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Advertising is an activity practiced by everyone, from the person who wants to sell his

car or to offer piano lessons, through to the multinational manufacturer selling his

products. However, even this spectrum of sales-related uses of advertising is too

restrictive. A large part of the job of advertising is to impart information and to provide

education on everything from pensions to AIDS prevention, hence the fact that

governments are among the very largest users of advertising in most countries.

Charities, environmental groups, and other special interest organisations use advertising

to plead their case, to win support, or to pursue aims that they believe will improve

quality of life in the widest sense.

If the roles and uses of advertising are varied then so too are the resources, both amateur

and professional that can be considered to be advertising practitioners. The advertising

that we are most aware of is normally, but not always, produced for advertisers by

advertising agencies of varying kinds. The agency role is one that we have to keep in

mind as it accounts for the performance of the sector.

The three main branches in advertising can be broadly grouped into Sales Promotion,

Consumer Education and Public Relations.

In Sales Promotion, the main job is to persuade and convince people to buy the product,

which the company has brought out. This cannot be done overnight with a magic wand,

but can be achieved only through a sustained campaign and promotional drive. In sales

promotion, the first thing that one tries to do is to gather more and cater to more and

more people and explain the benefits of the product so that they can be convinced to

purchase it repeatedly.