Advertisement and marketing communication - Essay Example

27-04-2007 Advertisement and marketing communication Introduction: The new economy has brought success to e-bay and other organizations that use technology to apply marketing concepts like customer focus, good value, quality service and efficient exchange mechanisms for satisfying customer needs and wants. Basically marketing deals with identifying and meeting human and social needs. One of the shortest definitions of marketing is "meeting needs profitably (Kotler, 2003). Whether the marketer is Procter & Gamble, which created crest white strips in response to people's desire for whiter teeth; or Monster.com, which developed an online resume databank so job-hunters and employers can find each other more efficiently; or CarMax which invented a new way to sell used cars because people want more certainly when buying such vehicles, all illustrate a drive to turn a private or social need into a profitable business opportunity (Hansell, 2002; Healey, 2002). Companies must carefully monitor their customers and competitors, continuously improve their value offerings, carefully define the target market and value proposition, and take a long term view to satisfy customers, stockholders, employees, suppliers and channel partners. Modern marketing calls for more than developing a good product, pricing it attractively, and making it accessible. Companies must also communicate with present and potential stakeholders as well as general public. For companies it is not important to communicate but rather what to say, to whom and how often. The marketing communication mix consists of advertising, sales promotion, public relations and publicity, personal selling and direct marketing (Kolter, 1997). Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, good or service by an identified sponsor. Ads are a cost effective way to disseminate message, whether to build brand preference. In developing an advertisement programme, marketing mangers start by identifying the target market and buyer motives. Then they make 5 critical decisions known as five M's i.e. Mission (objectives) Money, Message, Media & Measurement. An advertising objective is a specifics communication task and achievement level to the accomplished with a specific audience in a specific period. Advertising objectives can be classified according to whether their aim is to inform, persuade, remind or reinforce. The international charity recruiting business school playing the major role through providing students who are voluntarily help small business to grow in the developing market. We are required to show in the advertisement that it conveys goodwill and image of the organization. So this advertisement could be categorized as institutional advertisements, which advocates its act and show its pioneer work. To develop an effective advertisement one has to identify the target audience. Here we have an organization, which has some genuine motives. Our target audience is the people, who are young, willing to be the part of society and work for the betterment of the society, people and organizations. So seeing the target audience of the advertisement we selected red color, which, depicts vibrant, energetic and highly self-motivated nature of youth and this color attracts people immediately. Here picture is showing the two basic domain of people or society that is haves and have-nots. There is a path, which is very difficult, but it can take the people from the category of have-nots towards who have. In between the path there are lots of roadblocks and potholes, which makes journey very difficult but our business school graduates have the capacity to make the transition much easier and he/she is right there to help voluntarily. Specifying the objective of the message plays a crucial role in deciding the nature. Simple and humorous massages which could be able to convey the message effectively will play the trick. It's an advertisement about voluntary service so it must contain some motivating message, which could easily attract targeted people and influence. It is an advertisement about creating wealth so it has highlighted the two domains of economy and to make transition easier it shows the organization and its graduates utility. Finally it is successful in making an impact on the viewers. Informative advertising aims to create awareness and knowledge of new product or new features of existing products Persuasive advertising aims to create liking, preference, conviction and purchase of a good or service. Some persuasive advertising is comparative advertising, which explicitly compares two or more brands (Wilkie & Farris, 1975). Reminder advertising aims to stimulate repeat purchase of product Coca Cola always reminds people to purchase Coca Cola. Reinforcement advertising seeks to convince current purchase that they made the right choice. Car ads often depict satisfied customers enjoying the special features. Basically the advertising objectives should emerge from a thorough analysis of the current marketing situation. Management should consider 5 factors when setting the advertising budget i.e. product life cycle, market share and consumer base, competition and clutter, advertising frequency and product substitutability (Schultz, Martin and Brown, 1984). Advertisement campaigns vary in creativity. In developing a creative strategy, advertisers follow four-step message generation, message evaluation and selection, message execution social responsibility review. A good ad normally focuses on one core selling proposition. Twedt (1969) suggests that messages be rated on desirability exclusiveness and believability. Advertisers need market research to determine which appeal works best preparing any campaign, the advertiser usually prepares a copy strategy statement describing the objectives, content and support and one of the desired ad. Any message can be presented in a number of execution style for more gain extra strength for men uses testimonial advertising featuring celebrities, with the promises of growing back more hair than its predecessor (Ono, 1977). The actual words in an ad must be memorable and attention getting to make an impression on the audience. Format elements such as size, color and illustration will affect an ad's impact as well as its costs. Advertisers and their agencies must be sure their "Creative" advertising does not overstep social and legal norms. Every advertiser must decide where to place its advertisement. The alternatives are the advertising media, the means by which the massage is communicated to target audience. Media selection has to be based on cost effectiveness and the targets audience. It also depends on the exposures reach frequency and impact. In choosing media, Advertisers faces problems with exact timings locations. So it has to use various mediums at a time and over the time. The advertising decisions process does not stop will execute the advertising program. The advertisement must be post tested to determine whether they are achieving their intended objections and results may indicate that change must be made in the advertisement programme. Good planning and control of advertising depends on measures of advertising effectiveness. Yet the amount of fundamental research on advertising effectiveness is appealingly small. Most advertisers try to measure the communication effects on an ad- its potential effect on awareness, knowledge or preference as well as the ad's sales effect. Sales effect research is complex because sales are influenced by many factors beyond advertising such as product features, price and availability as well as competitors actions. The sales impact in easiest to measure in direct marketing situations and hardest to measure in brand or corporate image building advertising. A company's share of advertising expenditure produces a share of voice that earns a share of consumers' minds and hearts and ultimately a share of market. Peckham (1975) studied the relationship between share of voice and share of market for several consumer products over a number of years and found a 1 to 1 ratio for established products and 1.5 to 2 to 2.0 to 1.0 ratios for new products. The other posttests to gauge the impact of advertising are Aided recall (Recognition Readerships) unaided recall, attitude tests, and inquiry tests. Results of post testing the advertising copy are used to reach decisions about changes in the advertising copy are used to reach decisions about changes in the advertising programme. It the posttest result shows that an advertisement is doing poorly in terms of awareness or cost efficiency, it may be dropped and other ads run in its place in the future. On the other hand sometimes an advertisementmay be successful it is run repeatedly or used as the basis of a larger advertising programme. Marketing communication: But in the present market situation where information technologies revolutionized the whole promotional mix, many type of promotion of mixture of promotions used, demonstrate the opportunity for creatively in communications with potential customers and the importance of integrating the various elements of a communication programme. However the products styling and price, the packages shape and color, the sales persons manner and dress, the store's dcor- all communicates something to buyer. Therefore the entire marketing mix must be integrated to deliver a consistent message and strategic positioning. Today communication in seen as an interactive dialogue between the company and its consumers that takes place during the pre selling, consuming and post consuming stages. Given the nature of broader definition of promotion it should be apparent that although planning a promotional strategy may remain the responsibility of marketing department, implementation of process would involve every employee within the organisation (Garvin, 1987; Peters, 1987). Promotion can be considered as a process whereby information about the organisations product or service in encoded into a promotional message for delivery to the customer (Ray, 1982; Crowley and Hoyer, 1994). There are 8 steps to follow in an effective marketing communication program: 1) Identify the target audience 2) Determine the communication objectives 3) Design the message 4) Select the communication Channels 5) Establish the communications budget 6) Decide on the media mix 7) Measure the results and 8) Manage the integrated marketing communications process. Given that normally the objective of an organization is to minimize the costs associated with the delivery of information to customers, it is critical to recognize the promotional planning must be a dynamic process which is continually being adopted to suit identified changing circumstance in the external market environment. Promotional strategies are influenced by a number of factors. Customer understanding during different phases of the product life cycle (PLC) can influence the nature of promotional message. In the early stages of the PLC promotional activity is directed at educating the customer about the new product and seeking to build market awareness. As the product enters the growth phase, promotional activity has a concurrent role of stimulating repeat purchase. Maturity is typically the most competitive period during the life of the product, and promotional activity is very much concerned with defending the product against competition. Once the product enters the decline stage price usually becomes the dominant factor influencing demand and therefore promotional activities are drastically reduced. One change factor is the reduction in information needs as product complexity is reduced in an industrial sector where customers have moved form purchasing unique, tailored solutions to accepting products produced using standardized process technologies, operating system and components. As customers gain experience through usage of a product their need for information will also usually decline. If an organisation recognizes this trend ahead of competition; it can provide an opportunity for gaining competitive advantage. A classic example of this scenario has occurred in the UK car insurance market. Traditionally, car owners had one-to-one contact with the employees of an insurance company or staff. Direct line insurance recognized that as most customers only really have one question namely "What is the price upon renewal of the policy" They moved to replace one to one selling with centralized telesales operations. The impact of this initiative was that the firm went from nowhere to market leaders in just 2-3 years. Direct line example demonstrate the powerful capability which advances in IT can offer the proactive marketer until recently, one of the greatest constraints in direct marketing was the ability to further enhance service response by finding cost effective ways of capturing data on individual customer buying behaviour. Columbia house is one example of the kinds of companies fueling the growth in direct marketing. Company is offering 12 free music CD,s if anyone agree to buy 5 additional CD's over the next two years. This obstacle has now been overcome by the advent of the 'Smart Card', because companies who provided their customers with these cards now have the ability to use the encoded information as the basis for developing highly targeted, promotional campaigns. For example UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's to create their 'Pets' Scheme, which is a club for customers offering tips and information on how best to care for their animals. Similarly Another UK Supermarket chain, Tesco has recently created clubs targeted at specific customer groups (e.g. pensioners or mothers with very young children). Coca-Cola Venezuela created a partnership with the "who wants to be a millionaire" television program that led to increased awareness and preference for Coco-Cola in the teen-market (Atkinson, 2004). As we know effective promotional planning have 8 stages and each stage needs considerable look. Promotional planning in the most important step starts with reviewing market situation and compatibility be taken organization overall marketing plan and current promotional strategy. Issues covered in the determination of future aims and objective typically include. Quantitative goals for customers awareness product trail repeat purchase rates product distribution targets and definitions of cost of information delivery per customers for each area or promotional activity. For Example, the seven companies- General Motors, Procter & Gamble, Time Warner, Pfizer, Daimler-Chrysler, Ford and Disney -each spending a total of more than $2 billion annually on promotion (Advertising Age, 2004). The budget having been determined, the next promotional management's phase is concurrent activities of planning promotional campaigns and selecting appropriate channels through which to deliver information to the market. Some of this work may be done in house (e.g. determining the sales techniques to be used by the sales force and the selection of customer target groups), while other elements may be delegated to an external supplier (e.g. assigning to an advertising agency the responsibility for developing advertising campaigns and recommending appropriate media channels for message deliver). Having completed campaign development and channel selection the marketer will then supervise programme implementation, followed immediately by the initiation processes to monitor actual achievements against plan and where appropriate take effective remedial action. Integrated marketing communication (IMC): Given the fragmenting of mass markets, the proliferation of new media and the growing sophistication of consumers companies need to use a wider range of tools and message through IMC. Possibly the prime objective incorporating new technologies into the promotional process is to create real time interactive customer links. (Schultz et al., 1993) terms the Internet and other technological advances such as e-mails and other forms of technology based communication as "Integrated marketing communications"(IMC). This plays a major role in felicitating marketing promotion in an effective ways. The combination of one or more of communication tools is called promotional mix. All these tools can be used to 1) inform perspective buyers about the benefits of the products 2) persuade them to try it and 3) remind then later about the benefits they enjoyed by using the product. Today the concept to designing marketing communications programs that coordinate all promotional activities advertising, personal selling sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing to provide a consistent message across all audience is referred to as integrated marketing communications (IMC). Because media costs are high, promotion decisions must be made carefully using a systematic approach. Paralleling the planning implementation and control step described in the strategic marketing process the promotion decision process is divided into 1) developing 2) executing and 3) evaluating the promotional programme. Development of the promotional programme focuses on the four W's: Who is the target audience What are 1) the promotional objectives ii) the amounts of money that can be budgeted for the promotion programme and iii) the kind of promotion to use Where should the promotion be run When should the promotion be run American Association of Advertising Agency defines IMC is a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan evaluating the strategic roles of a variety of communications disciplines such as advertising direct response, sales promotion, and public relations and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communications impact through the seamless integration of discrete messages. For example, Beck's North American recently launched a $10 million IMC campaign to promote Beck's Beer Among 21 to 34 year old man. Since 1987 there have been more than 34 episodes of Disney's "What's next" campaign. The "What's next" campaign is just one of many forms of communication Disney uses to get its message to Disney fans. Other forms of communication include partnerships with other companies, direct marketing, Internet promotions, online games and additional advertising. Disney uses its marketing expertise to integrate the plan and provide a consistent message and image to its many customers. The most recent plan calls for a $250 million 15-month campaign targeted at people who travel in large groups or as an extended family. The advertising includes five different spots for network and cable TV, print ads and newspaper inserts. Direct marketing activities include special offers mailed to many of the 31 million households in Disney database. The website disneyworld.com provides information and services to help groups plan their vacations and offers special events. Disney applies an integrated approach to the marketing of all its products, services and events. Disney also uses "team" promotion deals, partnerships and joint ventures. A team of companies for example was used to promote the movie "finding Nemo". Frito-lay put $50 million stickers announcing a Nemo sweepstakes on packages of lays and Doritos; Wal-Mart distributed 3-D glasses to children to use to find hidden images of Nemo; McDonald's offered plastic versions of the Nemo characters as happy meal premiums. This promotion demonstrates the opportunity for creativity in communication with potential customers and the importance of integrating the various elements of a communication programme (Kerin et al., 2006). The trend today is clearly toward a long-term perspective in which all forms of promotion are integrated (Fitzgerald, 1998). An important factor in developing successful IMC programs is to create a process that facilitates their design and use. A tool used to evaluate a company's current process is the IMC audit. The audit analyzes the internal communication network of the company; identifies key audiences; evaluate customer databases; assesses messages in recent ads, public relation releases, packaging video news releases, signage, sales promotion pieces and direct mail; determine the IMC expertise of company and agency personnel (Duncan, 1994). Although many organizations are interested in improving their IMC process, surveys suggest that less than one third have been successful in implementing IMC. The reason for failure to implement IMC was lack of expertise, lack of budget, and lack of management approval (Cleland, 1995). IMC need the synergy between various parts of the organization to implement it successfully. The impact of integrated promotional management system provides real time control system for monitoring the impact of promotional activities and use of this knowledge to gain competitive advantage. By tracking customer order patterns and collecting data on which promotional device prompted customer response these firms are in a position to assess the rapidly both the effectiveness of the various promotional activities in relation to specific customer target groups and to forecast. So IMC produces stronger message consistency and greater sales impact; it also gives someone responsibility to unify the company's various brand image and messages. Properly implemented IMC improve the firms' ability to reach the right customers with the right messages at the right time and in right place (Shultz et al., 1993). References: 1. Advertising Age (2004) 49th Annual Report: 100 National leading Advertisers, June 28, pp. S2. 2. Atkinson, Claire (2004) Coke catapults starcom media vest, advertising age, february9, pp.s6. 3. Cleland, Kim (1995) few wed marketing communications, advertising age, February 27, pp 10. 4. Crowley, A.E. and Hoyer, W.D. 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(1975) Comparison Advertising: Problem and potential, Journal of Marketing (Oct.) 7-15. Read More