Role of Advertising for the Brand - Essay Example

Role of Advertising for the brand A brand according to (Hansen, Flemming and Christensen Lars Bech, Branding and Advertising, 2003) typically provides information. But what is the source of that information How do we instantly recall the nuances of the details associated with the brand When we think of a brand like Nike it reminds us of so many things, perhaps our liking for such high quality brands, or its popularity world wide or the fact that it is very comfortable in usage. This aspect of the brand known as brand attitude in its positive perspective becomes the brand equity. Brand equity for a product ensures customer loyalty and obsession for the product irrespective of the market conditions or competition. It not only helps retain a loyal customer for ever but also helps attract the favorable attention of fresh prospects. To project this brand equity to the masses or the target audience advertising is highly imperative. There might raise a question as to why branding is required at all or how branding can be successful when all of them do the same job. For example a chocolate is a chocolate irrespective of whatever name you assign to it and similarly all washing-up powder do the same basic thing. So do many other consumer products. To quote another example when Kodak is sincere, then IBM can be competent, Marlboro cool and Revlon a little sophisticated. So what differentiates one from the other How then do we measure brand equity What we must do in measuring brand equity is to measure the understanding behind brand equity and brand attitude which evokes in the minds of people inclined towards the brand. The end results or consequences of the product marketed are not a measure of the brand equity but the measure of components contributing to the evolution of the brand equity is its true measure. What is the vehicle which transports this brand equity to the market and the consumers It is none other than advertising. Advertising through a suitable media depending on the target audience can to a large extent help sustain the brand equity or the brand attitude cultivated in the minds of the discerning buyers. To put simply the brand equity is the sum of weightage given to different positive characteristics of a product divided by how much each of them aligns closely with the personal beliefs of the consumer. If one understands this aspect of branding then advertising can be effectively used to promote the brand or increase its brand equity. Impact of Ethical and Legal Issues on Advertising of Brands Up until now only cultural industries such as art, music or film required to deal with intangible issues related to values of assets and resources. But in today's environment of information boom, globalization and technology advancements the role of intermediaries such as advertising has become paramount in this knowledge based society. However it is fraught with legal and ethical implications. One can ask what does ethics got to do with advertising when the very purpose of it is to appeal to the desires of the consumer. Some people consider it a practical joke when you say we follow ethics in business since business itself is to find a buyer somehow and sell products. But the ethics referred to here is the subliminal appeal to the subconscious mind of the buyer. Like for example sometime back there was this theater where in between movies messages used to be flashed on the screen such as "Eat Popcorn" or Drink "Coke". It is used to come in a jiffy and disappear. But the vendors at the theater found that sales of these two items went up dramatically. Sooner than later somebody found this out and reported it as unethical after which the advertising was stopped in the theater. So that is what unethical advertising is all about. There should not be any subliminal appeal to the subconscious mind creating an innate desire for the manufacturer's product. Now more than checking for ethics in advertising their regulation is very important. Especially the impact advertising causes in children is very far flung and sometimes damaging. It can make or break the character of a child whose perception of things is quicksilver but completely lacks maturity for his/her age. It is not just kids who are affected by certain spurious advertising but adults too. For example take the example of a face cream. You would not know for certain that it will work when you buy it. You have to use it for some time and see the results by which time your face would have been rubbed with quite an amount of face cream. So how does one falsify or verify a claim through advertising, Adding to the complexity is the advertisements of life saving drugs and medicines. Pharmaceutical manufacturers say that through advertising they are only educating the audience of the presence of cure for certain ailment and not as such forcing them to buy their products. But how far this is benevolent in nature is to be profoundly inspected and regulated. Also certain seductive ads which can pervert the minds of the unbridled have to be regulated by stringent laws. Products like liquor and cigarettes which are injurious to health have to be subject to legal bindings or else it will inculcate a wrong notion into the growing minds which will assume that smoking is quite cool and drinking is quite common and casual. Structure of Brand: Agency Handling, Spend and Media An advertising agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertisements. Sometimes these organizations handle other promotional events also for their clients. It can also handle overall marketing campaigns, strategies and brand promotions. It comes in all sizes and should not be judged by its size. Typical clients of such agencies are corporations, non-profit organizations and governments. Of late Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) have also been categorized as ad agencies since they deal in text based information publishing and purchase transactions in this knowledge based society. A very important aspect in advertising a brand is the positioning of the brand in the market for which understanding the market structure of similar brands is very important. The most popular media for advertising is the global media like television, newspaper, internet etc which has unlimited audience that can be captured at affordable costs depending on the approach and the agency handling the advertising. For example in the year 2001 alone about 66 million Euro was spent in Europe for brand advertisement of mutual funds since investment industry was at such a boom at that point in time. This budget for advertising tripled itself over a period of just two years to about 200 million Euro in the year 2003. So depending on the reach of the product the manufacturing capacity and distribution management advertising budgets can be kept quite high. Of course advertising has its own downside also such as the high risk it carries if it fails to get the message across to the target audience. But considering the opportunity costs advertising budgets are not that too risky as generally perceived from the figures. Advertising can be in many forms. It can be a video clip aired in the local or cable television, or a slot in the business columns of the newspaper or it could just be a signboard or hoarding in a public mall or highway. One has to decide on whether short term gains or long term viability is being expected out of advertising a brand. This can be a decisive factor in allocating budgets for advertising. Other forms of advertising are snippets aired in radios and other broadcastings and webcastings. Sometimes even transport vehicles are used for advertisements since it is always in the middle of the general public. Agencies are used in advertising since they hold a key infrastructure in the advertising media usually in bulk which they lend in slabs or divisions to individual advertisers depending on their budgets and duration preferences. Some agencies do the work of advertising brands which includes art designing, visualizing and publishing in the requested or appropriate to enable maximum reach to the right target audience. It is like a wholesaler selling to a retailer. An agency continuously books space in newspapers or slots in televisions for promotion of the advertised product. Sometimes the creative team with the agency does the art work and other peripheral help that is required to launch an advertisement. Advertisements should essentially contain lot of visual images and be dynamic and varied in presentation instead of a mundane approach so that it appeals to the audience although not necessarily in a subliminal manner. Type of Agency - Inhouse Vs. External agency Advertising is generally handled by two departments. One is the creative department and the other the account management department. The creative department is the one which creates the ads and usually comprises of the art director and the copywriter. In some organizations there is a creative department within the company wherein it is called an in-house agency. An example would be Leo Burnet who is famous for creating characters such as Tony the Tiger, Snap Crackle & Pop, the Jolly Green Giant, the Marlboro Man, and Charlie the Tuna. Advertising by in-house people has its own merits and demerits. Similarly external agency also has its share of merits and demerits. When done in-house there will be depth in the advertising about the product and the brand positioning. Expenses can be curbed to a very large extent. You can change the content and the intent quite frequently when done in-house. Whereas involving an external agency in our brand advertising may beget a new dimension to the products which are being advertised for. It may highlight certain positive characteristics of the product which will increase the brand attitude and hence the brand equity. But if advertising is done Inhouse then there must be a creative team specialized with the tools of advertising for launching a successful and objective advertising. Whereas with external advertising most of the work related to advertisements and its propagation through media can be delegated to the agency involved and they will take care of the advertisement scheduling for the life cycle of the engagement. Some industrial houses and enterprises may have a separate department such as the marketing department which houses people who are specialized in the field of marketing itself. These people can create the content of the advertisement and get the help of space marketers or time slot dispensers like sky television for example and get the advertisement enlisted for circulation in the regular publication or television programmes as the case may be. Some of the best seen advertisements hitherto have been such as the one from Ogilvy and Mather on Rolls Royce which goes like this.."At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise from this new Rolls Royce comes from its electric clock". Hence such is the power of the brand advertising in the success of a product being marketed. Other famous brand advertisers who are external agencies are BBH (Bartle, Bogle & Hegarty) who represented famed brands of yesteryears and even today such as Audi, Levi's, Johnnie Walker and British Airways. Summing up any brand advertising should be considering all the four elements discussed above namely the objective or intent, the content, the right budget with buffered risks and selection of the right media, subject to ethics and prevalent regulations and being handled by an in-house or an external agency. References 1. Advertising: What it is and How to do it R.White, McGraw Hill 4th Edition. 2. British code of Advertising and Sales Promotion Practice, CAP committee, 1995. 3. Jenkins, F. & Yadin, D. - Advertising, Prentice Hall 2000. 4. Jones, J.P. How Advertising works: The role of research, Sage 1999. 5. McFall, L - Advertising, Sage, 2005. 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_agency 7. www.sky.co.uk 8. www.itvmedia.co.uk Read More