for brand promotion and
therefore the advertisers depend on these channels to reach to greatest strength of clients.
This is on the grounds that these media channels exceptionally gains the clients consideration
(Bakopoulos et al., 2017). They develop the use of TV commercials to attract the customers

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and they also advertise on print media (newspaper) to target audience. Additionally,
billboards were also one of the useful ways to gain customers engagement in busy areas.
The advertisers are altering their usage of media to promote their product and service with the
upgraded technology and change in socio cultural behaviour. At present, email, websites,
internet, social media are highly preferred by advertisers as it has high strength of customers
that devote their maximum time in usage of social media (Baker, 2016). There are about 18
million active social media accounts in Australia and the numbers of social media users are
gradually increasing. It will allow the marketer to attain a better response from the potential
customers.
Figure 1: Use of social media in Australia (in %)
Source: (Hughes, 2019)
Email allows the advertisers to directly connect with their potential customers within a
second. The famous corporate websites are also used for the advertisement of product and
service (Chaffey & Chadwick, 2019). Example: Cadbury is a recognized brand of United
Kingdom and it also sells its products in Australian market. It is developing the use of
websites like ‘Pinterest’ to advertise its product (chocolates). The advertisers are developing
the usage of these media because customers are showing higher response towards them.

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Figure 2: Cadbury advertisement on website (Pinterest)
Source: (Pinterest, 2019)
The figure depicted above clearly proves that brand advertiser is opting for key websites for
advertisement.
As mentioned above, customers are laying high focus on improving and raising their lifestyle.
Therefore, the advertisers are highly opting for pop icons, and celebrities to advertise the
products and services. This is on the grounds that they are ventured to be the adherents of
high way of life. Along these lines, the promoters can without much of a stretch increase the
client's consideration in response to the products and services. With the accessibility of high
assortment, the clients have gotten exceptionally cognizant in the item choice. In this way,
advertisers are depending on paid promotion and content marketing to give a superior view
about the item and administration. The advertisers approach to align their practices with
change in technology and sociocultural factors is assisting them to fulfil their marketing
objectives.

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Promotional mix
Promotional mix is one of the elements of marketing mix. The elements of promotional mix
include public relation, direct marketing, sales promotion and personal selling.
Public relation is maintaining and shaping the image of the brand to the public and it
accomplishes a high importance in commercials. It helps in informing the clients about the
new products and services and it assist in developing better relation with the clients
(Abdullah, 2016). The key motivation behind public relation is to influence the clients to
purchase a product. The publicist should link some social viewpoint with the advertisement
as it will empower the clients to encounter social bond and association with the ad. The
clients face trouble in confiding in the brands. In this way, promoters should lay high
concentration in considering about the social and cultural aspects of the clients in their
advertisement (Hackley & Hackley, 2017).
Direct marketing refers to selling products and services straightforwardly to the clients by
eliminating the involvement of middleman. It offers a high chance of item advancement.
There are many forms of direct marketing and the key among them are internet marketing,
face to face marketing and direct mail (Chang & Zhang, 2016) (Deeter, 2018). The
advertisers rely on internet marketing due to the presence of high technology and it helps the
promoters in sparing their time and endeavours (Lancaster & Massingham, 2017).
Furthermore, it is an affordable strategy as it does not includes transportation cost. There are
different organizations that have opted for direct marketing and it includes Burger King and
Google and they have considered that customers prefer fast service in their buying process.
Subsequently, these brands have lined up with the socio idea of the clients (Chaffey &
Chadwick, 2019).
Sales promotion is a marketing strategy for the promotion of product and it involves the
application of short term measures to develop the demand for the product. It involves
persuading the customers to buy the product and it has multiple objectives including product
promotion, attract traffic, and raise sales for a short period of time (Mullin, 2018). The
advertiser should develop the use of digital media for sales promotion because customers are
digitally active. The marketer should advertise sales offers, seasonal discounts, or coupon
codes via digital media. Many companies opt for Sales promotion to gain customer’s
attention and boost their sales for a specified period of time (Beard, 2016). Woolworth’s is a
recognized supermarket retail stores offering wide variety of products to the customers. It

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opts for multiple tactics as sales promotion. It develops the use of coupon codes, seasonal
discounts and sales in Australians market because it is aligning with the socio factor (buying
behaviour) of the customers. The high strength of Australian customers shows price
sensitivity in their buying process. Therefore, the supermarket brand is aligning with the
sociocultural factors of the customers by offering products at high discounts and it is also
availing the use of digital media to acknowledge customers with these discounts and offers
(Chaffey & Chadwick, 2019).
Personal selling involves selling products to the customers with face to face interaction and it
is a creative and interactive form of selling. This component of limited time blend includes
educating and urging clients to purchase the item (Deeter, 2018). The dealer promotes the
item by personal appearance, attitude and high product knowledge because it involves high
amount of creativity to sell the product to the potential customer. It is an expensive form of
element of promotional mix as this is on the grounds that it includes travel costs, pay and
commission of the sales person (Paesbrugghe et al., 2018). It offers multiple advantages as it
helps with building trust with the client, making positive connection with them, permits
gaining better information about the clients' needs and inclination related with the item. In
personal selling, the sales person itself advertises the product and service to the customer
(Hackley & Hackley, 2017). With the availability of low technology, this form of advertising
practice was highly preferred in previous decades. Therefore, advertisement is directly
associated with the promotional mix.
Advertising practice
There are multiple forms of advertising practice for brand promotion and it includes any
format or device used to convey content using digital signals. It assists in the marketing of
product and service by using digital technology on the internet via digital mediums. Its key
examples are web pages, websites, digital audio and MP3. The upgraded technology assists
the advertiser in developing the use of better audio, software and content in the advertisement
and it allows them to create and edit advertisement on digital platforms (Schroeder, 2018). It
assists in scheduling their advertisement at the time of high traffic on website. Digital
interactive media is a form of digital media. Social media websites are a form of interactive
media. It allows the marketer to share textual and visual information about the product and
service. Additionally, it benefit in directly communicating with the potential customers
(Arvidsson & Delfanti, 2019).

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The advertiser has to consider various digital media platforms for the evaluation of digital
media and the multiple forms of digital media for advertising are video, information, photos,
social media, advertising, broadcast, interactive media and virtual reality (Lindgren, 2017).
Information includes building up the utilization of textual information for the product
advertisement. An advertiser develops the use of high quality video media for the
advertisement and photos are also shared in digital format. The advertisers rely on high
resolution images for advertisement. Social media is also a form of digital media and the
outcome produced through the use of these media is transmitted in a computerized
configuration (Spacey, 2019).
Among the different forms of digital media, social media is considered to be the best platform
for advertisement. This is on the grounds that it enables the advertiser to build up the
utilization of printed, visual and sound in ad (Dahl, 2018). Also, the advertiser needs to give
fewer endeavours to pick up clients consideration as it benefits in straightforwardly
interfacing with the clients at individual level. Along these lines, it helps in social event data
about the intended interest group (Hubbel, 2017).
The advertiser has to seek for highly used social media for advertisement. The advertisers of
Australia should opt for Facebook as a platform to market their product because it is the top
used social media in Australia. They can also choose Instagram because it has fine number of
users. In China, the marketer should consider Wechat for the advertisement. This is because it
has high number of users. Developing the use of right media for advertisement is highly
significant. Additionally, advertisers should consider the buying behaviour of customers and
opt for a trust worthy website (in customer’s perspective) for the advertisement (Tuten &
Solomon, 2017).
The Sociocultural factor attains a key significance in advertisement and therefore the
advertiser ought to include the inhabitants of the country for the promotion. They should
concentrate on thinking about a genuine issue of the clients as it enables the clients to relate
themselves with the commercial and product (Ketelaar et al., 2016). Therefore, the customers
will perceive product as a solution to their problem. Example: Dove is a reputed company
offering skin care products to the customers around the world. In order to engage the
customers, it has tapped the cultural aspect of the customers. The advertisers have opted for a
girl in ‘Hijab’ in Iran for the advertisement of its product as it has enabled the company in
gaining customer’s attention. In China as well, it relies on Chinese to advertise its product via

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broadcast media. Therefore, it depicts that considering the sociocultural factors in
advertisement assist in developing the customer’s belongingness with the brand (Youtube,
2017).
Conclusion
The report summarizes the concept of advertisement by considering digital media. From the
above discussion, it is acknowledged that advertisement is a means to communicate a product
and service with users. It accomplishes a key job in the advancement of product and service.
It offers multiple advantages to the business concern. It aids in effectively picking up client
consideration, increasing brand recognition, and reaching mass population. It is analyzed that
Public relation, direct marketing and sales promotion attains an indirect relation with the
brand. Media Mix is the channel that assists in the fulfilment of marketing goals. There are
traditional as well as digital media for advertisement. The traditional media mainly involves
television, radio and newspaper whereas digital media involves social media, and websites.
With the passing years, the advertisers are altering their process due to change in technology
and sociocultural factors. It is assessed that advertises are mainly relying on digital media to
gain respondent’s attention as they are highly opting for multiple websites and social media
for advertisement. Based on the evaluation, it is acknowledged that social media is the best
suitable form of digital media for advertisement. It is evaluated that right choice of social
media is also mandatory for advertisement. It is realized that aligning with the sociocultural
aspect in advertisement is necessary to raise customer belongingness with the customers.
Thus, it concludes that change in technology and sociocultural factors have laid a high impact
on advertisement.

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