MODULE 3: BRAND RESEARCH AND
characteristics and composition of a product or
CONSUMER INSIGHTS
Importance of Research
• Research gives marketers exactly what is needed to
connect brands with individuals and IMC programs
with target audiences.
• Identifying problem and opportunities in the
market
- It helps in identifying new market opportunities
for existing and new products. It provides
information on market share, nature of
competition, customer satisfaction levels, sales
performances and channel of distribution.
• For Effective Communication Mix
- Marketing research uses promotional research to
study media mix, advertising effectiveness and
integrated communication tools. Research on
such aspects will help in promoting effectively a
company’s product in the market.
• Determining consumer needs and wants
- Marketing research helps in collecting
information on consumers from structured
distribution research and helps in making
marketing customer oriented.
Categories of Marketing Research
There are three primary categories of marketing research;
• Industry
• Product
• Consumer
Each category provides us with valuable information to
make effective management decisions especially for IMC.
Marketing Research
• Industry Research – gathers facts about the size of
the market, number of competitors, leading brands,
and details about recent trends or challenges that are
emerging. Industry research also includes
information about new product developments,
technological applications for productivity, and
executive profiles.
• Product Research – gets into the physical
service. It is kind of x-ray examination of the
contents, ingredients, design, construction, and
functionality.
• Consumer Research – is the most useful form of
marketing research for IMC planning. It provides
valuable data about existing customers and potential
buyers, as well as insights into their actions and
behavior. Consumer research also enables company
executives, small business owners, and entrepreneurs
to discover new marketing opportunities with
innovative strategies.
Secondary Information Research
• Secondary research includes hundreds of thousands
of different documents, publications, and reference
sources. Most can easily be obtained online, but many
charge for their usage. The secondary research
categories include: government documents, industry
associations, syndicated reports, business
publications, academic journals, and consulting
company analyses.
• Government Documents – The government is the
single biggest source of secondary research
information. It is offered free, or at a very nominal
cost compared to research information. The majority
of the information that is used by advertising agencies
and corporations is obtained from the Dept. of
Census, Dept. of Commerce, or the Dept. of
Agriculture.
• Industry Association – Every industry has a
professional association that requires membership to
receive its services. While it’s most significant
function is to lobby for laws and regulations that are
favorable for the association’s membership. The
association frequently hires independent research
companies, used its own employees, to conduct
studies on topics of interest.
• Business Publications – include sales promotion,
new product introductions, technological
developments, and a variety of feature stories. Each
online source or magazine has several editions during
the year that provide summary of the leading
companies, brands and executives. There are
publications for the travel, tourism, banking, and
 restaurant industries, plus media that is even focused
on the channels of distributions.
• Academic Journals – While academic journals are
often theoretical and limited in their applications,
these publications can still provide a broad
framework and better understanding of industry
problems and challenges. These academic papers are
particularly useful when the information is relevant,
recent, and comprehensive.
• Library Archives – The last stop on the research
train. Libraries in large metropolitan cities, public
universities and private institutes where an enormous
amount of printed and digital information is stored.
While most of the publications and reports can be
accessed online, there are many expensive reference
books and proprietary documents that can be viewed
during a physical visit.
Primary Insight Research
• There are many techniques used to collect primary
marketing research information, but the most popular
ones are: focus groups, personal interviews, and
survey research. This trio provides a balanced
perspective of consumers’ attitudes, beliefs, and
opinions on product categories and specific brands.
The information needs of the company, or agency,
will limit the amount of time and money allocated to
primary research, since the “true value” of the
information cannot be determined until after the
research is concluded or interpreted
• Focus groups – is to share individual beliefs and
attitudes about brands and product usage, a well
organized set of questions must be prepared in
advance. The best approach is to begin the discussion
with a few general questions, and later, move into
more specific and focused topics. A focus group lasts
for one to two hours, which gives everyone plenty of
time to talk and share their thoughts. It is the
responsibility of the moderator of the group to move
steadily through the topics and questions without
spending unnecessary time.
• Personal Interviews – Talking directly to a customer
or prospective buyer is the single most effective way
to get a realistic perspective of any marketing
environment. The problem is the cost and time
involved. It can be very expensive to find and recruit
people for an interview and even more expensive to
hire a professional research interviewer. The process
of asking people questions can be a challenge,
especially when you do not want to influence their
answers. The interviewer has to do more listening
than talking and always be alert for opportunities to
learn more.
• Survey Research – Online technology makes this
one of the fastest, easiest, and least expensive
methods of collecting a small, but sufficient, amount
of data about customers and potential buyers. It all
begins with a questionnaire, but that is more complex
than you think. The problem is the amount of time
that people are willing to spend completing the
questionnaire. It has been conducted using paper
forms, mailed to a pre-screened list of people with
large sample size.
Applying Research to IMC Planning
• The foundation of marketing research for IMC can be
condensed into five simple but essential words: who,
what, why, where and when? The primary and
secondary demographic data collected and analyzed
from consumer research is strategically applied for
both preliminary media and creative planning.
• Creative Brand Messages – The reason for a
consumer purchase it the basis of insight research.
That is why focus groups, personal interviews, and
projective techniques are used to get inside the mind
of a consumer. Anything that helps to get the
messages across to the target audience is a valuable
discovery.
• Media Delivery methods – Psychographics provides
one of the most useful pieces of information for
making media decisions. This segmentation factor
identifies the target audience profile for a potential
buyer based on attitudes, lifestyle, personality, and
other behavioral characteristics. The media that is
finally selected targets the people who are most likely
to purchase the advertiser’s brand.
 MODULE 4 TARGET AUDIENCES
AND MARKET SEGMENTATION
Importance of Segmentation
• The segmentation of audience groups is one of the
most powerful ways to effectively develop IMC. This
process is absolutely essential for creative advertising
and media decisions, as well as planning sales
promotion, public relations, brand visibility, and
digital media activities. And, the more precise the
segmentation, the greater the effectiveness of the IMC
programs.
• Market Segmentation is a result of five business
realities. First, and most important is the cost of
advertising media. Second is the relevancy of creative
content. Third the affordability of brands for people
with different incomes or socioeconomic status,
influences company sales and profit potential. Fourth
is the positioning of products within the marketplace.
And finally, fifth is the maximum marketing budget
approved for a brand or a company.
Segmentation Categories
• There are four major segmentation categories that can
be used to distinguish differences among consumers:
demographic, geographic, psychographic, and
purchase/usage. While each category adds a new
dimension, the combination provides and insightful
perspective of shoppers, buyers, and prospects. They
are the framework for planning every IMC strategy
and program, but there are many different ways to use
and structure segmentation.
• Demographic Segmentation – The identification,
selection, and insightful application of marketing
research data based on the physical and social
characteristics of people. And, there are ten
demographic categories: age, gender, income, marital
status, family composition, ethnicity, race, religion,
sexual identity, physical attributes.
• Age – How does the age of an individual influence the
planning of media advertising and other IMC
programs? It is all about dividing ages into a number
of different categories. There are several ways of
doing this, but the main idea is to make the divisions
as small as possible, but realistic for intelligent
consumer analysis.
• Gender – This segmentation category is split into two
nearly halves. However, when paired with age and
income, the profile of males and females will be
remarkably different. The creative messages and
media selected should always be appeal to one group
more than another.
• Income – The purpose of segmenting by income
primarily connected to the affordability factor of a
product or service. It does not need to have rigid
criteria. But, the amount of disposable or available
income will influence a brand’s sale forecast.
• Marital Status – The division of this category are
obvious. Single versus married. But also, divorced
and widowed. As population gets older, beliefs and
attitudes change, which result in different numbers in
each subcategory.
• Family Composition – Family composition is a
mixture of the number of children, their ages, and
gender. As you can imagine, a completely different set
of consumer needs and wants exist, depending on
which subgroups are targeted for marketing brands.
• Ethnic Association – A reflection of cultural heritage
and ancestral background. There are ethnic
predispositions that can influence a consumer’s
decision-making process. They can be real or
imagined, perceived and imitated, but there is always
a certain amount of stereotyping about attitudinal
behavior.
• Race – There is no doubt that this segmentation
category can be viewed as controversial, but it is only
a method used to connect brands and people based on
what is important to them. The most important goal
for any IMC program or activity is to deliver the right
message to the right audience at the right time and in
the right place.
• Religion – A person’s religion is a pretty minor
consideration, compared to in previous years and
circumstances.
• Sexual Identity – As legal barriers and personal
prejudices are reduced, marketing and advertising
campaigns targeting these consumers will
dramatically increase.
• Type of Residence – The size, location, and age of
your residence are all factors important to brands that
specialize in housing products and services. This
include interior items, such as appliances, lighting,
flooring, and furniture, as well as exterior.
• Physical Attributes – The clothing industry has plenty
of opportunities to specialize in products that are
based on variations in physical attributes. It is not a
common marketing strategy, but there are a few
aspects that subtly flow into the photos and images
contained and advertising, promotion, and digital
media.
• Geographic Segmentation –Most of the traditional
categories are created by different levels of
government, such as states, counties, cities and
villages.
• Psychographic Segmentation – explores the mental
or cognitive aspects. This method of segmenting
consumers is a collection of several sociological,
psychological, and anthropological attributes. Each
attributes provides another perspective of potential
target audiences and helps advertisers to better
understand the mindset of their customers.
• Personality – Using personality as a method of
psychographic segmentation is a surprisingly
effective way to humanize numbers and descriptions.
The essence of an individual’s personality can
actually be compressed into a single word or phrase.
• Lifestyle – The way people work, spend their time and
interact with others are the best ways to describe a
lifestyle. The list is long, from sports to hobbies, and
from traditional routines to adventures. And, even
within a lifestyle, such as sporting activities, there are
variations and multiple levels.
• Values – People normally have for sources of values:
personal, family, institutional, and cultural. While
values can be a method of segmentation, it is
extremely hard to quantify them for individuals, but
easier for larger groups or clusters of people. There
are other ways to use this for creative and media
planning, especially for the selection of message tone,
delivery style, and visual images.
• Purchase/Usage Segmentation – This type of
segmentation involves how consumers use a brand
and why they purchased it. There are 4 different
categories of purchase/use segmentation: buyer
status, purchase rate, purchase occasion, and reason
for purchase. Each of these categories can be further
divided to better identify and differentiate among
demographic and psychographic groups.
• Buyer Status Segmentation – Buyer status
segmentation categories include : first-time buyers,
brand switchers, brand loyal and not interested. This
segmentation is based on marketing research and
incorporated into the strategic communication
planning process.
• Purchase Rate Segmentation – How often a
customer returns to buy a product or service is a
predictor of its success in the market. This can be
reflected in the number of units sold, profit, or market
shares. But the actual amount that is purchased on a
regular basis, as well as the rate of usage, needs to be
estimated.
• Reason for purchase – This important type of
segmentation is matched to psychographics and
consumer-need fulfilment. These purchase
motivations are an important component for a brand
brief, and most certainly influence the visual and
verbal composition of advertising.
Developing Audience Profile
• Knowing who is buying a particular brand, and why,
is only the beginning of effective IMC planning. The
first phase is to review the target audience profile for
current purchases of a brand. Advertisers need to
evaluate a brand’s success and competitive
performance in the marketplace. IMC agencies are
required to substantiate their continuing effectiveness
in delivering brand messages and achieving
measurable results.
• Current Customers – This is a brand’s reality. This
segmentation profile of current customers indicates
who is buying the product or service, why they are
buying it, and how they use it. This segmentation
profile provides an excellent perspective for planning
brand advertising, sales promotion, brand visibility,
public relations, and digital media strategies.
• Competitive Brands – This information isn’t a trade
secrets, because a wellplanned marketing research
project can quickly develop a suitable competitive
 profile. As might be expected, every company is
doing the same thing by trying to learn mode about
shoppers, buyers, and loyal customers.
• Strategic Focus – After a brand examines
segmentation profiles of its own customer, and
analyzes the strengths and weakness of competitive
brands in each segmentation category, a new strategic
focus should emerge.
• Media Composition – The segmentation profile of
media audiences is just as important as a company’s
brand. Media companies cannot effectively sell or
promote their products or services to agencies without
a brand profile. Advertisers and agencies must be
vigilant about the truth of media statements because
each company is manipulating the audience
information.
MODULE 5 ADVERTISING
CAMPAIGNS
What is Media Planning?
• Media planning is the process by which marketers
determine where, when, and how often they will run
an advertisement in order to maximize engagements
and ROI. The media plan might split advertising
spend and resources between various online and
offline channels such as broadcast, print, paid ads,
video ads or native content.
• In today’s competitive marketing landscape,
marketers need to serve consumers with the right
message, at the right time, on the right channel in
order to see engagements. Media planning is where
marketers determine what these “rights” are.

• The most successful IMC programs are based on

using two separate, but related, target audiences: The Media Planning Process
primary and secondary. This distinction enables
• This is separate from the creative development of
advertisers and IMC planners to appeal to both
advertising materials, yet it is a part of the overall
groups, but to prioritize their target audience. The
Advertising Plan. It is not based on finding the lowest
amount of money that will be allocated and the
price or the largest audience. It does not include
sequence of IMC spending is also an important
selecting your favorite programs, television shows, or
strategic decision involving primary and secondary
magazines. Media planning is a methodical series of
target audiences.
activities that begins with research and ends with
analytics.
• Primary Profile – A primary target audience can be
defined as: “the segmentation profile of people with
• The following eight steps are recommended for
the highest probability of purchasing a brand within a
developing a Media Plan for a brand or small
product category”. And, the secondary target
business: media objectives, budget allocations, media
audience is: “the segmentation profile with a
research, efficiency analysis, price negotiations,
moderate probability of purchase”. The best rule
media contrast, spreadsheet summaries, and
always is to “make it narrow”, because wide
advertising scheduling.
separations will diminish category differences and
dilute the opportunity to find realistic brand
• Media Objectives – Media objectives are very
advantages.
different from advertising objectives. They do not
involve brand awareness, product preference, or
• Secondary Profile – The best approach is to go after
purchase consideration. And they definitely do not
the primary audience before the secondary. Both are
refer to sales, profits, or market share. Media
important but a strong prioritization is necessary. It is
objectives are only concerned with the cost and
not that one will excluded from the other. The primary
relative delivery efficiencies of communicating
audience should always be pursued first, especially
messages through both traditional and digital
when IMC funds are limited or there is intense
channels.
competition among brands within a product category.

• Budget Allocations – There are three majority budget
allocation decisions. First the amount of money that
will be spent on each advertising media. Second,
budget allocations are made for time periods during
the year. Third, the budget allocations can be made
according to geographic areas.
• Media Research – Media research is different from
industry, product, or consumer research. This type of
marketing research concentrates on examining
individual media options.
• Research in media focuses on the communication
process and examines the relationships among the
media organizations and the target audience.
• It’s objective is to get information pertaining to
different mass media like the amount of time people
spend on a particular medium, the effects of various
medium on the society, the content and presentation
of information or the effectiveness of the programs to
the audience.
1. Media Research discovers the trends and bring out
useful information in the field of mass media and
communication
2. Media Research is also used in conducting surveys,
public opinion polls, advertising and public relation
campaigns.
3. Media research helps in making decisions with
respect to the composition and analysis of news,
views and information.
• Efficiency Analysis – It includes the profile of a
target audience, prices for the available media, the
advertising budget, and finally, the number of
impressions delivered by each media choice.
• Price Negotiations – No one expects to pay the full
price and everyone wants a special deal. So, the media
battle begins. Television and radio prices are always
negotiable. Magazine and newspaper prices are not.
• Media Contracts – Before making a commitment,
check the discount rates for advertising volume,
multi-platform ownership, and corporate
arrangements. Most media offer a discount for
advertising volume, or the amount of advertising
dollars spent, especially magazines and newspapers.
The price per page decreases as the number of pages
increases.
• Spreadsheet Summaries – Excel spreadsheets, or
even simple Word tables, are also an important part of
media planning for advertising. The spreadsheets
contain a summary of the cost of the media proposed,
the amount of money for each media commitment,
and the delivery in terms of impressions.
• Advertising Scheduling – Those layouts,
storyboards and scripts will eventually become
commercials and advertisements. And those creative
materials must be assigned to the media that has been
purchased. There are lots of possible combinations of
ads and magazines. The scheduling process becomes
even more difficult when more than one target
audience is used, or more than one brand is being
advertised by the same company.
Magazine Advertising
• There are a great of variety of magazines. Take your
pick from cooking to snowboarding to gardening and
football etc.
• Another important consideration is the number of
pages within a magazine. If there are too many
advertisements, the attractiveness to the reader is
reduced. Too many advertisements also represent
“clutter” to an advertiser. Total circulation of any
magazine is composed of three parts: subscriptions,
single copy sales, and finally, complimentary copies.
• Annual subscriptions are the best indication that
people are interested in receiving a magazine. There
are many other magazines that depend on impulse
buying at newsstands, grocery stores, drug stores, and
other outlets. And finally, there are free copies given
 to people who work at advertising agencies and
corporations or copies that are given away at shows,
special events, or used as part of a media promotion.
Newspaper Advertising
• Newspaper advertising comes in three formats :
display, classified, and preprinted inserts. Display
advertising is very similar to magazine advertising,
while classified advertising is basically a single
column of words without any pictures or illustrations.
Pre-printed inserts are advertising materials such as
catalogs, brochures, or single pages, that are not from
the newspaper
Television Advertising
• In television media, pricing is based on audience size
and composition, plus supply and demand factors,
which results in a complicated formula. And, as with
all media, the larger the size of the audience, the
higher the price for advertising. But, prices are based
on the “estimated” audience sizes, and not the actual
size.
• Television ratings points are used to estimate the
audience size. They are based on previous viewing
histories, time period averages, and results compared
to similar programs. The higher the rating, the greater
the number of people reached by the program or
station.
Outdoor Advertising
• Out-of-home is a marketing communication
• Billboards are considered a semi-permanent form of
Radio Advertising
• Radio is more of a local advertising media. It
offers retailers, small businesses, and
entrepreneurs and excellent, low-cost opportunity
to reach their desired audiences. It is much less
expensive than television, because there are
fewer people reached by this medium. Radio can
connect with its listeners based on lifestyle,
ethnicity, and personal interests.
• Selecting a radio station for a brand is just like
selecting any other media – it comes from
analyzing demographic profiles and advertising
prices. Not personal tastes, or biased preference,
only decisions made from media efficiencies and
communication objectives. The standard radio
commercial is 60 seconds in length.
• This has been traditional pattern, but watch
lengths change as more digital audio streaming
replaces broadcast radio. Besides, longer
commercials give advertisers a better opportunity
to tell their brand story, and create a more natural
listening experience, not an endless flow of ads.
Radio prices are computed from the size of the
listening audience. This depends on the time of
day, or in the language of media, the daypart.
• Fortunately, creating advertising commercials for
radio is fast, easy, and inexpensive. Since the
brand message is primarily copy, perhaps with
some music or a few sound effects, the actual
technical production can be completed in a few
hours, or less. And with digital technology,
everything can be done online, even with live
announcers or pre-recorded audio packages.
opportunity that delivers advertising messages to
large groups of people when they are moving within
public places. Outdoor advertising consists of
billboards, posters, displays, and multiple forms of
transportation. While this media is not often included
in Advertising Plans, it still offers a method of
delivering brand messages and reinforcing images.
advertising. This is because they are purchased for
either three-, six-, or twelve-month periods. Contracts
are required and cannot easily be changed. That is
why you often see billboards for politicians, events,
and festivals displayed for a long time after they are
over.
• Outdoor advertising space is sold to agencies, or
companies, according to the number of “showings”.
This is based on the percentage of billboards around
an entire city or metropolitan area. There is also the
option to purchase individual billboards in high-
traffic areas with excellent visibility. This type of
billboard is expensive and usually requires a two- or
three- year advertising contract.