Advertising management

“The dissemination of information concerning an idea, service or product to compel action in

accordance with the intent of the advertiser.”

“Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services
by an identified sponsor.”

“Advertising is controlled, identifiable information and persuasion by means of mass communications

media.”

Advertising strategy

Advertising or creative strategy blends the elements of creative mix. Four elements, the target
audience, the product and its positioning, the communications media, and the advertising message
constitute the creative mix. Advertising objectives say where the advertiser wants to be with respect to
consumer awareness, attitude and preference. The advertising strategy describes how to get there. One
simply needs to watch TV commercials or scan a few magazines to appreciate numerous different ways
of conveying advertising messages. Underlying all these messages are creative strategy and tactics to
address target audience to effectively communicate the product positioning through selected media.

The target audience: the specific audience that the advertising is intended to focus upon will typically be
larger than the target market. Advertisers need to know who the actual end user of the product or
service is, who is influencing and making the purchase decision and who makes the purchase. Various
family members, friends and others may be involved in purchase decision making. Research shows that
brand popularity cuts across all levels of purchasing frequency which means that while the company
may target heavy users of a product, many light users and non-users of the product are also exposed to
advertising. The dominant brands are purchased the most by both heavy and light users because
advertising helps make them popular.

The product and it’s positioning: the product is a ‘bundle of values’ offered to the consumer. Dabur
Chayavanprash is meant for the entire family, while baidyanath chayavanprash is positioned for growing
children. While writing the advertising plan, the concerned manager must develop a simple statement
describing the product and it’s positioning-how the advertising will present the product to the
audiences.

The communications media: communications media involve all the media vehicles that might carry the
marketre’s advertising message and include TV, radio, newspaper, magazines, billboards, internet and
others.

The advertising message: it involves everything that the marketer plans to say in its ads and how it plans
to say the same,both verbally and non-verbally.

What is creativity: creativity is probably one of the most frequently used terms in advertising circles.
Perhaps so much attention to creativily is given because people consider the specific challenge of
developing an advertising message as the domain of creative people. Individuals and advertising
agencies often build up reputations for their creativity.

Some people exhibit more creativity than others but some of it,is present within all of us. It is the
creativity that helped humans to discover and harness fire, domesticate animals and cultivate fields.
without creativivity, the human race probably would not have survived.

The word “ create’ denotes originating, or conceiving an idea or a thing that did not exist before.
Typically, though, creativity involves combining previously unconnected ideas or objects into something
new. There is a general belief that creativity emerges directly from human intuition, but the reality is
that creativity can be learned and used to generate original ideas.

There are differences of opinion on what constitutes advertising creativity. There are those who are of
the view that advertising is creative only if it sells the advertised product or service. The ad message’s
positive impact on sales is viewed as more important than whether it is innovative or wins awards. On
the other extreme are those who judge an advertisement’s creativity in terms of its originality and
artistic or aesthetic value. They argue that creative ads can break through the advertising clutter,
capture the audience attention and produce some impact. Elizabeth hirschman’s study examined the
perceptions of individuals involved in the creation and production of TV commercials such as brand
managers, account executives, art director,copywriter, commercial director and producer. She observed
that product managers and account executives believe that a commercial should be evaluated in trems
of whether it accomplishes the client’s marketing and communications objectives. Those on the creative
side had a more self-serving perspective.

Advertising creativity is the ability to come up with fresh,perhaps unconventional,unique,appropriate

and effective ideas that can be used as solutions to an advertiser’s communications problems. A creative
idea can be appropriate and effective only when it is relevant to the target audience’s needs, wants, or
aspirations. Probably this is the reason why some ads are successful in winning awards for creativity but
fail to help the client in accomplishing the desired goal, as they are not relevant to the target audience.
The creative specialists must recognize that the purpose of adverting is to assist in selling the product or
service and good advertising must communicate in a manner that helps the client achieve this goal.

The agency, D’Arcy,Masius Benton & Bowles have developed nine principles to guide its creative efferts.

1. Does this advertising position the product simply and with unmistakable clarity? : the target
audience for the advertised product or service must be able to see and sense in a flash what the
product is for,whom it is for, and why they should be interested in it. Creating this clear vision of
how the product or service fits into their lives is the first job of advertising. Without a simple,
clear,focused positiong, no creative work can begin.
2. Does this advertising bolt the brand to a clinching benefit? : our advertising should be built on
the most competing and persuasive consumer benefit-not some unique-but –insignificant
peripheral feature.
 Before you worry about how to say it, you must be sure you are saying the right thing.if you
don’t know what the most compelling benefit is, you have got to find out before you do
anything,
3. Does the advertising contain a ‘power idea’? : the power idea is the vehicle that transforms the
strategy into a dynamic, creative communications concept. It is the core creative idea that sets
the stage for brilliant executions to come. The ideal power idea should
-be describable in a simple word, phrase, or sentence without reference to any final execution
--be likely to attract the prospects’s attention
--revolve around the clinching benefit
--allow you to brand the advertising
-make it easy for the prospect to vividly experience our client’s product or service.

4. Does this advertising design in brand personality? : the great brands tend to have something in
common: the extra edge of having a brand personality.

This is something beyond merely identifying what the brand does for the consumer; all brands do
something. A brand can be whatever its designers want it to be-and it can be so from day one.

4. Is the advertising unexpected?

5. Is the advertising single-minded?
6. Does this advertising reward the prospect?
7. Is the advertising visually arresting?
8. Does this advertising exhibit painstaking craftsmanship?

Styles of thinking: max weber, the german sociologist , determined that people think in two
ways: an objective, rational , fact-based manner and a qualitative , value-based manner. We use
a fact –based style of thinking while preparing for a test but when we buy a dress, we call on
taste, intuition and knowledge to make a qualitative value judgement of the styling, colour,
looks and the price.
In the 1980s, social scientists allen Harrison and Robert bramson defined five categories of
thinking : the synthesist, the idealist, the pragmatist, the analyst and the realist. They conclude
that the analyst and realist fit weber’s fact –based thinking type and the sythesist and idealist fit
his value-based thinking type.

Planning creative strategy: the work of creative people in advertising business is challenging.
They must take all the inputs such as research findings, creative briefs, strategy statements and
the communications objective to convert them into a suitable advertising message to effectively
communicate the central theme of the ad campaign. The ad message must be put into a form
that will get the audience interested and make the ad memorable.
Advertising situations in each case are different. Each individual advertisement or an ad
campaign needs a totally different creative approach. Over the years, numerous approchs and
guidelines have been developed for creating approach. Over the years, numerous approaches
and guidelines have been developed for creating effective advertising, but there is no magic
formula in this trade.
A number of creative people believe in safety and follow proven approaches to creating ads.as
mentioned earlier, because of their thinking style, many clients feel uneasy with advertising that
is strikingly different. Many creative people are of the opinion that it is important for clients to
take some risks if they really desire outstanding advertising that captures attention and is
remembered. According to jeff Jensen, weiden & kennedy agency’s founders believe that a key
factor to their success has been a firm belief in taking risks when most agencies and their clients
have become more conservative in their approach to advertising. This agency gives more
importance to creative work than the client-agency relationship. There are instances when this
agency has terminated relationships with large clients when they interfered too much with the
creative process.
Of course, all companies and advertising agencies do not agress that advertising has to be risky
to be effective. Many marketing executives feel that they invest huge amounts of money in
advertising to sell the product and not to finance the whims and fancies of their advertising
agencu’s creative staff. They feel more at ease with advertising that simply communicates the
features and benefits of a product or service, and gives the consumer a reason to buy.
The most important product ingredient that an agency offers is creativity and this is the major
component on which most agencies thrive. For this reason, the agencies must create an
environment that encourages creative thinking and creative advertising. Though the client has
the final authority to accept or reject the advertising, clients must appreciate the differences
between the perspectives of the creative specialists and the marketing personnel. The opinions
of creative specialists must be accorded due consideration while evaluating the ideas and
content.

The creative process: most ads are the result of much sweat, tears and persistence. Many
advertising professionals are of the opinion that creativity in advertising can best be viewed as a
process and that creativesucess is mostly achieved by following an organized approach. There is
‘though’ no infallible formula that guarantees the creation of effective advertising. As
mentioned earlier, many advertising professionals reject attempts to standardize creativity or
develop any rules.