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To promote instant sales, retailers provide the means for direct response in all types of advertising. E-mail addresses and 800 numbers are provided in many advertisements to encourage immediate response.
Direct Mail: Direct mail is an extremely popular and highly effective form of advertising because it is addressed to each individual customer. Direct mail has become especially important as retailers compete for market share.
Catalogs: have become a tremendously popular form of advertising because of the shopping convenience they provide to working women, retirees, and those people living away from major metropolitan areas (see Mail-Order Merchants, Chapter 13). Retailers may produce specialty catalogs, shoes for example, in cooperation with vendors.
Store newsletters or magazines: are used by some retailers to give customers fashion trend information. Image brochures, provided by manufacturers, are sometimes mailed or given out to customers in the store. These are not catalogs per se because they do not include order forms but simply communicate a manufacturer's or store's merchandising image to customers.
Outdoor, Signing: Building-scrapes, train platforms, city or mall kiosks, buses, and bus shelters have been surprisingly successful vehicles for fashion advertising. Companies such as the Gap, Esprit, and Levi Strauss pioneered this method, which has grown into a very important medium. Some malls are trying out double sided, triple-sided, and cylindrical interactive kiosks that will carry large ads in the common areas of the malls and on the surrounding sidewalks.
The Advertising Department: Because they do so much newspaper advertising, some large retail stores have in-house advertising departments. The advertising director supervises three areas: art, copy, and production.
Art: The art department is responsible for layouts, the composition of all parts of the ad. Layouts can be made on computer using software programs such as Quark Express and Adobe Photos hop. Photographs are digital scanned and incorporated into the layout with the copy, store name logo, and any other graphic art to complete the ad.
The use of photography is currently popular because its realistic qualities lend themselves to promotional or item advertising. Stylists assist the photographers by booking models and locations, accessorizing, and arranging for hair and makeup artists.
Copy: Copywriters produce the written description for advertisements. The good writer pictures the customer who is reading the ad and writes to him or her. Buyers give merchandise information, highlighting unique selling points, to the advertising department. Copy for fashion merchandise, which emphasizes an editorial fashion message is quite different from sales copy, which stresses value.
Traffic: The traffic department is responsible for the flow of projects (graphics, illustrations, photographs, and copy) among the store, service bureaus (which put electronic files into proofs), printers, engravers, newspapers, and radio and television stations. The finished ad can be transmitted electronically via telephone line or satellite to newspapers or printers around the world, or posted to an FTP (file transfer protocol-a third party Internet site) on the Internet for downloading.
Advertising Agencies Many retailers, even those with their own in-house staffs, use outside advertising agencies to handle special projects, media buys, or for concept development. Agencies also help when there is a heavy workload or for a special project, such as a magazine format insert. Stores also use agencies as a cost-effective way of producing timely advertising without having to retain an expensive in-house staff. Payment may be handled on a project fee basis or an annual contract.
In large agencies, groups of people are assigned to particular accounts under the direction of an account executive, who acts as a liaison between the agency and the client. Agencies also use freelance copywriters, illustrators, and production artists to help them with heavy workloads and special projects. The drawback to using agencies is that it takes time for them to become acquainted with the store's point of view. On the other hand, an agency can offer objective ideas about how to project the store's image. Publicity: Publicity is usually handled by the directors of fashion, special events, and/or public relations.
Publicity is the spreading of information about people, special events, or newsworthy topics through various communications media. There are no media costs for publicity, but for that very reason, it is difficult to obtain. It is also considered more prestigious than advertising because it is the result of an editor's choice rather than the payment of money. Media editors choose the material they will use based on what they think may be of interest to the community and decide how, when, and where the message will be used. Publicity helps promote the sale of fashion merchandise by making a style, manufacturer, retailer, trend, or other aspect of fashion better known to the public.
Publicity Campaigns: Retailers hope to bring their names to the public eye by calling attention to newsworthy developments in their stores. They may create events such as fashion shows or celebrity personal appearances to obtain publicity. Stores provide the media with information about such events or topics in the hope that the media will publicize them. A publicity campaign may be handled by the public relations office or the fashion office, whichever is more concerned with the topic or event. Alternatively, it may be prepared by an agency or consultant. Every retailer has a different approach.
Newspaper fashion editors often use publicity releases and photos to write their articles. Fashion magazines give publicity to retail stores in editorial credits, the mention of the store name as a source of merchandise that is editorially featured. Paying advertisers are becoming more demanding of the media in their requests for publicity.
Press Package As part of a publicity campaign, a press package consisting of a news release and photographs might be prepared to send to media editors. A news release is a written statement of the important facts about a person, place, or coming event and is often accompanied by glossy photographs, which may be provided by vendors.
Individual Approaches: To achieve maximum benefits from publicity, public relations or fashion office staff direct publicity to the media whose audience would be most interested in their message. News may be approached from various angles to ensure that each medium gets a unique story.
Terms and Concepts
Briefly identify and discuss the following terms and concepts:
- Advertising
- Publicity
- Special events
- Life-style displays
- Image advertising
- Merchandise or promotional advertising
- Media
- Radio and television spots
- Direct-mail advertising
- Cooperative advertising
- Ad production
- Advertising agencies
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Participants