How To Advertise: An Analysis of Contemporary Advertising (part 22)

The Advertising Plan (part B)

by

Charles Lamson

Advertising Strategy and the Creative Mix

The advertising (or communications) objective declares where the advertiser wants to be with respect to consumer awareness, attitude, and preference; the advertising (or creative) strategy describes how to get there.

Advertising strategy blends the elements of the creative mix: target audience, product concept, communications media, and advertising message.

The Target Audience: Everyone Who Should Know

The target audience, the specific people the advertising will address, is typically larger than the target market. Advertisers need to know who the end user is, who makes the purchase, and who influences the purchasing decision. Children, for example, often assert a strong influence on where the family eats. So while McDonald's target market is adults, its target audience also includes children, and it spends much of its advertising budget on campaigns directed at kids.

Similarly, while companies may target heavy users of a product, many light users and nonusers are exposed to the advertising as well. That's good, because research shows that brand popularity (which advertising is uniquely good at creating) cuts across all levels of purchasing frequency. The dominant brands are purchased the most by both heavy and light users. It is the accumulation of all these sales that makes a product the dominant brand.

The Product Concept: Presenting the Product

The "bundle of values" the advertiser presents to the consumer is the product concept. General Motors markets essentially the same truck to two different audiences but presents two different product concepts. The Silverado is marketed to the vast middle class with ads that stress its rugged, macho durability. Advertising for the Sierra truck, on the other hand, is aimed at white-collar professionals and emphasizes the vehicles snob appeal.

When writing the advertising plan, the advertising manager must develop a simple statement to describe the product concept---that is, how the advertising will present the product. To create this statement, the advertiser first considers how consumers perceive the product and then weighs this against the company's marketing strategy.

The Communications Media: The Message Delivery System

As an element of creative strategy, the communications media are all the vehicles that might transmit the advertiser's message. They included traditional media such as radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, and billboards, plus the Internet, and, in an integrated, communications program, direct marketing, public relations, special events, sales promotion, and personal selling.

Marketers at Mountain Dew use a variety of media to create a special environment for the product. This means not only advertising the product in mainstream media and sampling the product at sporting events but also creating the particular environment that the consumer wants for drinking the Dew. For example, Mountain Dew has used Hummers, radio stations, computer game demos, and extreme athletes to be part of the experience. In the summer of 2000, marketers decked out a subway car with "Do the Dew" memorabilia and hauled it around the country to major youth-oriented events where they passed out branded premiums such as snowboards, gear, and T-shirts---all relevant to the target market.

While balancing Dew on both ends of the grass-roots and mass-appeal spectrum, Pepsi marketers realize that not all teens are into alternative sports. The one-time hillbilly drink is now also moving toward African-American and Latino youth. Endorsement deals with artists such as Busta Rhymes and professional snowboarder Ben Hinkley allow the Dew to appeal to the fast-growing ethnic market---which also coincides with the regional urban markets targeted by Dew. "Mountain Dew is a brand whose core is inextricably linked to a pervasive human need for fun and exhilaration," says one executive. "That basic need has not changed over time, so we have to stick with that and be as current and leading edge as possible."

The Advertising Message: What the Advertising Communicates

What the company plans to say in its ads and how it plans to say it, both verbally and nonverbally, make up the advertising message. The combination of copy, art, and production elements forms the message, and there are infinite ways to combine these elements.

Dew personifies its product concept not only through events, but via a team of 10 extreme athletes, each representing a sport more daring than the next. That same attitude is passed on to Dew advertising. With longtime agency BBDO helping the brand stay true to its youthful feel, its campaigns have an edginess and audacity not typically associated with the big cola companies. In one of the brand's Super Bowl commercials, a Dew Dude on a bicycle chases down a cheetah and wrestles it to the ground. Reaching into the cat's mouth, he retrieves a stolen can of Dew.

"Bad cheetah," he says.

Ted Sann, the chief creative director at BBDO, says "The idea is to evolve the campaign---take it to the next plateau."

The Secret to Successful Planning

Whether the advertiser is a large corporation or a small company, the key to successful planning is information. But the genius of business is in interpreting what the information means. This leads to direction, which makes planning easier and more rewarding.

*SOURCE: CONTEMPORARY ADVERTISING 11TH ED., 2008, WILLIAM F. ARENS, MICHAEL F. WEIGOLD, CHRISTIAN ARENS, PGS. 255-258*

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