Advertising and marketing have become an essential part of the business world. If you have a good product or an efficient service to offer, you need to master the art of selling it. While some agencies might stick to conventional advertising methods, most of the leading players are resorting to fresh and modern advertising methods. There is a new cult of advertisers who are experimenting with ideas that are truly modern and innovative! Newspaper advertisements and colored fliers are so passé! Say hello to the era of instant, quick, smart and out-of-the box ideas! If you still associate advertising with the newspaper ads, televisions ads or radio ads for that matter, then you definitely need a refresher course. So let's get started. Here is a brief tutorial on modern advertising. Modern Advertising Methods There are different types of advertising techniques that are available for promoting products and services. However, here are some of the latest and hottest trends in advertising that are gaining popularity. People are now looking for new types of advertising appeals that they can target. Many of the new-age advertising methods are a result of the advent of the Internet, while some of the trends are just novel ideas that have transformed mundane advertising media into brilliant and witty methods! Internet advertising is a vast concept and it entails several sub-types, many of which have been only recently introduced. Email advertising is one of the earlier trends, while the new ones include banner advertising, pixel advertising, blog advertising, keyword advertising and contextual advertising. Let's take a look at some of the most widely used methods. Web Banner Advertising If billboard advertising is used on roads, then a similar type called banner advertising is used on the web. Have you noticed the horizontal advertisement strips that are seen at the top of almost every web page? These are we banners. Web banners are usually constructed using images, or JavaScript, or any other multimedia objects and animation. Web banners are usually linked to web pages that are related to the content on the existing website. Bandwagon Advertising This is nothing but a propaganda advertising technique, which aims at convincing the user that everyone else is using the products or everyone in the customer base, is in favor of the brand and so he must do so too. This compels the consumer to at least think about buying that product and check what everyone else is raving about and in turn 'jump on the bandwagon'. Bandwagon advertising is a strategy that is based on consumer psychology and hence, is an effective technique which can be used via any media, be it print, electronic or broadcast. Promotional Advertising Promotional advertising involves the use of promotional give-away items or promotional media events, which help to garner public attention and are an effective way of advertising. Handing out promotional freebies is a modern advertising technique that is innovative and very effective as well. Testimonials and Endorsements Ever wondered why Colgate brought Brooke Shields on board to promote their toothpaste? Or did you know that Keanu Reeves had once been a part of an advertisement for Corn Flakes? Well, an endorsement from a celebrity or a public figure is reason enough for certain customers to try a particular product. Such testimonials or endorsements are a great way to advertise particular products and services. Another evolved version of this being a new type called covert advertising, involves the use of brand names or actual products in movies or television shows in an indirect form of advertising. Surrogate Advertising Several national laws have banned the advertising of products like alcohol or cigarettes. Owing to this, many umbrella brands have come up with a technique which only promotes the umbrella brand name which of course, also reminds the consumer of the products that have been banned from advertising. For example, Kingfisher doesn't need to advertise its beer when the general brand name, also conferred to the aircraft, is being advertised publicly. Pixel Advertising Pixel advertising is a new type of Internet advertising in which the cost of an advertisement is calculated based on the number of pixels it occupies. This form of advertising originated in late 2005, when a British student Alex Tew came up with a website called The Million Dollar Homepage, where advertisers could buy advertising space at the rate of $1 per pixel with a space limit of one million pixels. In addition to the space options provided by the hosting websites, there is also the option of using Do-it-Yourself (DIY) pixel scripts, which ensures that people who do not understand the intricacies of the pixel ads can incorporate the pixel ads in their website without any hassles. Some of the commonly used DIY pixel scripts are Million Pixel Script and the GPix Pixel Ad Script. Contextual Advertising Do you notice how Google generates ads that are relevant to your search query? Or more recently, have you noticed the Google ads that show up next to your emails in the Google mail service? Well, if you are one of those people who still haven't noticed this, then you need to wake up and smell the coffee. Google Adsense was the first contextual advertising venture. Contextual advertising is a very specifically targeted form of Internet marketing in which the advertisements are selected by automated systems based on the content being viewed by a particular user. The automated system scans the text of a website for keywords and sends advertisements that match the content which the user is viewing. Many search engines also make use of contextual advertising for displaying ads on the search result pages, such that the ads match the things that the user is looking up on the web. After Google started this trend, there were many others like Yahoo! and Microsoft who followed suit. Keyword Advertising Commonly, keyword advertising is also known as pay per click advertising or cost per action advertising. Although Yahoo was the first company to venture into keyword advertising, it is Google Adwords program which is now most popular for its keyword advertising. Some of the popular search engines, which are into keyword advertising, include Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter, Miva and LookSmart. Blog Advertising If you thought that a blog was nothing but an online journal, then you are wrong. Owing to the tremendous popularity of blogs, advertisers have wisely used blogs as effective advertising and marketing tools. Corporate blogs are an excellent way for companies to reach out to their customer base on the Internet. Advertising blogs often make use of Search Engine Marketing techniques, which ensure better results on the web. Bathroom Advertising Truly out-of-the-box, isn't it? Yes, bathroom advertising is nothing but placement of advertisements in public restrooms. A research was carried out, in which a test group of people visiting a restroom were asked whether they noticed the advertisements in there, and surprisingly, a major percentage of the group were seen to have a high retention of the advertisements. This led to the conclusion that people visiting the restroom are a good target audience. It is soon catching up as an effective advertising tool. Mobile Advertising Yes, as annoying as it might be for you to receive advertisements on your cell phone, it is now a fact that mobile advertising or cell phone advertising is one of the most effective ways of advertising. Most of the time, advertisers have a data of mobile numbers of their existing customer base as well as a list of phone numbers of people who might be potential customers. A message on the mobile phone rarely goes unnoticed and hence, qualifies as an effective marketing or advertising tool! Public Relations Advertising Maintaining and developing good public relations has been a marketing tool for companies to maintain goodwill amongst employees as well as clients. It is not only a way to be in the public eye, but also a great way to build and maintain a particular brand image and identity. Public relations is thus a great advertising tool which is used by companies to reach out to their investors, employees and of course, their existing and potential customer base. As you can see, the field of advertising has evolved and reached the masses in ways that were perceived to be unimaginable a decade ago. All thanks to huge developments and innovations in the field of technology, advertising is now present almost everywhere we go, in almost every form we can imagine. Don't believe it? Just look around you!