However, advertising’s ability to persuade the target audience to think or behave in a particular way is suspect. Furthermore, the effect on sales is extremely hard to measure. Advertising also suffers from low credibility, in that audiences are less likely to believe messages delivered through advertising than they are messages received through some other tools.
The flexibility of this tool is good because it can be used to communicate with a national audience or a particular specialised segment. Although the costs can be extremely large, a vast number of people can be reached with a message, so the cost per contact can be the lowest of all the tools in the mix. Advertising and related media are considered at some depth in Module 12 to Module 14.