Advertising Account Planning Test

What is the origins of account planning?

It began in the UK at JWT and BBM

How does account planning differ from account management and research within an ad agency?

Account planning gets at consumer and creative strategy while the account manager does the business strategy and client relationships. Research provides information while account planner’s role is to take research and provide insights into strategy

What is the brand destination process?

It is the process of going from today to tomorrow. So, it is where we are today; where do we want to be, and how do we get there. It identifies the current brand perception and then lays out a roadmap on how you would like to have the brand perceived. Then you must identify the barriers to achieving it

What is an AAU research study?

It is a quantitative study that measures awareness, attitude, and usage

What is the difference between top of mind awareness and aided awareness?

Top of mind awareness is unaided while aided awareness is asking if you how familiar you are with a brand

How does organizational storytelling differ from a traditional SWOT analysis?

Storytelling puts the SWOT analysis into a narrative form while the SWOT is a listing of items

What is the two key differences between quantitative and qualitative research?

Quantitative measures have statistical reliability while qualitative doesn’t. Qualitative research gets at emotions while quantitative gets at logic

Why are focus groups bogus in terms of delivering insights?

1. In an unnatural environment

2. Interact with people they don’t know

3. Knowing they are being watched

4. Doing it for the money

What are some examples of a cool way to get into someone’s head and how you might use it on the project?

Emotivescapes, Mindmapping, Ethnographic research, Usability testes, Personal diaries, Word Association, Cartooning, Sentence completion

What is the difference between a consumer need state and consumer demographic?

A need state is the reason why someone buys a product. A consumer demographic tells you who they are

What’s the best method for developing a target market for creative development?

The best method is to personify the target so that you are writing for a single person. It can also be called creating personas

What’s an example of the difference between an attribute and a benefit?

AN attribute is a feature of a product or company while the benefit is what it does for the consumer. For example, SWA offers low fares as an attribute. The benefit is that you can travel to more places on SWA than other airlines. You cannot use the SWA example on the test

What’s the differences between plus and minus emotions?

Elevating personal pride is a plus emotion and removing ridicule is an example of a negative emotion

What’s a benefit ladder? Be prepared to provide an example

A benefit ladder goes from attribute to functional benefit to emotional benefit. An example would be on the SWA, low fares and lots of routes means you can travel to more places which gives ou more freedom to explore the US

What’s Aaker’s personality profile of brands?

It is called the Big 5 and explains 93% of all brand’s personalities

What’s an example of a brand that broke with the category personality?

The banking category has a stuffy and conservative personality. Ally Bank is an example of a brand that broke from the banking category

What are the components of the brand positioning statement?

Target market, competitive frame of reference, benefit, reason why and personality make up the brand positioning statement

What is conceptual space?

Conceptual space is a specific attribute or benefit that is nearly always associated with the brand. For example, Volvo occupies the Safety space for autos

What’s the difference between solving an advertising problem and a business problem?

A business problem may or may not be solved by advertising. An advertising problem reflects some form of awareness or attitude change

What is the role of the account planner in developing the creative brief?

The account planner’s role is to provide the message strategy. Every creative brief should have a message strategy

What are the 4C’s and how are they used?

The 4C’s stand for Consumer, Competition, Company, and Communication. They are a part of a SWOT analysis for message development.

What are the three most common measures used to track advertising’s effectiveness?

They are awareness, attitude, and usage

What are the two basic creative testing methods and how they differ from one another?

The two basic methods are qualitative with focus groups and some form or quantitative test with a copy testing service

Why can most categories can be summarized by three distinct positions for the brand?

The positions are quality, price, popular or good, cheap, fast. An example of this is for grocery stores: Walmart is Price; HEB is Popular and Central Market is Quality

What’s CPB’s method for dealing with problems?

CPB looks for “cultural tension” in the brand or with the consumer. For example, the highly competitive tension within the Coca-cola organization was the basis for the Coke Zero campaign

What’s the key principal of Trout and Reis?

it is best to be first

What’s the relationship between the Big Idea and an advertising campaign?

The big Idea is the over-arching idea while the advertising campaign is the execution of that idea

What’s a Big Idea and what made them a big idea?

A big idea is something that is a radical change in thinking, behavior or culture. For example, Casual Friday is a cultural and behavioral change for selling Dockers

What is the method that Sensory Logic uses to measure consumer feedback to advertising?

They use a combination of galvanic skin response, facial coding and written diary. They are trying to get at the emotional connection of the creative

What’s the theory of positive contagion?

The theory of positive contagion refers to the transference of beneficial properties between animate persons/objects to previously neutral objects. For example, telling golfers they are using a famous golf pro-putters is setting positive contagion into motion

What is the definition of brand utility

Brands used to do something and advertising said something. Now brands do and say something. They provide a functional and emotional utility.

What are the three steps in targeting and how they are used?

The three steps are: Segmentation, Aggregation and Personification.  Segmentation looks for differences among the target audience. It may be their motivation for using the brand and/or demographic or life stage differences. Aggregation looks for common beliefs, behaviors and values among the different segments. Advertising is developed using aggregation for an umbrella idea. Segmentation is how you tailor that idea to different audiences. Personification is how you bring the target to life in terms of a single person.

What is the Reasons to Believe (RTB’s) and the role they play in brand positioning?

RTB’s are the proof points for the brand’s benefit. They are the facts behind the benefit. The more compelling the RTB, the more compelling the benefit and potentially the advertising.

What is the “Wisdom of the Crowds” and how it is different than other research?

“Wisdom of the Crowds” is a book by James Suroweicki. In this book, he outlines that if you ask a group of people to forecast what may work; the odds are strong that they will be able to predict what will work. This differs from other research where you ask an audience what they feel about it. Here you put the audience in the role of decision maker.

What is the definition of brand essence? Provide an example

A brand essence is the long term emotional position of the brand. It is usually expressed in a few words. For example, Hallmark’s brand essence is “Caring Shared.” Nike’s is “authentic athletic performance.”

Remember the number of ideas that it takes to make the cut for TWBA/Chait Day on the paper clip test

The average is 6 within 2 minutes but to advance you need 12

What’s the name of the brainstorming exercises we use in class?

They are examples of lateral thinking and created by Edward de Bono

What are the three ways methods of brand architecture? Provide examples of each

The three methods are a branded house, a house of brands and an endorser brand. A branded house is where all brands are the same including the company. An example would be Virgin. A branded house is where the company markets a variety of brands and is not typically well known or promoted. An example would be Proctor and Gamble. An endorser brand is one where the parent company is promoted yet also promotes individual brands. An example would be Apple and the products

What’s the definition of a macro trend? Provide an example

A Macro trend is an outside trend that has long term implications that you or your company or brand cannot manipulate. An example would be demographic trends such as a rise in the Hispanic population in the U.S. Or a societal trend such as the increased acceptance of women in leadership roles. Or technology advances such as the increased processing speed and capacity of microprocessors

Define and provide an example of how “tone” is used in a creative work plan

Tone is the character of the advertising and is typically defined in three descriptive words. It should reflect the personality of the brand and not the response of the advertising. An example would be direct or irreverent