The Role of Advertising to Marketing Communications - Research Paper Example

ID] [module and module number] Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 II. Findings 3 A. The role of advertising as part of an integrated approach to marketing communications (IMC) 3 B. The relevant models and theories which help explain the process of communication in IMC 5 C. Some illustrative examples to show how consumer response can be stimulated through the process of advertising 7 D. Key players in the marketing communications industry and explain how technology is changing the role of traditional media communications 10 III. Recommendation 12 IV. Conclusion 13 I. Introduction The increasing sophistication of the marketplace due to the onset of new technology has set the trend for different marketing communications tactics. As markets become more and more crowded and cluttered with the emergence of many new products due to globalization as well as the decreasing costs to doing business, this is the time when integration in terms of a companys marketing communications efforts should be practised. What used to be a shotgun approach to marketing strategy no longer holds so much effective. This is the time that companies need to have a clear voice in the market through the integrated marketing communications. This paper aims to explore the role of advertising as part of the integrated approach to marketing communications as well as some relevant models and theories that can help explain the process of communication. This is showed through relevant examples through real-life applications of companies and brand owners of these concepts. Lastly, this paper aims to explore the new trends in the integrated marketing communications industry with changes that are prompted by the onset of new technology. II. Findings A. The role of advertising as part of an integrated approach to marketing communications (IMC) Advertising has a distinct characteristic both as a strong force and a weak force in communicating with consumer (Jones 1990, 233-246). The advertising functions role in the overall marketing communications mix of the company depends on whether the advertising should be used as a strong force, or a weak force. In the older times, advertising has always been viewed as a strong force—it is the main function that is being used by companies to promote products. With advertising, brands are created as they help gain peoples attention, and later on create attitudes toward these brands (Duncan 2005). When advertising is used as a strong force, it is usually aimed to create awareness from the target audience (Jones 1990, 233-246). This is apparent in an advertisement campaign which is developed in the late 1990s for the Meat & Livestock Commission: The advertising developed by BMP DDB, ‘Recipe for love’, first slowed and then reversed the market decline. The ads ‘dramatised the unique pleasures of red meat meals’ and ‘encouraged people to make a little more effort and cook them more frequently (instead of ready meals, chicken and so on)’. There was also a ‘reassurance’ campaign that gave basic information about the nutritional benefits of red meat. Sales of both beef and all red meat grew in 1997 over 1996 (Broadbent 2008, 763). However, other people believe that advertising, in contrast to public relations, word-of-mouth marketing and other marketing communications function is a rather weak force. It does not mean it is not effective, only that advertising works more subtly in order to influence a consumers behaviour (Jones 1990, 233-246). By creating associations in order to change a consumers perception, the aim to influence the target markets behaviour, as apparent in the case of Lurpak: BMP DDB’s ‘Douglas the Butterman’ campaign therefore set out to ‘seed’ positive associations with the Lurpak taste, as sophisticated, light, pure, fresh and delicate. The paper argued that ‘if people believed that Lurpak was more sophisticated, then they would look upon the lactic Lurpak taste in a positive light, rather then seeing it as a rather bland alternative to their usual sweet cream brand’. The advertising worked as planned: ‘It successfully seeded positive sophisticated associations with the different Lurpak taste … Consideration for Lurpak increased as a result, leading to more people trying and acquiring the Lurpak taste.’ Lurpak overtook Anchor, the brand leader for almost 40 years, to become the best-selling butter brand (Broadbent 2008, 756-757). According to some, advertising does not induce people to action, rather they help form attitudes and support the target audiences perception of the product in the process. In some models to be discussed later, advertisings role is to reinforce the image of the brand and solidify the perception of the target market as regards the brand (Ehrenberg & Goodhart 1979). With advertising as a weak force, the intention is to support the attitudes that customers gain in the process of using the brand (Jones 1990, 233-246). B. The relevant models and theories which help explain the process of communication in IMC One of the most commonly used models of marketing communications is the AIDA framework, where AIDA means awareness-interest-desire-action (Duncan 2005). Using this model of marketing communications, companies can decide which marketing communications function, based on their inherent strength and weakness can be utilized for a given objective. The function that can accomplish generating awareness best is advertising. With the inherent strength in terms of reach and cost-effectiveness as measured by cost per person that is reached by the advertisement, the advertising is the most commonly used to create awareness among the public (Duncan 2005). Method, Inc. has used advertising in order to gain awareness and attract attention of home owners through its Detox your home campaign (Gugajew 2008, 15): The “Detox Your Home” campaign includes print and banner advertisements and a search engine marketing component. With colourful images such as a cherubic baby in a kitchen sink bath and a model of a detoxified home in a Method spray bottle, the new campaign is a callto action for health-conscious home owners everywhere (Gugajew 2008, 15) In order to stir interest among the target audience, public relations is mostly used. This is because of public relations inherent characteristic which signify credibility as it is regarded as a function from a third-party perspective (Duncan 2005). Publicity also incites interests by holding events and publicity stunts that excite the target audience. When the target audience is already aware of the product through advertisements, and is becoming more interested after reading a couple of press releases and publicity events that are featured by journalists, the next step is to inflame desire in order to eventually lead them into action. As for desire, sales promotion is the function that is usually used. The apparent incremental value of buying it now due to rewards in the form of discounts, freebies, packages and other interesting stuff, although peripheral to the purchase decision can be high (Duncan 2005). When the consumer has decided to take action, which is usually to buy, personal selling for better customer interaction is usually utilized. According to some, the moment of truth arrives at the point of consumers purchase, therefore interaction with the brand in the form of the company people is a crucial factor in the consumers decision-making. Another framework that is used for integrated marketing communications is the ATR model, or Attention-Trial-Reinforcement (Ehrenberg & Goodhart 1979). This model is most commonly used for fast moving consumer goods or products that are bought habitually. In order to attract attention, public relations is usually used in the form of events and publicity stunts. In order to induce trial, companies can use sales promotions as well as personal selling, where the aim is for consumers to take action. After consumers have tried the brand, the evaluation that comes after consumers reflection of their experience, advertising aims to reinforce the recently formed attitude. This is when advertisings role as a weak force comes in. Accordingly, Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s advertising for Murphy’s stressed that it was easy-drinking stout from mythical Ireland, the ‘Like the Murphy’s, I’m not bitter’ campaign (Broadbent 2008, 754). C. Some illustrative examples to show how consumer response can be stimulated through the process of advertising Like any other marketing communications function, the use of advertising has to be strategic for many companies who wish to utilize advertising to its advantage. Apart from getting awareness, advertising can influence consumers behaviours in many different ways. This can be done by establishing concrete goals that companies want to accomplish through advertising. After determining the goals, the message strategy can then be crafted, as well as the message execution. Advertising can inform. IBM utilizes advertising in order to inform its target audience about the emerging concept of e-business (Pettit 2009, 107). Based on its research, the term e-business has not been so familiar over the target audience that an opportunity to associate itself with the term by educating its target audiences. Starting with TV and internet demanded strong, clear, arresting images and messages to capture attention and build awareness quickly. Print provided tactical support with more detailed information that would build the case for IBM as the e-business leader (Pettit 2009, 106). Advertising can persuade. In South Africa, the diaper market has been in constant decline as mothers become more reluctant in buying diaper as they are perceived as waste of money (Broadbent 2008, 758). In order to address this problem, Procter and Gamble with Saatchi & Saatchi South Africa has used advertising to persuade mothers to buy diaper, and in the process has grown the demand for diaper as a whole (Broadbent 2008, 758). The advertising worked by raising the importance of ‘dryness’ to baby, and hence to mum. Dryness meant an uninterrupted night’s sleep for baby and helped prevent nappy rash. Mums who used disposables were portrayed, not as extravagant spendthrifts, but as caring mums doing their best for baby (Broadbent 2008, 758). Advertising can remind. With the onset of film cameras in the late 1970s, Polaroid has been forgotten by the market. This old camera system is being threatened by the new technology. In order to bring back the Polaroid and remind the market of this older camera system, advertising has turned the situation around, that stopped the apparent demise of Polaroid (Broadbent 2008, 764): The campaign by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, ‘Live for the moment’, positioned Polaroid not as a camera system but as ‘a social lubricant’. People took more spontaneous, fun pictures with Polaroid than with 35 mm. They let their hair down. Advertising reversed Polaroid’s decline. Camera sales went up by 91% and film sales up by 46% after the campaign (Broadbent 2008, 764). Advertising can differentiate. One of the advantages of advertising is that it can help shape the perception of consumers in such a way that a brand will stand out from the rest of the competition depending on its unique selling proposition. As the case of Ford Galaxy in the mid 1980s illustrate: Young & Rubicam’s advertising, the ‘Travel first class’ campaign, changed perceptions of MPVs. While other MPVs were presented as utilitarian, functional vehicles, the advertising presented the Galaxy as though it were a limousine. The creative idea was based on ‘the luxury of unused space’, the notion that having more space than one physically needs is always a sign of high status – for instance, when flying in first class rather than in economy. Aspirational values were quite new to the sector and attracted new types of buyer to the brand (Broadbent 2008, 755). D. Key players in the marketing communications industry and explain how technology is changing the role of traditional media communications The developments in technology have created more functions that are now included in the marketing communication mix of many companies. These include direct marketing in the form of company websites. Traditional marketing communication functions such as advertising and public relations have also extended over the internet, as companies utilize the web to reach target audiences. One example of this is Toyotas marketing campaign of its Scion brand in 2006 in Whyville.net, a website is set up to for kids age 8-15 in order to encourage greater interaction and induce brand loyalty (Cousineau & Scurry 2006). According to Cousineau & Scurry, with websites such as these where consumers can try the brands, in the kids case—test driving the Scion—consumers interests are aroused which make them seek out [a] brand and interact with it on an ongoing basis rather than actively avoid it (2006, 37). E-mail has replaced traditional snail mail and postcards in reaching consumers. With the emergence of emails, advertising campaigns are made accessible to a larger group of consumers without incurring much costs. The emergence of blogs, short for weblogs also shapes the current trends in marketing communications. As many so-called bloggers gain a certain degree of credibility and authority in terms of the subjects that they blog about, they sometimes become major influencers to consumers as regards purchase. Blogs influence news, stories, analysts, and regulators and blog information rises with alarming speed to the top of search engine requests (Hannegan & Fisher 2006, 43). Many online communities have also revolutionized the ways companies interact with consumers, as they now have some say over the development of products and services. These communities offer huge support to consumers, making consumers co-creator of values as the shift of power leans toward consumers. One way that corporations can use employee bloggers is to gain credibility where it may have been lost. Take the example of the famous employee blogger, Robert Scoble of Microsoft, who maintains the blog called Scobleizer (scoble.weblogs.com). Scoble’s blog receives an estimated 10,000 hits a day and is linked to by more than 4,000 other blogs. In December 2004, Scoble published negative blog postings about the widely panned MSN Spaces product. His honesty about the faults of MSN Spaces actually shifted the blogosphere discussion on the topic to positive for Microsoft. Readers of his blog and customers of Microsoft were impressed that someone blogging on behalf of the company would express an opinion other than the party line (Hannegan & Fisher 2006, 44). Apart from the internet, other non-traditional channels are being utilized by companies such as mobile marketing, or marketing through short-messaging system in mobile phones. In Japan, for example, the Seven-Eleven loyalty campaign which has been launched in May 2006 is done with mobile marketing as part of the marketing communications mix (Fujita 2006, 44): Customers who spent more than 700 yen (approximately $6) were given a scratch card with a chance to win specially selected Hello Kitty stuffed dolls that were on display in the shops. Information about the campaign was sent via the Message Free channel to the mobile phones of one million females, ranging in age from teenagers to women in their 40s, who were living anywhere in the vicinity of Seven-Eleven Japan shops (Fujita 2006, 44). As internet is also being integrated in many mobile handset models, the way companies do advertising and other marketing communication functions have changed over the years. Because mobile phones are usually carried everywhere and kept within reach of their owners, they are ideal for use in conjunction with a variety of traditional media tools such as indoor and outdoor advertising and broadcast channels (Fujita 2006, 41). III. Recommendation With all these findings, it is a major recommendation for companies to adopt an integrated approach to marketing communications. Such approach will enable a company to have one clear voice in the market in order to communicate what it has to say to its customers and get through the market clutter. This approach will enable the company to utilize the strength of each of the other marketing communications function in order to fulfil its objectives. A major recommendation for a company is to base its objectives according to marketing communications theory that are tied to consumer behaviours such as the AIDA framework, the ATR framework, etc. This way, the company will have a structure to match the objectives with the strengths of the other marketing communications functions. After determining the marketing communications mix, the company can devise a message strategy in order to come up with one unified message to reach the consumers. This message can be executed depending on the elements that can be highlighted by the strength of the marketing communications function as well as the strength of the chosen medium. The emerging trends in marketing communications can be utilized by the company, and incorporate with its marketing communications function. The interactivity and speedy functionality that the internet offers can be a major advantage to the company in terms of new ways to reach consumers and create more meaningful brand experiences. With this, the company will be able to communicate more effectively to its consumers in order to fulfil its objectives. IV. Conclusion The increasing sophistication of the marketplace due to the onset of new technology has set the trend for different marketing communications tactics. As markets become more and more crowded and cluttered with the emergence of many new products due to globalization as well as the decreasing costs to doing business, this is the time when integration in terms of a companys marketing communications efforts should be practised. What used to be a shotgun approach to marketing strategy no longer holds so much effective. This is the time that companies need to have a clear voice in the market through the integrated marketing communications. As the marketplace has evolved, different functions of integrated marketing communications have emerged as well in order to reach and communicate to consumers. As the level of technology has created a number of ways of how to reach customers and how companies can better interact with them, the goal of IMC is to integrate these ways in such a way that companies will have a clear and better dialogue with consumers. When in the old days, it is enough to utilize the advertising function in order to promote products, recent developments have discovered some of the strengths, as well as weaknesses of the advertising function in order for companies to better utilize it depending on the companys promotional objectives. As the marketplace evolves, so does the role of advertising in terms of a companys promotional effort. The different functions of marketing communications can also be utilized according to their respective strengths in order to fulfil certain objectives. These objectives can be linked to consumers behaviours in order to be more strategic. These models of consumer behaviour have paved the way for some major theories behind marketing communications framework. These frameworks include the AIDA or awareness, interest, desire and action framework, as well as the attention, trial and reinforcement framework. Using these theories, the use of integrated marketing communications with its respective functions will have a better structure in order to ensure effectiveness. Advertising can definitely inform, persuade, remind and differentiate. These are just some of the roles that advertising plays as regards certain objectives of a company. Depending on these objectives, advertising can fulfil its role depending on its message strategy, which is tailored to the advertising objectives as well as the execution of the message. The changes in technology has enabled more ways for companies to communicate with their consumers. With the onset of information technology, especially the internet, opportunities have emerged for companies to utilize more channels in order to create more meaningful experiences. These challenges for greater integration calls for the coordination between companies, agencies and the media in order to create more meaningful advertisements that could help a company accomplish its objectives. From the many examples above, it is apparent that agencies and their creative ideas as regards the message strategy and execution are crucial players in the success of an advertisement. Also, the flexibility of the medium which is used is important in order to give way to innovative ideas that agencies create in order to carry on the strategy of the brand through its marketing communications efforts. References Broadbent, T. (2008). “Does Advertising Grow Markets?” International Journal of Advertising. Volume 27, Issue 5. 745-770. Available from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=1&hid=7&sid=4010302a-ec18-4f61-922c-e23ca1642ebe%40sessionmgr8 Cousineau, L. & Scurry, J. (2008). “Txt Me L8r: Defining and Marketing to the Tween Market” Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. 33-40. Duncan, T. (2005). Principles of Advertising & IMC. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Ehrenberg, A. & Goodhart, G. (1979). Essays on Understanding Buyer Behaviour. JW Thompson and the Market Research Corporation of America. Fujita, A. (2008). “Mobile Marketing in Japan: The Acceleration of Integrated Marketing Communications” Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. 41-46. Gugajew, S. (2008). “A Method to the Creative Madness: From Chore to Experience, a Cleaning Brands Meteoric Rise to Fame” Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. 12-18. Hannegan, C. & Fisher, S. (2006). “Employee Bloggers: Turning a Potential Liability into Your Best Weapon” Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. 42-49. Jones, J. P. (1990). “Advertising: strong or weak force? Two views an ocean apart.” International Journal of Advertising. Volume 9 Issue 3, 233-246 Pettit, R. (2009 March). “Learning from Winners: How Advertising Seized the Day.” Journal of Advertising Research. 104-110. Available from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=107&sid=e4d937cc-9535-472f-a727-e0a25b0e92e6%40sessionmgr2 Read More