One of the keys to a successful business is advertising. Whoever came up with the idea had to be a genius. But then again, from the first time man realized that he should trade, in the face of
competition, he had to come up with a strategy to make people gravitate to what he had, as opposed to what his competition offered.
Then someone found that packaging could enhance the goods, and so we began to see articles being attractively wrapped and sold. A survey found that the object with the most attractive packaging was the one that was purchased more rapidly.
Since then, the electronic media have appeared and merchants have gravitated to this medium. They had already begun using the newspapers and magazines, something they still do with great success. In fact, advertising production is something that is taught at the university level as part of the communications programme.
Some of the techniques are to use bright colours if the product is intended to liven up a situation. We have all seen advertisements for parties or energy drinks featuring enticing colours.
Another aspect is the use of pace. Fast moving advertisements effectively send the intended message. If it is about a party one would see that the music is up-tempo.
There is the adage that sex sells so there is no shortage of sex to promote certain products. There are the women in various forms of dress and these are eye-catching. For sure, such an advertisement is aimed at men.
Women are also used to feature beauty products or certain clothing and, because of the target audience, the mood changes. The music is soothing and the focus is on close up shots. These things are not left to chance; photographers are trained at the highest level. In our part of the world, where much emphasis is not on training, we see attempts at the very things that the trained producers of advertisement would do.
Regent Street mus:t be the shopping center of Guyana. A walk along this street would reveal the various methods used by the stores. But there are other locations like Starr Computers which has a large mural on the front advertising the products. In fact, this is the trend at many other locations. The Ministry of Trade and Tourism has similar advertising, as do some of the smaller businesses on section.s of Church Street, Cummingsburg.
A whole new business has sprung up to cater for places that wish to use photography as the base for advertising. Neil Sukhlall’s screen printing is certainly the leader in this area.
There are advertisements for foods, vehicles, accessories and just about everything that needs to be marketed. But there are other things that do promote goods. For example, there is the building in which the goods are housed. These are well constructed and the architects make maximum use of lights.
TI1ese days, such is the impact of architecture that the skyline of Georgetown, the Guyana capital, is changing. We see tall buildings that are constructed of concrete and glass. Gone are the days when the buildings had a mere glass show window. But even then, emphasis was placed on decoration.
There is the building that houses the City Mall and the other across the road that has the Gravity Night Club at the top and Footsteps Mega store below. Shena’s Footwear uses the show-window to great effect. These are just two of the facilities that make use of lighting and colour.
Low level items are vended in arcades that adorn a section of Georgetown so one would actually see that the vendors do have an eye on arrangement, another form of advertising. TI1ese days we see just about everything being advertised and there are buyers.
What is at play is the drive to capture the buyers who seek bargains so that their disposable income would earn for them the most they can get. In a small country like Guyana, where disposable income is not at a premium and where people really search for bargains, the need for advertising cannot be over emphasized.
Bargains seem to be the order of the day and buyers are often besieged with ‘For sale’ signs. Almost every store is offering something for sale. This is another advertising ploy. The goods are always priced at a number that ends with ’99’. A television set may be priced at
$39,999· Shoes are priced at $5,999′ and those pricing policies continue.
In some countries, there are 99 cents stores where at one time no item was more expensive than 99 cents. It is a mind game because the buyer sees the first figure. For example, $31999 is indeed cheaper than $41000. The buyer says that $3,000 is less than $4000.
One would feel that this is a cheap ploy but it works, and regardless of how smart the person thinks he or she is, there is always the gravitation to the cheaper article, even if the difference is one dollar.
