A Glance to Different Types of Advertising in Hong Kong

It is said that good advertising could catch audiences’ attention within 8 seconds. But before starting to media plan a good advertising campaign, we may need to first understand and have a full picture of all the advertisements. Here is a glance at different types of advertising. To give a general concept to all the newbies that would love to buy media in the advertising industry. 

3 Main Classifications for Advertising 

There are various formats and styles for advertising, we can mainly classify it into 3 major types: Above the line advertising, below the line advertising and through the line advertising.

Above the line advertising 

Advertising activities that reach large and non-targeted groups of people through mass media. Examples for above the line advertising can be, TV, radio, newspaper & magazine and event advertising. This kind of advertising can guarantee to gain a large audience base, and hence gain huge awareness for the brand. 

Below the line advertising

This kind of advertising focuses on activities that enhance conversion, so it has a specific target group. Below the line advertising ranging from billboards advertising, sponsorship, social media, display advertising or online advertising. It helps build direct relationships with potential audiences according to specific demographics. 

Through the line Advertising

The simultaneous use of ATL and BTL marketing is called through the line advertising. These kinds of advertising activities include digital advertising, cookie based advertising etc. They work for building brand awareness and at the same time it also uses personalised advertising techniques to target a suitable audience group. 

 5 Types of Advertising 

Source: AdmanGo

According to AdmanGo forecast on 2021 market trend, the ranking for media share 2020 is as below,

1. Television (29%) 
2. Mobile Advertising (22%)
3. Social Media (14%)
4. Newspaper (12%)
5. Outdoor (10%) 
6. Desktop (8%)
7. Radio (3%)
8. Magazine (2%) 

TVC Advertising

Objectives:

• Product and Service Sales
• Website Traffic
• Brand and product awareness
• Image Building
• Generating Sales Leads
• Public relationship

Advantages:

Television is an effective advertising media for gaining huge audience awareness. It has a high population base and the strategies for delivering brand image is more interesting as it is present in the form of video. Moving images and special sound effects can create a strong brand image and deliver sharp messages to the audience which leave a more prominent resonance to your potential customers. As the TV commercial will keep looping in the television for a certain advertising period hence, it can also unconsciously stay inside the audience's mind.

Social Media Advertising

Social Media advertising is the current most popular channel for advertising as it could generate useful data for future product development. 

In Hong Kong, the most popular social media are as follow:

• Facebook
• Youtube 
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Snapchat

Each of these social media has a specific group of target audience with different functions or ways to run their community. You may need to further study to know which social media platform is most suitable for your business.

Objectives:

• Increase brand awareness
• Build social community for your brand
• Enhance Customers’ Engagement to your Ad
• Monitor Customer Relationship and feedback on products
• Lead Generation

Social Media advertising allows the advertisement to target audience in a digital way, for example, content marketing and the advertisement can be placed specifically in certain time.

Press Advertising (newspaper, magazine)

There are two advertising spaces for press advertising: magazine advertising and newspaper advertising.

Magazines advertise by presenting colorful creative designs with a glossy finish. It tends to play with colours and patterns to catch readers attention. The luxurious image of the products are specifically put in certain topics of the magazine hence all readers who read the magazine are indeed highly potential customers. The advertising period for magazines is comparatively longer when we talk about newspapers or television because people tend to keep the magazine for multiple readings. So there is a possible re-exposure of your ad over time if it is placed in a cafe or offices. However, the reach for magazines is not as broad as other mass media. It is graphic-oriented hence advertisers can design images according to specific groups to have higher reader numbers. 

Newspaper is an affordable form of advertising channel with different specific formats for you to choose. This can give great benefit to SME who have a tight budget. The advertisement can be published within a few days. One specific feature for newspaper advertising is its credibility, which may be an important factor if you would like to build your brand image into an authority figure. Newspapers also have a broad geographic market that could ensure a high reach to the general public. 

Display Advertising

Display Advertising is an auto-generated advertising when the audience is browsing specific information online. It also uses image or motion short video to capture the audience's eyesight. But what are the objectives when we want to place advertisements?

Objectives: 

• Increase Brand Impression
• Boost reach your own website 
• Enhance Engagement between brand and client
• Boost Sales rate 

OOH Advertising

Billboard advertising:

be it a traditional outdoor billboard or digital motion billboard, the effect of advertising through billboard is indispensable. Besides, it could also provide you the largest advertising space apart from all other forms of advertising. The duration for billboard advertising is normally 3 months and targets a specific area according to the location. For instance, if your target group is white collar office workers, you may want to be placed in the central business district. 

Event Advertising/Street advertising:

This type of advertising format aims to promote through face-to-face interaction. By giving passengers extraordinary experiences related to your business. Hence, pursue them to take further action, whether it is for lead generation or simply to increase audience acquisition toward the product. 

The key objectives of event marketing are:

• Make people engage into your brand event 
• Image building 
• Pursue participant to know more about the product
• Promote your product by giving free gifts
• creating a brand presence to attract sponsors, media and attendees to future events
• Generate leads from audience 

How Much Does Advertising Cost for Each Channel?

Cost for TV advertising

The cost for tv advertising is calculated according to the pre-emption structure. Hence, there are different spots for advertisers to choose and the ad cost is calculated according to the duration of the video ad and the broadcasting spot. Each spot (Rotational Basic, Fixed Basic, F1 to F10) has its own viewership. According to the largest Hong Kong Television channel TVB, the advertising budget can be as low as HKD3500.

Cost for Social Media Advertising

Different Social media have different ways to calculate their social media ad cost, and very often it depends on the audience scope you are choosing, the duration and the product types. The two main calculation methods are: Average Cost-per-clicks (CPC) and Average Cost-per-thousand (CPM). Here is some data for the cost of social media advertising cost,

Cost for Press advertising

For press advertising, the price depends on the location of the newspaper and the size of the ad space. calThe advertising space including the front page, inner page, A1 or even calculated by square unit. The price range can be from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand.   

Cost for Display advertising

For the online display of newspapers, the cost of display advertising is also estimated by cost per mile. For instance, the price for newspaper online displays can range from HKD150 per CPM to HKD 20 000 per week. The average CTR for display advertising across different formats and placements is around 0.06% and click-through-rate can enhance brand awareness and brand recall to facilitate loyalty of consumers.

Cost for OOH Advertising

Advertising price for ooh depends on the location and the billboard duration. Normally, billboard duration will be 3 weeks to a month at least. Advertising price can be as low as HKD 29,000 per 3 weeks for an advertising place in MTR station.        

Reference:

https://www.feedough.com/what-is-advertising-advertising-objectives-examples-importance/

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/difference-between-advertising-magazines-newspapers-53815.html

https://www.webfx.com/how-much-does-social-media-advertising-cost.html#average-advertising-cpc