Advertising may be defined as a paid for of non-personal exchange of information related to products or thoughts, by a known promoter, by means of the mass media, in an attempt to convince or have an affect on behavior. In other words, advertising is a means of communicating a firm's offer to customers by means of space or time in mass media and to cite H. G. Wells, advertising is "legalized lying". Furthermore, advertising can also be defined as paid communication that is intended or designed to alter the perception and behavior of people. Many have argued as to whether advertising is a part of marketing mix or not. Essentially the marketing mix of any marketing campaign or a program consists of the 4ps and that are the product, price, promotion and place, and in case of services, one more aspect is added to it that is the service. However, one thing that is agreed upon is that advertising is a medium of expression that is used to cater in terms of different criteria pertinent to the nature of the selected audience. Advertising could be target audience based where it is intended for the consumers, that are the end users or for business enterprises, and advertising could be for a specific geographic area, that may be international, national, regional or local. Also advertising may be media pertinent like print, electronic, out of home, direct mail, or the new media that is the Internet. Also the advertising could be purpose based, that is purpose of the product or service, commercial or non-commercial. However, the present day definition of advertising is quite different from the earlier versions of advertising. Thus, advertising can be redefined as a means of communication to consumers the exclusive qualities of products and services that is or can be recognized by exclusive wrapping and exclusive brand names. With these definition new vehicles for advertising emerged and as such these vehicles have been quite conventional, but they in fact hold prominence in the current era.
