Dr. Smita Mishra on 'Advertising' as an important tool in Mass Communication

Dr.Smita Mishra briefed us on advertising as an important tool of Mass Communication. Advertising, as a marketing tool carries a large quantity of messages about products or services, price uses, comparative advantages etc. The purpose of advertising communication is to charge the behavior of the audience or their attitude through some medium of communication like Print Media, Broadcast Media, Outdoor Media, and Audio-visual Media, part of purchase advertising or direct mail media. Basically, there are five types of advertising i.e., Product Advertising, Classified Advertising, Public Service Advertising, Industrial Advertising, Corporate or Institutional Advertising. Other types of advertising also includes..Legal tenders, legal notices, hotel and tourists, political advertising, helps for Consumer buying. Creating an advertisement takes a lot of efforts and one needs to be very precise and clear. Some basic things that needs to be undertaken while composing and executing an Ad is, What is the dilemma, the fund dilemma, Pre-testing, Target audience, Media selection, the language, the visual and the copy, timing and duration, post-testing and effects on sales.

Dr. Mishra showed us some clips of various advertisements and asked us to analyze it. It was a fun filled activity and an interactive session. Later on, she also came up with on the spot ad making activity in which we were asked to script an advertisement and also give a catchy punchline and make jingle carrying the whole meaning and purpose of the ad. All the students came up with different ideas. During the class, we realized that how much creative bent of mind and presence of mind is needed to be in an advertising agency. The class ended on a happy note providing us an insight into one of the important part of mass communication.