Evaluation of advertisement campaign - Essay Example

? Evaluation of Advertisement Campaign Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Campaign Strategy/ Rationale 3 Evaluation of Campaign 7 Conclusion and Recommendations 11 Reference List 12 Introduction The mobile phone industry has been growing at a rapid pace since the last couple of decades. One of the major rationales towards this exponential growth is the robust innovation and creativity within the industry (Ahlstrom and Bruton, 2009). In the year 2012, the industry has managed to grow at a rate of 1.3%, but recent studies suggest that the global mobile phone industry is expected to grow at a rate of 7.3% in the year 2013, thereby reflecting a sharp rebound. Interestingly, the overall mobile phone market is growing at a faster pace than predicted, which signifies the immense potentiality of the industry. So the big question revolves around this mammoth progress and whether it is triggered by product innovation only or any other factors that had led to this colossal growth and development of the industry (Campbell, 2009). On deeper analysis, it has been observed that the role of advertisement is paramount in the development. One of the key trends of this industry is that companies invest large sums of money to create awareness about their products and services and these investments pay off to a great extent (Clifton, 2012). The market size of this industry is so large that almost every player has space for themselves. However, a company with better advertisement strategy and campaign experiences greater success. Thus, the impact of advertisement on the growth of mobile phone industry is clearly visible (Adler, 2010). In this report, the impact of advertisement on the growth and development of a product will be addressed. However, the study will not be accomplished in the usual way like, industry analysis, which identifies the way or the extent to which advertising plays an effective role. Rather the study will select an advertising campaign of a company belonging to the mobile phone industry. In this context, the advertising campaign by Samsung will be chosen and the same will be evaluated. Campaign Strategy/ Rationale Advertising is a necessary activity to all businesses for the sole purpose of generating awareness about the products and services and at the same time, influencing the target customers to buy the product. It is impossible to sell a product without letting the customers know about it (Aarika-Stenroos and Sandberg, 2012). Thus, advertising is dubbed as a tool that helps to draw attention of the consumers towards the products or services of the company. Advertisement campaigns can be carried out through various mediums such as, television, radio, social media or any other traditional forms. Usually, a company targets several groups of customer on the bases of the product characteristics and consumer requirements and as a result of that, the company makes use of more than one channel so as to ensure that the messages of the company reach every target audience. Several scholars have even emphasized on the fact that advertising campaigns are the means that help a company to sustain in the marketplace (Alle, 2000; Amit and Zott, 2001). Furthermore, echoing the same statement, another set of industry experts and academicians have pointed out that advertising campaigns along with product promotion also greatly helps in understanding the requirements of the consumers as well as the sort of prices that the customers are willing to pay for the ownership of a particular product. Advertisement campaigns also play indispensable roles in updating the consumers about the new developments and product launches (Ballon, 2007). Hence, it creates customer loyalty that in turn brings sustainable competitive advantage for the firm. However, one of the key aspects of companies, undertaking advertisement campaigns, is that each campaign has a particular rationale i.e. advertisement campaigns are designed in such a manner that it succeeds to fulfil one of the crucial objectives of the firm (Chesbrough, 2010). The common goal of an advertising strategy is to enhance the brand awareness of the firm and establish a measurable connection with the prospects (Olsen and Reynolds, 2001). In simple words, it is to generate awareness for boosting the sales (Cortimiglia, Ghezzi and Renga, 2011). In this context, since the company chosen is Samsung, it is expected that the advertising campaign to be evaluated will be ‘out of the box’ or unique in nature. The Korean electronics giant always have had a strong fondness for over the top and peculiar advertising and marketing campaigns. The latest one, ‘Winner takes Earth’ is probably one of the most unusual advertising campaign that has been ever experienced (Peter, 2013). Despite Galaxy line of the high-end devices from Samsung receiving acclaims throughout the world, the company is still throwing up lots of resources to generate further awareness and boost up the sales. The new advertising campaign of Samsung, ‘Winner takes Earth’ is meant to create awareness of its galaxy brand and special emphasis is given to the Galaxy Note 3.0, Galaxy Gear and Galaxy 10.1. All the aforementioned are high-end devices from Samsung and are targeted at the higher income group. The aim of Samsung is to generate hype for this product on a global scale. Hence, the rational for this advertising campaign is to create global awareness of their range of Galaxy high-end series. The company has intelligently decided to approach popular faces to make this advertisement appeal better to the masses, rather than following the traditional rules. According to few experts, the advertisement has broken the shackles of conventional practices and is being dubbed as the way of the future. One of the most interesting facts about this advertising campaign from Samsung is that the advertisement already has generated a massive hype for itself and people across the globe are eager to view it. Within a short span of time of its release, it has managed to surpass the previous record of Youtube views of an advertisement or that of Facebook likes. Figure 1 – Screenshot 1 of the Advertisement of Samsung, “winner takes Earth” (Source: YouTube, 2013a) Figure 2 - Screenshot 2 of the Advertisement of Samsung, “winner takes Earth” (Source: YouTube, 2013b) Hence, it is evident that the advertising campaign holds great potential to fulfil the actual objective. In the next section of the report, a critical analysis of the advertising campaign, its promotional media and the celebrities used to produce the advertisement will be evaluated. Evaluation of Campaign As mentioned in the previous section, the principal objective of Samsung’s advertisement campaign, “Winner takes Earth” is to create global awareness of their range of Galaxy series and owing to that reason, the company has astutely and sensibly chosen popular faces who are recognizable across the globe. According to the world’s largest Smartphone manufacturers, soccer stars are the ones with the most popular faces on Earth. Hence, choosing them for this advertisement is fully justified and promising. Moreover, the theme of the advertisement is soccer which further augments the need of popular faces from the field of soccer. However, it was a big challenge for the company to amalgamate Smartphone, smart watches and tablets with soccer. So, this issue has been surmounted with an innovative and ingenious theme. The theme of the advertisement portrays the soccer players being armed with either of the Galaxy gadgets and are geared to face aliens in a soccer game. The tag line used by the company is “Football will save the planet”, which is meant to showcase that the theme of the advertisement is related to the saviour of the mankind. After critically examining the commercial, it has been identified that in the campaign, 11 soccer players will be taking the field against alien power and the fate of human beings on Earth will be decided through this soccer game. Although it sounds bizarre, yet the way that it is showcased, simply reflects the tremendous effort put in by the advertising department of the company as well as their sheer creativity. One of the factors that can really strike the consumers is the variety of locations used in the advertisement. For example, the entire advertisement campaign was shot in hilly areas near Rio de Janeiro, European Soccer stadiums, Times Square in New York and several other places in the world. This approach is absolutely at par with the rational, which is to create global awareness. It has been shown in the video the soccer legend, Franz Beckenbauer, as the first person to be approached by the aliens, insisting and challenging him to play a soccer match against them in order to continue human civilization on Earth. The team formed on Earth is captained by Lionel Messi and the team is named as Galaxy 11. Apart from Messi, a number of other soccer legends have featured in the ad-campaign. However, it is also essential that evaluation of the advertising campaign is carried out so as to ascertain its effectiveness. According to Kotler (2001), in the development of effective communication or advertising campaign, five key decision making factors need to be considered. This is also known as Five Ms of Advertising (Deeg, 2007; Bloodgood, 2007; Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010). The five M’s are mission, money, media, message and measurement. Echoing the same concept, Cialdini (2001) had emphasized that an advertisement is only adjudged as successful, if it reaches or fulfils its objectives. One of the model or frameworks that are used by companies to measure effectiveness of ad-campaigns is the Five Ms model. The details of the model are illustrated below in the diagram: - Figure 3 - Five Ms Model for Measuring Effectiveness of Advertisement (Source: Kotler, 2001) Apart from the aforementioned measurement techniques, there are several other ways by which the effectiveness of an advertisement campaign can be measured. For example, the consumer feedback process is one of the best known forms of measuring advertisement campaign effectiveness (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). Furthermore, the sales figure before and after the ad-campaign gives a reflection of its efficacy. In the context of Samsung, the effectiveness of the advertisement is expected to be on the higher side. Since, the campaign is currently in progress, the extent of its usefulness cannot be determined instantly. However, after a few months, the scenario will be clearer and the exact outcome can be presented. Therefore, from an overall point of view, it can be stated that the new advertising campaign from Samsung has huge potential to address the objectives of the company. Conclusion and Recommendations Advertisement campaigns are often considered as the tool used by companies to generate awareness among people regarding their products and services. Furthermore, an advertisement campaign is also said to be a common platform which encompasses public relations, sales promotion, direct marketing and personal selling (Kardes, 2000). Despite the wide reach of advertisements through different channels and platforms, the critical issue faced by the markets is to understand the need of consumers at the strategic level. This study was essentially meant for analysing the effectiveness of an advertisement campaign and how advertisements help a company to embrace growth and development. For this purpose, the new advertisement campaign of the Samsung Galaxy, ‘Winner takes Earth’ had been considered. Critical analysis of the advertisement has reflected that the new campaign is aimed at creating global awareness of Samsung’s Galaxy range and as a result of that, the company has chosen football stalwarts as they are the most popular faces of the globe. The presences of eminent such as, Lionel Messi, David Beckham and Franz Beckenbauer, have taken the appeal of this campaign to the next level. Hence, it can be concluded that proper advertising is the key to success and the presence of creativity simply increases the probability of success. Some of the key recommendations to the firm in this context are as follows: - The video length needs to be reduced so that it fits easily in the time slot of the channels. Supporting activities such as, public relations activities and alternative sources of promotion, must be used in order to generate hype for the product. Reference List Aarika-Stenroos, L. and Sandberg, B., 2012. From new product development to commercialization through networks. Journal of Business Research, 65 (2), pp. 198-206. Adler, M., 2010. A Study of Marketing and Online Marketing Tools Which Improve Online Success. Munich: GRIN Verlag. Ahlstrom, D. and Bruton, G. D., 2009. International Management: Strategy and Culture in the Emerging World. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Alle, V., 2000. Reconfiguring the value network. 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[video online] Available at: [Accessed 05 December 2013]. YouTube, 2013b. Samsung GALAXY Note 3 Official TVC - Messi's Note. [video online] Available at: [Accessed 05 December 2013]. Read More