advertising

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Any of various methods used by a company to increase the sales of its products or services or to promote a brand name. Advertising is also used by organizations and individuals to communicate an idea or image, to recruit staff, to publicize an event, or to locate an item or commodity.

Product advertising can be seen by economists as either beneficial (since it provides information about a product and so brings the market closer to a state of perfect competition) or as a hindrance to perfect competition, since it attempts to make imaginary distinctions (such as greater sex appeal) between more or less similar products. Specialized advertising agencies often handle the advertising of a company's products, services, or corporate brand, although some aspects may be dealt with within the company (in-house). There are two basic types of advertising, informative advertising and persuasive advertising. The effectiveness of advertising is notoriously hard to measure. Marketing departments, who often take responsibility for a company's advertising budget, can try to measure the success of their company's advertising using market research.

The Star of May recalls the declaration of independence on 14 May 1811. The colours were inspired by the French tricolour. Effective date: c. 1990. >>