Introduction
Advertising is a way of market communication that is aimed at pleading the consumers or the persons targeted to buy or get interested in a certain commodity. Advertisement entails mentioning the type or the identity of the particular item an organization intends to introduce in the target market (Jhully et al, 2005). In addition, an advertisement with an intention of persuading consumers to buy, should candidly explain to a customer on how he or she will benefit from the product or the service. In this way, it will be possible for a firm to convince him or her to fully accept the product. For a long time, companies have come up with various advertisement campaigns which are aimed at putting their competitors at bay. In the past, advertisement was not so much advanced this was due to the fact that many companies did not realize the significance of advertisement since the level of business competition was low. However, due to the cutthroat competition that has engulfed business arena in the current business atmosphere, companies have invested so much in their advertisement programs. Examples of such companies are Coca-Cola, Toyota among others. Advertisement cost could be taken care of by the company that produces the particular item advertised or an individual owner of the commodity incase it is an individual business entity.
From the periods 1950 to 2000, the advertisement has greatly developed in France. Within this time lag, most companies have improved their advertisement strategies in terms of improvised and advanced ways of advertising their companies and their products. This aspect of technological improvement in the advertising industry has resulted to a faster growth of local and international companies whose operations are based in France. Due to high competition in the market and the day to day advancement in technology, most of the companies are forced to use the current technology as a better way of advertising. This new technology includes advertising through the internet and through the mobile phones (Fraser and Nancy, 2000). The advertising development has improved the performance of many company products since many consumers are persuaded and convinced that the advertised products are the best. In this regard, such consumers end up purchasing and consuming large quantity of the promoted products. As a result, this causes other customers to be attracted and emulate the same products. Advertising strategies entail public advertising that involves use of attractive methods like video shows, music and many other means of entertainment that attracts both young and old people. Based on the fact that these public means of entertainment draws the attention of many people, after the entertainment the message of the product being advertised is passed across. This paper will discuss the developments of advertisement strategies in France from 1950 to 2000.In order to fully understand the implications of the advertisement during this period of 50 years the paper will employ a questionnaire as technique of collecting data.
Objectives
In order for any research to be successful, it should be focused and effective. In this regard, the first objective of carrying out this research is to understand deeply how the advertisement has developed in France in the period from the years 1950 to 2000 and how this development has affected the markets in France. Secondly, the paper is focused on understanding both the positive and negative effects of advertisement development in France (Horkheimer, 1973). In addition, the research was conducted to understand well how advancement in advertisement technology has contributed to the improvement of performance and rapid growth of many companies in France. The purpose of the research is also to show the many different methods that have been used in developing the advertisements from 1950 to 2000.The research also illustrate how the advancement in advertisement in France has greatly contributed to the rapid growth in the urban development. Another objective of this research is to show how the main modern advertising tools/machines like the Television network and internet have catalyzed the advancement of advertising. Through this research, a lot of information has been collected as a way of portraying how advertising development has caused positive effects like creating job opportunities to millions of people in France. This research paper is aimed at interacting with the top officials members of the most recognized companies in the marketing departments so as to get the right information from them and understand clearly what challenges they have faced from 1950-2000 in their advertisement strategies. In addition, the study is also targeted at getting their views on how they want these challenges to be handled in order to bring out the positive effects of the advertising development. In the same way, the paper is focused at clearly identifying the changes that have taken place in the advertising sector in the period from 1950 to 2000 and whether there has been any improvement in the sector or if there has been a downfall in most recognized companies in France. The research was also carried out to know which ways or measures should be carried out in order to come up with modalities which are aimed at increasing the revenue generated from the advertising sector.
Motivation for pursuing this research
The first thing that propelled me to undertake this research is to gain adequate knowledge about the changes in the advertisement developments in France from 1950 to 2000.Another motivation factor for this research is to find out what measures could be taken to improve the advertising strategies if need be (Fraser and Nancy, 2000). Motivation of this research has also been triggered by the need to know the challenges that have been faced by many companies both big and small as per the data colleted from the senior Marketing Managers. In addition, despite the fact that some organization continued intensive advertisement strategies, their performance has not so much improved. This fact motivated me to research on the major issues that led to some companies going down day one after the other while other portrayed a drastic improvement in their operations. This difference clearly portrays that something was not well in some companies within the state of France. This called for an urgent research since there was a need to find out the main causes of these great down fall and drastic expansion of the France based companies.
Literature review
Early in 1960’s, various researchers discussed the population growth that forced many France companies to come up with various advertisement strategies which were geared towards exposing the high number of consumers to the existence of their products. According to Klein, (2000), the rapid growth in the population called for an urgent need for more advertisement in order for firms to maximize their sales and profits. It is therefore essential for senior marketing personnel drastic response to meet the demands of the people by initiating quality commodities which satisfy the big population that was estimated to be spending over $30 billion (Habermas and Jürgen, 1989). In order to understand the relationship which existed between the advertisement strategies and the age of the consumers, Habermas and Jürgen (1989), came out with the studies which show how old population group is special in the market. Klein (2000) also did his analysis in 1950s which justified that old population demanded specially designed products in order to fulfill their satisfaction. As advocated by Hodge and Kress (1988), any trial to suggest and force an advertising strategy for any product to the old population group in the market could result to a loss of need for the products by the old aged group of consumers whose needs always reminds them of their old age. Klein (2000) has also clearly maintains that in order to benefit in product consumption, old aged population demands for extra ordinary advertisement strategies due to how much their purchases could be affected compared to other group. According to Habermas and Jürgen (1989), advertisement in France in 1963s was faced with many challenges. The first one being limited avenues through which companies could pass their messages to their consumers. In addition, the consumers were not very exposed to the importance of some products which resulted to the few available advertising avenues generating unreasonable amount of revenue.
Methodology
In order to fully understand the advertising developments in France from 1950 to 2000, market economy and international markets of company’s’ products as well as how changes in international markets affects the France economy, a questionnaire was prepared and given to companies Marketing Managers. The Marketing Managers operated under the company laws which govern all advertisement strategies in small companies and large organizations. The questionnaire was handed to the selected Marketing Managers and the top officials through their respective different branches. For those who were not able to get the hard copies of the questionnaire, an online method was selected The questionnaire was to be taken in the morning hours before the senior top company officials get into official meetings and their daily duties. After filling up, the questionnaires were then collected from their respective branch locations. The duration given to the top company officials to complete these questionnaires was two weeks from the day of the supply of the questionnaires
Questionnaire to the senior Marketing Managers
Section A
The questionnaire below seeks to research on implications of advertisement development and changes in France from 1950 to 2000 on the economy and international trade markets of products. Please tick the answer you view to be the most appropriate.
- How has the advertising sector performed in the year from 1950 to 2000?
Badly Fairly Good Great Excellently - Have your company output been steady across the period from 1950 and 2000?
Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very often - Has the advertisement development affected companies’ operations in any way?
Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very much - If it has, please state which changes in specific had drastic effects on company operations.
- In your own opinion, does the advertising failures in France especially in the major cities where much marketing is done affect the international markets?
Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very much - Have you as a top senior company official taken any measures to solve the problems arising from advertising development?
Never Once Sometimes Often
If you have, state and explain briefly the measures taken in addressing the issue?
Have you taken any steps in order to cub the problems affecting the international market of the products that arises due to the advertising failures in France?
Never Once Sometimes Often
If you have please state and explain briefly the steps you took. - State and explain how the performance of Advertising board has been affected by the markets changes and the changes in international markets of the products.
- Has the Advertising board stepped in helping company managers to overcome the problems of advertising development to ensure a steady supply of products to the international markets from France?
Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very much
If the Board has, state and briefly explains how it has helped you as the company Marketing Managers in mitigating this problem of these changes. - How has the economic development affected your intensity of advertisement in your company?
Never Very little much Very much
If you have been affected, briefly explain how - How has been your company performance from 1950 to 2000?
Fair Good Very good Excellent
Section B
This questionnaire tries to research on how changes in international advertising policies affected the France business performance and advertising strategies. Please tick answers you deem to be the most appropriate one.
- Has the France market economy been affected by changes in the international advertising policies
Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very often
If it has, please state and explain which international policies have highly affected your company? - Have the state helped the companies and the organizations to mitigate the effects of fluctuations of international advertising policies?
Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very often
If it has, explain which internal policies have been put into place to shield the France economy from the effects of changes in international policies - What would you recommend to be done by the officials in international markets dealing with advisement ethics so as to eliminate the problems experienced in the advertisement sector from 1950-2000 in France?
Results
The answers from the above Questionnaire were collected from the branches two weeks from the date of issue. To analyze the results, the formulae below was applied to the two sections of the Questionnaire so as to come up with the best answers
Source- (Hardy, 1988)
Where,
k is the total average number of similar answers
s is the estimated prevalence of answering the same answer.
z is the margin of error at 5% (standard value of 0.05)
x is the confidence level at 95% (standard value of 1.96)
Analysis
From the above analysis, it is evident that the Marketing Managers and the whole of economy had been affected by the advertising. Although France has developed greatly in advertisement, most consumers have been shifting to the more marketable products. This was due to the fact that as time moved on, the technology has advanced which has also led to more competition in the world markets thus many companies has been forced by this situation to look for more advanced technology of advertising their products. It has also been proved that poor performance in the international markets has been mainly caused by the failures in the advertising sectors which are mainly due to lack of the right strategies of curbing the challenges facing many companies in France.
Advantages of using a questionnaire as the technique of data collection
First, in my research the questionnaire way of collecting data was better since most of the questions were clear and simple to answer which lead to the collection of the right information from most targeted companies. Secondly, most of the top advertising officials responded positively to the questionnaire since most of their companies were faced with many advertisement challenges that need to be addressed. The third advantage of using a questionnaire during a research such as this one is that most of the top company officials are highly educated and very cooperative, understanding and have the updated information why activities like research has to be carried out. In this regard, they contribute very well during the filling of the questionnaire a fact which leads to very big success of the completion of the research. In the same way, a questionnaire method of collecting data saves a lot of time since every question is written. In this way the misunderstandings which arises for instance during face to face interview are highly avoided.
It is very important to note that there are other methods of data collection such as sampling interviews among others but I considered the questionnaire in my research. The main reason for using a questionnaire over the other methods was to cut on the cost of collecting data. Furthermore, a questionnaire has the ability to collect data in the shortest time without deviating from the main subject. For this case, it was easy to collect data since multiple answered questions were given. For those questions which answers were not multiple, the top company officials were required to state and briefly explain their views to fully enable me fully examine the questions at hand.
For the senior staff members in the advertising departments to be able to effectively answer the questions, the questionnaire was divided in two sections. The first section of the questionnaire was requesting the officials to give the effects of advertising development in France from 1950 to 2000 on the economy and international markets of the products while the second section researched on how changes in international advertising policies affected the France business performance and advertising strategies. A questionnaire method of collecting data was preferred by most of the senior members of staff in the marketing departments since no one will forced them to answer the question at a particular time so they had the freedom to fill in the questionnaire during their convenient time.
Disadvantages of using a questionnaire as the technique of data collection
First, it was quiet clear that some of the questions were open. This generated large amount of data as every official had his or her own views. As a result, the time taken to analyze the questionnaire was more than expected. The research exceeded the three weeks limit of analyzing data by two more weeks due to this. To limit this, the space available for writing was limited although most officials wrote on other spaces available. Second disadvantage of having used a questionnaire is that most officials were not willing to answer some questions, which they thought would not help them in the long run. For instance, most officials did not answer the questions on which international policies have highly affected their companies. Thirdly, some of them had thought that the views they give would be used by the board to oppress them since most of them had written their names. To help them solve such problems they were encouraged by my team members to give honest answers regardless of whether it was positive or negative. Another demerit was that some of the officials ended up giving out exaggerated or wrong information meaning that they did not value the questions since most of them viewed the thing as time wastage. In addition, the whole questionnaire way of collecting data was very hectic considering that the questionnaire forms had to be supplied to the respective branches then colleted after the have been completed. It was also a big disadvantage using this method of data collection since the person filling out the questionnaire is far and incase of not understanding the question he/she ended up giving the wrong information or even leaving the question blank.
Recommendations
The drastic changing in advertising sector has had a negative effects and positive effects to the most companies in France consequently affecting the marketing of products international markets. Further research work should be carried on how this can be addressed. Company advertising officials should be advised on how they can handle the effects of these changes both in short and long run. In this regard, regular forums should be arranged by all the officials dealing with the local and international advertising rules. Through such forums and seminars, they will be to discuss on emerging issues which affects both the international advisement policies and the various ethical aspects which should be put in place so as to enhance effective advertisement by companies. In addition, through these forums all parties will be able to put forward their grievances and come up with solutions which will in turn avert the trend of decreasing the advertisement development not only in France but also in other developed and developing countries.
In the same way, I recommend the France government to come up with better internal policies which protect companies from being affected by fluctuations in the economic fluctuations. For example, when product failure occurs in any of the companies, measures should be taken immediately to make sure that this company has been saved from falling down. In this way, companies will be encouraged to work effectively and make more advertising developments in their companies. In addition, I also recommend the companies should increase their budgetary allocations for advertisement in order to diversify their avenues of advertising thus leading to more sales and high profit which are required to offset the high costs of advertising. From the above research which was carried out in France, small companies should add more efforts in the advertising sector by employing more qualified personnel in their advertising departments. They should also emulate modern advertising strategies of advertising such digital adverting, use of television adverting, advertising through the internet, mobile phone e-advertising and many other means of reaching many people like the public address way of advertising. Another way of improving the advertisement development is that companies should use written materials like advertising in the news papers, posters then supply them to the public for instance in the busy public roads or during social, political or cultural gatherings. Companies should also make sure that their companies’ top marketing officials are well educated and qualified in running the company so as to avoid mismanagement of companies’ advertisement resources. For the advertising sector to achieve it objectives of attracting more customers and generating more sales it is fundamental that advanced technology has to be employed to so to catch up with the first growing competition in the international markets. In this regard, companies have to make sue that they are more updated and they have the right information to make sure that whatever new product enters the market, they are aware of it in the right time. I also recommend for future research to be carried out on how companies can include their customers on their advertising strategies so as to make the consumers feel recognized. In this way, consumers will be able to give their suggestion. In this case, it will be the role of the marketing experts to choose the best techniques which can streamline their advertising strategies based on the customers’ suggestion.
Conclusion
The above research work has explicitly tried to establish the way companies who are the biggest contributors in the France advertisement sector can be helped to mitigate the problems advertising. It is important for all advertising stakeholders in France and in the international markets to emulate the strategy of effectively working together so as to ensure that production of products in France does not drop. If the stakeholders hesitate to collaborate, most companies will suffer based on the fact that France contributes much in the international markets. Likewise, budgetary allocation on market research should be increased so as to solve the problems which affect development in the advertisement sector. There should also be frequent communication from the marketing personnel and the companies’ top level managers in order to know issues and challenges the marketing personnel face during their promotional and advertising of their company products. It is now clear that the advertising development have much effect on the France economy. Thus it is very vital to note that since this sector has been affected both positively and negatively, measures have to be taken to curb these negative effects that have been affecting the international markets. This research has clearly brought out the adverting development in France in the years from 1950 to 2000 which has given out the main positive and negative effects of the advertising. It has brought forward the main challenges that most companies have been facing in from this period. It is very clear that so many marketing aspects have changed greatly due to changes in technology. It is essential that firms emulate the technological changes in order to remain competitive. Much has to be done by companies for instance in making arrangements on how to educate their employees in different areas in marketing. On the side of researchers, they should make sure that they have enough materials published in advance before carrying out their research.
Reference List
Fraser, A. Nancy, R. (2000). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy: The Cultural Studies Reader. London: Routledge.
Habermas, B. Jürgen, N. (1989).The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: an Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hardy, G. (1988), Inequalities.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hodge, M. Kress, D. (1988). Social Semiotics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jhully, S. Leiss, W. Kline, S. Botterill, J. (2005). Social Communication in Advertising: Consumption in the Mediated Marketplace. London: Routledge.
Klein, M. (2000). Taking aim at the Brand Bullies. New York: Picador.