Advertising Management in Match Play Holidays - Case Study Example

Advertising Management Table of Contents Introduction 2 Communication Plan 3 Advertising Objectives 3 Creative and Media Strategy 4 Budgetary Recommendations 5 Restructuring Strategies 6 Organisational Communication 9 Conclusion 10 References 11 Introduction Advertising, as has been defined by Kumar, “denotes the means employed to draw attention to any object or purpose” (Kumar & Mittal, 2002, P. 1). On a more specific note, advertising can also be defined “as a paid and non-personal form of presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor” (Kumar & Mittal, 2002, P. 1). In general advertisement comprises a set of communicative activities that involve a sponsor, a media and a message. As has been conveyed by the definitions, an advertisement helps the advertiser to disseminate his ideas pertaining to his products or services among his target audience. Owing to the specificity of business objectives that advertising is supposed to address, the message should be designed in a way that will draw attention to the products and will manifest their popularisation (Sutherland & Sylvester, 2009, P. 221). The current report will aim at outlining the activities of an advertising agency that are required to provide guidance to a client in the travel business. The task is quite daunting given that the client is unsophisticated in terms of advertising terms and moreover the advertising agency is operating almost at full capacity. The professional commitments of the agency will require it provide creative briefing as well as a budgetary recommendations to the client. It will also highlight upon the restructuring needs of the advertising agency which is in the urgent need of a scale-up in order to accommodate the extra work. Finally the report will recommend the measures that the advertising agency should follow in order to efficiently communicate to its employees the need to reorganise. Communication Plan Advertising Objectives It has been observed that the particular travel business company, viz. Match Play Holidays (Client-3), that has been added to the clientele of the advertising agency has been started by two golf enthusiasts – Les Clarke and Robbie Kerr – who are looking for an opportunity for investment and an activity in which they were personally interested, and who do not have any experience in the area of advertising. Through the market research that was personally conducted by Les Clarke it was found that a minimum of thirty six players per resort, per long weekend, and a maximum of forty eight were required with the competition running over forty weeks was the target that has to be achieved in order to materialise the business goals of the travel business. Under such circumstances, the main objective of the advertising agency will be to design an efficient plan to attract prospective customers, who account of being golf enthusiasts – beginners as well as experts – may be particularly interested to take an extended tour to participate in some of the most famous championship courses in the exotic locales of Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Tunisia. A major objective of the agency will also be to highlight the substantial price benefit that the customers will receive by availing the services of the travel agency. Creative and Media Strategy Creative strategies typically involve the activities, viz. showing the product/ service, showing the benefits, showing the alternatives, drawing comparison, introducing an element of borrowed interest, and establishing plausible testimonials (Altstiel & Grow, 2006, P. 79). As the business of Client-3 centres on holiday plans of golfers, the advertising agency should showcase the central theme as the service. Since this theme is already popular in the tourism industry, value propositions of competitors may be used to show available alternatives and subsequently comparisons have to drawn to convey the comparative advantages rendered by Client-3 in terms of benefits and economical pricing. The agency should also draw comparisons to establish golfing as a more rewarding experience than mountaineering, bird watching, opera or archaeology. The exotic locales should be meticulously highlighted to add an element of aesthetic pleasure and the advertising agency should also hint upon the chances of meeting celebrity golfers during the competition. Client-3 being a novice in terms of advertising, the advertising agency has to undertake for it a set of rigorous and all-round promotional activities that should involve print, electronic and out-of-home advertising (Smith, 2004, P. 201). Owing to fact that the target audience for this particular advertising campaign is quite niche, print advertisements may be strategically published in sports magazines. The message can also be conveyed through newspapers. A variety of electronic avenues such as television commercials, cable TV networks and radio commercials can be used to achieve substantial popularity of the business. Out-of-home advertising in the forms of billboards and out-of-home videos can be tactically placed near golf clubs and corporate offices to draw immediate attention of golf enthusiasts. Budgetary Recommendations Table 1: Cost of Generating the Holiday Package (Figures are expressed in £) Particulars Amount I. Cost Break-up per Player a. Flights including Airport Transfer to Hotel and Excess Baggage for Golf Clubs 185.00 b. Hotel Accommodation (half-board, four nights) 320.00 c. Fees to Local Golf Clubs (minimum three rounds) 60.00 d. Administration including Insurance 50.00 II. Total Cost per Player (a + b + c + d) 615.00 III. Total Cost for 36 Players (I * 36) 22140.00 IV. Total Cost for 48 Players (I * 48) 29520.00 As it may be observed, the minimum number of players required to materialise the holiday package is thirty six while the maximum number is forty eight. Considering the fact that Client-3 does not have much expertise in advertising and no substantial information can be gathered about their business performance, the advertising agency should primarily aim at procuring at least thirty six players as the customers for the client. On the basis of the assumption that there will be just thirty six players the advertising budget may be designed by following the principles of straight percentage of sales, “in which the advertising and promotions budget is based on sales of the product” (Belch & Belch, 2003, P. 218). By using this budgeting method, future sales volumes as well as the revenues generated through them are estimated and a fixed percentage – assumed to be ten percent – of that is allocated as advertising budget. Following this method, the advertising budget for Client-3 is calculated to be £2214.00. In case more players are attracted through successful advertising campaigns, revenues will be substantially enhanced without allocation of additional funds. Restructuring Strategies It has been observed that among the three new clients that the advertising agency has won, Client-1 – a national electrical/electronic retailer, Client-2 – a major blue chip company have very stringent demands in terms of timeframe, and Client-3 is in travel business. As these clients are from diverse backgrounds and are having different timeframes, the aim of the advertising agency is obviously to meet the deadlines so that bag future contracts from them. In order to have them in its clientele kitty, the advertising agency which is already operating close to its full capacity needs to scale up its operations substantially through restructuring, which in turn will also help in enhancing its competitive advantage (Crum & Goldberg, 1998, P. 351). For this purpose, the agency should improve its strategic thinking as well as strategic alignment. It is very important for an organisation to be ready for accepting changes and given the situational requisites of the advertising agency, it should conduct an internal survey (McLean, 2005, P. 248) to evaluate its current status in terms of collective KSAs (knowledge, skills and abilities). As the deadlines are remarkably stringent, it is immensely necessary for the agency to inculcate constructive group behaviour to enhance the scales of operations. This can be done if the employees are motivated to invest “more cognitive energy in individual tasks that contributed to larger unit or group goals within the organization” (Giacalone & Jurkiewicz, 2005, P. 369). As the timeframe is quite short, it won’t be possible to train existing employees to make them suitable for specialised tasks, and hence the agency shall have to focus on recruiting experienced candidates to ensure minimal handing errors. For this the agency will have to avail the services of specialised employment agencies as well as head hunters (Mathis & Jackson, 2007, P. 210). Owing to the acute shortage of time these two avenues will be preferred over competitive and media sources. It has to be ensured that the selected candidates have substantial expertise as well as experience in terms of the different industries to which the new clients belong. Moreover they should have, apart from entrepreneurial attributes, a comprehensive knowledge of pan-European business scenario as well as the prospects of advertising therein. Preferably, the organisational hierarchy of the advertisement should be modified as per the situational requirements. The figure below shows the critical positions that will play a pivotal role in augmenting the core competencies of the agency. These positions are highlighted in dark borders. Figure 1: Organisational Hierarchy It has been aptly said that creativity is limited only by our imagination, and it has been found that “creativity is obviously associated with newness, but knowing what is significantly new may require guesswork as much as mature judgement” (Negus & Pickering, 2004, P. 9). The Director-Creative Services may be taken on board as a process-change agent and given the pressure of the assignments; he may be helped by an Assistant Director. The media services activities should be meticulously augmented through the supervision of Director-Media Services. Owing to the fact that all the short-term assignments are targeted at UK markets, a team of experts comprising Director-Local Media Services, Manager-National Media Services, Manager-Media Planning and Evaluation and Manager-Media Analysis should dedicatedly scan the advertising prospects in the UK. There should also be an Advertising Auditor in order to control the feasibility of strategic plans. As the levels of competition are high and pressures are excruciating, the agency should also take on board a Manager-Special Surveys and Marketing Research in order to gather, analyse and evaluate important market data on a regular basis. All these changes are promising enough to endow the agency with the necessary competitive advantage. Organisational Communication The business needs of the advertising agency necessitate drastic restructuring of the organisational hierarchy with an aim to achieve enhanced competitive advantage. However, it is a known fact that organisations, being complex human systems, are inherently resistant to change. Hence, the management should take efficient initiatives to unfreeze employee behaviour “by creating a sense of urgency that change is really needed” (Daft, 2007, P. 427). Once a vision as well as strategy has been established to align the process of change, plans have to be developed to overcome any resistance that may be encountered. Communication plays a vital role in overcoming such resistances and hence, “is critical in the change process” (Hodgetts & Hegar, 2007, P. 506). The Client Services Director along with the VP-Human Resource should take the initiative to design a top down communication plan in order to enlighten the existing staff on the need for immediate change and simultaneously arrange for mentoring sessions wherein the staff will be educated about the long term benefits that will ensue from successful implementation of change. It should also be communicated to the staff as to how the organisational restructuring will help in augmenting their individual KSAs and enrich their professional careers. Once the need for restructuring has been successfully communicated on an organisation wide basis, the management should look forward to institutionalise the changes. Conclusion The advertising agency should take meticulous steps in order to meet the diverse as well as stringent demands of its new clients. It should meet the short deadlines unfailingly to ensure future business prospects with these potential clients. Given that Match Play Holidays (Client-3) is a complete novice in terms of advertising, the agency should set for it a comprehensive communication plan comprising a clear advertising objective as well as creative and media strategies. Moreover it has to work out an advertising budget for Client-3. As its operations are close to full capacity, it needs to scale up substantially in order to accommodate the extra work and it is quite logical if it hires expert as well as experienced manpower to handle the specialised assignments. Owing to the fact that such drastic changes might trigger resistance from existing staff, the management should carefully communicate to them the need for change and the benefits that the organisation as well as the employees will receive if such changes are successfully implemented and institutionalised. The management should also communicate to the employees the levels of prestige that they gain out of professional association with market leaders like Client-1 and Client-2. References Altstiel, T. & Grow, J. 2006. Advertising Strategy: Creative Tactics From the Outside/In. SAGE. Belch, E. G. & Belch, A. M. 2003. Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective. 6th ed. Tata McGraw-Hill. Crum, L. R. & Goldberg, I. 1998. Restructuring and Managing the Enterprise in Transition. World Bank Publications. Daft, L. R. 2007. Organization Theory and Design. 9th ed. Cengage Learning. Giacalone, A. R. & Jurkiewicz, L. C. 2005. Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and Organizational Performance. M.E. Sharpe. Hodgetts, M. R. & Hegar, W. K. 2007. Modern Human Relations at Work. 10th ed. Cengage Learning. Kumar, N. & Mittal, R. 2002. Advertising Management. Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd. Mathis, L. R. & Jackson, H. J. 2007. Human Resource Management. 12th ed. Cengage Learning. McLean, N. G. 2005. Organization Development: Principles, Processes, Performance. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Negus, K. & Pickering, M. 2004. Creativity, Communication and Cultural Value. SAGE. Smith, D. R. 2004. Strategic Planning for Public Relations. 2nd ed. Routledge. Sutherland, M. & Sylvester, K. A. 2009. Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why. 3rd ed. Allen & Unwin. Read More