PROMOTION OF GOODS

Over the decades of its development, the world advertising market has transformed into a powerful industry with its own means and objects of production, advertising channels, and subjects and objects of promotion. Advertising has become a true "engine" of the market economy, effectively stimulating its development, spurring competition between manufacturers, making them improve the quality of products, and many more.

Accordingly, dynamic economic development in Azerbaijan could not but affect the advertising market and in recent years, its volume has been steadily increasing quantitatively and improving qualitatively.

It should be noted that today's advertising market in Azerbaijan could be considered as the most stable in the CIS. Unlike in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, the advertising market in Azerbaijan is going to expand from 7.4 per cent to 8.9 per cent in 2014, as predicted by ZenithOptimedia. The market volume will increase from 94m dollars to 102.3m dollars. According to the agency's estimates, printed press will account for 5.6m dollars of the advertising market. Other media will also share in the total advertising pie including television (74.4m dollars), radio (7.1m dollars), online publications (2m dollars) and outdoor advertising (13.2m dollars).

Putting the numbers aside, however, now consumers are admittedly more interested in the quality of advertisements produced, and here there are obvious problems. Thus, Baku inhabitants quite often see billboards such as "Locksmith services," "Car wash," "Hot patching." Not only that such ads, placed on primitive billboards, do not meet the requirements of aesthetics, but they also contain gross misspellings ever so often.

"In fact, it is only one of the problems of the advertising market," Azerbaijan Advertisers' Union President Haciami Atakisiyev said. "Everything that calls for the acquisition of goods or services is an advertisement and must comply with certain standards. Unfortunately, there are cases of deviation from these standards."

Advertising production requires deep professional knowledge, he said. Consider, for instance, the placement of a roadside billboard painted in the shades of white and grey. For a person not familiar with the intricacies of advertising, it may seem insignificant. However, if you drive down this road at a high speed, such advertising will be virtually invisible. It is therefore necessary to use brighter colours. Furthermore, translated foreign advertisements may contain errors. Sometimes advertising gets boring. Studies show that if an advertisement has been run on television for more than three months, children get used to its plot, characters, and music. The product or service advertised in the video does not attract their attention any longer. Hence, children are not interested in other commercials shot on the same products. In this regard, many advertisers hold an opinion that consumers should be presented with completely new advertisements every three months to retain their attention.

Atakisiyev believes that all the difficulties and problems faced by the advertising market of the country can be solved. First of all, it is necessary to strengthen the legal basis in order to provide a foundation for the development of the advertising market. "At the moment, advertising in Azerbaijan is regulated by the Law on Advertising passed in 1997. Over the years, much has changed in the market, and these changes need to be reflected in the legislation. We have developed a draft law on advertising and presented it to the Milli Maclis [parliament]," he added.

Another initiative aimed at solving problems in the advertising market may include the creation of a coordinating structure, a system of a kind, which will monitor the application of the letter of the law on the advertising market. "Advertising likes freedom, so the establishment of a supervisory body may lead to the opposite effect. But a coordinating structure is something else. In particular, it can create a master plan for the development of the advertising market with the geographic area covered by advertising, inform market participants about the shifts in consumer and customer preferences and change the stereotypes of advertising production based on this information. If such a structure includes representatives of all advertising producers in the country, the decisions will be made on the basis of a general consensus, which will contribute to the development of this market."

Finally, Atakisiyev deems it necessary to set up large advertising agencies vested with exclusive authority over the production of advertising in the country. "As proved by the world experience, the mechanism whereby the order, production and distribution of advertising are separated from each other is the most successful. In Azerbaijan, production and distribution of advertising is often performed by one and the same structure, which affects the quality." The creation of large advertising agencies can play a significant role in increasing the export potential of Azerbaijani products, says the president of the union. "Any product, even of the best quality, needs good advertising, especially when it enters new markets. On the other hand, advertising agencies can significantly contribute to the promotion of Azerbaijan. Our country hosts international events and is visited by influential politicians. In the course of these events, the world community must see for itself the development of Azerbaijan and get acquainted with its culture. Development of commercials about our country and its culture could be entrusted to a French or German company but along with professional knowledge, both the French and the Germans have their own mindset, which is entirely different from that of the Azerbaijanis. For this reason, commercials about the culture and development of Azerbaijan should be produced by Azeri agencies," Atakisiyev says. In the context of Azerbaijan, it is enough to have five or six major advertising agencies, the expert holds. However, to ensure their successful operation, they should be staffed with professionals, the training of which can take at least four to five years.

A potential market turnover can equal 1.5bn dollars, while the actual volume of business is tens of times less.

The creation of large agencies, which offer the entire range of advertising services, have a professional understanding of the prospects for distribution of advertising by means of growing social networking capabilities, and offer products taking into account mental peculiarities and needs of the local audience, can really bring about major changes in the domestic advertising market and increase its volume several-fold. This is the case where a lucrative area of the economy can become super lucrative and turn into a substantial source of income of the state budget.

WORLD MARKET OF ADVERTISING   

The Zenith Optimedia international communication network has published a new forecast for the development of the advertising market. According to this forecast, global spending on advertising will grow by 5.5 per cent to reach 532bn dollars by the end of 2014. According to the previous forecast issued in December 2013, the growth in advertising investment was predicted at the level of 5.3 per cent in 2014. In 2015, the global market will grow by 5.8 per cent and in 2016, by 6.1 per cent, according to ZenithOptimedia. Positive changes are due to the global economic recovery and the rapid development of mobile technologies that open up new opportunities for media consumption. The stabilisation of the economic situation in the Eurozone as well as such events as the Winter Olympics in Sochi, the FIFA World Cup and the mid-term elections in the United States are also going to contribute to global market growth.