Message Strategy
• An idea about how to creatively and persuasively communicate a brand message to a target audience
• A message has to have an appeal- an idea that motivates an audience to respond
Creative Brief
• Statements about a brand that summarizes the research and insights for the creative team.
• Also known as IMC Message Strategy Brief, Creative Platform, Creative Plan or Work plan, Creative Strategy or Copy Strategy
Three basic Steps in Developing a Message
Strategy Brief• Step 1: Determining communication
objectives: What type of impact does the message need to achieve?– Sample Marketing Communications
Objectives:• Cognitive: awareness, educate, explain, brand
knowledge• Affective: image or personality, attitudes & brand
liking, desire or need, strike emotional chord• Behavioral: increase trial, purchase, repurchasing
Three basic Steps in Developing a Message
Strategy Brief…Cont’d
• Step 2: Customer Insight: Finding diamonds in the data– Customer insight: below-the-surface
attitudes & beliefs that influence customer’s behavior. For example, Marlboro cigarettes. Insight that young and middle-aged men fantasize about freedom & macho independence of cowboys. It allowed men to escape into this fantasy.
Three basic Steps in Developing a Message
Strategy Brief…Cont’d
• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Benefit: how a product satisfies
customers’ needs, wants & desires; promise: what good things will happen if a person buys this product; reason why: substantiation, support or proof that explain why a product will provide the promised benefit
Three basic Steps in Developing a Message
Strategy Brief…Cont’d
• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Feature: attributes that give a product a
distinctive difference– Value-pricing: offers the best quality
product you can buy for that price. There may be better-quality products but it would cost more. Price is fixed, value is not. Value is a perception of what something is worth in terms of quality and price.
Three basic Steps in Developing a Message
Strategy Brief…Cont’d
• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Unique-selling proposition: selling strategy
based on a product’s most distinctive difference from competitive products; provide reason or proof on which a claim, benefit or proposition rests
– Generic: stresses a basic feature or benefit of a product that is not brand specific
Three basic Steps in Developing a Message
Strategy Brief…Cont’d
• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Pre-emptive: focuses on an attribute or
benefit that any other product on the category could have claimed but did not.
– Informational: based on going facts about a brand & its attributes
– Credibility: heightens conviction & decreases perception of risk; use of endorsers, PR, testimonial
Three basic Steps in Developing a Message
Strategy Brief…Cont’d
• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Emotional: connects with customers &
prospects at the affective level & moves them to respond with feelings
– Association: psychological connection between a brand & its customers & prospects
Three basic Steps in Developing a Message
Strategy Brief…Cont’d
• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Lifestyle: Uses situations & symbols of
lifestyles that the target audience can identify with or aspire to.
– Incentive: Creates a sense of immediacy & rewards customers for responding quickly
Three basic Steps in Developing a Message
Strategy Brief…Cont’d
• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Reminder: Keeps a brand top-of-mind with
the target. Used by mature brands with established brand identity & designed to jog the customer’s memory at point of purchase.
– Interactive: Creating two-way communication in order to open up communication with customers & capture their feedback
Selling Strategies
Type of Response
Message Objective
Message Strategy
Think Awareness, brand knowledge, understanding, conviction
Info, generic, pre-emptive, credibility
Feel Brand image & personality, liking, desire, self identity
Emotion, association, lifestyle
Do Buy, try, repeat, visit, contact
Incentive, reminder, interactive
The Big Idea
• Simple• Has legs: can cater to difference
audiences or media or versions• ROI: relevance, originality &
impact
The Creative Process
• Formal procedure for increasing productivity & innovative output by an individual or a group
• Step 1: Exploration– Brainstorming: gather to generate many
new ideas– Lateral thinking: bouncing from one
thought to another in free association; look for metaphors of what the product is like
The Creative Process…Cont’d
• Step 2: Insight– Reviewing all info, analyzing the problem,
identifying patterns and searching for a key verbal or visual concept to communicate what needs to be said
• Changing patterns• Looking at things in different ways• Adaptation- change context• Imagining- what if?• Reversal- opposite, negative effect (what would
happen if you did not use the product?)
The Creative Process…Cont’d
• Step 2: Insight– Reviewing all info, analyzing the
problem, identifying patterns and searching for a key verbal or visual concept to communicate what needs to be said• Connection- join 2 unrelated ideas• Comparison- metaphor• Elimination- subtract or break rules• parody- make fun of something
The Creative Process…Cont’d
• Step 3: Execution• Step 4: Evaluation & Copy testing
– Copy testing: testing the effectiveness of a brand message, a creative concept, or elements such as a headline, slogan, or visual for creative impact and understandability
Creative Brief (Mccann-Ericson 7-question
format)1. Who is our audience?2. Where are we now in the minds of our
target audience?3. Where are our competitors in the minds
of our target audience?4. Where do we want to be in the minds of
our target audience?5. What is the consumer promise or the
big idea?6. What is the supporting evidence?7. What is the tone of voice of the ad?