Types of AdvertisingRoughly speaking, there are two major types of advertising: institutional and direct-response. Institutional ads, also known as "space ads," strive to build (or refresh) the prospect's awareness and favorable view of the company or its product or service. For example, most billboards are institutional ads. Direct-response ads attempt to spur the prospect to a specific action: click to order the product right now, call for more information, visit the store and buy the product during the weekend sale, and so on. Most banner ads on the web and most automobile dealer ads in the local newspaper are direct-response ads. Token direct-response: During the last three decades, there has developed a middle ground between institutional and direct. The phenomenal (and measurable!) profitability of direct-response has shamed many institutional advertisers into building "direct-response elements" into their ads. For example, many advertisers include toll-free 800 numbers in a corner of their full-page magazine ads. But few advertisers who include those numbers bother to track what happens as a result of the incoming calls. That's a pretty clear indication that the reason for placing the "direct-response elements" was merely to avoid public ridicule.
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