Managing The Communications

Functions Of Advertisingb y : A n g e l B e a K i m D . G a b i o n

FUNCTIONC O M M U N I C AT I O N

All forms of advertising deliver messages to consumers. As the message sender in the process of communication, advertising can let people know about a new brand, make an impression on consumers’ minds about the brand, build or maintain positive attitudes toward the brand, form a strong motivation to make consumers take action and establish a strong brand loyalty for repeated purchases.

Advertising is a form of Mass

Communication.

• Mass communication is the imparting of information on a large scale to a wide range of people.

Advertising, in relation to mass communication, refers to marketing a product or service in a persuasive manner that encourages the audience to buy the product or use the service.

Major Decisions: The 5 M’s

• Mission• Money• Message• Media• Measurement

Setting the objectives:

•Informative Advertising – aims to create brand awareness & knowledge of new products/new features of existing product. •Persuasive Advertising – aims to create liking, preference, conviction, and purchase of a product or service.

•Reminder Advertising – aims to stimulate repeat purchase of products & services.

•Reinforcement Advertising – aims to convince current purchasers that they made the right choice.

MONEYDeciding on the Advertising Budget

S P C MA• Stage in the Product Life Cycle- New products typically merit large budgets to build awareness and to gain consumer trial. • Competition & Clutter- In a market with many competitors & high advertising spending, a brand must advertise more heavily to be heard.

• Advertising Frequency- The number of repetitions needed to put the brand’s message across to consumers has an obvious impact on the advertising budget.

•Market Share & Consumer Base- High-market-share brands usually require less advertising expenditure as a percentage of sales to maintain share.

• Product Substitutability- Brands in less-differentiated or commodity–like product classes (beer, soft drinks), require heavy advertising to establish a unique image.

• What to say ?• How to say ?

Creating the Advertising Message

No matter how big the budget, advertising can succeed only if commercials gain attention and communicate well. Good advertising messages are especially important in today’s costly and cluttered advertising environment. If all this advertising clutter bothers some consumers, it also causes big problems for advertisers. Until recently, television viewers were pretty much a captive audience for advertisers.

Message evaluation and selection ( What to say? )The first step in creating effective advertising messages is to decide what general message will be communicated to consumers--to plan a message strategy. The purpose of advertising is to get consumers to think about or react to the product or company in a certain way. People will react only if they believe that they will benefit from doing so.

Message execution ( How to say? )The message impact depends not only upon what is said but also on how it is said. The advertiser now has to turn the big idea into an actual advertising execution that will capture the target market's attention and interest. The creative people must find the following for executing the message.

• Style – Concept of advertisement. For example, musical, fantasy, scientific evidence, etc.• Tone - The communicator must also choose an appropriate tone for the advertisement.• Word - Memorable and attention-getting words must be found.• Format - Format elements such as ad size, color, and illustration will make a difference in an advertising impact as well as its cost.

MEDIA

The next to be considered while making an Advertisement Program is the Media through which to communicate the Message generated during the previous stage. The steps to be considered are:

REACH FREQUENCY IMPACT

M e d i a S e l e c t i o n I

Media Selection IIMajor Media Types:• Newspapers• Television• Direct Mail• Radio• Magazines• Outdoor• Yellow Pages• News Letters• Brochures• Telephone• Internet

Media Selection III

Specific Media Vehicle:

Audience Size Measures• Circulation •Audience

• Effective Audience •Effective ad-exposed audience

ContinuityThis model is primarily for non-seasonal products and some seasonal products. Advertising runs steadily with little variation over a campaign period. There may be short gaps at regular intervals and also long gaps—for instance, one ad every week for 52 weeks, and then a pause. This pattern of advertising is prevalent in service and packaged goods that require continuous reinforcement on the audience for top of mind recollection at point of purchase.

Media Selection IV

Media Selection IV

Flighting

In media scheduling for seasonal product categories, flighting involves intermittent and irregular periods of advertising, alternating with shorter periods of no advertising at all.

Media Selection IVPulsing

Pulsing combines flighting and continuous scheduling by using a low advertising level all year round and heavy advertising during peak selling periods. Product categories that are sold year round but experience a surge in sales at intermittent periods are good candidates for pulsing. For instance, under-arm deodorants, sell all year, but more during the summer months.

Media Selection V

Deciding on Geographical Allocation

• Area of Dominant Influence (ADI) or Designate Marketing Area (DMA)

- A geographic area covered by a television or radio station. An area of a market used to measure the audience reached by a broadcast. The area gets the same programming.

• Consumers Impact• Sales Impact

Evaluating and Measuring Advertising Effectiveness

Communication-Effect Research (Copy Testing)Copy testing is a specialized field of marketing research that

determines an advertisement’s effectiveness based on consumer responses, feedback, and behavior. Also known as pre-testing, it might address all media channels including television, print, radio, outdoor signage, internet, and social media.

Sales-Effect ResearchAn advertising research that seeks to determine the impact of

advertising on the sales. Advertising’s sales effect is generally harder to measure than its communication effect (awareness level).