During the winter break, the opportunity to take the "Sales Promotion" course opened up and without hesitation I took that opportunity myself. One of the many key topics of the lesson was the term “advertising and promotion”. Merriam Webster defines the word Advertising as: “the action of bringing something to the attention of the public especially through paid advertisements”. Advertising has now become part of our daily lives and has changed drastically over the years. With the first American newspaper advertisement in 1704, then the first billboard in 1835, to the first radio and television advertisements in the 1920s and 1940s respectively, to this day it comes in different forms. The cost of advertising has changed dramatically for marketers, due to inflation and the possible exposure an ad could bring these days. A recent example of how expensive and profitable advertising can be is the annual tradition of expensive but creative Super Bowl commercials. The cost of a thirty-second ad in this upcoming Super Bowl is a whopping $7.7 million. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In today's society, advertising is completely unavoidable, especially with new technological innovations coming out every single day. Advertisements are still printed in magazines, newspapers, billboards and of course used on radio, but nowadays advertisers and marketers look more non-traditionally. Non-traditional media, also called digital or new media, are the following: email marketing, social media, pay-to-click advertising and search-to-click optimization. As stated previously, with technology constantly advancing day by day, the amount of people using the Internet every day growing rapidly, and the incorporation of technology into our daily lives (smartphones, video games, etc.), new media is helping marketers strike gold to find their market and find. potential new customers. Along with promotion, defined by Merriam Webster as “the act of promoting the growth or development of something; especially: the promotion of the acceptance and sale of goods by advertising, publicity, or discounting”. Advertising and promotion are very similar each other, but since advertising is more of a promotional strategy, the entire promotion is a marketing strategy Advertising is also bringing long-term effects to an organization, with lasting effects coming from commercials, billboards, and more strategies. plans that involve higher costs it only brings short-term effects, is not as planned as advertising and has a cheaper price. However, one thing can be agreed upon when it comes to advertising and promotion: both play a huge role in social and economic systems. Advertising and promotion brings awareness to a brand, with the potential for it to educate people about a product they don't know about and a product that could help a consumer in any circumstance. Just one of the few benefits and reasons why advertising is beneficial, is that it adds credibility to the brand, with effective promotion and a product that could live up to the hype, success would most likely come. Advertising and promotion are obviously used by both large and small companies, who use advertising and promotion to promote their products and services provided. The book provided withThis course "Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective" by George and Michael Belch does a great job explaining the economic benefits that come from advertising and promotion. As early as 1980, “advertising and sales promotion were the dominant forms of communications, but of the two, marketing communications was used by most companies, and in total U.S. spending in the two countries was slightly higher to 100 billion dollars. Media advertising accounted for $53 billion, while $49 billion was spent on sales promotion techniques such as product samples, coupons, contests, sweepstakes, prizes, trade discounts and allowances, and retailer discounts. (Burch and Belch, 6). Of course, that's a lot of money spent overall, and it's a little shocking to know that it's the 1980s, but in current times those numbers have skyrocketed. According to the book, “By 2013, total spending on advertising and non-advertising marketing communications in the United States was estimated at $589 billion, of which $198 billion was spent on media advertising, $303 billion on trade promotions and consumption, 41 billion dollars allocated to direct mail. and other forms of direct marketing such as email marketing and $33 billion spent on sponsorships and experiential/event marketing” (Belch and Belch, 6). These numbers show the total amount used to increase product and brand exposure. Among the numbers of 2013, mobile marketing has emerged as a new form of advertising, which is when advertisements and promotions are sent directly to devices such as smartphones, tablets, etc. The book reports that mobile marketing accounts for nearly $4 billion in spending (Belch and Belch, 6). The amount of money companies will spend on non-traditional media will continue to grow and budgets will increase, however most budgets are still high for traditional media. The United States still accounts for the majority of global advertising spending, with around half of global spending occurring in Western Europe and Asian countries. Overall, the United States reigns supreme when it comes to money spent on advertising, both traditionally and non-traditionally, followed by Japan, China, Germany, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. on how to improve a product or service after advertising, companies begin to initiate the process of integrated marketing communications better known as IMC. Belch & Belch's book defines IMC as “the coordination of various elements of promotion and other marketing activities that communicate with a company's customers” (Belch & Belch, 9). And the American Association of Advertising agencies (4As), created one of the first definitions of IMC, which is “a marketing communications planning concept that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines” (Rutto e rutto, 9). The way 4A defines IMC uses all forms of promotion to achieve highly effective communications impact, but some naysayers want a broader view that thinks and talks about all sources of brand contact that can be provided to a customer . To summarize, the purpose of integrated marketing communication is to take parts of marketing communication such as direct marketing, advertising, social media and public relations and make them one, to become consistent when trying to get something from the customer. To differentiate and diversify in the field of marketing, companies are now starting to look beyond traditional advertising agencies and use different types of promotional specialists to create and use.