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Advertising 2.1 Overview of the themes First of all, it is important to understand what is advertising and others concepts of it. Advertising is defined as a paid-for form of non-personal communication that is transmitted through a mass media, in order to reach a diversity of audiences (Dibb, Simkin, Pride & Ferrell 2006, p. 538). Moreover, advertising also can be defined as any paid form of non-personal promotion transmitted through a mass medium, means that audiences are far more likely to be interested in the subject matter of the advertising carried by their chosen medium, and is described to be part of the marketing mix under the promotional tools (Brassington & Pettitt 1997, p. 604; Wilmshurst & Mackay 2000, pp. 72-73). This discussion is further explained by Blythe (2006, p. 479) that advertising has been defined as a paid insertion of a message in a medium. Advertising should be seen as part of an integrated communication strategy and it can create awareness, and move people closer to a purchase: it can help in positioning brands, and it can help in informing people about product attributes (Kotler, Bowens & Makens 2006, p. 565). 2.2 Advertising industry Advertising was first invented as early as in the first century. Historical evidence dated ages ago to the ruins of Pompeii which had shown early signs of advertising even before the twentieth century. Later on, advertisement has been changing along with the development of the advancement of technology, as human beings are becoming more creative and well educated (Wilmshurst & Mackay 2000, p.1-2). Throughout the eighteenth century, printing advertising such as the newspaper and afterward on magazines and posters as technology advance was the most common used of advertisement (Wilmshurst & Mackay 2000, pp. 4-5). Blythe (cited by Ehrenberg 1992, p. 480) also mentioned that there are two theories about advertising which the strong theory suggests that advertising is an influential force which can change attitudes and make a significant contribution to people’s knowledge and understanding, and the weak theory of advertising suggests that advertising can only ‘nudge’ people in the direction in which they are already moving, in the other words it reinforces rather than persuades. On the other hand, advertising is no longer limiting itself via the printed materials as the medium of sending information mainly because of the advancing technology nowadays. As mentioned by Dibb, Simkin, Pride and Ferrell (2006, pg. 538), there are four different categories that are the broadcasting as the television, radio, direct mail, public transport vehicles, outdoor displays, cinema and the Internet (Gretzel, Yuan & Fersenmaier 2000) that are usually used by companies to advertise its products, services or brands nowadays. Moreover, the information technology (IT) is emerging since 90s and it has been highly handful for consumers to interact with the advertisements and thy (Gretzel, Yuan & Fersenmaier, 2000; Wilsmhurt & Mackay 2000, pg. 227). In addition, Gretzel Yuan and Fersenmaier (2000) has indicated that the importance for companies to keep on updating all of the information that they want to send to the public, mainly due to the ease of accessible Internet. All this information must be made to order accordingly to the targeted market segments in order to obtain effectiveness in online advertising (Hoffman, Novak and Chatterjee, cited in Gretzel, Yuan & Fersenmaier 2000), whereby the effectiveness of it determines how many people in the advertising target will be exposed to the message (Dibb, Simkin, Pride & Ferrell 2006, p. 551). Therefore, companies are facing greater obstacles as the Web sites have become a common tool for the advertising industry. This highly advance media in current era of information allowed consumers to access information, interact, collaborate, communicate, as well as making transactions through the Internet whereas the traditional media couldn’t not do so (Dibb, Simkin, Pride & Ferrell 2006, p. 551). Besides that, the web pages play a huge part in making sure the success of Internet advertising in order to create an unusual experience to the visitors. On top of that, Gretzel, Yuan and Fersenmaier (2000) indicated that when the visitors experienced the positive differences, they would spend more time on the web sites. 2.3 Low cost model These low cost, cheap, no frills carriers such as Transavia have revolutionized the airline industry, and this low-cost model has been successful without any doubt (Bray, 2001, p. 4). Citrinot and Bailey (2006, p. 1) indicated that the idea of low cost airline is look fairly simply: make travel affordable with low fares thanks to a basic service, without frills. Back in 1971, Low Cost Carrier (LCC) was introduced in the USA, and implemented the original low-cost model comprising low fares, high frequency flights, point to point service, no free meals or drinks on board, no seat assignment, short flights, and flights to secondary airports (Virgin flies high with brand extensions, 2006, pp. 18). As might expected, there are some failures among those start-ups that fail to obey the golden rule of brutally axing costs, however, the overall concept appears to be tightening its grip (Donne 2002, p. 1). According to the article of Virgin flies high with brand extensions (2006, p. 18-19), there are three main strategies airline companies can imply in order to gain competitive advantage which are cost leadership where an organization seeks to be the lowest cost producer by selling standard, mass products; differentiation where companies introduce a unique dimension that is considered to be important to the market; as well as focus on targeting a certain segment of the market. 2.4 Growth and Decline When the world economy started to show signs of slowing down in 2000, the major flag airlines failed to respond quickly enough in maintaining in expenditures and so regain some measure of control over costs, and failed to identified and act on the changes taking place in the public point of views (Critinot & Bailey 2006, p. 1) Despite the currently depressed global economic downturns and the fears of the further terrorist attacks, the rise of the low cost airlines or budget airlines over recent years has been the most significant growth in world commercial aviation, and it seems that it is now an unstoppable force (Donne 2002, p.1). Critinot and Bailey (2006, p. 1) mentioned that one of the marketing strategy tools used by budget airlines is advertising their ‘discounted’ and ‘bargain’ fares, for instance offered in the pages of the newspaper. 2.5 Promotional Tools As mentioned by Brassington and Pettitt (1997, pg. 604), advertising is one of promotional tools and there are three more which are sales promotion, personal selling and public relation. Moreover, Morgan and Pritchard (2000, p. 11) indicated that there are other promotion activities such as point-of-purchase displays, direct marketing, product packaging, sponsorship and sales management.