Advertising Strategy Exam 1

What is advertising?

A paid promotional tactic that aims to sell/promote a product or service to a target audience

What does advertising’s definition mean?

• advertising involves the exchange of money for promotion

  • not an organic social post

  • not a press release

  • not a random customer uploading a positive product review video

Where does advertising fit within marketing?

Promotion

What is weather triggered advertising?

When weather conditions are used for advertising

ex: summer → cool off with ice cream

What is an Agency of Record (AOR)?

A single agency that has primary responsibility for most of the integrated marketing communication services that the brand might require, such as brand and creative strategy, media planning, development and maintenance of the websites, and digital marketing

What are Specialized Marketing Communications Agencies?

Provide services in their respective area of expertise and include:

• Digital/Interactive Agencies

• Direct-Marketing Agencies

• Sales Promotion AGencies

• Influence/Talent Agencies

What are Media Organizations?

Provide information or entertainment to subscribers, viewers, or readers

From the perspective of an advertising strategist, the purpose of media is to provide an entertainment for the firm’s marketing communications messages

What is the Creative Brief?

THE critical document used to brief creative of a brand’s advertising strategy

What is the goal of the creative brief?

• provides a high-level explanation of campaign goals

• presents a roadmap to help guide the creative department

• provides a means by which to evaluate the creative output

What is the objective piece’s goal?

ensure that you are writing a communication objective, not a business objective

• comms objectives provide the creative team with clear direction on what the advertising specifically must accomplish

• business objectives identify a broad outcome that the brand hopes to achieve with marketing and does not convey advertising’s role in the process

How should a Creative Brief flow?

Objective: what should the advertising accomplish?

Target: who is the specific target for this campaign?

Insight: how does the target think? What do they value and care about?

Position: what is the Frame of Reference, Point of Difference, and Reason to Believe?

Execution: in what media will the advertising appear? Are there executional mandatories?

Measurement: when will the creative work be tested? What will be measured to test objectives?

What is the funnel?

Awareness

Attitudes

Actions

Actions Repeated

What are questions to determine objective?

Are consumers aware of the brand and/or its categories?

Do consumers have favorable opinions of the brand?

Do consumers engage in action?

Do consumers engage in REPEATED action?

What is a brand life survey?

surveys that compare one brand to several others

ex: “which of these brands have you recently seen advertising for?”

What is brand awareness?

Consumer’s ability to identify what a brand or product is when given the brand or product name

• considered aided-awareness

• assessing brand awareness involves asking customers what products a particular brand makes

• ex: what products does Heinz make?

What is Top-of-Mind analysis?

The degree to which a brand is recalled with little to no prompting

• considered unaided awareness

• assessing top-of-mind awareness involves asking customers what brands come to mind when thinking of a particular industry or category

What are attitudes?

Reflections of customer feelings towards a brand, product, or service

consumers are more likely to purchase a product or service when they have a favorable attitude towards it

measured via people’s beliefs and feelings toward a brand or product of interest

What is action repeated?

related to the degree to which consumers repeat the action advertising asked them to initially take

• also referred to as loyalty

What does a lack of action repeated tell us?

• there is a mismatch between expectation and reality

• there is miscommunication in advertising or poor strategy

• the target did not initially purchase product because of favorable attitudes

What is segmentation?

the categorization of consumers into distinct and meaningful groups

• it is from effective segmentation that a strategist can select a segment to target with advertising

Demographics

Pertain to features of the target such as age, gender, race, marital status, location, income, and profession

at the most basic level, who are they?

Psychographics

Refer to interests, hobbies, activities, and preferences of a group

what do they care about?

Behavioral Attributes

Refers to the actions a target regularly takes

how do they buy/consumer media

What are the segmentation types?

Insight segmentation

User-based segmentation

Performance-based segmentation

What is included in insight segmentation?

Psychographics, demographics, behavioral attributes

What is included in user-based segmentation?

• brand users

• competitor’s users

• point-of-entry users

• category build

What is included in performance-based segmentation?

• Brand-Development-Index (BDI)

• Category-Development-Index (CDI)

What are brand users?

• those that currently buy/use the brand in question

• oftentimes, the objective is focused on sustaining awareness and interest 

• if you neglect this segment, your competitors may not

What are a competitor’s users?

• those that currently buy/use the competitor’s brands

• depending on category. these can be the most difficult users to attract

• Pro: current users of the category

• con: opted to use competitor’s products

What are point-of-entry users?

non-users or non-purchasers of a category who will ultimately become users/buyers

• pros: can represent huge consumer volume that may be untapped

• cons: timing of when to reach them can be difficult

What is category build?

Users who do not plan to use the category in which a brand holds membership

pro: if convincing, you can win over a lot of consumers and have few direct competitors

con: reaching passive customers who have their needs met through another category

Determining to pursue category build becomes attractive when:

• the category is not saturated (opportunity for growth exists)

  • new or very mature categories

• firm has means to direct the demand generated for the category to its brand

in order to do this well, you must advertise to inform consumers of the benefits of the category, but not push them to a competitor

What is the Brand Development Index (BDI)?

An indicator of how a specific segment or market performs for a brand

• calculation: (% of brand sales / % market population) x 100

What is the Category Development Index?

An indicator of how a specific segment or market performs within a category

• calculation: (% of category sales / % market population) x 100

What are consumer insights?

Actionable motivations behind the wants and needs of customers that can be used to guide advertising and marketing tactics

Recipe for actionable insights:

• meaningful → human → truth

What is the role of consumer insights?

The central role is to help inform the brand’s position

They can also help:

• creatives understand the tone of the message

• creatives understand how consumers are persuaded to share brand information

• media planners inform their choice of media channels

What is a brand’s position?

Provides an overview of what a brand stands for and/or how it aims to represent itself to the target audience

• brands often use positioning statements to establish their position towards a given audience

What are effective positioning statements made up of?

• frame of reference

• point(s) of difference

• reason(s) to believe

• it can also be helpful to include a target and brand personality

Approaches to establishing a frame of reference

1. category membership

   • most common, highlights the industry in which a product competes

2. exemplar

   • likens your brand to that of another that is a clear member of the category

3. points of parity

   • highlights common features that are expected of any member of a category

4. goals

   • emphasizes goals a product or service fulfills

What is the point of difference?

a benefit that is viewed by consumers as a compelling way to achieve a goal that sets a brand apart from the competition

• points of difference create value

• value = quality [ functional + psychological] / cost (price + time)

What are positively correlated statements?

when the attributes naturally go together, consumers are more likely to accept the various attributes as true

ex: small car + great gas efficiency

What are negatively correlated statements?

When the attributes seem to contradict one another, thus consumers are more skeptical

ex: low calorie + tastes great

How can you address the problem of negatively correlated attributes? 

represent that the attributes can actually compliment one another

ex: BMW demonstrates that safety and performance can go hand-in-hand by showing superior stopping and maneuverability

What are the approaches to sustaining a brand’s position?

1. pure maintenance

2. modern instantiation

3. enriching the position

4. extending the position

What is laddering?

The process of enriching a brand’s position 

• laddering up: advertising that places emphasis on the emotional benefit derived from a functional benefit

• laddering down: advertising that places a special emphasis on supporting a functional benefit with the reasons to believe

When is repositioning wise?

• when few consumers are aware of the brand’s original position

• when targeting point-of-entry customers

• modification of the position is small

• when your points of difference have become points of parity