Advertising timescale is crucial
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Written by Atila on October 24, 2008 – 1:16 am
Again, advertising works over time. The timescale is crucial. Many organizations work both by long-term and short-term objectives. In many, short term is equated with the current financial year or even perhaps just one limited sales force journey cycle. Here, too, it is necessary to be clear about objectives. An example of appropriate objectives might be:
- short term: to obtain a high awareness and recognition of the product
- long term: to have the product regarded as the best quality in the market, and to make it be perceived as being more satisfying than any other.
Some advertising can only work over time; other results may be achieved more quickly.
Moral: set specific objectives, rooted in communications effects, and which can be practically achieved in a given campaign from financial year to financial year.
TYPES OF OBJECTIVE
Advertising aims to meet a need. The cardinal requirement at the outset, therefore, is to define what that need is: to identify it and make it specific. In many instances, advertising is a tool for problem solving, in which case setting objectives becomes an exercise in evaluating what the problem really is. Solutions are only as strong as the problem evaluation. In the next financial year, where do the problems lie? Is it a matter of:
- low awareness of the product, or its name or its specification?
- poor understanding of its features and its benefits, hostile or indifferent attitudes to it?
- confusion between the product and its competitors?
- weaknesses in certain sectors of the market, such as one worse performing region or weaker category of customer? or
- good awareness, but low actual use of the product?
The question here is, how? That is, how is the objective to be achieved? How can the problem be overcome? How can the customer best be attracted? How can the product most effectively be offered?
The result of the ‘how’ is the establishment of a strategy. The advertiser is the owner or the author of advertising strategy. Many people may be involved in the implementation of the strategy, or the execution of different tasks, but the formulation of the overall strategy is central to the whole advertising effort. In essence, a strategy lays down the overall policy (briefly stated) for achieving the objective. It declares what the key features should be: that is, the key features for action, for what needs to be done.
For example, advertiser Jones requires new computer field staff, in a competitive market, where there are few people and many potential employers. Strategy: stress the superior training benefits for the company and attract people to an open day to demonstrate this. Go to association member lists, and reach people at home via direct mail and telephone.
Advertiser Smith operates a Mediterranean holiday brochure. The market is depressed, there is intense competition, little differentiation between brochures and some consumer confusion. Strategy: stress the superior price benefits and the availability of flights from local airports. Aim at the mid-market. Concentrate and dominate in the Daily Mail and Daily Express.
Advertiser Brown: a sixth-form college offering ‘A’ Level resits, with a fall in the market, a decline in the market-base, a large number of contenders, little knowledge among parents or students about alternative colleges and some confusion over examination results.
Strategy: feature the ‘A’ Level and GCSE results of last year. Show the record in improving examination grades. Stress the small size of classes. Build up enquiries for the prospectus. Develop a college Web site and build visits to it. Use local press and mailings to other schools.
That is, the strategy encapsulates the policy, in terms of:
- how the product or service is positioned
- what benefits or attributes are featured
- what the target audience is to be
- how the message is best to be delivered.
The strategy meets the objective set through making the product or service as attractive to the target audience as possible, within the particular terms of the problem or task to be overcome.
