MEDIA ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Media Advantages and Disadvantages.



Newspapers

Advantages

• Your ad has size and share, and can be as large as necessary to communicate as much of a story as you care to tell.
• The distribution of your message can be limited to your geographic area.
• Split-run tests are available to test your copy and your offer.
• Free help is usually available to create and produce your ad.
• Fast closings. The ad you decide to run today can be in your customer's hands two days from now.

Disadvantages

• Clutter. Your ad has to compete for attention against large ads run by supermarkets and department stores.
• Poor photo reproduction limits creativity.
• A price-oriented medium. Most ads are for sales.
• Short shelf life. The day after a newspaper appears, it's history.
• Waste circulation. You're paying to send your message to a lot of people who will probably never be in the market to buy from you.
• A highly visible medium. Your competitors can quickly react to your prices.

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Magazines

Advantages

• High reader involvement means more attention will be paid to your advertisement.
• Less waste circulation. You can place your ads in magazines read primarily by buyers of your product or service.
• The smaller the page (generally eight and half by eleven inches) permits even small ads to stand out.

Disadvantages

• Long lead times (generally 90 days) mean you have to make plans a long time in advance.
• The cost for space is higher in addition to higher creative costs.

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Yellow Pages

Advantages

• Everyone uses the yellow pages.
• Ads are reasonably inexpensive.
• You can easily track your responses.

Disadvantages

• All of your competitors are listed so you run the ad as a defensive measure.
• Ads are not very creative since they follow certain formats.

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Radio

Advantages

• A universal medium. Can be enjoyed at home, at work, and while driving. Most people listen to the radio at one time or another during the day.
• Permits you to target your advertising dollars to the market most likely to respond to your offer.
• Permits you to create a personality for your business using only sounds and voices.
• Free creative help is ususally available.
• Rates can generally be negotiated.
• Least inflated medium. During the past ten years, radio rates have gone up less than other media.

Disadvantages

• Because radio listeners are spread over many stations, to totally saturate your market you have to advertise simultaneously on many stations.
• Listeners cannot refer back to your ads to go over important points.
• Ads are an interruption to the entertainment. Because of this, radio ads must be repeated to break through the listener's "tune out" factor.
• Radio is a background medium. Most listeners are doing something else while listening, which means your ad has to work hard to be listened to and understood.
• Advertising costs are based on ratings which are approximations based on diaries kept in a relatively small fraction of a region's homes.

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Television

Advantages

• Permits you to reach great numbers of people on a national or regional level.
• Independent stations and cable offer new opportunities to pinpoint local audiences.
• Very much an image-building medium.

Disadvantages

• Ads on network affiliates are concentrated in local news broadcasts and on station breaks.
• Creative and production costs can quickly mount up.
• Lead time can result in items being sold out before ad runs.
• Most ads are ten or thirty seconds long, which limits the amount of information you can communicate.

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Direct Mail

Advantages

• Your advertising message is targeted to those most likely to buy your product or service.
• Your message can be as long as necessary to fully tell your story.
• You have total control over all elements of creation and production.
• A "silent" medium. Your message is hidden from your competitors until it's too late for them to react.

Disadvantages

• Long lead times required for creative printing and mailing.
• Requires coordinating the services of many people: artists, photographers, printers, etc.
• Each year over 20% of the population moves, meaning you must work hard to keep your mail list up to date.
• Likewise, a certain percentage of the names on a purchased mailing list is likely to be no longer useful.

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Telemarketing

Advantages

• You can easily answer questions about your product/service.
• It's easy to prospect and find the right person to talk to.
• Cost effective compared to direct sales.
• Highly measurable results.
• You can get a lot of information if your script is properly structured.

Disadvantages

• Many business use telemarketing.
• Professionals should draft the script and perform the telemarketing in order for it to be effective.
• Can be extremely expensive.
• Most appropriate for high-ticket retail items or professional services.

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Specialty Advertising (balloons, sandwich boards, key charms, etc.)

Advantages

• Can be attention grabbers if they are done well.
• Can give top-of-mind awareness.
• Gets your name in front of people.

Disadvantages

• Difficult to target your market.
• Can be an inappropriate medium for some businesses.
• Difficult to find items that are appropriate for certain businesses.

How Cartoons Impact Children through Social Learning Theory to Make them Violent

71

By A_K

According to social learning theory children learn new behaviors by observing others in their social environment. Children are more likely to learn from the role models. Role models in media have a great impact on the attitudes and behaviors they learn.

Cognitive priming theory explains how can media promt their enactment in certain situations once such behaviors are acquired, For instance, violent stimuli in the media can activate aggressive thoughts, feelings and even motor tendencies leaving us in no doubts that violence impacts young viewers.

Therefore, parents and teachers especially should be concerned about the possible role played by violence in cartoons in any destructive, antisocial, and potentially harmful behavior shown by children. It is equally important, to identify the causes of misbehavior. One must recognize and acknowledge the varying levels of sophistication different children bring to the viewing situation.
Most of the parents and teachers recognize that depiction of violence in media impacts the behavior of young impressionable mind. But there are some others that might claim violence depicted in cartoons are not real life and that they do not impact children negatively.
The produicers of these violent cartoons claim that the Japanese genre cartoons depicting violence has been shown in Japan for decades without any ill effect as the Japanese society evidences one of the lowest rates of violence.
Cartoons with explicit violence deinitely reinforce aggressive behavior among children as is well known. Never the less, there are other critical factors like the time children spend viewing these cartoons and the other forms of social learning they are exposed to in school and home, the peer group they associate with, and the social environment they are living in.
Even after an exposure to violence, some children can come out unscathed if they are offered  positive feedbacks at home and school. However, it certainly doesn’t apply to all children. For instance, exposure to the media violence partly exlains gun violence among children in the United States. 
In my opinion, depiction of violence in any form is inherently unhealthy for growing up children especially when they are in the very young age group. Violent behavior among children and the depiction of violent behavior in media go hand in hand in the western society.
Children are great imitators who attempt to imitate the heroic deeds. They see violent behavior on screen as heroic and rewarding. Generations of children ultimately suffer in consequence. On the positive side, the positive social traits in these shows reinforce strong values, but the harm from viewing violence is more than the benefits of learning positive values.
It is fairly common to notice children scream and shout or imitate other forms of verbal abuse that they learn from cartoon shows. De-learning is a time taking process. It requires right association and training. Some of the unfortunate viewers may not have access to the environment where they can de-learn negative values associated with violence. Moreover, children are in an age when they cannot make unbiased judgments. Violence shown in television has tended to desensitize us towards violence. Most of us may not be in the right frame to notice the subtle manner in which violence would be harming our children.