The Media

Ever since mass media became mass media, companies have naturally used this means of communications to let a large number of people know about their products. There is nothing wrong with that, as it allows innovative ideas and concepts to be shared with others. However, as the years have progressed, the sophistication of advertising methods and techniques has advanced, enticing and shaping and even creating consumerism and needs where there has been none before, or turning luxuries into necessities.

Note 1

Note 2

Interesting ***

The Audience Also As Consumer

Ben Bagdikian, a prominent media critic, and author of the well-acclaimed book The Media Monopoly, provides more detail and examples. In Chapter 6 of his book, for example, Bagdikian describes in detail the pressure on media companies to change content (to “dumb down”) and to shape content based on the demographics of the audiences. Slowly then, the content of media is not as important as the type of person being targeted by the ads.

He also shows that the notion of “giving the audience what they want” is also a bit misleading because, if anything, it is more about targeting those readers that can afford the products that are advertised and so it is almost like giving the advertisers what they want!

The “dumbing down” of the content also acts to promote a “buying mood.” Hence, as Bagdikian summarizes, “programming is carefully noncontroversial, light, and nonpolitical” (see p. 133). As he traces briefly the history of advertising in magazines he also hints that this has happened for a long time:

The influence of advertising on magazines reached a point where editors began selecting articles not only on the basis of their expected interest for readers but for their influence on advertisements. Serious articles were not always the best support for ads. An article that put the reader in an analytical frame of mind did not encourage the reader to take seriously an ad that depended on fantasy or promoted a trivial product. An article on genuine social suffering might interrupt the “buying” mood on which most ads for luxuries depend. The next step, seen often in mid-twentieth century magazines, was commissioning articles solely to attract readers who were good prospects to buy products advertised in the magazine. After that came the magazine phenomenon of the 1970s — creating magazines for an identifiable special audience and selling them to particular advertisers.

— Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), p.138.

Planning & Creativity

Planning and Creativity

Planning & Creativity, looks at the several stages involved in planning and execution of an ad campaign.

By definition, an advertising campaign entails designing a specific series of ads on behalf of a particular product or service, with a common theme or message and placing them in various media to reach a particular target market over a finite period.


A campaign does not take place in isolation, as the advertising must be integrated into the organisation’s overall marketing strategy. The average duration of a campaign, whether regional or national, is about 17 months, though there are variations.

That doesn’t mean that an ad will appear every day of every week for that length of time. It is more likely that campaigns will involve several (10-16 weeks) bursts of advertising to allow the message to sink in over a period of time. Take for instance the Renault Mégane ad campaign – shaking that ass – it was launched in 2004 for several months and returned to TV in 2005 and again in 2006. The campaign featured close-ups of various (clothed) human backsides to draw attention to the Mégane II's distinctive rear styling.

It is best not to have to alter (correct) a campaign in mid-stream (there is no reason to change it just for the sake of it) so every one has to be carefully planned. A campaign must bring together several elements – the roles of advertiser and agency, research, creativity, and the full range of above- and below-the-line media. All these activities will be considered in later lectures.

In order to plan and create advertising, a firm starting point is required for the campaign and, like PR planning (which we touched on last time) this takes the form of a situation analysis.

This analysis covers the marketing and communications of the company, so that sound strategic decisions can be made relating to the creative adverts, the media and the timing of the campaign.

Successful advertising starts with a good product. A first-class ad will not sell a bad product - at least not for long. At this point the advertiser, with the help of its agency, needs to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the product, if they don’t know them already. Most product failures, as you will no doubt recall from the marketing module, stem from an overly optimistic appraisal of the product’s possibilities.

Questions should be asked as to the unique consumer benefits the product delivers and of its value relative to its proposed price. Adequate distribution channels must exist to get the product to market; do retailers know of its existence; can quality control be maintained? Without answers to these questions advertising will not have a hope of succeeding.

Also included in the situation analysis will be a consideration of who buys the product, and why, and what, if anything, users like and dislike about it. Furthermore the company ought to know as much as possible about their competitors’ products - what they are up against.

In many ways knowledge of who buys the product and why, is the most important ingredient of any advertising campaign. Everything hinges on the customer – what he/she gets from the product that cannot be found in a competitor’s; how often the customer buys it and where; how often they utilize it; what media they use and in what way; what type of marketing approach they respond to – humour, celebrity, price – and so on. Answers to these questions are more important than whether to take a full or a half page, to write a 60 or a 30 second TV or radio commercial.

We are all consumers and somewhere, some company has a raft of information on most of the items we buy, our typical lifestyles as product users and the level of income we have. Tesco’s – and other supermarkets – started capturing this basic data when they introduced loyalty cards, which are now arguably more important to the company than there are to us.

Such market knowledge will enable the company to embark on the eight steps for developing and implementing a winning campaign, safe in the knowledge that they know what they’re doing.

The number of steps, their order and the duration of the campaign will vary according to an organisation's resources, the nature of the product, the types of target markets or audiences to be reached and the ad agency, if any, selected. However, these general guidelines for developing an ad campaign are appropriate for all types of organisations.

Key steps in campaign planning

1. Identifying and analysing the target audience

The advertising target is the group of people at which ads are aimed. Identifying and analysing this audience is critical; this information will help govern the development of the campaign. The advertising audience often includes everyone in a firm's target market, though marketers may decide to slant a campaign at only one segment.

Analysing the target market will include compiling information on the location and geographic distribution of the target group, the distribution of age, income, ethnic origin, gender, etc.

The more advertisers know about the target audience, the more likely they are to develop an effective campaign. The audience will heavily affect the decision on what will be said, how, when and where it will be said, and who will say it.

2. Defining Advertising Objectives

The next step - determining objectives - states what the advertiser hopes the campaign will accomplish. Objectives influence campaign development, so advertisers need to define them carefully to ensure that the campaign will achieve, or at least have a chance of achieving, what they want.

An ad objective is a specific communication task (note it is communications-based) to be accomplished with a specific target audience during a set period of time. By specifying a time frame, advertisers know exactly how long they have to accomplish the objective. (Remember that the average campaign lasts 17 months).

So it’s not enough to express an advertising objective in terms of ‘increasing sales’ as this is something that advertising cannot achieve on its own.

An advertising objective is a statement of what the ad message must accomplish and what effect it must have on its audience.

As such objectives tend to be concerned with awareness (maintaining or increasing it) and understanding of the brand, and with the attitudes and opinions people have about the product.

Advertising is one of several marketing variables, operating in an ever changing environment, so it is impossible, except in certain direct mail campaigns, to measure its contribution to profits. The more precise objectives are the easier it is to estimate the value of a campaign and indeed to design an effective campaign. Objectives should be stated clearly, precisely, and in measurable terms. Remember the SMART acronym - they should be stretching, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

If they are precise and measurable this will allow companies to evaluate the success of the advertising; to judge, at the end of the campaign, whether objectives have been met and if so, how well.

Though we looked at advertising objectives and uses in the first lecture it is worth reminding ourselves of some typical objectives:

Advertising objectives

Objectives should be as specific as possible –

* To produce 10,000 enquiries about, say, a car insurance package within the first 3 weeks of a TV campaign; or
* To increase the % of people aware of the company, service or product from x% to y% (figures being measured before and after the campaign)
It is also important that objectives contain benchmarks, which define the current position of the firm or product and state how far, and in what direction, the advertiser wants to move these markers.

So, to review, objectives can be linked to sales - focusing on raising absolute monetary sales, increasing sales or market share by a certain percentage – or, as is more likely, they can be expressed in terms of communication focusing on increasing product or brand awareness, improving customer attitude or increasing their knowledge of the product.

3. Creating the Advertising Platform

Before launching a campaign, the advertiser (in conjunction with its ad agency) must develop the advertising platform, which states the major issues or selling points that will be the basis of the campaign. A single ad in a campaign may contain one or several issues in the platform. Although the platform sets forth the basic issues, it does not indicate how they should be presented. The platform contains the issues that are important to consumers.

So the platform issues for Kellogg’s Cornflakes might be – the taste, the texture, the association with freshness, the crunchiness of the flake, nostalgia and so on. For the latest Nokia cell phone it might be the feel, shape and weight of the handset, the games included, the size and clarity of the screen, or of the keypad digits, the ease of use or just the general appearance of the phone.

One of the best ways to determine what those issues are is to survey consumers about what they consider most important in the selection and use of the product involved. The platform therefore includes broad attitudes to the product as well as specific unique benefits, which customers derive from it. The result of this research will enable the advertiser to arrive at a number of positive selling features, which can be emphasised in the campaign.

A few years ago Proctor and Gamble tested refill packages for some of its cleaning products, on consumers, before mounting an environmentally friendly campaign. The smaller packaging that emerged provided a unique benefit by not adding to solid-waste disposal problems and by appealing to environmentally conscious consumers. Package testing is common but similarly companies test the overall impact of the product well in advance of its launch.

The selling features, detailed in the advertising platform, must be important to customers and where possible, should be features that are not available in the products of the competition.

Because consumer research is expensive, the platform is often based on the opinions of personnel within the firm or of ad agency staff. This is often ‘hit and miss’ and success cannot be guaranteed. It is because the platform is the base on which the message is built, that marketers should analyse it carefully.

Campaigns fail despite all other aspects being well dealt with, if the ad contains details consumers do not consider important when they buy and use the product.

The next step in developing an ad campaign is to determine the budget or the advertising appropriation, as it often called.
Setting the budget is one of the most crucial stages in any ad campaign and one that merits close attention. In most cases it will be expressed in terms of the amount available to spend on advertising, rather than money to invest in it. From the outset it has to be said that often the budget will be fixed by the advertiser before the agency has even been asked to develop the campaign.

4. Budgeting

Once objectives have been set, the logical question to ask is how much money it will take to achieve each objective? If product sales in the past have been successful, how do companies know what % of sales was due to advertising and even then, if the spend on advertising was too much or not enough.

The largest variable in most companies is for consumer-oriented advertising and despite computer models being available to help decide how much should be spent the final decision is a usually a judgement-call by management.
There are a number of factors to be taken into account before the campaign budget is set. Much will depend on the prior success of the company, its position in the market, and its brand market share. The position in the product life cycle, the nature of the product itself and the firm's sales volume relative to their competitors are also determinants.

Though different texts list a variety of ways to calculate a budget there are really only two popular approaches - the arbitrary method and the advertising-to-sales ratio, (one of the most commonly used).

Advertising appropriation methods

* Advertising-to-sales (A/S) ratio or percentage of sales
• Arbitrary/affordable method
• Objective & task
* Competition matching/parity (‘me-too’)

(i) Percentage of Sales
Most used is the advertising-to-sales (A/S) ratio also known as the percentage of sales approach, where marketers set the figure by simply taking a % of the firm's past sales (retrospective A/S ratio) or an estimate of next year’s (forecast A/S ratio). Then they add in a factor (the ratio) for the immediate year to come.

This ratio is normally 10% for fast moving consumer goods (frequently bought, low unit value, convenience goods) and 5% for consumer durables (TV sets, washing machines and cars).

They then multiply this by a standard %, based on the industry average, or on what the firm traditionally spends on advertising.

Past/retrospective A/S ratio
$1m (past sales) x 10% (industry average) = $100,000
$1m (past sales) x 8% (firm’s average spend) = $80,000

Estimate/forecast A/S ratio
$1m (past sales) + $½m (expected growth) = $1.5m x 10% (industry average) = $150,000
Put simply, companies set their budget at a certain % of current or forecast sales. A variation on this is to budget a % of the sales price of the product. Car companies often budget a fixed % based on the planned retail price, as do oil/petroleum companies.

This method has advantages. First, advertising is likely to vary and increase with what the company can afford, based on profits. It helps focus the minds of managers and marketers on the relationship between advertising spend, selling price and profit-per-unit. Finally, it creates competitive stability as competing firms tend to spend about the same % of their sales on advertising.

But it has one major flaw; it is based on the incorrect assumption that sales create advertising, rather than resulting from it.

Thus a marketer using this method at a time of declining sales will reduce the amount spent on advertising even though this may further diminish sales, or prevent the increase spending sometimes needed to turn falling sales around.

Additionally, it means that the advertising budget is based on the availability of funds rather than on market opportunities.

Though unscientific, this technique is widely accepted as it is easy to use and less disruptive competitively. It also tends to stabilise a firms market share within its industry.

Remember though what we discussed the first night - that companies that maintain advertising during recession (e.g. Ford, Coca-Cola etc) - all stood a better chance of increased sales when the downturn ends. And those that increased advertising gained greater market share by nearly 3 times during recovery.

(ii) Arbitrary Approach
The next most fashionable method is also the least sophisticated, consisting in essence of company executives simply picking an amount to be spent on advertising which seems intuitively right.

Known as the ‘notional sum’, ‘affordable’ or ‘AYCA’ (all you can afford) method, this can lead to under-spending or indeed over-spending; who is to say just exactly what the right amount is?

Though not the most logical approach, it is expedient. While difficult to recommend, many companies find it as easy to determine & justify the spend using the arbitrary way as any other.

Unfortunately this method completely ignores the consequences of promotion or advertising on sales. It leads to an uncertain annual promotion budget - which makes long-term market planning difficult. Because most companies err on the side of caution, most also end up under-spending on advertising.

(iii) Objective and Task
One of the most rational and academic methods is for marketers first to determine the objectives that a campaign has to achieve and then to attempt to list the tasks required to accomplish them. The costs of these tasks are added to arrive at the ‘spend’. What the advertiser ends up with is a realistic account of what it can hope to accomplish related to current resources.

Advertisers who use this method need accurate, reliable research, experience and models for setting and measuring results.

This approach has one main problem - marketers find it hard to estimate how much effort is needed to achieve objectives. It can be very difficult to calculate how much to increase national advertising on TV say, to raise a brand share from 8% to 12%.

Though sound theoretically, advertisers do not widely use the objective and task method. It requires management to spell out its assumptions about the link between $s spent and advertising results and requires a tight application of theory.

(iv) Competition matching

Next is the ‘me-too’, competitive-parity or competition-matching approach. Here marketers try to match their main competitors budgets in terms of $s spent or to allocate the same % of sales for advertising as their competitors do.

So how do they know what the competition is spending? By watching their competitors advertising, or consulting publications that detail the amounts spent (like BRAD and MEAL), companies can establish the likely spends and set their budgets based on what then becomes an industry average.

The main arguments in support of this method are 1) that competitor budgets represent the collective wisdom of the industry and 2) competitive parity helps prevent advertising wars.

However, neither is valid. The approach is purely a defensive and negative reaction. Remember – who says the competition has any better idea than you do! Companies, even within the same market sector, differ greatly and have differing advertising needs.

And there is no scientific evidence to confirm that setting the advertising budget in this way does prevent promotion wars.

It makes sense for companies to be aware of what competitors are spending on advertising, but this should not be used by itself for the reasons given and because the competition probably has different advertising objectives and resources.

That said competitive tracking does take place in most companies and agencies, normally on a quarterly basis, just to keep an eye on the market and the competition.

Research in the US confirms many determine their ad budgets and the answers cut across the main methods I've just outlined.

Calculating budgets - survey

In practise companies have historical reasons for setting budgets; many involve aspects of the methods above. Often they simply add a little more to last year’s amount to get this year’s figure – a method known as the historic approach.

There are other methods. The % of overheads and profit method – where the ‘spend’ is what’s left over after removing fixed costs.

The case rate approach is where each product unit is assigned a ‘mini-budget’, whereby the more units that are sold the more the advertising budget increases.

Whatever approach is taken, establishing the advertising budget is critical. Set it too low and the campaign cannot achieve its full potential for stimulating demand. Spend too much on advertising and financial resources are wasted.

An ideal budget is one that produces the greatest result for the least expenditure, but reaching that figure is difficult & is a decision most easily carried out retrospectively.

After the ad spend has been agreed, marketers then develop an effective media plan and seek to derive the maximum results from the various media they buy into.

5. Develop Media Plan

There are many advertising media to select from. To derive the optimum results from media expenditure, a company must have a wide knowledge of the properties of the various options available from which will flow an effective media plan. Apart from the ways different media can deliver an audience there are a number of other factors which will impact on the media decision, as it is often called.

Media plan

* Deciding on the reach, frequency and impact
* Choosing the media (based on various consumer profiles)
* Deciding on media timing

The terms - reach, frequency and impact require explanation.

Reach is defined as the percentage of people in the target market exposed to an ad campaign during a given period.

Frequency is the number of times the average person in the target market is exposed to the ad during the campaign.

Impact is the qualitative value of an exposure through a given medium.

That stated advertising has to be more than how often an organisation can hit people with its message. It is important to always target the right people, rather than simply adopt the shotgun approach. Ultimately it will be the content of the message (or the promise) and where it is placed, rather than how often, that is important. Knowing the customer is therefore the key.

The media plan sets forth the exact media to be used (specific magazines, TV channels & programme slots, papers etc.) and the dates and times the ads will appear. The efficacy of the plan will determine how many people will be exposed to the message and what affects the message will have on them.

In formulating a media plan, media will be selected for the campaign and a schedule for each will be drawn up. The main aim for planners is to reach the largest number of people in the target audience for the lowest amount spent, and within budget.

As media appeal to particular groups in particular locations in different ways planners have to take into account the location and demographic characteristics of the target audience. The cost of buying media time and space is also important. Planners will seek the best coverage per $ spent, but there is no scientific way of comparing the cost and impact of a TV advert with a press ad.

The choice of media will also be influenced by the content of the message. As we will see, print media can be used more effectively than broadcast media to present products in great detail.

Given the variety of vehicles within each medium, media planners have to consider a vast number of choices.

The next stage in a campaign is creating the advertising message.

6. Creating the Advertising Message

Hungarian Arthur Koestler said ‘creativity is the defeat of habit by originality’. Without doubt the lifeblood of advertising, it is about getting across the very essence of the message that the client wants to communicate and which, hopefully, the customer will respond to. Creativity is about triggering desire, want and action.

Advertising needs to be different to break through the plethora of competing messages, images and celebrity endorsements to grab the consumer’s attention. Jazz musician Charlie Mingus once said: ‘Making the complicated awesomely simple, that’s creativity.’

Usually, in an agency, art directors work with copywriters on the brief provided by account managers to bring it to life creatively. Somewhere in the process words, images, ideas and what is known as ‘treatment’ will result in the final ad.

Mackay in The Practice of Advertising highlights several distinct creative approaches based on the different marketing environments.

Characteristic of product/service and market Creative strategy
Extreme dominance in sector Generic: straight product or benefit claim
Growing or awakening market Pre-emptive: general claim with assertion of authority
When point of difference cannot be matched by competitors Unique selling proposition (USP): a superiority
based on unique feature or benefit
Homogeneous markets where physical
differences are difficult to establish or easy to match Brand image: based on psychological differentiation
Product/service attacking a market leader Positioning: attempt to build specific niche
Discretionary items Emotional: using humour and fun without strong
selling emphasis

Behind most successful advertising is a strong creative idea which is dramatic, memorable and, as we saw in the University of Bath study two weeks ago, often emotional.

Kit Kat’s ‘have a break’, Carlsberg’s ‘probably’ and Tesco’s ‘every little helps’ campaigns are simple ideas with humour, charm & entertainment at their core.

Results like these don’t arrive by accident and usually come about following a structured, normally four-step process:

1. Creative brief and key message
2. Creative proposition
3. Creative idea
4. Execution

1. The first step – the creative brief – will set out what the ad is to achieve and will cover questions such as – why are we advertising, what are we selling, who are we talking to, what is the single most important thing the ad should convey and what are the values of the brand?

This brief is the rock on which everything is built. It will help set the parameters within which the creative team will be expected to come up with ideas and should guide and stimulate.

The brief should bring the target audience to life and show how it will respond to the advertising. Often focus groups to test ads on and meticulous research will be carried out.

2. The creative proposition is real the starting point for the creativity and is about translating the key advertising message in a creative and accessible way. The proposition defines the essence of the ad.

Propositions need to be distinctive (distinguishing the brand from its competitors), relevant (to the customer) and competitive (making the brand superior to others).

Propositions also need to convey an element of emotion. De Beers (diamonds are forever), Intel (Intel inside), Midland Bank (the listening bank) and Mr Kipling (exceedingly good cakes) are all examples of emotional propositions. Domestos (kills 99% of all known germs – dead) is a more factual proposition, though it works well because of the nature of the product.

3. The creative idea – or more correctly ‘ideas’ stage is when the agency team pulls together a number of alternative ideas to see which has the best development potential. Story boards – and scamps – will be used to help the client visualise the final ad.

4. Once the idea is accepted by the client it can be worked up into the final ad or execution. All aspects of the creative process – photography, copywriting, design, film production – will then swing into action; each making a contribution to the finished advert.

This 4-step process keeps the creative brief at its core; it allows for review and realignment of ideas and usually gets the best from all the creative team involved.
As the creative team considers the various ideas proposed, it will focus on several aspects.

Does the ad have impact; does it arrest the viewer’s attention? Is it simple? Does it have one clear idea, exclusive to that brand or product? Is it believable? Does the ad involve the target customer? Does it offer a distinctive promise? Can it be ‘made up’ into a campaign and not just one single ad? Does it work across the various media? Does it fit with the customer’s view of the brand?

Spending a great deal on advertising does not guarantee a successful campaign. An ad will only succeed if the message is well communicated, gains attention and encourages action. To gain and hold attention, adverts must be better planned, more imaginative, entertaining and rewarding, than the competitions.

To communicate effectively, an advertiser uses words, symbols and illustrations that are meaningful, familiar and attractive to the target audience. The content and form of the advertising message can be affected by many factors:

Factors affecting the advertising message

* Product features (size, shape, colour), uses & benefits
* Characteristics of the target audience - age, gender, education, occupation
* Campaign objectives
* Advertising platform (what is important to the user)
* Choice of media (outdoor displays & short broadcast ads require concise, simple messages)

If an organisation's advertising objectives involve large sales increases, the message demands hard-hitting, high-impact language and symbols. When objectives aim to increase brand awareness, the message may use much repetition of the brand name and words and illustrations associated with it.

Thus, as already mentioned, the advertising platform is the foundation on which campaign messages are built.

Advertising messages will include a number of aspects irrespective of which media is being used, with most being dependent on the use of copy and artwork.

Copy is the verbal portion of an ad, which includes headlines, sub-headlines, body copy and signature. The headline, in printed ads appears at the top of the page and is critical as it is often the only part of the copy read. It should attract attention and create enough interest to make people want to read the body copy.

Copy tends to be the bit of the ad that the reader gets to after he or she has been lured to it by the illustration or the headline, so it depends on what goes before it.

According to David Ogilvy, the average readership of the body copy of a magazine ad is about 5%. To be effective details have to be short and must tell the reader what he/she is supposed to do - a call to action.

The sub-headline, if there is one, links the headline to the body copy. The body copy is normally several paragraphs long aimed at outlining a property of the product which deals with a customer need, or detailing its advantages and benefits and encouraging buyer action. Remember here the AIDA model (awareness, interest, desire, action). The signature identifies the company and can include a trademark, logo, name and address.

Radio and TV ads also have headlines and copy - though for radio copy will be informal and conversational, short and familiar. TV has to strike a balance between visual and audio material. Ads for broadcast media and cinema use a storyboard depicting a sequence of major scenes in the ad along with the body copy.

Artwork consists of illustrations and their layout including pictures, graphs, tables etc. Again illustrations should attract attention and communicate an idea (or ideas) which are often more difficult in written form.

Illustration techniques

A little bit at this point about the use of celebrities, who tend to be the people used in testimonials. While sometimes, there is no doubt, sticking any product in the hand of any celebrity will have a positive sales effect, it is very important to consider how logical the connection is between the personality and the product.

Celebrities tend to be good for products that don’t involve a lot of risk or technical know-how – e.g. food, appliances, clothes & beer.
The celebrity also has to be relevant to the target market. There’s no point in getting Britney Spears to advertise stair lifts! The celebrity also has to be credible, so again Britney would not really be a good person to endorse acne spot cream!

Remember that ordinary people (Harold Brown from Halifax) saying things about products can be more effective. A real person saying they lost 100 pounds on Weight Watchers could be better than an actor or a celebrity.

The penultimate part of an advertising campaign is its execution.

Executing the Campaign

Many people are involved in the campaign execution and thus it too requires an extensive amount of planning and co-ordination. Implementation often involves production companies, research organisations, media firms, printers, commercial artists and more.

Executing a campaign requires detailed schedules to ensure that the several phases are delivered – and appear – on time. Those overseeing an ad campaign must evaluate and monitor both the quality of the work and its progress against budget requirements. In some instances, changes will have to be made during the campaign so that it meets objectives more effectively.

Creative involved in the campaign must find a style, tone, words and format for its execution. Style and tone are part of the creative process that can only really be judged when the customer has received the message.

Style, which can be slice-of-life, fantasy, musical or testimonial, is ultimately judged by customers and not advertising executives. Tone can be positive or humorous or light depending on the company’s or the product’s personality.

Pulling these various strands together and actually printing or broadcasting the ad are all obvious parts of the execution process.

8. Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness

The final phase of an ad campaign is measuring the results.

Evaluating results

The simple way to evaluate advertising effectiveness is to check if the original objectives have been achieved.

This can be done by assessing sales/communications results, the effectiveness of copy, illustrations or layouts, and evaluating certain media. Advertising can be evaluated before, during, and after the campaign, so we'll take a quick look at each.

i) Pre-testing

Evaluations performed before the campaign, or pre-tests, usually try to weigh up the effectiveness of one or more elements of the message. Consumer focus groups can be used, comprising of actual or potential buyers of the advertised product.

Focus group members are asked to judge one or several dimensions of two or more ads. Such tests are based on the belief that consumers are more likely than advertising experts to know what will influence them.

ii) Enquiries

To measure efficacy during an ad campaign, marketers can use or monitor consumer (or would-be customer) enquiries, most often in the form of returned press/magazine coupons.

Don’t forget the use of SMS text messaging, which is now an integral part of so many campaigns aimed at younger people and can provide an almost instant response to advertising messages.

In the early stages of a campaign different ads can be used simultaneously, with each containing a coupon or information request-slip. Whichever gets the most enquires or returns will be judged superior & used for the rest of the campaign.

iii) Post-campaign test

Whether or not post-campaign testing is used will depend to a degree on the advertising objectives of the campaign.

If the objectives are in terms of communication - product or brand awareness or attitude change - then the post-campaign test will measure changes in these aspects based on a comparison of consumer surveys taken before and after the campaign.

A campaign with a sales objective, allows the advertiser to determine the change in sales or market share. This sounds uncomplicated but cannot always be relied on. Other factors, outside the remit of advertising, can influence sales like competitor tactics, market forces, government actions, and so on.
However by using data about past and current sales and advertising expenditures, the advertiser can make gross estimates of the effects of the campaign.

Because detailed consumer surveys are expensive and as it is difficult to link advertising to sales directly, advertisers often evaluate print ads according to the degree to which consumers recall and recognise them.

In a recognition test, individuals are shown an ad and asked if they recognise it. If they do, they are asked additional questions to see how much of the ad they have read. In a recall test no prompting is given but respondents are asked about what they have seen or heard recently.

Recall can also be judged in spontaneous or aided recall tests, the former when respondents are asked to identify any ads they have seen recently and the latter where a list of products, brands, trademarks are shown to jog their memories.

Though ad recall and recognition does not always lead to buying a product, research shows that the more 'likeable' or familiar an ad is the more memorable and ultimately the more persuasive it is likely to be with consumers.

Typically advertising recall is carried out by an organisation like NOP (National Opinion Polls), which conducts a weekly telephone omnibus survey among around 500 adults. The top ad is usually recalled by around 75% of those questioned, while a 35% recall would place an ad in 20th position.

Result evaluation it is a vital component in the campaign process. It can be used as the basis for subsequent or revised campaigns and advertisers will rarely ignore research. Unless advertisers can justify the amount spent on advertising, they could face company pressure to decrease that spend and unless some aspect of the campaign can be proven to have some positive results, total advertising can be substantially decreased.

Advertising Strategic Research and Planning

This week we will be discussing Strategic Research and Planning

Strategic planning involves planning for the attainment of long term goals and objectives of an organization. Advertising forms a part of the promotional mix of the organization. It is a means to convey the message about the company’s product or service amongst the target audience. The advertising strategy is crafted by the organization in line with the overall organizational strategy. 

For more points to digest, do read Note 1 and 2

Advertising & Consumer

•Theoretically consumers are end users and customers are buyers but this definition brings about some degree of ambiguity . Therefore we define consumers as those who seek products to consume and satisfy they needs. Based on this definition, consumers are the most important element in marketing and understanding their behavior makes really sense.

Factors influencing consumer behavior

1. Cultural

- Culture

-Subculture

-Social Class

2. Social

-Reference groups

-Family

-Roles & Status

3. Personal

-Age & Life cycle stage

- Occupation

-Economic situation

- Lifestyle

- Personality & Self- Concept

4. Psychological

-Motivation

-Perception

-Learning

-Beliefs & Attitude

Advertisers need to understand all the questions consumer ask themselves before making a purchase in order to successfully attract them

•Why do we buy? •How  do we buy? •Where  do we buy from? •How much do  I buy?

•With whom do I buy? •For whom do I buy? •How often do I buy? •What brand do I buy?

•By studying consumer behavior marketers being able to understand different behavior of various consumers toward different products and brand .then they can set proper set of strategies in marketing mix policies  to target and serve consumers in different segments which in return would result in consumer satisfaction , consumers satisfaction will undoubtedly lead to consumer loyalty and constant profit for company.