MKB2704 Producing a Unified

and Consistent
Week 5
Creative Strategy
Lecture Outline & Goals
Purpose
• To introduce ways to connect consumers’ understanding
of product benefits to personal values.
Outline
• Distinguish message strategy, ad appeal, and executional
frameworks.
• Review the main strategies for messages – cognitive,
affective, behavioural.
• Discuss the different types of ad appeals.
• Explore the role of executional frameworks and specific
framework types.
Message Strategies – Cognitive
Overview
• Presents argument rationally; assumes audience rational.
Demands cognitive processing, which takes effort.
Different Types
• Generic messages present factual claims without stating
superiority.
• Preemptive messages claim superiority, prevents
competition from making similar claim.
• Unique selling proposition (USP) is a testable claim.
• Hyperbole is untestable claim.
• Comparative advertising compares with competition.
Dell & Qantas
Colgate & Coke Zero
Altoids & Delta Airlines
Verizon
Apple
Message Strategies – Affective
Overview
• Tries to evoke feelings or emotions; enhances likeability
of product or brand.
• Feelings and emotions must match brand, consumer.
• Enhances recall of the ad or appeal.
Techniques
• Connecting a product or brand with experiences to
develop stronger ties is a resonance advertising
strategy. Using vintage messages is comfort marketing.
• Emotional affective techniques evoke strong emotions to
improve product recall and choice.
Kellogg’s & Olay
Bacardi
Michelin & Quit Smoking
Message Strategies – Behavioural
Overview
• Designed to lead to some type of consumer response.
• Can be used to support other promotional efforts such as
coupons, in-store offers, discounts, etc.
Main Forms
• Action-inducing
• Promotional support
Norton & Acura
Netflix
Lollies @ Cashier
McDonald’s
Appeals
• Aim to influence the way consumers see themselves and
how buying brand or product offers benefits.
• Message conveyed influences the purchase decision.
• A way of persuading people to buy certain brands and
products.
• Designed in a way to create a positive image of people
who use brand or product.
Appeals – Different Types
Rational Appeals
• Aim to get customers to think about the information.
• Customers must be high on motivation, ability, and
opportunity.
• Useful for products that are complex, high involvement.
• Can change attitudes long-term.
Emotional Appeals
• Can be key to brand loyalty.
• Aim to increase customer-brand bonding.
• But must be repeated for long-term attitude change.
Appeal Types – Fear
• Fear appeals are common. Increases interest and is
memorable.
• Severity is level of consequence. Vulnerability is
probability of event occurring.
• Response efficacy is likelihood that a positive change
will take place.
• Intrinsic/extrinsic reward
• Response costs
• Self-efficacy
• Response efficacy
Appeal Types – Fear
Gerber Life Insurance
Wear a Helmet
Quit Smoking
Appeal Types – Humour
• Excellent for getting and keeping attention.
• Used in 30% of TV and radio commercials.
• Causes consumers to watch, laugh, and remember.
• Advantages include interest, greater
recall/comprehension, more positive mood.
• Disadvantages include possible offense, overpowering,
especially when used cross-culturally.
DHL
Appeal Types – Sex
• Increases attention and physiological arousal.
• Can break advertising clutter.
• But lowers brand recall (more recall of sex image),
problems with cultural/societal trends, gender/culture
stereotyping, body self-esteem.
• Some approaches include:
• Subliminal techniques
• Sensuality
• Sexual suggestiveness
• (Partial) nudity
• Overt sexuality
• Decorative models
Victoria’s Secret & Paco Rabanne
Appeal Types – Scarcity
• Based on limited supply.
• Based on limited time to purchase.
• Often tied with promotion tools such as contests,
sweepstakes, coupons.
• Encourages customers to take action.
Izzo’s & Ikea
Executional Framework
• The manner in which an ad appeal is presented,
structured, conveyed.
• Captures interest, creates desire, motivates purchase.
• Translates consumers’ understanding of benefits into
relevant values.
• Used as leverage point
in MECCAS between
consumer benefits and
personal value.
• Chosen after ad appeal is
selected.
Executional Frameworks
Technique Brief description Appeal type
Animation Stylised execution Emotional
Slice of life Product solves a problem in a real- Emotional/
life, everyday situation rational
Storytelling Putting the brand in the Emotional
background or peripheral
Testimonial Person, staff or celebrity discusses Emotional/
personal satisfaction rational
Authoritative Authority to convey superiority. Rational
Demonstration “Seeing is believing”: Showing the Rational/
product in existence, how it’s used. emotional
Fantasy Life audience beyond real world. Emotional
Informative Sells in a straightforward manner. Rational
Animation Framework
• Originally used by firms with small advertising budgets.
• Use has since increased due to computer graphics and
modern technology.
• Rotoscoping and clay animation are popular.
Rotoscoping
Rotoscoping
Pillsbury
Slice of Life Framework
• Presents everyday people in an everyday situation, like
riding in a car with friends, with brand providing solution.
• Encounter
• Problem
• Interaction
• Solution
• P&G came up with the framework in the 1950s.
• Particularly effective for women when selling cars.
“Women respond when an advertiser fits the car into
consumers’ lifestyles instead of putting it on a sporty
pedestal with overly gorgeous models” (Brandweek).
Proctor & Gamble
Mr. Clean
Westpac
Storytelling Framework
• The brand or product is in the background or periphery of
a “story.”
• Unlike slice of life, brand or product does not solve a
problem. But, used to convey product attributes and
benefits, show how it is used to attain certain values.
BMW
Testimonial Framework
• A “man on the street” or a celebrity praises the product or
service.
• The spokesperson who endorses the product need not be
famous. Can be everyday consumer to whom the target
audience can relate.
• The framework implies that if the product worked for this
person, it will work for you.
• Enhances brand credibility.
• Especially successful for B2B and services.
Credence Attributes
First Bank
California Bank
Authoritative Framework
• Advertiser convinces viewers that product or brand
superior to others.
• Expert authority (e.g., dentists, doctors, engineers,
scientists) talk about brand’s advantages over others.
• May include scientific or survey evidence.
Sensodyne
Demonstration Framework
• Shows the product in use to illustrate performance and
effectiveness.
• Television and video (including online video) are the best
media for demonstrations.
• This framework is a favourite for cleaning products of all
kinds (household, laundry, automotive). Just think about
all those crazy gadgets you see on TV infomercials—“It
slices, it dices, it washes your car.…”
Fantasy Framework
• Designed to “lift” the audience beyond the real world to a
make-believe experience.
• Common themes are sex, love, romance.
• Popular in perfume and cosmetics industries.
Paco Rabanne
Informative Framework
• Uses research and evidence to show the brand’s
superiority in a straightforward manner.
• Consumers who are highly involved pay attention to
informative ads.
• Popular with pharmaceutical, food, beauty industries.
• For example, when the German pharmaceuticals maker
Beiersdorf relaunched its Nivea Baby line of skin care
products in Europe, it put a greater emphasis on the line’s
extensive dermatological testing.
Molson Canadian
Vegemite
Victoria Bitter
The Consistency Triangle
• Message consistency is
when what the company
says is reinforced by what
they do and by what others
say about them.
• Triangle represents three
points at which messages
“come together” to ensure
strategic consistency and
synergy.
Means-End

Personal values

Consequences
(Benefits)

Product attributes
Means-End & MECCAS
• Means (the message) lead to end-state (personal value).
• Used to developing marketing communications
strategy. A process known as Means-End
Conceptualization of Components of Advertising
Strategy (MECCAS).
• Product attributes
• Consumer benefits
• Leverage points
• Personal values
• Executional framework
MECCAS for Coke
MECCAS for Coke Zero
Credit Cards
Benefit
• Pay later
Value
• Stress-free, worry-free
Leverage Point
• Linking pay later to stress/worry-free lifestyle.
Executional Framework
• Message strategy?
• Ad appeal?
• Executional framework?
 MasterCard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfel3Kd-IUg
 Visa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzHHFmnQxxU
American Express
 UnionPay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM7-hvzwqaA
Non-Fat Yogurts
Benefit
• Controlling weight
Value
• Physical health
Leverage Point
• Linking weight control to physical health through
satisfaction with lifestyle, living life to fullest, etc.
Executional Framework
• Message strategy?
• Ad appeal?
• Executional framework?
 Müllerlight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLuu2h3Q9Qc
 Oikos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgzYJZyabio
 Chobani

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9GZrVxIIbU
 Continental

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL91xxuUGpU
Dairy Farmers
 Jim Beam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwh-7PZxDcg
 Belong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4OEtRa10DA
 Lexus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOFVApAKbHw
Next week…
The (Traditional)
Media Strategy for
Advertising