Setting Advertising Objectives

After having decided what target market you are trying to reach, and prior to setting forth in the
creative design process, determine where your target market stands in terms of "buyer
readiness."
Often, the starting point for creating an effective advertisement is determining at what stage of
"buyer readiness" your target market is located. Buyer readiness is a series of stages consumers
move through in the process of making a purchase or use decision. There are six distinct stages.
Each are defined below.
 1. Awareness
Name recognition. Consumers found in this stage are
unaware of the product or service you have to offer.

2. Knowledge
In this stage, consumers have key information about your
product or service. This includes the image of the product
or service, or more specifically, the set of beliefs that
makes up the audience's perception of the product or
service.
3. Liking
The consumer has developed either a favourable or
unfavourable view of the product or service you offer.

4. Preference
The consumers not only like your product or service, they
prefer it over the competition.

5. Conviction
The consumers may prefer your product or service but not
be sure they really want to buy or use it.

6. Action
The consumers may have the conviction but not actually make
the purchase. Therefore, you have to motivate action.

The goal of advertising is to move the consumer from one stage of buyer readiness to another,
ultimately motivating the purchase or use decision. Therefore, the objective your ad will seek to
achieve can be described in one of four ways, depending on what stage of readiness your
clientele are positioned. Advertising can have the objective of creating awareness, image,
education, or response. These are described below.
 Awareness-oriented Advertising seeks to create initial name
recognition with some reminder advertising to keep the product or
service on the minds of potential consumers.
Image-oriented Advertising seeks a subjective response to the
name of the product or service.
Education-oriented Advertising is the toughest form because it
creates demand by showing people a previously unrecognized need
for the advertised product or service.
Response-oriented Advertising asks the target consumer to take
action now (buy or use the product).

Your advertisement should satisfy at least one of these objectives. From here, you are ready for
the process of creating the ad itself. Take a look at the material found on this web site regarding
the design of print ads, how to appeal to your target market, and different presentation tactics. It
is suggested that at this stage you hold a brainstorming session with a group of five to ten people
to generate a variety of creative ideas for your advertisement. For information on how to
facilitate the brainstorming process, please refer to the brainstorming page within this site.

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