4.1 Advertising
Advertising is carried out at a distance and communicates with a large number of people through a paid media channel. These channels include television and radio, print media such as newspapers or magazines, billboards, leaflet drops, cinema advertising, the internet in the form of advertising banners and pop-ups on websites, sponsored links in search engines, company presence in social media or targeted advertising through text messages to mobile phones.
Online advertising has become an increasingly significant part of the advertising landscape. Consider the popularity of the video sharing platform YouTube. Part of the YouTube business model is to raise revenue through paid-for advertising. Companies can pay for and use different online advertising formats. Display ads are placed next to the video the consumer is trying to watch. In order to watch these videos, the consumer has to click on them. Overlay ads are semi-transparent ads, often in the form of banners, which appear in the lower 20% of the video the consumer is trying to watch. Skippable video ads run before the consumer can watch their chosen video but can be skipped after five seconds. Non-skippable video ads also play before the consumer’s chosen video but cannot be skipped. By placing their advertisement next to or within particular video content, advertisers can target specific consumer groups, e.g. those interested in watching science fiction movies.
4 Communicating with customers