The Five Ms Of Advertising

The organizations handle their advertising in different ways. In small companies, advertising is handled by someone in the sales or marketing department, who works with an ad ageny. A large company will often set up its own advertising department or else hire an ad agency to do the job of preparing advertising programmes. In developing a program, marketing managers must always start by identifying the target market and the buyers motives. Then they can make the five major decisions in developing an advertising program, known as the five Ms, viz. Mission: what are the advertising objectives? Money: how much can be spent? Message: what message can be sent? Media: what media should be used Measurement: how should the results is evaluated? The above mentioned can be explained by the diagram given below

The 5Ms of Advertising Checklist for planning of a marketing or advertising campaign. Mission Money Message Media Measurement
What are the objectives? What is the key objective? How much is it worth to reach my objectives? How much can be spent? What message should be sent? Is the message clear and easily understood? What media vehicles are available? What media vehicles should be used? How should the results be measured? How should the results be evaluated and followed up?

MISSION
Sales goals Advertising objectives

MONEY
Stage in PLC Market Share and Consumer Base Competition and Clutter Advertising frequency Product substitutability

MESSAGE
Message generation Message evaluation & selection Message execution

MEDIA
Reach, Frequency & impact Major media types Specific media vehicles Media timing Geographical media allocation

MEASUREMENT
Communication impact Sales impact

1. MISSION OR SETTING THE ADVERTISING OBJECTIVES

Advertising Objectives can be classified as to whether their aim is: To inform: This aim of Advertising is generally true during the pioneering stage of a product category, where the objective is building a primary demand. This may include: Telling the market about a new product Suggesting new uses for a product Informing the market of a price change Informing how the product works Describing available services Correcting false impressions Reducing buyers fears Building a company image To persuade: Most advertisements are made with the aim of persuasion. Such advertisements aim at building selective brand. To remind: Such advertisements are highly effective in the maturity stage of the product. The aim is to keep the consumer thinking about the product.

2. MONEY
This M deals with deciding on the Advertising Budget The advertising budget can be allocated based on: Departments or product groups The calendar Media used Specific geographic market areas

There are five specific factors to be considered when setting the Advertising budget. Stage in PLC: New products typically receive large advertising budgets to build awareness and to gain consumer trial. Established brands are usually supported with lower advertising budgets as a ratio to sales. Market Share and Consumer base: high-market-share brands usually require less advertising expenditure as a percentage of sales to maintain their share. To build share by increasing market size requires larger advertising expenditures.

Additionally, on a cost-per-impressions basis, it is less expensive to reach consumers of a widely used brand them to reach consumers of low-share brands. Competition and clutter: In a market with a large number of competitors and high advertising spending, a brand must advertise more heavily to be heard above the noise in the market. Even simple clutter from advertisements not directly competitive to the brand creates the need for heavier advertising. Advertising frequency: the number of repetitions needed to put across the brands message to consumers has an important impact on the advertising budget. Product substitutability: brands in the commodity class (example cigarettes, beer, soft drinks) require heavy advertising to establish a different image. Advertising is also important when a brand can offer unique physical benefits or features.

3. MESSAGE GENERATION
Message generation can be done in the following ways: Inductive: By talking to consumers, dealers, experts and competitors. Consumers are the major source of good ideas. Their feeling about the product, its strengths, and weaknesses gives enough information that could aid the Message generation process. Deductive: John C. Meloney proposed a framework for generating Advertising Messages. According to him, a buyer expects four types of rewards from a product: Rational Sensory Social Ego Satisfaction. Buyers might visualize these rewards from: Results-of-use Experience Product-in-use Experience Incidental-to-use Experience The Matrix formed by the intersection of these four types of rewards and the of experiences is given below. POTENTIAL TYPE OF REWARD (Sample Messages) Rational Sensory Social Result-of-Use 1. Gets Clothes 2. Settles Stomach 3. When you care Experience Cleaner upset completely enough to serve the best Product-in5. The flour that 6. Real gusto in a 7. A deodorant to Use needs no sifting great light beer guarantee social Experience acceptance three types Ego Satisfaction 4. For the skin you deserve to have 8. The store young executive for

Incidental-toUse Experience

9. The plastic 10. The portable pack keeps the television thats cigarette fresh lighter in weight, easier to lift

11. The furniture 12. Stereo for the that identifies the man with home of modern discriminating taste people

Message evaluation and selection The advertiser needs to evaluate the alternative messages. A good ad normally focuses on one core selling proposition. Messages can be rated on desirability, exclusiveness and believability. The message must first say something desirable or interesting about the product. The message must also say something exclusive or distinct that does not apply to every brand in the product category. Above all, the message must be believable or provable. Message execution. The messages impact depends not only upon what is said but also on how it is said. Some ads aim for rational positioning and others for emotional positioning. While executing a message the style, tone, words, and format for executing the message should be kept in mind. STYLE. Any message can be presented in any of the following different execution styles, or a combination of them: Slice of life: Shows one or more persons using the product in a normal setting. Coke 1litre ad, showed a family enjoying Coke, with a game of antakshari when there is a power failure.

Lifestyle: Emphasizes how a product fits in with a lifestyle. Asmi and Platinum ads, that focus on lifestyle of persons using their products. Fantasy: Creates a fantasy around the product or its use. VIP Frenchie ads, showing a woman thinking of the Frenchie man saving her from a villain. Mood or image: Evokes a mood or image around the product, such as beauty, love, or serenity. No claim is made about the product except through suggestion. Kingfisher Beer ads, saying the King of Good Times. Musical: Uses background music or shows one or more persons or cartoon characters singing a song involving the product.

Nescafe, Bacardi usually use Music as the main theme of communication

Personality symbol: Creates a character that personifies the product. The character might be animated Ronald McDonald for McDonalds Technical expertise: Shows the companys expertise, experience, and pride in making the product. GE and Skoda ads Scientific evidence: Presents survey or scientific evidence that the brand is preferred over or outperforms other brands. This style is common in the overthe-counter drug category. DuraCell Ads, claiming the battery lasts 6 times longer than ordinary batteries Testimonial evidence: This features a highly credible, likable, or expert source endorsing the product. It could be a celebrity or ordinary people saying how much they like the product. In ads for Sunsilk, they had hair expert Coleen, endorsing the product. TONE: The communicator must also choose an appropriate tone for the ad. Procter & Gamble is consistently positive in its toneits ads say something superlatively positive about the product, and humor is almost always avoided so as not to take mention away from the message. Other companies use emotions to set the toneparticularly film, telephone, and insurance companies, which stress human connections and milestones. Words: Memorable and attention-getting words must be found. The following themes listed on the left would have had much less impact without the creative phrasing on the right: Theme Creative Copy You wont have to stay at home because Get Out, Get Going of bad hair Format: Format elements such as ad size, color, and illustration will make a difference in an ads impact as well as its cost. A minor rearrangement of mechanical elements within the ad can improve its attention-getting power. Larger-size ads gain more attention, though not necessarily by as much as their difference in cost. Fou r-

colour illustrations instead of black and white increase ad effectiveness and ad cos t. By planning the relative dominance of different elements of the ad, optimal delivery can be achieved.

4. MEDIA
The next M 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: Deciding on Geographic media allocation Step V

Deciding on media timing Step IV

Selecting specific media vehicles Step III

Choosing among major media types Step II

Deciding reach, frequency and impact Step I

5. MEASUREMENT
Evaluating the effectiveness of the Advertisement Program is very important as it helps prevent further wastage of money and helps make corrections that are important for further advertisement campaigns. Researching the effectiveness of the advertisement is the most used method of evaluating the effectiveness of the Advertisement Program. Research can be in the form of: Communication-Effect Research Sales-Effect Research There are two ways of measuring advertising effectives. They are: Pre-testing It is the assessment of an advertisement for its effectiveness before it is actually used. It is done through Concept testing how well the concept of the advertisement is. This is be done by taking expert opinion on the concept of the ad.

Test commercials - test trial of the advertisement to the sample of people Finished testing

Post-testing It is the assessment of an advertisements effectiveness after it has been used. It is done in two ways Unaided recall - a research technique that asks how much of an ad a person remembers during a specific period of time Aided recall - a research technique that uses clues to prompt answers from people about ads they might have seen

THE 5 Ms OF ADVERTISING WITH RESPECT TO THE DOODH DOODH CAMPAIGN MISSION: A survey among 1,00,000 households in 1995 showed that there was a decrease inthe direct consumption of milk because of the following reasons: 1. Milk took a backseat when compared to soft drinks when it came to teenagers. 2. Adults believed that milk was essential for growing children but not for them. Thus the mission of the ad agency was to make aware the consumers about the benefits of milk for youngsters as well as elederly pople. Their mission was to create a communication plan that milk was not a boring conservative drink but a youthful, exciting and nutritional, exciting energy drink MESSAGE The writers hit upon the idea of using Hindi word for Milk i.e. doodh doodh in the form of a musical note. This musical note was in the form of sa-re-ga-ma which was remembered by the consumers a lot and was also top of mind when they were asked to comment on milk. The commercial as well as the print ad showed not only kids and youngsters but also elderly and old people whereby it targeted all age groups giving the benefits of milk as well. MEDIA: Television was chosen as the primary media because of its popularity and the fact that an audio visual medium lends itself to demonstration of high energy, fun and youthfulness more vividly. The print medium was also used as reinforcement message deliver backing the TV commercials.

The first round had concentrated on channels such as DD1, DD2 and the star plus. For every spot that they bought, there were four spots given as a bonus to be aired on the same programme. This made the commercial highly visible in terms of frequency as well as the reach.

MEASUREMENT: Any effort to bring about an attitudinal change takes time. A measure of effectiveness of the communication was that the TV commercial was voted by viewers of Indias one of the best commercials aired. The communication has definitely made the youngsters make sing the song doodh doodh, in addition to the cola songs. Qualitative research showed that there was a tremendous popularity of the commercial across all the age categories. Kids in the age group of 10-12 were not very resistant in their attitudes towards drinking milk. Mothers took advantage of the commercial among the children to make them consume milk. There was a rapid increase in consumption of milk across all age groups. The consumption of milk in 1995 was 198 gm/per day which has gone up to 250 gm/per day in 1998. THE 5 Ms OF ADVERTISING WITH RESPECT TO THE SUNDROP CAMPAIGN MISSION: Sales goals: Leadership in the edible refined oil segment Advertising Goals: Communication task 1. Position Sundrop as the healthy oil for healthy people 2. Ensure that this did not erode the delivery of the taste benefit. 3. Positioning had to be perceptually as far away from Saffola. 4. Young, modern and premium feel 5. Execution had to be distinct and original to stand out from the clutter MONEY: o Stage in PLC: Introductory, therefore relatively large expenditure o Market share: new product o Competitors: Saffola (Safflower oil) also used the health platform but was associated with heart patients and less taste Flora and Sunola (Sunflower oils) MESSAGE:

Health was chosen as the platform, along with a supporting claim for taste. People who were healthy and energetic were concerned about the long-term prospects of their health. Thus Health Was related to maintenance of good health Was applicable to all members of the family Was characterized by lively energetic people Thus the message and (positioning): The Healthy Oil for Healthy People MEDIA: Primary media: Television ad 30 seconds. Print ad MEASUREMENT: Within 6 months, Sundrop became the largest selling refined sunflower oil. Redefined the category and expanded the Sunflower oil segment from 2.71% to 23% in 6 months, and 42% in 1997 Still the largest selling sunflower oil brand holds 15% of branded oil market. The ad was shown for over 10 years as the main theme film.