Question

Find a newspaper advertising which you think is bland and unexciting.Rewrite it, frist to show a hard sell approach and then to show a soft sell approach.

Answer 1

In Marketing, Hard Sell basically constitute a particular selling technique used by the sellers of any good or service which is incorporated into commercial advertisements and product or service promotions. Hard sell techniques in advertisements and commercial promotions essentially involve direct, relatively aggressive, and insitent language and tone in order to persuade or convince the buyers or consumers to make an immediate or instant purchase of any concerned good or service rather than waiting and making consumption decision later in the future. Therefore, hard sell advertisements often use direct and insistent technique to partially compel the potential consumers or buyers to actually buy the concerned product or service instantly without any delay or reconsideration regarding the consumption. On the other hand, Soft Sell in any commercial advertisement or product or service promotion basically involves sales approach and selling techniques which are relatively less direct, insistent, and more subtle and implicit tone and language mainly in order to avoid customer withdrawal or rejection. Hence, soft sell techniques in advertisements and marketing might not necessarily result in initial or immediate sale but can subsequently result in consistent and repeat sale because of its less insistent and a more implicit or subtle approach towards the consumers or buyers on the contrary to hard sell advertising techniques.

In this context, as a practical exemplification of both hard and soft selling advertising techniques, one of the newspaper advertisements that could be appropriate and pertinent is a newspaper commercial of an international or global chocolate manufacturing company or brand posted in one of the popular daily newspapers in India. The main caption of the advertisement states "New taste got even more chocolatey" which basically reiterates a traditionally or historically known fact or information about the concerned product to all the consumers or buyers as everyone already knows very well that the company or the brand primarily sells only cholocate flavored bars and candies. Hence, in this regard, to employ some had selling technique to make it more effective and attractive, the advertisement caption can be changed to "You better have it now and don't take chance for later" or "Sweetness of chocolate is always instant so better have it instantly". Alternatively, considering that a new chocolate bar or candy has been launched by the company or brand and is being advertised, the advertisement can also possibly state " Hurry up and grab your share before it takes more out of your pocket share" in order to imply that the company or brand is offering a discount on its newly launched product and it will disappear very soon thereby insisting or compelling the consumers or buyers to buy them now or immediately and avoid a subsequent prce hike later and rap the economic benefit. On the other hand, in this respect, if the chocolate company or brand intends to use a soft selling technique in its newspaper advertisement in order to ensure long-term customer retention and avoid immediate customer withdrawal, the advertisement can possibly state "Your all time favorite cholocate bar has gotten even more delicious, richer, creamy, and smooth with even a lower price" or "The everlastig magic of your favorite chocolate brand is here again to cast a new spell" "Always best in understanding and catering to your taste", and so on. All of these advertisement captions implicitly suggest some of the essential features, characteristics and specifications about the newly launched product by the company but doesn't provide any information or message about the price of the newly launched or consumer expenditure thereby implying that these techniques are not directly intended to compel or insist the consumers or buyers to purchase the newly launched chocolate bar or candy by the concerned company or brand.