Benetton's Message without Words - Essay Example

A Message without Words Affiliation A Message without Words Benetton prides its foundation onthree main core values; these are direction, diversity and elegance. With the image above, Benetton imposes a unique stance on trendy, light and, comfortable to wear cashmere. Combing the world for inspiration, the Benetton team presents a design which merges a strong feminine and masculine artistic with inexpensive luxury, employing elegant cuts and exceptional styling to give current classics a personalized twist. The Benetton team furnishes the public with covetable and vibrant stylish cashmere. The design presented here is one that allows ladies and gents to adorn stylish, comfortable and practical clothing while still embracing their femininity and masculinity respectively. Goal and Target Weinberg (2009) insists that, before embarking on a marketing campaign, there is a need to clarify goals and the overall aim of the campaign. One has to define what they aim to achieve from the campaign. The team at Benetton aims at expanding the market share for the cashmere design presented in the above picture. A picture speaks a thousand words. The picture above, which is the center of this campaign, speaks to both ladies and gents alike. It does not segregate the genders and, in this way, it widens the market share extensively. That, on the other hand, is another objective of the campaign; to show the public that we can offer a design suiting both genders. The target group is age oriented. According to Jones (2005), age is one of the significant factors when categorizing target markets. The team at Benetton aims at capturing the individuals of the 20-35 years of age. This is the most active and fashion conscious group (Jones, 2005). The age bracket targeted above captures the college student and the young employees. College life accompanies a certain lifestyle and trendy fashion styles. The picture ad portrays both male and female genders posing in it. The team at Benetton concur with Jones (2005), who admits that, contrary to an earlier time when chain store displayed menswear in separate shops from women’s wear, today they chain shops display them together. The Picture ad silently states this ideal. Therefore, having covered the gender divide in the campaign, the team at Benetton can focus on ways of convincing the target group. The target group forms the majority of the growing population in any societal setup. This group will most likely be on a credit access of some kind. It may be for educational purposes or otherwise. In whichever case, the credit availability will also greatly influence clothing purchases (Jones, 2005). The target group also includes a very important category of people; 30-35 years category. The team at Benetton intends to factor in the population of mature adults who are returning to school. This group enjoys the prospects of increased income due to advancement in studies. This, therefore, leads to more expenditure on apparel. As Lee (2008) asserts, ‘spending on apparel increases as income increases (p. 7).’ This group also enjoys more disposable income, unlike the younger generation of students. The campaign targets certain age clusters for the campaign. The marketing plan will be executed to target a well-defined cluster of the consumer populace. This cluster will include college students of 20-25 years of age and young adults of 26-35 years. The team at Benetton employs a concentrated marketing plan to capture a large market share of each age cluster. Advertisement Strategy The talk of promotion brings to mind the idea of advertisement. Even though there are a lot of other methods that can be used to promote a product, advertisement is key purposeful element of promotion. Advertising is art of endorsing your product through diverse media. Since we live in an environment where everything is changing and becoming systematic, advertisement is also becoming a whole subject of its own nature. There are a lot of things consider and learn on this subject. The team at Benetton, therefore, has an elaborate marketing plan to help achieve its goals in marketing the above product. The team has devised a five M advertisement model in order to understand and efficiently cover the whole concept of advertising. The five M’s covered; mission, money, message, media, and measurement. Mission. Every organization prides itself in having a mission statement of some sort. A mission statement is useless if unless the organization is willing to take into consideration all the factors involved in meeting the mission objectives. Therefore, similar to the mission statement of any enterprise, advertisement as a component of promotion is outlining a comprehensible mission of what a firm aims to accomplish through advertisement. In this regard, the team at Benetton set its mission, goals and objectives to analyze its course of action, as well as to assess what it would achieve through this course of action. Therefore, the team had a road-map (mission) and, therefore, a goal to achieve by the end of this campaign. Money. Whereas timing is important in advertising, the budget, however, cannot be ignored. Money is, therefore, a critical factor to consider when going for an advertisement. Different media charge differently. Whereas the internet may be cheap, not everyone would use the internet in their advertisement strategy. On the other hand, Television advertising is very effective due to the wide coverage and visual advantage it renders, but it is very expensive. The team at Benetton, therefore, having considered the different media available for the campaign, will allocate a budget specifically for this purpose. The team also recognizes that different media have different packages for advertisement. While newspaper will have different package for advertisement according to the page and size, TV will also have different advertisement package according to time. Message. Message is the third N in Benetton team’s advertisement strategy. In the message category, the team outlines the whole idea, theme and information intended to be communicated to the target customer. The target customer will influence the message. It is paramount that only important details be conveyed to the customer devoid of trash and jargons. The team also understands that the message will change as the source of advertisement changes. What the team means by this is that, a piece designed for TV will not necessarily fit a radio advert. The same will not be suitable for a newspaper. Therefore, selection of media will influence the message to be conveyed. Media. As seen above in the message criteria, media selection is an important aspect in advertising. Whereas there is a variety of media to choose from for an advertisement, selection of a suitable one is much more critical. The team at Benetton understands that the target market influences the decision on the media to select. This is because the target market gets their information through different media. The team will consider whether the target market gets their information online of whether they rely on traditional media like newspaper. The use of media will affect the money budget and the time budget to a great extent. As explained above, different media will have different charges depending on the time. Therefore, the team leader at Benetton’s will have to invest time to study what time is effective with which media. Measurement. Similar to marketing strategy, measurement and evaluation, is an essential step to conclude an advertisement strategy. It is hard to identify goal achievement in marketing without proper evaluation. The same case applies to advertisement. There is a need to evaluate and measure the advertising strategy to verify whether it will bear the expected returns or not. In this regard also, media emerges as a factor. Different types of media have different measurement and evaluation techniques. The team at Benetton, therefore, has put in place measurement and evaluation as the final step in their marketing strategy of the design cashmere. Integrated Marketing Communications This plan summarizes communications strategies used to create awareness of the cashmere advertised by the Benetton team. The team aims at turning around the target audience’s favourable opinion to the cashmere. The Benetton team will address this issue through advertising on popular media. Television, internet, magazines, and newspaper, will be the most preferred. Television shopping is seen as fun and entertainment (Lee, 2008), and, therefore, very convenient especially in this case, where apparel is the item on advertisement. On the internet front, the team at Benetton will use the most visited websites. The target market is at the age cluster which is most active on social media. This will greatly facilitate a wider reach of the target audience. The integrated marketing plan will, therefore, be utilized to achieve the communications goals of this plan while addressing the numerous challenges, and issues that may surround the campaign. The different avenues utilized by the Benetton team fall under the term Target marketing. They have their advantages. Television One of the main advantages of Television advertising is the visual aspect. This is not possible with radio advertising. While a business may choose to use radio over TV or TV over the radio, the team at Benetton considers that not all target audiences have access to both choices. However, in the case of which choice is better, TV will most certainly carry the day. On TV, there is a bit of almost everything. The team, therefore, recognizes that they can reach their target audience by running their ad on certain channels at definite times of the day or night. The team also recognizes that the product presented for marketing fits the target group, just as the photo indicates. This group’s likes and interests permeate almost all TV channels. So whether the team chooses to run the ad on a music channel, a scientific channel or a family channel, chances are they will end up capturing the target audience. Therefore, to this extent, TV is a favorable option. The audio/visual aspect of a TV ad places it ahead of other media options. The team at Benetton recognizes this and factors it in the integrated communications plan as a favored technology. With TV advertisement, the benefits will be numerous. The target audience sees what the product looks like, The audience can hear any audio choice accompanying the product, Television works with time slots for programs. Each slot has a target audience. The team, therefore, will simply recognize these slots and air their ad when it is most convenient, and, It is easier to communicate a message to the target audience with a TV ad than with a magazine or radio. With visual and audio, a few seconds of a TV ad featuring a group of young adults adorning the cashmere on a serene environment will be more convincing than a picture in a magazine. The advertiser needs not say much. The audience needs only see. Magazines and Newspapers There will also be advantages if the team decides to communicate through magazines and newspaper. The target group comes from a cluster people who have less time to watch TV. Either because work schedules or studies and class work takes up their time. This group would prefer to flip through a newspaper or a magazine for a glimpse of what is trending, In print advertising, less is more (Dahl, 2007), most people who read through ads in the newspaper or magazines look for ads that are not too worded. Something devoid of complicated and, which will take a few seconds to read. The team at Benetton, therefore, recognizes the advantage of getting a message across this way. It may just involve the placement of the item and a price next to it. The cost is also much lower than TV one need not say much, and, Magazines speak to a certain class of people. Therefore, by choosing a magazine or a newspaper classified section for the ad, the Benetton team recognizes that the target audience is usually interested in that medium of communication. There are fashion magazines and the people who buy and read them do so for the deals presented therein. WEB The web has literary globalised the entire world. Even someone who has no access to the web feels its effects in more ways than one. It also has numerous advantages. The population depends on the web in a baffling way. The web has become a measure of standards to some people. People will look-up something online to verify its authenticity. In short, if it is not online, it probably is not legit. It, therefore, becomes easier to convince the target market if the product is online, Since the target group is specific it is paramount to consider that the majority of people from this target group prefer to shop online. Either because they can find something better on the local market or because it saves them time which they do not have, Online advertising allows for the creation of a customer database. The team at Benetton can, therefore, cater for the creation of a customer database as well as making provision for follow up. This can lead to higher sales, behavior tracking and makes customization practical (Baumgartner & Hatami, 2012), and, The other great advantage of web advertising is the market scope. Whereas TV, magazines, and newspaper, only reach the local market the web captures the whole nation as well as the entire globe. Campaign partners The team at Benetton will partner with two giant companies to aid in their campaign. Google and Facebook form the best choices. Through partnering with the two, the team will achieve better promotion of their message and overall goal of the campaign. Google. With Google, the team will have a wide platform to venture into for advertising. Google has permeated almost all aspects of today’s daily life. Many people are on Google circles and are daily using Google Apps in the thousands. With partnering with Google, any promotion of the cashmere design will reach a high number of the target market and beyond. Facebook. This is the fastest growing social utility of modern times. Everyone is either on it or relates to somebody on it. Communication has taken root on Facebook, where many people in the target market are spending most of their time. Partnering with Facebook will skyrocket sales due to the wider reach of the social application. Any promotion on the cashmere will reach a lot of people. In conclusion, the simple picture of young people adorning a simple cashmere design, speaks a whole myriad of words after all. It only takes a little imagination to pass the message across to the ready target market that lacks information on the existence of such. Marketing, therefore, needs not many words, but just a picture that speaks for itself. References Baumgartner, T., & Hatami, H. (2012). Sales growth: five proven strategies from the worlds sales leaders. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. Dahl, G. (2007). Advertising for dummies (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Pub., Inc. Jones, S. J. (2005). Fashion design (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications. Lee, M. (2008). Television shopping the effect of persuasive strategies on parasocial interaction, subjective well-being, and impulse buying tendency among older women. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University. Weinberg, T. (2009). The new community rules: marketing on the social web. Sebastopol, CA: OReilly. Read More