Advertising & Media

Unit 3
Objective Setting & Budgets
Dev. Adv. Research, Fundamentals of
AD Campaign, objectives & budgets,
allocating promotional budgets, Etc….
Developing Advertising Research

• Advertising is a functional part of any business organization.

• Huge sums of money are spent to create ads and to buy market space in order to
achieve effective communication with the target audience.

• These marketing communications are a risk that an organization takes since they
do not know what impact it would create.

• Therefore, companies follow a systematic procedure and gather information from

secondary and primary sources so as to be able to take correct marketing
decisions.
• Advertising Strategy Research is a subset of marketing research which
systematically gathers and analyses information to help develop or evaluate
advertising strategies, individual ads or the entire advertising campaigns.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQovoot_ZUM (Coca Cola’s Ad Campaign – Before

trying actual product – CokeZero)
Steps to conduct a Advertising Research

1. Conduct a pre-campaign advertising research

• The advertising research carried out before the campaign is about understanding
your audience.

• There will be different groups of prospects and customers.

• The research should uncover the different market segments so you can target your
campaign at specific groups.
Pre-Campaign research can be conducted through

• Surveys (online websites, in malls, meeting potential consumers f-2-f, etc…)

• Through google analytics (through traffic / interest shown on your website, type
of customers scanning the site etc….)

• Keyword research – An SEO can help you analyze what customers are
interested in, relative level of interest, language and mood of potential consumer
etc….(used by Magicbricks).

• Customer reviews – common problems, suggestions, desires, product review

etc…
• Q & A sites like Quora, where society answers questions, discuss topics, verify
claims etc….

• Competitor Analysis – Looking at what the competitor is doing, observing his

product / service reviews, Social media discussions, etc….

• Through Cold calling or email campaigns (especially famous in UK and US).

• Through traditional strategies like newspaper, magzines etc…..(Tata Zest key

being stuck to the newspaper Ad – which gives you a free test drive, Burger King
offering buy one get one free (if you cut the Ad and get it to it’s outlet within a
specified time period etc….)

• Through Radio or T.V ad’s announcing flash sales, time-bound discounts etc….
• Syndicated data Government data and other private market research firms,
conducting market survey, market analysis, studying demand trends, etc….

• Social Intelligence studying social media websites, blogs, tweets, social media
influencers etc….

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_1T_xPpAwo (Mike Bloomberg’s 2020 U.S.

Presidential Campaign Ad)

2. Conducting Post-Campaign Advertising Research

• Campaign analysis is a simple task for a social intelligence platform and by

combining it with other data you can build up an accurate picture of the response
to your campaign.
• If you have set up UTM ("Urchin Traffic Monitor“) codes your web analytics will be
able to tell you how traffic came to your site, and if it was as a result of your
campaign.

• Email automation software will tell you open rates and click-thru rates.

• Social intelligence can help to understand some solid campaign metrics

(volume of mention, share of voice, reach, engagement, news coverage,

purchase intent, sentiment & emotional response, Brand associations)

and provide a deeper understanding of the effect the campaign had.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymLRhJvfQDY (AHM Ad Campaign

Analysis)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZsVORnp0kI (KFC India Boosted its Social

Media Presence)
Developing an Advertising Strategy / Fundamentals of Ad Campaign

• Every business or product needs promotion for reaching out to the consumers.
Advertising strategy is created to fulfill this very purpose.

• The period of an advertising strategy may range from a few months to a year.

Steps to develop an advertising strategy:

1. Defining the Product or Service

• Before developing the plans and strategies for advertising, the product or service
offered by the company should be clearly defined.

• This means that the position of the product in the market is to be determined.
• You have to understand the product and its customer base for effectively
marketing it to the people at large.

• It is also important to understand the primary objective of the product or

company.

2. Understanding the target audience

• This is an important step in creating a strategy for advertising.

• Various factors are to be considered for determining the target audience such as
demographic factors, psychographic factors, behavioral patterns, etc.

• The advertising plan is created after considering these factors.

For e.g. cosmetic and beauty products are aimed at the women audience.

• The advertising strategy is derived accordingly.

3. Market research

• Once the target market is determined, the next step is to study the market for that
particular product.

• Research about the products already available in the market, what problems are
faced in getting those products, what does the consumer desire from such
products and such other issues.

• A marketing and advertising plan can be derived with the help of this study.

• Also, find out the latest trends in the market.

4. Developing a marketing plan

• The strategies formed with the help of market research can be put down as the
plan of action for marketing the product.

• This means, a marketing plan is created after determining the current trends in
the market.

• The marketing plan aims to create a niche of the product so that it stands out
among the competition.

• The plan of action also helps to establish the positioning of product.

5. Deciding communication media

• The marketing plan is put to action using various channels of communication. It is

important to choose the right media or a media mix for advertising.

• This depends on the product or service that is being marketed. The choice of the
medium is made after considering the target audience and market research.

• If a physiology equipment is to be marketed, its advertisement will be put up as

flyers or brochures in a doctor’s clinic or hospitals; in health magazines and
websites and so on.
6. Budget

• The budget may be determined either before or after creating an advertising

strategy. It can be based on the resources available to the company.

• If the company has an expensive budget, they can carry out high impact
advertising extensively. They can create effective advertising strategy without
worrying about the finance.

• On the other hand, if the company has limited budget, that alone dictates the
advertising strategy. Because, at every step of the market plan and advertising
strategy, they have to consider the budget.
7. Marketing methods

• Company can consider from among two types of methods to advertise while
creating the strategy.

• They are push method and pull method.

• They can decide to go with either depending on their strategy and objective.

• Push method aims to convince the retailers or sales person to promote the
product, whereas pull method is directly aimed at the consumers.

8. Modifying advertising strategy

• This process does not end on creating and implementing the advertising strategy.

• One has to stay in touch with the trends in marketing and modify the marketing
strategy time to time.
Big Idea Analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4Xuc972rKA (8.47 Min)

Four Big Ideas for your Campaign

• Without a clear, impactful and differentiated concept, there is substantially less

chance a campaign will pierce through the noise and generate the desired
attention from the target audience.

• That's why you need a big idea.

• The creative element of any campaign is by far one of the most enjoyable.
However, the process of coming up with a big idea can also be a little daunting,
especially with so much at stake.
• Whether agency or client-side there will be many interested stakeholders involved,
each with an opinion or point of view.

• So, in this post, we’re going to look at some of the key steps in the development of
a big idea to help provide some structured thinking around the process.

What is a ‘Big Idea’?

• Any new campaign will need a hook or theme that you’ll want people to recall,
share and act upon.

• A campaign’s big idea is the overarching message that underpins all elements of
a campaign in order to resonate with the target audience.

• The big idea will need to be rooted in a piercing insight and linked to the
campaign’s objectives to ensure it has maximum impact and relevance.
• The big idea should be an overarching concept that can stretch across all media
so that it’s not just limited to one channel, for example, TV or radio. In this context
the big idea can sometimes be referred to interchangeably with the term
‘experience idea’ because it marks the transition from strategy to execution:
• The goal is to develop an idea that is joined up and integrated with all other relevant
channels, rather than a series of separate executions that have a tenuous
relationship with one another.

• This approach will put you in a stronger position to engage consumers meaningfully
in the places that matter.

Explaining “Big Idea” (with Example)

• BelVita, owned by Mondelez International, were looking to bring their breakfast

biscuit to market in the US at a time when there were many established direct
competitors offering similar products.

• BelVita knew that launching in such a competitive environment would be tough and
therefore needed a big idea that could help them stand out from the crowd.
1. Start with a Clear brief / challenge

• The big idea starts with the definition of the challenge and the creation of a clear
brief for everyone involved.

• If you’re working with an agency, or group of agencies, then the brief is a critical
step as it will help ensure that there is clarity around what you’re looking to
achieve.

• belVita’s challenge was to create significant brand awareness, engagement and

trial in a crowded marketplace and therefore the brief was most likely to come up
with a differentiated big idea that ran counter to every other brand was talking
about, i.e. that the morning was something to survive and get through.
During the briefing stage there are two key areas of focus:

• What are you looking to achieve? Be clear about what you ultimately want to
achieve by the end of the campaign so there is total clarity and focus.

• For belVita, they wanted to do more than just simply introduce the brand to
America.

• Instead, they wanted to make a statement by creating buzz and engagement and
generate trial and sales.

• Who is your audience? It’s important to paint a clear picture of who you’re
looking to target with your campaign.
• An understanding of who your audience is, including their likes, dislikes,
motivations and lifestyles will enable you to craft your big idea accordingly.

• belVita defined their audience as ‘morning optimists’, a group of people who were
positive, ambitious but also constantly busy with very hectic lifestyles.

2. Uncover a compelling Insight

• The next task is to uncover a piece of sharp, compelling insight that encapsulates
a real truth and problem to solve for the consumer.

• This is usually achieved through extensive research in relation to both the target
audience and the overall product/ service category related to the campaign.
• In belVita’s case they discovered that $1bn was spent every year to advertise the
benefits of breakfast foods and therefore consumers were being bombarded with
very similar messages.

• Whilst most brands talked about mornings as a problem, belVita’s own research
revealed that consumers felt breakfast was very important because they wanted to
accomplish a bigger goal in the morning.

• In other words, the morning was not a problem to be overcome but a fresh
opportunity to accomplish things.
3. Find the Brand Connection

• The insight discovered in the previous stage enables a brand to start

brainstorming ideas and solutions to challenge the consumer problem or need.

• With the knowledge that many consumers want to start the morning positively and
seize the day, belVita started moving towards the idea that their breakfast biscuits
give people the energy to fuel a series of victories throughout the morning.

• This strategic idea, combined with their insight, led to the creation of a new kind of
morning campaign for a new kind of morning brand.
4. Articulate the idea clearly and briefly

• The test of how well a big idea will resonate and translate across channels is whether
the connection between the insight and brand connection and the proposed execution
can be distilled clearly and succinctly on one page:
• Ask yourself whether the idea would make sense if shared on Twitter with friends.
If not, it’s possible the idea is not distinct or memorable and therefore unlikely to
have the power to make an impact.

• belVita’s ultimate big idea was to celebrate real morning wins with the creation of
a new, fresh communications approach that would embed their message into the
mornings of real people:

• If we take the framework above and apply this to the belVita case study it might
look something like this:

(See Next Slide)

• With a strong, single-minded big idea in place, belVita moved to execution, setting
an ambitious target to ‘own the morning’.

• To drive cultural relevance of #MorningWin and amplify the campaign through

culture, the brand created linked content across a range of channels, including TV,
digital, radio and social, as well as leveraging morning radio shows, Tumblr and
Buzzfeed to showcase unbranded content related to the campaign’s theme.

• The strength of the big idea meant the creative could stretch naturally across
multiple formats, including a real-time social response campaign featuring both
digital and physical rewards for user-generated #MorningWins.
• The creation of a ‘big idea’ is not a straightforward task and involves multiple
stages and stakeholders.

• Whether you’re creating an idea internally or in partnership with an agency it takes

discipline and a clear focus on the campaign’s brief and objectives.

• However, the development of an effective big idea enables a brand to develop a

campaign with a clear creative focus with a joined upset of executions that are
much more likely to have an impact and resonate with the target audience.
Establishing Objectives & Budgeting for Promotional Programs

1. Communications

• The advertising and promotional program must be coordinated within the

company, inside the ad agency, and between the two.

• Many problems can be avoided if all parties have written, approved objectives to
guide their actions and serve as a common base for discussing issues related to
the promotional program
2. Planning and Decision Making

• Promotional planners are often faced with a number of strategic and tactical options in
terms of choosing creative options, selecting media, and allocating the budget among
various elements of the promotional mix.

• Choices should be made based on how well particular strategy matches the firm’s
promotional objectives.

3. Measurement & Evaluation of Results

• An important reason for setting specific objectives is that they provide a benchmark
against which the success or failure of the promotional campaign can be measured.

• Without specific objectives, it is extremely difficult to determine what the firm’s

advertising and promotion efforts accomplished.

• One characteristic of good objectives is that they are measurable.

Establishing and Allocating Promotional Budget

While establishing objectives is an important part of the planning process, the

limitations of the budget are important too. No organization has an unlimited budget,
so objectives must be set with the budget in mind.

Budget Setting Approaches

1. Marginal Analysis

• As Adv. / Promotional expenditures increase, sales and gross margins

also increase to a point, but then they level off.

• Profits are shown to be a result of the gross margin minus advertising

expenditures. (P = GM – AE)
• Using this theory to establish its budget, a firm would continue to spend
advertising / promotional dollars as long as the marginal revenues created by
these expenditures exceeded the incremental advertising / promotional costs.

• The optimal expenditure level is the point where the marginal cost equals the
marginal revenue.
2. Top-Down Method

• In this approach the budgetary amount is established (usually at an executive

level) and then the monies are passed down to the various departments.

• These budgets are essentially predetermined and have no true theoretical basis.

Top-down methods include

a) the affordable method -- “all you can afford method”

b) arbitrary allocation – Mgt. decides and allots on what it feels is necessary.

c) percentage of sales -- % of sales OR fixed unit product cost to production * no. of

units sold.

d) competitive parity – match competitors % of sales expenditure, and

e) return on investment (ROI) – Adv. And Sales are considered investments and it’s
returns are measured over a period of time.
2. Bottom-up Approach

• The major flaw associated with the top-down methods is that these judgmental
approaches lead to predetermined budget appropriations often not linked to objectives
and the strategies designed to accomplish them.

• A more effective budgeting strategy would be to consider the firm’s communications

objectives and budget what is deemed necessary to attain these goals.

a) Objective and Task Method

• The objective and task method of budget setting uses a build-up approach
consisting of three steps:

i) Defining the communications objectives to be accomplished

ii) Determining the specific strategies and tasks needed to attain them

iii) Estimating the costs associated with performance of these strategies and tasks.

• The total budget is based on the accumulation of these costs.

The process involves the following steps:

• Isolate objectives.

• Determine tasks required

• Estimate required expenditures

• Monitor

• Re-evaluate objectives

b) Payout planning

• To determine how much to spend, marketers often develop a payout plan

that determines the investment value of the advertising and promotion
appropriation.
• The basic idea is to project the revenues the product will generate, as well as the
costs it will incur, over two to three years.

• Based on an expected rate of return, the payout plan will assist in determining
how much advertising and promotions expenditure will be necessary when the
return might be expected.

c) Quantitative Method

• Attempts to apply quantitative models to budgeting have met with limited success.

• For the most part, these methods employ computer simulation models involving
statistical techniques such as multiple regression analysis to determine the
• relative contribution of the advertising budget to sales.

• Because of problems associated with these methods, their acceptance has been
limited

Allocating the Budget

• The allocation decision involves determining which markets, products, and / or

promotional elements will receive which amounts of the funds appropriated.
Below are some of the basis for allocation of IMC budget:

• Allocating to IMC Elements

• Client / Agency Policies

• Market Size

• Market Potential

• Market Share Goals

• Economies of Scale in Advertising

• Organizational Characteristics

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