Exhibition in the Advertising Industry

Value-added offer a special service promised by a media firm to its most desized advertisers as an inducement to get their business

location-based advertising the process of sending commercial messages to people based on their geographic position

cross-platform gaming or pervasive gaming location- based advertising activity in relation to gaming that allows users to play the same game and same competitors in a variety of places. It also allows players to use one identity across platforms, as well as all-in-one scorekeeping, chat, and friend lists. All this allows ad agencies to sell ads aimed at the same people with particular demographics across all gaming areas

The goal of the production and distribution of an ad is to exhibit it across a variety of media to a target audience. Once the media plan for an ad campaign—the entire set of advertisements using a particular theme to promote a certain product for a certain period of time—has been created, it is up to the advertisers' media buyers to carry it out. The buyers often work for separate media-buying companies. (Recall, for example, that although Martin Agency creates and produces Geico’s ads, it works with Horizon Media to plan ad-placement strategy; Horizon does the actual buying.)

Every mass media firm publishes its rates for space or time. It also makes a pitch for different target audiences that advertisers crave. For example, MTV’s online division has organized its sales staff to sell to advertisers “against" three psychographic groups: kids/family, men/gamer enthusiasts, and youth music. The division's digital sales director noted in 2006 that the company was reaching over 30 million unique visitors per month and so could deliver the large numbers—the "online scale”—that advertisers want.

For media buyers representing large advertisers, however, these charges are just the starting point. They dangle the large amounts of cash that they control as they attempt to negotiate discounts from the basic rates. Some media companies want the business of big advertisers so much that they offer inducements beyond discounts to get them to sign up. These inducements, called value-added offers, cover a wide gamut of activities. A newspaper firm might help the advertiser create booklets about its product and distribute them to its readers. A TV network might give the advertiser a discount for space on its internet site. A magazine company might give the advertiser access to the media firm's large database of subscribers.

It also works the other way: a television network with a popular show might tell an ad buyer that buying time in that program requires buying time in a less popular show (“Want your ads in CBS’s highly-rated CSH Then you’ll have to run some in Criminal Minds") Media firms know, too, that buyers like to follow audiences across different platforms. So, for example, Fox’s House in 2009 created a Web page for fans to express their regrets about a character who had inexplicably committed suicide on one of the season's episodes. Similarly, NBC Universal's digital unit created a specific website aimed at “superfans’" of the sitcom 30 Rock. The aim was to encourage marketers to place ads both on the TV series and on the sites.

Eventually, with the right technology, the goal is to help advertisers track indi­viduals across many media, so as to reach them when they are most ready to receive ads. One hint of the way that might happen relates to mobile phone companies’ ability to track their customers’ locations. If the customers agree, the companies can send them ads, including discount coupons, based on their geographic location. This sort of advertising, which is sure to grow, is called location-based advertising. Such outdoor advertising might also develop cross-platform features—for example if your phone company works with your supermarket to give you different coupons at checkout in the supermarket. The Microsoft Corporation is already carrying out a kind of location-based advertising activity in relation to gaming. Part of Microsoft’s “Live Anywhere” strategy, the activity is called cross-platform gaming or pervasive gaming. It allows users to play the same game and same competitors in a variety of places. It also allows players to use one identity across platforms, as well as all-in-one scorekeeping, chat, and friend lists. All this allows Microsoft to sell ads aimed at the same people with particular demographics across all three of Microsoft’s gaming areas: the XBox, its online gaming sites, and its mobile gaming platform.

Of course, advertising agencies expect their work to be exhibited on the media outlets with which they have made deals. Several companies exist to help ad buyers determine whether their work did indeed get printed or aired in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time. In addition, agencies and their clients are interested in what their competition is doing. Competitive Media Reports (CMR) is one firm that provides advertisers with information about where their competitors are advertising and how much they are spending.