Advertisements are a form of marketing technique designed to promote or sell a product, service, or campaign. Advertisements usually provide a visual, written, and spoken context to spread a message. Companies invest in advertising to attract public interest, boost engagement, retain current customers and hopefully convince new consumers to convert. 

The main factors to consider are; which type of advertising works best for your brand, and ensuring the content resonates with your target audience. As you will have recognized, there are a plethora of advertising channels. In addition, with digitalization, businesses can advertise directly to their ideal consumers. This is a game-changer that has shaped higher competition in the marketing industry but fret not, it also makes it more accessible for small and medium enterprises! 

We have specially prepared these examples of advertisements to teach businesses how to break through the clutter. Hopefully, these examples will inspire you to create a revolutionary commercial.

Examples of advertisements

We’re jumping right into it. Here are the various types of advertising and some examples that stood out. 

Traditional Print Advertising

This is a long-established type of advertising that can be made available in numerous mediums — flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, and billboards. They are ideal for illustrating visual messages that will leave a lasting impact. 

This advertisement for Chupa Chups innovatively provides a clear-singular message. The main takeaway is their lollipops are sugar-free, and they prove this fact with ants avoiding their lollipop. 

Next, we have this advertisement by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The intent reflects the organization’s emphasis on wildlife conservation and endangered species.

The only downside to this advertising method is it can be very costly as you would have to pay a publisher to place your campaign in a public space, to a generalized audience based on a generic viewership. 

Online Advertising

With the rise of technology, there are so many types of advertisements that you can publish online. Considering that mobile users now account for half of the web traffic globally, online advertising is beneficial because it reaches users on their mobile devices. What’s even more impressive is you can post your advertisements for free through your personal business pages, for example, on your social media platform and Google My Business profile. 

Online advertising has expanded to include video, search engine marketing, social media posts, and many more. 

1. Video Advertising

A video is a great way to promote your products or services. Ecommerce sellers find that using product videos increases product purchases by 144%. Online users love watching videos. The study shows that 66% of consumers prefer watching a video to reading about a product. Additionally, you can display your videos on almost any social media platform such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. 

Dove: “Real Beauty Sketches” (2013)

This short film became one of the most viral video advertisements of all time. It was uploaded in 25 different languages to 33 of Dove's YouTube channels.

What made the video so powerful was it evoked an emotional reaction amongst viewers. It depicted how women’s self-perception of themselves is often overly critical. 

Yet, stranger’s descriptions of the participants were more similar to how they actually looked. This successfully points to Dove’s message that we all have true beauty, but we just fail to see it for ourselves.

GoPro: “Fireman Saves a Kitten” (2013)

With zero dialogue, but filmed 100% on a GoPro, this video manages to set its viewers one an emotional rollercoaster. It records a real story, where a firefighter saves a dying kitten in a house that was on fire, fitting perfectly with GoPro Hero’s tagline of “Be a Hero.”

Videos are a comprehensive approach to share a message. They incite emotional appeal and inform your audience creatively. However, the caveat to producing quality video requires proficiency in directing, filming, and editing. As such, most corporations invest in a professional to handle their video production. 

2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

This is perhaps the most reliable form of advertising because it is powered by the master of the online realm — the search engine. SEM is mainly composed of pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO). These methods of advertisement are a useful way to gain exposure particularly for niche or local businesses. It is essential to strategize your PPC and SEO technique to ensure your business listing appears on top of the search engine. This way, more users will be exposed to your website. 

The current largest search engine platform by far is Google. Companies that invest in Google Ads can boost the relevancy and ranking of their business through the world’s most used website.

Here’s an example of how a Google Ad can look.

The advertisement includes information about the type of service they offer, a call to action, a promotional rate and shows the number of reviews and high ratings that Rentalcars.com can maintain. This is one of the simplest ways to convince consumers to purchase from your business through Google Ads. 

SEO, on the other hand, demands proper planning and time before it produces organic results. However, it will be so worth it when you finally get to land your business website on the first page of Google! To optimize your website, you should consistently upload high-quality content relevant to your business and target audience. Make use of keywords, create a user-friendly interface, and build backlinks.

PPC ads are only charged when a viewer clicks on the ad, which means that relatively few charges are wasted - you’re only charged for people that are interested, not just anyone that sees it.

SEO on the other hand has no fee once set up, and if set up correctly can be bringing in customers for years. 

PPC is like renting a tap for your marketing, when you pay for the water to flow it’s instantaneous. SEO is like owning a well, that will be slower to bring up a return, but is going to work for you for years to come.

3. Social media advertising

Social media is a great platform to advertise your content for free. It doesn't matter if you own a small business or a multi-billion dollar corporation; everyone can benefit from social media advertising. Furthermore, most channels support the use of various forms of media. As such, you can easily upload images, videos, audio, and text.

This is an example of a social media advertisement by JustFab.

The advertisement includes an image to capture its audience's attention. In its caption, it highlights that JustFab is hosting a giveaway. Notice how they include a call to action (CTA) in the caption. To enter this contest, users have to follow their page, like it and share it with friends. This is a smart strategy to increase engagement within a short time. 

Alternatively, you can rely on paid advertisements on social media to leverage your posts. Paid advertisements will be labelled “Sponsored” or “Advertisement” on the post.

How to create an advertisement that resonates

Now that you’ve drawn inspiration from examples of great advertising, it is time to create one. How can you make sure that your advertisement resonates with your audience and incites them to take action? There are four points to consider when developing your advertising. 

1. Communicates a clear message

The content should focus on the main point. Be concise with what you are telling your audience. Sometimes, less is more. If you overwhelm your audience with too much information, they may not remember the main takeaway. 

An effective commercial clarifies what it wants its audience to do next. Applying a call to action (CTA) is useful in this aspect.  

2. Offers useful insight

An advertisement is your opportunity to educate and inform your audience. It’s your chance to show why you’re better than other competitor brands. What will they benefit from your brand? If you provide refreshing and valuable insight, consumers will be more willing to purchase from your brand. 

3. It is memorable and share-worthy

To maximize the longevity of your campaign, you want to create content that has a lasting impact and the potential to go viral. The most successful advertisements elicit some sort of emotional reaction. They can be comedic, heartwarming, surprising, or just completely weird. 

4. Reinforces brand values

As far as your creativity takes you, be sure to offer content that continues to be relevant and representative of your brand image. Does your advertisement capture your brand’s voice and the mission statement of your company? 

Ultimately, the commercial is a reflection of your brand. You want to exert your message to people who would think, “this brand is for me.” If your advertising is sub-par, your audience may think “where else are they cutting corners?”. Just like good advertising is beneficial for sales, bad advertising can be extremely detrimental to a brand.

Finding the best type of advertising for your business

The world of advertising is full of endless possibilities. Every business’ marketing strategy will be different and unique in its own way. Which type of advertising would work best for your business? 

FAQ

Does my business need to advertise?

Advertisements are like fertilizers for a plant. Yes, your business can probably survive without broadcasting to the public. However, the growth may be stagnant, and it can feel exhausting on your end to see such little progress. It would be even more challenging to sustain your business when you can’t find new customers. Conversely, the world of advertising has a plethora of different options that may be the miracle-grow that your business has been hungry for.

As such, most businesses rely on advertisements to achieve excellent results.

How do Google Ads work?

Google Ads has a variety of different options. The most common work by displaying your advertisement on the results page when users search keywords related to the products or services you offer. Google Ads is highly pragmatic because it helps get your brand in front of potential customers specifically interested in your products.

You begin by choosing your target. For example, how many more visitors do you want to gain? Then, you will add your business location so that you can reach local customers. If you want to go broader, you can manage the size of your radius. You can opt for your advertisement to show within your province, country, or several countries. Lastly, you will design your ad and set a monthly budget cap. You will only pay when users engage with your advertisement, such as clicking on your promotion or calling your business through it. 

With advanced targeting, you can specify the ad viewer’s precise demographic, including age, gender, household income, parental status, and more, based on the knowledge that Google has on its users.

Ads can be shown on Google search engine results pages (SERPs), as banner and sidebar graphics, as YouTube ads, and on literally millions of web pages around the world that are paid by Google to host them. You can learn more about SERPs on our SEO blog.

Are there less expensive ways to advertise?

Many small businesses think that they do not have the budget to invest in advertising, and that is entirely understandable. If you’re looking to start with the cheapest possible mediums, if you have the time you might want to consider doing your own social media advertising. It is a cost-efficient and effective technique to boost engagement and drive sales. 

Pay-per-click (PPC) is another method that has an extremely low starting fee, though it may take time to work out the best placement for your audience.

SEO strategies, like guest blogging, and video production are one-off costs that can pay for themselves limitless times over years to come.

While you’re considering how much you should spend, compare how much you would be able to profit from the advertisement versus without one. As long as you expect to make a positive ROI and have the financial capabilities, then a successful marketing campaign should be viewed as an investment.

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