Syllabus Map
Every topic on the syllabus, and where in this guide it is covered
The five steps of the planning process with everything that hangs off each one, in syllabus order. Open a step to see everything under it, and tap any topic to jump straight there. Use it as the revision checklist: a line that means nothing to you is the section to go and read. The number on the right is how many topics that step holds.
1Review of marketing plan12
Marketing plan
2Analysis of promotional program situation30
Operational structure and resources
Internal analysis
External analysis
Stakeholders in IMC planning
Advertising agency
Organizing promotional activities
3Analysis of communications process14
Communication process model
How advertising works
Progression
4Budget determination6
5Develop integrated marketing communications program44
Promotion mix and integrated tools
Advertising
Classification
Desirable qualities
Creativity in advertising
Major advertising decisions
Celebrity selection
Message execution styles
Media decisions
Components of ads
Campaign evaluation
Promotion and Integrated Marketing Communication
The course starts from one of the 4Ps and works outward. PromotionAny sales initiative or effort a company undertakes to promote its products and services.It is the P of the 4Ps that marketing communication grew out of. is the P that talks to the customer. A company today talks through a dozen channels at once, and those channels can easily say different things. IMCA concept under which a company carefully coordinates its many communication channels to deliver a clear, consistent, compelling message about itself and its brand.The point is to stop different channels contradicting each other. Same message across all platforms. is the discipline of making them all say one thing.
Promotion, the promotion mix, promotional management
Promotion
Any sales initiative or effort a company undertakes to promote its products and services. It is the communication P of the 4Ps: product, price, place, promotion. Product, price and place decide what you are offering; promotion is the only one whose job is to tell somebody about it.
Promotion mix
The combination of all the promotion tools a company uses. No single tool does everything, so the mix is a blend: advertisingAny paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods, services or ideas by an identified sponsor.The largest tool of promotion. Paid, non-personal, identified sponsor are the three tests. builds awareness cheaply across many people, personal selling closes a complex sale one person at a time, sales promotionA short-term incentive to encourage immediate purchase or sale of a product or service.Discounts, coupons, cashback, free samples, BOGOF. moves stock this month. The mix question is which tools, in what proportion, for this product and this customer.
Promotional management
Managing that mix. The professor listed the manager's actual jobs:
- Organizing, planning and analysing the promotional tools, and selecting the best ones for the situation
- Setting and allocating the budget across the tools chosen
- Selecting the media the message will run in
- Selecting the celebrityA person widely recognized by the public for their personal achievement.Used as a source or spokesperson to lend a message credibility and attention. or spokesperson who will carry it
- Designing the message itself
- Buying the media time and space
The five classic tools sit at the centre of the mix, and the professor added the newer digital ones alongside them. All thirteen get their full treatment at step 5 of the planning process, in Chapter 3.
Advertising
Paid, non-personal communication from an identified sponsor. Reaches the most people for the least cost per person, but cannot answer a question or close a sale.
Personal selling
One person talking to one customer. Expensive per contact, but it adapts to the person in front of you and can ask for the order.
Sales promotion
A short-term incentive to buy now: a discount, a coupon, a free sample. It changes behaviour this week, not attitudes this year.
Public relations and publicity
Communication the company does not pay for directly, carried by a third party such as a newspaper. Cheap and highly credible, because it does not look bought, but the company does not control what is said.
Direct marketing
Communication aimed at a named individual, asking for a direct response. Measurable, because you know exactly who replied.
The digital tools
Added by the professor to the classic five, and treated as separate tools in this course:
- Influencer marketing, word of mouth, social media marketing
- Search engine marketing, content marketing, blog marketing
- Viral marketing, mobile marketing, attention marketing
Two decisions that recur throughout the course
Platform selection
Which medium the advertising runs in. The choice must align with the brand image: a luxury brand in a cheap medium damages itself. The platforms named in class:
| Broadcast | TV, radio |
| Newspaper, magazine, journal | |
| Outdoor and physical | Billboard, poster, leaflet, a wall, a building, a vehicle, a jersey, point-of-purchase displays |
| Packaging | Inner and outer |
| Digital | Website, social media |
Message design
Two parts. The creative message is what the ad actually says and shows. The appealThe underlying content of the message: the reason it gives the audience to respond.Three types: rational, emotional, moral. is the underlying content of the message: the reason it gives the audience to care. There are three appeals, rational, emotional and moral, and they are set out in Chapter 4. The professor's shorthand for the whole message decision was message plus appeal plus spokesperson.
What IMC is
Two definitions were given. The professor's is the one to reproduce in an exam; the textbook's is worth recognising if it appears in a question.
Professor's definition
Integrated marketing communication is a concept under which companies carefully coordinate various communication channels in order to provide a clear, consistent, compelling and concise message about the company and its brand, and the result is measurable. Compressed to one line: no conflicting message, the same message across all platforms.
Textbook definition (AAAA)
A concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines, such as general advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion and public relations, and combines them to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communications impactThe qualitative value of an exposure through a given medium.BBC carries more impact than BTV for the same ad..
What the problem actually is
A company whose television advertising promises premium quality, whose Facebook page runs a permanent discount, and whose salespeople describe the product as cheap and cheerful, has told the customer three different things. None of the three is wrong on its own. Together they leave the customer with no clear idea what the brand is. IMC is the answer to that, and the coordination is the work.
Brand equity, and why IMC drives it
Brand equityThe value a brand adds to a product beyond the product itself.Driven by awareness, recognition, recall, image and quality, and the customer relationship. is the value the brand name adds beyond the product itself: the reason a customer will pay more for the same thing with a label on it. IMC builds it, because equity is made of things communication creates.
Brand awareness
Whether the customer knows the brand exists at all. Nothing else on this list can happen first, which is why awareness is the usual first objective of a campaign.
Brand recognition
The customer can identify the brand when they see or hear it. It needs a cue, so it matters most at the shelf, where the pack is in front of them.
Brand recall
The customer remembers the brand on their own, with no cue. Harder to build than recognition, and worth more, because it is what happens when someone is asked to name a soft drink.
Image and perceived quality
What the customer believes the brand is like, and how good they assume it is. Built by consistent messages over time, which is exactly what inconsistent channels destroy.
Value of the product and the customer relationship
The real benefit delivered, and the strength of the ongoing relationship. Communication cannot substitute for these, but it is how they are established and maintained.
Why IMC grew
Five reasons were given, and these are the ones to learn.
Change in consumer media behaviour
Audiences no longer gather around three television channels. They are spread across streaming, social platforms and messaging apps, and they skip advertising when they can. Reaching the same person now takes several channels, which is what creates the coordination problem.
Technological advancement in communication
New channels appeared faster than companies could organise around them. Each new one was often handed to a different team or agency, so each spoke with its own voice.
Allocation of budget among channels
With many channels available, someone has to decide how the money is divided. That decision cannot sensibly be made channelThe route the message takes: personal (word of mouth, personal selling) or non-personal (print, broadcast). by channel in isolation, so it forces a single integrated plan.
Shift in the promotional budget
Money moved away from mass media advertising and toward sales promotion, direct marketing and digital. Advertising stopped being the automatic centre of the plan, so the plan needed a new centre, and integration became it.
Evolution of advertising agencies and their accountability
Clients began demanding measurable results rather than creative reputation. Agencies responded by offering coordinated services across channels instead of advertising alone, because a measurable result needs the whole programme pulling together.
A longer version of the list runs to ten. It keeps the five above and adds these:
- Rise of digital and social media, which multiplied the number of channels again
- Fragmentation of mediaThe audience is spread thinly across many channels instead of gathered around a few mass media.One of the main reasons coordination became necessary., so no single medium reaches a mass audience any more
- Cost efficiency and return-on-investment pressure, which rewards removing duplicated effort
- Growth of data and marketing technology, which makes coordinated targeting possible
- Globalization of brands, which makes one consistent worldwide message valuable
Why IMC is important
Strategic integration of the communication functions
Coordinating the tools avoids duplication, because two teams stop buying the same audience twice. It also creates synergy: an advertisement that has built awareness makes the salesperson's first call easier, so the two tools together achieve more than the sum of their separate effects. The result is marketing that is both more efficient and more effective.
A rapidly changing environment
Marked by the professor as the most important reason. Consumers, technology and media are all moving at once, so a promotional plan fixed around one channel goes out of date quickly. Integration is what lets the plan shift channels without losing its message.
Read the table as one movement. Communication used to be a small number of companies buying a small number of mass media, on long contracts, with little measurement. It is now many channels, narrowly targeted, bought on performance, with the retailer and the data holding the power. Every row is a reason coordination became necessary.
Evolution
IMC started in the 1980s. Before then there was no such concept, because there was nothing to integrate: mass media meant television, radio and newspapers, companies used few channels, and one advertising agencyAn independent organization that creates, produces and places advertisements on behalf of the client.Grey and Asiatic are the local examples given. handled nearly all of it. After 1980 companies began using many channels at once, found that the messages conflicted, and recognised that coordination was needed. Agencies took on that coordination role, and the discipline got its name.
Trends and challenges
Emerging trends
What is changing in the field now:
- Personal marketing and data-driven personalization, where the message is built for the individual rather than the segment
- Artificial intelligence, in targeting, buying and producing the creative work
- Customers who are very knowledgeable, because they research before they buy and can check any claim
- Fragmented mass media, so audiences must be assembled from many small sources
- Influencer marketing, borrowing someone else's audience and credibility
- Real-time and reactive marketing, responding to events as they happen
- Video and immersive technology, including augmented and virtual reality
- Purpose and ethics, with customers judging what the company stands for
- Neuro-branding, using measures of attention and emotion to test creative work
- Agile and integrated working, and interactive content that the audience acts on rather than watches
Branding challenges
The professor called branding the most challenging task now, for five reasons:
- Reduction of the customer's attention span, so the message has less time to land
- Changes in the consumer decision journey, which no longer runs in a straight line from awareness to purchase
- A sharp increase in buying through online retail channels, where the brand competes on a search results page rather than a shelf
- A shift in advertising and promotion expenditure to digital channels, which are measurable but crowded
- The rise of many-to-many communication, where customers talk to each other about the brand and the company cannot control what is said
Recall in one line each
- Promotion = any sales initiative to promote the company's products; the communication P of the 4Ps. Promotion mixThe combination of all the promotion tools a company uses.Advertising, sales promotion, PR, personal selling, direct marketing, and the digital tools. = all the tools together. Promotional managementOrganizing, planning and analysing the promotion tools, choosing the best ones, setting the budget, picking media and spokesperson, designing the message, and buying media time and space.It is the manager's job description for the whole promotion mix. = organize and analyse tools, budget, media, spokesperson, message, buy media time.
- IMC: carefully coordinate various communication channels → clear, consistent, compelling, concise message about the company and its brand → measurable. One line: same message across all platforms.
- Five reasons IMC grew: consumer media behaviour · technological advancement · budget allocation across channels · shift in the budget · agency evolution and accountability.
- Importance: integration avoids duplication and creates synergy; the rapidly changing environment (consumers, technology, media) is the most important reason.
- From → toward: media advertising → multiple forms; mass → specialized media; manufacturer → retailer dominance; general → data-based; low → greater agency accountability; traditional → performance-based pay; limited → widespread internet.
- Brand equity drivers: awareness, recognition, recall, image and quality, product value, relationship quality. Recall is unprompted; recognition needs a cue.
- Five branding challenges: attention span · decision journey · online retail · spend shifted to digital · many-to-many communication.
Who Is Involved
Before the planning process itself, the professor set out who does the work: the players in the IMC process, how a company can organise its own promotion department, and how advertising agencies operate, win clients and lose them. One assignment came out of this chapter: list advertising agencies with their location and activities, and classify each as full-service or limited-serviceAn agency that offers only some services, such as media buying or creative work..
Participants in the IMC process
Advertiser (client)
The company whose product is being promoted, and the one who pays. The most important participant, because everyone else in the list works for them: the client sets the objective, approves the budget and has final say on the work. Companies named in class:
| Telecoms | GP, Robi, Banglalink |
| Digital and financial | Daraz, Nagad |
| Manufacturers and groups | Unilever, Bashundhara, Square, ACI, Walton, Coca-Cola |
Advertising agency
An independent organization that creates, produces and places the advertisement on the client's behalf. It is independent for a reason: it brings specialist creative and media skills the client does not employ full-time, and an outside view of the client's own brand. Grey and Asiatic were the examples named.
Media organizations
The television channels, newspapers and other outlets that carry the message to the audience. They sell the client time or space, but they are not only advertising carriers: each must have editorial content of its own, because that content is what gathers the audience the advertiserThe client: the company whose product is being promoted and who pays for the advertising.The most important participant; everyone else works for them. is buying. Named in class:
| Television | Channel I, Maasranga, ATN News, NTV, Duranta, and internationally CNN and BBC |
| Newspapers | Daily Star, Prothom Alo, Bangladesh Protidin |
Marketing communications specialist organizations
Firms that supply one specialised part of the programme rather than the whole of it. A client uses them when the job needs depth the general agency does not have:
| Direct-response agencies | Campaigns that ask for an immediate reply |
| Sales promotion agencies | Coupons, contests and in-store work |
| Public relations firms | Press and reputation work |
| Interactive agencies | Websites and digital campaigns |
Collateral services
The suppliers who physically produce and support the work. They make no strategic decisions, but nothing ships without them: printing services, video production, installation services for billboards and displays, and consulting services.
Three organisational systems for promotion
A company can arrange its own promotional work in three ways. The professor marked this topic as important. The right choice follows from size and from how many brands there are to manage, and each system buys one thing at the cost of another.
Centralised
Promotion is run from one place, with one manager responsible for all of it. It suits small enterprises, where there is one product line and not enough work to justify separate teams. You gain control and consistency, because one person sees everything, and you need fewer staff. You lose speed and closeness to individual brands.
Decentralised
Each brand, division or product line runs its own promotion. It suits large companies with many brands, channels and products, where one central manager could not know them all well enough. You gain attention and speed on each brand. You lose consistency and efficiency, because the divisions compete for funds and duplicate each other's work.
In-house agency
The company builds its own advertising agency inside itself, as a separate department. It suits the very largest advertisers, where the volume of work is enough to keep a full creative and media team busy all year. You gain control, coordination and cost savings, because there is no agency margin. You lose the outside perspective and the breadth of experience an agency gets from many clients.
| System | Fits | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Centralised | Small enterprises | Better communication · fewer personnel · continuityAdvertising spread evenly across the whole period.One of three scheduling methods. · more top-management involvement | Less goal involvement · longer response time · impractical for multiple brands |
| Decentralised | Large companies, many brands | Concentrated attention on each brand · rapid problem response · increased flexibility | Ineffective decision-making · internal conflict · unequal distribution of funds · lack of authority |
| In-house agency | The largest advertisers | Cost savings · more control · better coordination | Less experience · less objectivity · less flexibility |
The in-houseAn advertising agency owned and staffed by the company itself, as a separate department.Fits the largest companies. row is sometimes given the other way round, with flexibility as an advantage and cost as a disadvantage. The table above follows the textbook.
Advertising agencies
Full-service agency
Offers the whole range and can take a campaign from a blank page to a finished placement. A client uses one when it wants a single supplier accountable for the result. What it covers:
- Planning the campaign and researching the market
- Creating and producing the advertisements
- Selecting and buying the media
- Non-advertising services too: the marketing planThe guideline for how a product will be marketed, at two levels: strategic (segmentation, targeting, positioning) and tactical (features, discounts, differentiation).Step 1 of IMC planning is to review it, because a promotion plan that is not aligned with it will fail., sales promotion, direct marketing
Limited-service agency
Offers only part of the range. A client uses one when it needs a specialist for a single job, or when it already has the rest of the work covered. The kinds of limited service:
| Media buying service | Buying time and space only, at better rates than a small client could get alone |
| Creative services | Creating and executing the advertisements |
| Creative boutiquesA limited-service agency that provides only the creative idea.A full-service agency may buy from one. | The creative idea only, nothing else. Even a full-service agencyAn agency offering the full range: planning, creating, producing, research, media selection, and non-advertising services such as sales promotion and direct marketing.It does everything from scratch. will buy from one when it wants a fresh idea |
| Account servicesThe part of an agency that is the link between the client and the agency. | The link between the client and the agency, translating one to the other |
| Marketing services | Research and marketing support |
| Management and finance | Running the commercial side of the account |
How agencies gain clients
Presentation
A proposal to a prospective client, and the chance to demonstrate the agency's experience and capabilities. Often competitive, with several agencies pitching for the same account.
Referrals
Recommendations from existing clients, from media firms, or from others in the trade. This is why agencies maintain relationships with people who are not currently paying them.
Solicitation
The agency goes looking: researching prospects and approaching them directly rather than waiting to be invited.
Public relations
Being visible and well regarded in the industry press and at industry events, so that prospects already know the name.
Image and reputation
Awards, famous campaigns and a track record. This is the slowest route and the strongest, because the client comes to the agency already convinced.
Why agencies lose clients
The reasons fall into three groups, which is easier to hold than one long list.
The work or the results
Something about the output itself:
- Poor performance, or general dissatisfaction with the work
- Poor communication between agency and client
- Declining sales, whether or not the advertising caused it
The relationship
Something between the people:
- Unrealistic client demands
- Personality conflicts
- Payment conflicts, and conflicting compensation philosophy
- Personnel changes on either side, which can remove the person who held the relationship together
Circumstances
Something neither side controls, or a deliberate strategic move:
- A change in client strategy, or a change in marketing strategy
- Policy changes at either company
- A change in the size of the client or the agency, so they no longer fit each other
- Conflict of interestAn agency or spokesperson working for a competitor at the same time.A reason agencies lose clients, and a reason a celebrity may be rejected., when the agency takes on a competing account
- A better opportunity elsewhere for either party
Recall in one line each
- Five participants: advertiser (client, pays, most important) · advertising agency · media organizationsThe television channels, newspapers and other outlets that carry the message to the audience.They must also have editorial content; they are not only ad carriers. · marketing communications specialist organizationsFirms that supply one specialised service: direct-response agencies, sales promotion agencies, PR firms, interactive agencies. · collateral servicesSupporting suppliers: printing, video production, installation, consulting..
- CentralisedOne manager or department at head office runs all promotional activity.Fits small companies. (small): communication, fewer people, continuity, top management / less goal involvement, slow response, bad for many brands.
- DecentralisedEach brand or division runs its own promotion.Fits large companies with many brands, channels and products. (large, many brands): attention, fast response, flexible / weak decisions, conflict, unequal funds, no authority.
- In-house (largest): cost savings, control, coordination / less experience, less objectivity, less flexibility.
- Full-service does everything including non-advertising work; limited-service offers one part: creative services, creative boutiques, account services, marketing services.
- Gain clients: presentation, referrals, solicitationAn agency actively seeking clients: searching for prospects and sending direct approaches.One of the ways agencies gain clients., PR, image and reputation.
- Lose clients, in three groups: the work (performance, communication, declining sales) · the relationship (demands, personality, payment, personnel) · circumstances (strategy, policy, size, conflict of interest, better opportunity).
The IMC Planning Process
This is the syllabus. The professor taught from one flowchart, the model of the IMC planning process, and worked down it as far as the Advertising box. Everything in this chapter is a step of that chart. Chapter 4 is the Advertising box opened up.
The model
Read it top to bottom. The first four steps are analysis: they tell you who you are talking to, what you may say, and what you can spend. The fifth is the programme itself, where the tools are chosen and each one is given objectives, a message and media. The last two boxes, implementing and monitoring, were not reached before the midterm. The dashed arrows down the left mean the results of the programme feed back into every earlier step, so planning is a loop rather than a line.
Step 1: Review of the marketing plan
The professor set this as a board question: what is a marketing plan, what does it contain, and why review it?
What it is
The guideline for how a product will be marketed. It works at two levels and both must be reviewed. The strategic level is STPSegmentation, targeting, positioning: the strategic core of the marketing plan., segmentation, targeting and positioning, which decides who the customer is and what the product means to them. The tactical level is features, discounts and product differentiation, which decides what is actually offered.
Contents
The contents listed in class:
| Executive summary | The plan in brief, for people who will not read the rest |
| Current market situation | Where the product stands today |
| SWOT and PESTEL | The opportunity and issue analysis: what helps and what threatens |
| Risk analysis | What could go wrong, and how likely it is |
| Competitor analysis | Who else is in the market and what they will do |
| Marketing objectives | What the plan is trying to achieve |
| Marketing strategy | Which is STP |
| Action plan | Who does what, and when |
| Financial projection | What it costs and what it returns |
| Implementation | How it will be carried out |
| Control and feedback | How it will be measured and corrected |
Why review it
Because the promotional plan is a servant of the marketing plan, not a separate thing. The marketing plan names the target, so it decides who the advertising talks to. It sets the positioning, so it decides what the advertising may claim. It fixes the objectives, so it decides what the promotion has to deliver. A promotional plan that is not aligned with it will not be successful and will not be accepted by management.
Step 2: Analysis of the promotional programme situation
Having read the plan, you now examine the situation you are planning into. It has two halves.
Internal analysis
Looking at the company itself, to find out what it is actually capable of:
| Promotional department organization | The centralised, decentralised or in-house choice from Chapter 2 |
| Company capability analysis | Whether the firm can actually implement the programme, in people, money and time |
| Agency evaluation and selection | Whether the current agency can do this particular job |
| Review of previous programmes | What worked last time and what did not |
External analysis
Looking outward at the market. This half is mostly consumer behaviour, which is why the professor asked why it is necessary to review consumer buyer behaviour in IMC:
| Consumer behaviour analysis | How the customer decides |
| Segmentation and target marketing | Who the customer is |
| Market positioning | What the product should mean to them |
Consumer behaviour, and why IMC needs it
The answer to the professor's question is that each stage of the buying process needs a different kind of communication. Knowing which stage the customer is at tells you what the advertising has to do.
Need recognition
The customer notices a gap between where they are and where they want to be. Nothing else can start until this happens, so advertising at this stage works by creating or dramatising the gap. The six triggers named in class:
| Out of stock | The simplest trigger: the old one is finished |
| Dissatisfaction | Expectation was greater than performance |
| New needs or wants | Circumstances change and the need is new |
| Related product purchases | Buying one thing creates the need for another |
| Market-induced recognition | Marketing itself creates the felt need |
| New products | A need the customer did not know they had |
Information search
The customer looks for ways to solve the problem. The IMC job here is to be present and credible in whichever source this customer actually uses, so the planner has to know which one is most prominent for them:
| Personal cues | Friends, family, people they trust |
| Commercial cues | Advertising, salespeople, packaging, the company's own channels |
| Experience | Their own past use of the product |
Evaluation of alternatives
The customer compares the options against the things they care about. Advertising at this stage argues, rather than announces: it gives reasons to prefer this brand over the shortlist.
Purchase decision
The choice is made. Sales promotion and point-of-purchase work hardest here, because the job is to convert an intention into an act before the customer changes their mind.
Post-purchase behaviour
The customer decides whether they were right. Cognitive dissonancePost-purchase doubt about whether the decision was right.Promotion after the sale gives psychological support to reduce it. is the doubt that follows a significant purchase, and it needs a promotional message as psychological support: advertising aimed at people who have already bought, reassuring them that they chose well. Get this wrong and there is no repeat purchase.
Four groups of factors shape all of this. They are worth knowing as groups, because an exam answer that names the group and one example inside it is complete.
Cultural
Culture, sub-culture and social class. The broadest and slowest-moving influences, and the ones that decide what is even acceptable to say.
Social
Reference groups, family, and roles and status. The people around the customer, whose opinion they weigh, sometimes without noticing.
Personal
Occupation, economic situation, personality, lifestyle, and age and life-cycle stage. What is true of this individual rather than their group.
Psychological
Motivation, perception, learning and attitude. What happens inside the customer's head when the message arrives, and why two people can see the same advertisement and take away different things.
The survey questions
The professor's checklist for turning consumer behaviour into an IMC plan. Each answer changes a decision in the plan:
| Who buys the product | Sets the target audience |
| How the decision is made | Sets which tools are used |
| What they actually buy | May not be what the company thinks it sells |
| Why they buy | Sets the appeal |
| Where they buy | Sets the point-of-purchase work |
| When they buy | Sets the media timing |
Assael's grid is the practical version of all this. It crosses how much the customer cares about the purchase with how different the brands actually are, and each cell needs a different kind of communication.
Complex buying behaviour
High involvement, many differences between brands. An expensive, unfamiliar, risky purchase such as a laptop. The customer researches, so advertising must inform in detail and give them material to justify the choice.
Dissonance-reducing
High involvement, few differences. Expensive but the brands are much alike, such as floor tiles. The customer buys quickly then worries. Advertising works hardest after the sale, reassuring.
Variety seeking
Low involvement, many differences. Cheap, and switching is part of the fun, such as snacks. The leader advertises to keep the shelf and build habit; challengers use sales promotion and trial offers to interrupt it.
Habitual buying
Low involvement, few differences. Bought on autopilot, such as salt. Advertising builds familiarity through repetition rather than argument, because there is no argument to make.
Segmentation and targeting
Market segmentationDividing the market into groups of customers with shared characteristics.Bases: demographic, psychographic, behavioural, geographic. Needed because all customers are not the same. comes first: the market is split into groups, and only then does the company decide which groups to aim at and how narrowly.
Market segmentation
Dividing the market into groups of customers with shared characteristics. It is essential because all customers are not the same, and a message written for everyone persuades no one. The four bases:
| Demographic | Age, gender, income, occupation, education |
| Geographic | Country, region, city, climate |
| Psychographic | Lifestyle, personality, values |
| Behavioural | Usage rate, loyalty, benefits sought, occasion |
Target market approaches
Having segmented, the company decides how narrowly to aim:
| Mass, undifferentiated | One offer to the whole market, ignoring the differences |
| Segment, differentiated | A separate offer for each of several segments |
| Niche | One small, well-defined segment served closely |
| Micromarketing | Down to the local area or the individual customer |
Market specialization
One market, many products. The company picks a customer group and serves everything that group needs. It knows those customers extremely well, and it is exposed if that group's fortunes turn.
Product specialization
One product, many markets. The company makes one thing and sells it to everybody who might want it. Bata was the example given. It builds deep product expertise, and is exposed if the product is displaced.
Selective market specialization
One product to one market: a single product-market pair, chosen because it is attractive on its own. Spreads risk when several unrelated pairs are served, but offers no synergy between them.
Market positioning, what it is and what its approaches are, was named as the third part of external analysis but not worked through in class.
Step 3: Analysis of the communication process
Before spending money on a message, the planner has to understand how a message actually travels and where it can fail.
Sender and receiver
The two participants. The sender is the advertiser, the company itself. The receiver is the audience, the respondent, the customer. Everything between them is where things go wrong.
Encoding
The sender turning an idea into a message. The same idea can be encoded several ways, and the choice matters because it decides what the audience has to do to understand it:
| Verbal | Words, spoken or written |
| Graphic | Pictures, colour, layout |
| Musical | A jingle or a soundtrack |
| Animation | Drawn or generated imagery |
Decoding
The receiver working out what the message means. DecodingThe receiver working out what the message actually means.If encoding and decoding do not match, the message fails. is done with the receiver's own experience and culture, not the sender's, so a message that is obvious in the boardroom can be meaningless or offensive to the audience. Communication succeeds only where the sender's and the receiver's fields of experience overlap.
Channel
The route the message takes. The choice trades reachThe percentage of the target audience exposed to the ad at least once.How many. against credibility:
| Personal channels | Word of mouth, personal selling. Few people reached, high trust, and the message can adapt |
| Non-personal channels | Print media, broadcast media. Many people reached, less trust, and the message is fixed |
Response and feedback
What the receiver does, and what gets back to the sender. The response may be acceptance, rejection, or nothing at all. Viral marketing is the case where the response is the audience passing the message on themselves. Feedback is how the sender learns any of this happened, which is why measurement is built into the definition of IMC.
The progression a response goes through
A response does not arrive all at once. It moves through three stages, and naming the stage a campaign is targeting is what makes an objective specific.
Cognitive
The thinking stage. The audience becomes aware of the brand and takes in information about it. Advertising that informs works here, and the measure is awareness and knowledge.
Affective
The feeling stage. The audience forms a liking, a preference, a conviction. Advertising that persuades works here, and the measure is attitude and preference.
Behavioural
The doing stage. The audience acts: trial, then purchase. Sales promotion and point-of-purchase work hardest here, and the measure is the action itself.
The AIDAAwareness, interest, desire, action: the four stages an advertisement moves a customer through.A funnel, because fewer people reach each stage than the one above. ladder in Chapter 4 is this progression in more detail: awareness and expectation are cognitive, beliefs and attitude are affective, and trial and loyalty are behavioural.
The celebrity as source
The professor set two questions here: what is a celebrity, and how are celebrities selected. The source is part of the message, because the audience judges what is said partly by who says it.
What a celebrity is
A person widely recognized by the public for their personal achievement. Choosing one is a major task rather than a detail, because the celebrity's meaning transfers to the brand, and a mistake transfers too.
Risks of using one
Four ways it goes wrong:
- The celebrity overshadows the product, so the audience remembers the star and forgets the brand
- The celebrity is overexposed, endorsing so many products that the endorsement means nothing
- The target audience is not receptive to celebrity endorsers at all, and finds the whole device unconvincing
- The celebrity's behaviour poses a risk, because their scandal becomes the brand's scandal
Celebrity credibility
The extent to which the audience sees the source as having relevant knowledge, skill or experience, and trusts them to give unbiased information. A credible source persuades by being believed. It has two dimensions, and the professor's words for it split between them:
| Expertise | Knowledgeable, skillful, experienced. Whether they would actually know |
| Trustworthiness | Ethical, honest, believable, unbiased. Whether they would tell you straight |
Celebrity attractiveness
The second source characteristic, which persuades not by being believed but by being liked. It has three parts:
| Likeability | Affection for the source from their appearance, behaviour or personality |
| Familiarity | The audience knows them, through exposure over time |
| Similarity | The audience sees a resemblance between the celebrity and themselves |
Celebrity and brand matching
The celebrity's personality must fit the brand's. A local brand takes a local celebrity and a global brand a global one, because the scale has to match too. Where the fit is wrong the audience notices the transaction rather than the endorsement.
Celebrity and audience matching
The celebrity must fit the people being sold to, not the people making the advertisement. A young target market takes a young celebrity; a target aged sixty takes someone older.
Budget and conflict of interest
What the celebrity costs, set against what they add. And whether they have already signed with a competitor, which would hand your spending to the other brand.
Step 4: Budget determination
Four methods were taught. They are not equally good, and the differences are the point: the first three set the budget from something other than the job to be done, and only the last one starts from the job.
Affordable method
The company works out what it must spend on production and operations, and gives promotion whatever is left. The task to be performed is never considered, so under-spending and over-spending are both likely. Common among small enterprises, where the logic is that you cannot get into trouble spending money you have. It is safe in an accounting sense and poor management in a marketing sense.
Percentage-of-sales method
The budget is a fixed percentage of salesSet the budget as a fixed percentage of current or forecast sales.Say 3 or 5 percent. Used by medium companies., say three or five percent, taken either from current sales or from forecast sales. The most commonly used method, particularly in large firms, because it is simple and keeps spending proportionate. Its flaw is that it reverses cause and effect: it treats advertising as a result of sales, so when sales fall the budget is cut at exactly the moment more support is needed. Typically used by medium enterprises.
Competitive parity method
The budget is set to match what competitors spend, using industry sales data and published competitive figures. The argument for it is that it uses the collective wisdom of the industry and keeps the market stable, because nobody starts a spending war. The argument against is that it assumes the competitors know what they are doing and that their situation is yours, and it guarantees you can never out-communicate them.
Objective and task method
The only method that starts from the work. Three steps:
- Determine the promotion objectives, such as awareness or market share
- Determine the tasks needed to achieve them
- Estimate the cost of performing those tasks, and that total is the budget
The IMC planner must know which method the company follows, because it decides whether the budget can be argued with. Six factors affect how large the budget needs to be:
Stage in the product life-cycle
A new product needs heavy spending to create awareness from nothing; an established one needs less, to remind.
Product durability
A product bought once a decade needs different support from one bought weekly.
Hidden product qualities
If the benefit cannot be seen, advertising has to explain it, which costs more.
Product price
A high price raises the customer's perceived risk, so more communication is needed to justify it.
Differentiation
A product much like its rivals must spend more to be noticed at all.
Purchase frequency
Frequently bought products need continuous presence to stay in mind at the moment of choice.
Step 5: Develop the IMC programme
Now the programme is actually built. The tools are chosen, and each chosen tool is worked through with the same five questions.
The template
For every tool the professor asked the same five questions, and an exam answer about any tool should follow this shape:
- Definition: what is it
- Uniqueness: what can this tool do that the others cannot
- Objectives: what is it used to achieve
- Major decisions: what must be decided to use it
- Evaluating effectiveness: how do you know it worked
Before the midterm the professor answered these five questions for one tool, advertising. That is Chapter 4. Sales promotion, the second box, came just after the midterm line and is in Chapter 5.
Recall in one line each
- Five steps: review marketing plan → analyse promotional situation → analyse communication process → determine budget → develop the programme. Lectured as far as Advertising.
- Marketing plan: strategic (STP) and tactical levels; nine contents from executive summary to control and feedback. Review it because promotion must align with it.
- Situation analysisA review of where the promotional programme stands: internal (the firm and its agency) and external (customers, segments, positioning).Step 2 of IMC planning.: internal (organization, ability, agency, past results) and external (consumer behaviour, segmentation and targeting, positioning).
- Buying process: need recognitionThe moment a consumer notices a gap between where they are and where they want to be.Triggered by running out, dissatisfaction, new wants, related purchases, marketing, or new products. → information search → evaluation → purchase → post-purchase. Factors: cultural, social, personal, psychological.
- Assael grid: complex (high, many) · dissonance-reducing (high, few) · variety-seeking (low, many) · habitual (low, few).
- Segmentation bases: demographic, geographic, psychographic, behavioural. Target patterns: market specializationServing one market with many products.One of three target-marketing patterns., product specializationServing many markets with one product.Bata is the example given., selective market specializationServing one product to one market..
- Communication model: sender → encodingTurning the idea into a message: words, pictures, music, animation.Done by the sender. → message and channel → decoding → receiver, with response and feedback returning. Personal channels trade reach for trust.
- Celebrity: credibility is expertise plus trustworthiness; attractiveness is likeability, familiarity, similarity. Then brand match, audience match, budget, conflict of interest.
- Budget: affordableSet the promotion budget at whatever the company can afford.Used by small companies. (what is left over) · percentage of sales (reverses cause and effect) · competitive paritySet the budget to match what competitors spend, using industry data. (industry wisdom, but their situation is not yours) · objective and taskDecide the promotion objectives, list the tasks needed to reach them, and cost those tasks.The most logical method; the budget follows from the work. (objectives → tasks → cost, the only one that starts from the job).
- Template for every tool: definition → uniqueness → objectives → major decisions → evaluation.
Advertising
The one tool the professor worked through in full, using the five-question template from step 5: definition, uniqueness, objectives, major decisions, evaluation. It is the heaviest chapter in the course and the one to know best.
What advertising is
Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods, services or ideas by an identified sponsor. It is the largest tool of promotion. Three words in that definition are doing the work, and an exam answer should take them one at a time.
Paid
The sponsor buys the time or the space. This is what separates advertising from publicity, where a newspaper carries the story because it judges the story worth carrying. Paying buys control over what is said and when, and costs credibility, because the audience knows it was bought.
Non-personal
It goes to many people at once with no individual contact, so there is no opportunity to answer a question, read the customer's reaction, or adapt. That is the trade for reaching a large audience cheaply.
Identified sponsor
The audience is told who is speaking. This is a legal and ethical requirement as much as a practical one, and it is what makes advertising accountable for its claims.
What can be advertised
Not just goods. The ten entities of marketing are products, services, ideas, persons, places, experiences, events and organizations among others, and all of them are advertised. The form can be video, printed or audio, which is why the term paper asks for one of each.
Platforms
Where advertising runs. The platform must match the brand image, which is the choice from Chapter 1:
| Broadcast | Television, radio |
| Newspaper, magazine, journal | |
| Outdoor and physical | Billboard, poster, leaflet, a wall, a vehicle, a jersey, point-of-purchase displays |
| Packaging | Inner and outer, reaching the buyer at the moment of use |
| Digital | Website, social media |
Uniqueness: what advertising can do that no other tool can
Impersonal and non-personal
The audience is not obliged to pay attention, and nothing compels a response. This is a real weakness: a salesperson in front of you gets a reply, an advertisement does not. Everything else about advertising is arranged to overcome it.
Public presentation
Because everyone sees the same message, the product gains a kind of legitimacy. A publicly advertised product is understood to be a standard, legitimate offering, and the buyer knows others will recognise their choice.
Amplified expressiveness
Advertising can dramatise the company and its product through artful use of print, sound, colour and motion. It can make an ordinary product feel significant, which no price list or datasheet can do.
Pervasiveness
The message can be repeated many times, and the buyer can compare the messages of competing sellers. The same advertisement can run for fifteen years. Repetition is also how advertising says something about the seller: a company that advertises heavily is understood to be large, successful and confident.
Functions and objectives
The functions are what advertising does; the objectives are what a particular campaign is set up to achieve. They overlap heavily, and the professor taught them as two versions of one list.
Informing
The basic, first function. Telling the market a new product exists, explaining how it works, suggesting new uses, and correcting false impressions. Dominant when a product is new, because nobody can want something they have not heard of.
Persuading
The second function. Building selective demandDemand for a particular brand, such as Nestlé coffee.Most advertising builds selective demand. for this brand rather than the category: encouraging switching, changing perceptions of the brand's attributes, and convincing the customer to buy now. Dominant once competitors exist.
Reminding
Keeping the brand in mind when the customer is not buying, and keeping it top of mind for the moment they are. Coca-Cola keeps running new advertising for a product everyone already knows, precisely so that it is not forgotten. Off-season reminders work the same way.
Adding value
Changing how the product is perceived, so that the same physical product is experienced as better. Innovation, quality improvement and perception are the three ways value is added, and advertising handles the third.
Assisting other company efforts
Advertising makes the other tools work better. It establishes brand credibility so the salesperson is not starting from nothing, and it announces the sales promotion that a coupon then delivers.
How advertising works
Advertising does not convert a stranger into a loyal customer in one exposure. It moves them one rung at a time, and each rung needs a different message, which is why the campaign objective has to name a rung.
Unawareness to awareness
The customer does not know the brand exists, then does. Pure reach and repetition work here; there is nothing to argue yet.
Expectation and trial
The customer forms an idea of what the brand would be like, then tries it. Advertising creates the expectation; sales promotion often triggers the trial, which is why the two tools are planned together.
Beliefs and belief reinforcement
Having used the product, the customer forms beliefs about it. Experience now does most of the work, and advertising reinforces what the experience taught.
Attitude and attitude reinforcement
Beliefs harden into an overall attitude toward the brand, which advertising keeps reinforcing so that it does not decay or get displaced by a competitor.
Brand loyalty
The customer chooses the brand without reconsidering. This is the destination, and it is why reminder advertising continues long after everyone knows the product.
The AIDA model
The ladder above is the long version. AIDA is the short one, and it is the model to name in an exam. Four stages, and the letters are the stages: awareness, interest, desire, action.
A: Awareness
The customer learns that the brand exists. Nothing can follow until this happens, so the job here is reach and repetition rather than argument. This is where a launch campaign spends its money.
I: Interest
Attention turns into wanting to know more. The customer will now read the body copyThe main text of a print ad., watch past the first three seconds, or click. The message has to give them something worth their time, which is why this is where the benefit gets stated.
D: Desire
Knowing about the product turns into wanting it. The shift is from thinking to feeling: the customer stops evaluating the product and starts picturing themselves with it. Emotional appeals and demonstration work hardest here.
A: Action
The customer buys. Advertising alone often cannot close this step, which is why sales promotion and point-of-purchase material are aimed at it: a discount or a deadline converts a desire into a purchase.
AIDA lines up with the progression from Chapter 3 and with the ladder, so all three are one idea at different resolutions. Awareness is the cognitive stage. Interest and desire are affective. Action is behavioural. On the ladder, awareness and expectation are the A and I, beliefs and attitude are the D, and trial is the first A of action.
Classification of advertising
Advertising is classified by who it is aimed at, because that decides the medium, the message and the measure.
National advertising
Run nationwide by the brand owner, to build the brand itself rather than to move stock in one shop. It talks about what the brand is and what it stands for.
Retail or local advertising
Run by a retailer in one region, to bring people into a particular store. It talks about price, location and opening hours, and it is judged on traffic this weekend.
Primary versus selective demand
Primary demandDemand for the product category as a whole, such as coffee.Contrast selective demand. is demand for the whole product category, as in an advertisement that tells you to drink coffee. Selective demand is demand for one brand, as in one that tells you to drink Nestlé coffee. Building primary demand helps every competitor, so it is normally only worthwhile for a category leader, or for a trade association advertising on behalf of a whole industry. Nearly all brand advertising builds selective demand.
B2B advertising
Aimed at people buying on behalf of an organization, for use in its own operations. It is informational and specification-led, and often runs in trade publications and catalogues, because the reader is looking for a supplier rather than being interrupted.
Professional advertising
Aimed at licensed professionals such as doctors and engineers, to get them to use or specify the product for the people they advise. The professional is not the buyer, but they control the choice.
Trade advertising
Aimed at wholesalers and retailers, to persuade them to stock and push the product. It argues in the trade's terms: margins, discounts, allowances, commission and turnover, not consumer benefits.
What makes advertising effective, and creative
Desirable qualities
From the slides, what separates advertising that works from advertising that merely runs:
- It should never promise more than it can deliver, because a promise the product fails is worse than no promise
- It must be informative, giving the audience something they did not have
- The message must be clear and not complex, because the audience gives it a second of attention
- It must align with the overall marketing strategy, or it pulls against the rest of the plan
- It must highlight the product's value and the consumer's benefit, not the company's pride in itself
- It must be creative, and find a unique way to break through and gain attention
- It must be persuasive, and give a reason to act
Creativity in advertising
Uniqueness, and the ability to grab the customer's attention and generate a response. The second half of that definition matters: creativityUniqueness, and the ability to grab the customer's attention and generate a response. in advertising is not art for its own sake, and an advertisement that is admired but does not sell has failed. Creating the message means keeping it short and simple, easy to understand, creative and consistent.
Universal standards of creative advertising
The professor marked this very important. D'Arcy Masius Benton and Bowles's universal advertising standards are a checklist of nine questions to ask of any advertisement before it runs. The first five are the ones usually quoted; the full checklist has nine.
Does it position the product simply, with unmistakable clarity?
The audience must see in a flash what the product is for, who it is for, and why they should care. Without a clear position no creative work can begin.
Does it bolt the brand to a clinching benefit?
The advertising must be built on the most compelling consumer benefit, not on some unique but insignificant feature. Before deciding how to say it, be sure you are saying the right thing.
Does it contain a Power Idea?
The Power IdeaThe core creative idea that turns the strategy into a dynamic creative concept.Third of the D'Arcy Masius Benton and Bowles standards. is the vehicle that transforms the strategy into a creative concept. It is the core idea that the executions then come out of, rather than a decoration on top of the strategy.
Does it design in brand personality?
The brand should come across as a consistent character the audience can recognise across every advertisement, not just a set of claims.
Is it unexpected?
It must do something the audience has not seen from this category, or it will be filtered out with everything else.
Is it single-minded?
One message. An advertisement that makes three points communicates none of them.
Does it reward the prospect?
The audience should get something for their attention: information, entertainment, or a feeling. Attention is a payment and it has to be earned.
Is it visually arresting?
The visual has to stop someone who was not looking for it.
Does it exhibit painstaking craftsmanship?
Execution quality is itself a signal. Careless work implies a careless company.
Major decisions in advertising
Five decisions, in order, and the order matters because each one constrains the next.
1 Objective setting
What this campaign is for. A communication objective is about what happens in the customer's head, such as awareness, and is measured by survey. A sales objective is about what happens in the market, such as three hundred units, and is measured by sales. Communication objectives are used more often, because advertising is only one of the many things that move sales. The four objective types map onto the rungs of the ladder:
| Informative | Build awareness of something new |
| Persuasive | Build preference for this brand |
| Comparison | Build preference against a named rival |
| Reminder | Keep an established brand in mind |
2 Budget decision
How much there is to spend, using one of the four methods from Chapter 3: affordable, percentage of sales, competitive parity, or objective and task. The budget bounds every decision after it.
3 Message decision
What is said and how it is presented. Two parts, message strategyDeciding what the message says: creating the message and selecting the appeal. and message executionDeciding how the message is presented: the execution style, such as slice of life or testimonial., in the next section.
4 Media decision
Where it runs and when. Called by the professor the most important of the five, because it decides who actually sees the work. Two sections on.
5 Campaign evaluation
Whether it worked, measured against the objective set in step one. Communication impact and sales impact.
Message decision: appeal and execution
Message strategy is what the advertisement says. It has two parts: creating the message, and selecting the appeal. Creating the message means focusing on customer benefits, with a statement that is plain, straightforward and tied to the positioning. The appeal is the underlying content of the message, the reason it gives the audience to respond.
Rational appeal
Speaks to the audience's self-interest and shows that the product delivers a practical benefit: quality, value, performance, economy. A buy-one-get-one-free offer is a rational appeal. Works best for high-involvement purchases where the customer is actually comparing, and for business buyers who must justify the decision.
Emotional appeal
Works on feeling rather than argument. Used where the brands are much alike, or where the benefit is hard to prove. The feelings named in class fall into two groups:
| Positive | Associating the brand with a feeling the audience wants: affection, love, joy, happiness, pleasure, comfort, nostalgia, excitement, stimulation, pride, achievement, self-esteem, ambition, prestige |
| Negative | Showing the problem the product removes: fear, sorrow, grief, embarrassment, and the need for safety and security |
Moral appeal
Directed at the audience's sense of what is right: the environment, corporate social responsibility, well-being, ethical issues. Used for social causes, and by brands whose positioning is built on values.
Message execution
Execution is how the message is presented once the appeal is chosen. The professor set this as a board question and as quiz material, so the styles need to be nameable with an example.
| Style | What it is, and when it is used |
|---|---|
| Slice of life | Ordinary people meet a daily-life problem and the product solves it. The most common style, because it shows the benefit in use |
| Lifestyle | Associates the product with a way of living rather than a problem. Sells belonging to a group |
| Fantasy | Creates a world around the product rather than a use for it. Chocolate and cosmetics advertising |
| Mood or image | Builds a feeling around the brand and makes no claim at all. Used where the brands are functionally identical |
| Musical | A jingle, or the message sung. Aids recall, because a tune is remembered when a sentence is not |
| Personality symbol | A recurring character stands for the brand, so the brand has a face that is owned and cannot be hired by a competitor |
| Technical expertise | Shows the company's expertise and experience in making the product. A doctor or engineer vouching for it |
| Scientific evidence | Presents survey or laboratory evidence that the brand is better. Used where a measurable claim exists |
| Testimonial evidence | A user speaks from personal experience. Credible because it comes from someone like the audience rather than from the company |
| Straight sell or factual message | States the facts about the product with no story and no celebrity. Used in print and for business buyers |
| Demonstration | Shows the product working, which proves the claim rather than asserting it |
| Comparison | Names or implies a rival and argues this brand is better. bKash against Nagad. Effective for challengers, risky for leaders because it gives the rival attention |
| Dramatization | A short drama building to the product as the resolution. Slice of lifeShows a daily-life problem and the product solving it. with higher stakes |
| Humorous | Gains attention and is well liked, often for low-involvement convenience products. The risk is that the joke is remembered and the brand is not |
| Animation | Drawn or generated, so no spokesperson is needed. Used for children's products and where a live shoot could not show the idea |
| Imagery | Visual association rather than argument, letting the pictures carry the meaning |
| Combination | Several styles mixed, such as humour with music. Most real advertisements are combinations |
Media decision
The professor called this the most important of the five decisions, because the best message reaching the wrong people achieves nothing. It runs in four steps, narrowing each time from how much exposure, to which kind of medium, to which particular outlet, to when.
Step 1: reach, frequency and impact
Decide how much exposure is needed and of what kind. These three trade against each other, because the budget is fixed: more reach means less frequencyHow many times the target audience is exposed to the ad.How often..
| Reach | The percentage of the target audience exposed at least once. How many people |
| Frequency | How many times the average member of that audience is exposed. How often |
| Impact | The qualitative value of one exposure in a given medium. The same advertisement carries more weight in BBC than in BTV, because the vehicle lends it authority |
Step 2: choosing among major media types
Television, newspaper, magazine, radio, journal, billboard and outdoor, social media, web. The choice is made on four things:
| Media habits of the target | Be where they already are |
| Nature of the product | A product that must be seen working needs a visual medium |
| Type of message | A complex message needs a medium the audience can linger over |
| Cost | What the medium costs against what it delivers |
Step 3: selecting specific media vehicles
Within the chosen medium, the particular outlet. The medium is television; the vehicle is Jamuna TV. Here media cost is balanced against media factors such as audience quality, meaning how much of that audience is actually your target, and audience attention, meaning how closely they engage with that vehicle.
Step 4: deciding on media timing
Scheduling the advertising across the year, by the three patterns below. Driven by the buying cycle: you advertise when people buy, or just before.
Each medium is a different bargain between reach, cost, and how much the message can carry.
| Medium | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| TV | Mass coverage · high reach · sight, sound and motion · high prestige · low cost per exposure · attention-getting · favourable image | Low selectivity · short message life · high absolute cost · high production cost · clutterThe crowd of competing ads in a medium, which lowers attention to any one of them.A weakness of TV and radio. |
| Newspaper | Low cost · geographic flexibility · high credibility · tangible format the reader holds · high reader engagement · more information carried · short lead time | Short life cycle · declining reader numbers · broad audience waste · lack of dynamic content · limited placement · poor reproduction quality |
| Radio | Local coverage · low cost · high frequency affordable · flexible · low production cost · well-segmented audience | Audio only · clutter · low attention, because it is background · fleeting message |
| Magazine | Segmentation potential · quality reproduction · high information content · longevity, because it is kept and re-read | Long lead time for placement · visual only · lack of flexibility once booked |
| Outdoor | Location specific · high repetition · easily noticed · low cost per exposure | Short exposure time · message must be very short · poor image · local restrictions |
Continuity
A continuous pattern with no gaps: every day, every week or every month at a steady level. Used for products consumed all year without seasonality, such as food and laundry detergent. It keeps the brand permanently in mind, and it is the most expensive option.
Flighting
An irregular schedule with periods of advertising and periods of none. Used where demand is seasonal, or where the budget cannot sustain continuity. It buys real presence during the flights at the cost of being forgotten between them.
Pulsing
A combination of the first two: continuity is maintained all year at a low level, but stepped up at certain times. Beer advertising runs continuously and increases at holidays. It gets the constant presence of continuity and the impact of flightingAdvertising in bursts, with periods of no advertising in between., which is why it is common where the budget allows.
Evaluating advertising effectiveness
Marked by the professor as a likely question. Evaluation measures against the objective that was set in decision one, which is why that objective had to be specific.
Surveys
Asking the audience directly, before and after the campaign, to measure what changed in their heads: awareness, recall, attitude, purchase intention.
Communication effect
Whether the advertising communicated what it was meant to communicate. This is what a communication objective is measured against, and it is the fair test of advertising, because it isolates the part advertising controls.
Sales effect
Whether sales moved. The measure management wants, and the hardest to attribute, because price, distribution, competitors and the economy all move sales too. This is why campaigns usually set communication objectives and treat sales as the longer-term test.
Print and radio ads
The term paper is to make an advertisement in three forms: video, print and audio. The professor covered the anatomy of the last two.
Headline
The words in the leading position, read first and often read alone, so it has to carry the message by itself. A direct headlineThe words in the leading position of a print ad, read first.Direct headlines state the benefit; indirect ones tease. states the benefit outright; an indirect headline arouses curiosity so the reader continues into the body copy. Indirect headlines risk losing the reader who does not continue.
Subhead
A secondary heading, smaller than the headline and larger than the body copy. It bridges the two, taking a reader the headline interested and giving them a reason to start reading.
Body copy
The main text, where the argument is actually made. Length follows involvement: a high-involvement product justifies long copy, a low-involvement one does not.
Visual elements
The picture or illustration. Usually the first thing noticed and the largest element, so it must work with the headline rather than merely decorate it.
Layout
How all the components are arranged on the page. Layout controls the order things are seen in, and so controls whether the message is received in the intended sequence.
Radio advertisement
Radio has no picture, so everything must be carried by three things:
| Sound | Effects and atmosphere that build the picture in the listener's head |
| Voice quality | The voice is the whole personality of the brand for those thirty seconds |
| Message | Clear, short and simple, because the listener cannot re-read it |
Recall in one line each
- Advertising = paid · non-personal · identified sponsor. Largest promotion tool. Paid buys control and costs credibility; non-personal buys reach and loses adaptation.
- Uniqueness: impersonal, public presentation, amplified expressivenessAdvertising can dramatise the company and product through artful use of print, sound and colour., pervasivenessThe message is repeated many times.One of advertising's distinctive qualities.. Functions: inform, persuade, remind, add value, assist other efforts.
- Ladder: unawareness → awareness → expectation → trial → beliefs → attitude → reinforcement → brand loyalty. Each rung needs a different message.
- AIDA: awareness (learns it exists) → interest (wants to know more) → desire (wanting, not just knowing) → action (buys). Awareness is cognitive, interest and desire affective, action behavioural.
- Classes: consumer (national, retail/local, primary vs selective) · business (B2B, professional, trade). Primary demand helps every competitor, so usually only the leader builds it.
- DMB&B nine: clarity · clinching benefit · Power Idea · brand personality · unexpected · single-minded · rewards the prospect · visually arresting · craftsmanship.
- Five decisions: objective (communication or sales) · budget · message (strategy: create and appeal; execution: style) · media (most important) · evaluation.
- Appeals: rational (self-interest, high involvement), emotional (feeling, similar brands), moral (what is right).
- Media steps: reach, frequency, impact → media types → vehicles → timing. Medium is TV, vehicle is Jamuna TV.
- Scheduling: continuity (steady, no gaps, costly) · flighting (on and off, seasonal or limited budget) · pulsingA low level of continuous advertising plus heavier bursts.Combines continuity and flighting. (low base plus bursts, combines both).
- Evaluation: surveys, communication effect (the fair test), sales effect (what management wants, hard to attribute).
- Print ad: headline (direct or indirect), subheadA secondary heading, smaller than the headline and larger than the body copy., body copy, visual, layout. Radio ad: sound, voice quality, message.
After the Midterm Line: Sales Promotion
The midterm syllabus ends with advertising. Sales promotion was taught just after that line, and it is here for two reasons: it is the second tool box of the model, and it follows the same five-question template, which makes it the best check that you can apply the template to a tool other than advertising.
Sales promotion
What it is
A short-term incentive to encourage the immediate purchase or sale of a product or service: a mass-communication technique that offers a short-term incentive. The contrast with advertising is the point. Advertising works on attitudes over months; sales promotion works on behaviour this week, by changing the deal rather than the perception. The forms named in class:
| Price-based | Discount, price-off, cashback, rebate, refund, allowance, commission |
| Quantity-based | Extra quantity, buy one get one free, bonus pack |
| Trial-based | Free samples, coupons |
| Loyalty-based | Membership and frequency programmes |
Uniqueness
What sales promotion can do that the other tools cannot:
- It invites immediate purchase. Advertising asks the customer to remember; a promotion asks them to act now, and gives a reason to not wait
- It draws attention, because an offer interrupts a routine choice
- It is measurable. Coupons redeemed and units moved are counted directly, unlike a change in attitude
- It gives a real incentive or reward, such as a free tiffin box or toothbrush, and that reward must integrate with the product rather than being an unrelated bribe
Objectives
What it is used to achieve:
| Stock clearance | Moving inventory that is ageing or overbought |
| Trial | Getting new customers to try the product for the first time, the hardest single step in the buying process |
| Repeat purchase | Membership and frequency programmes that make the next purchase more attractive than switching |
| Increase consumption | More sales from existing users |
| Increase market share | Pulling volume from a competitor |
| Enhance the IMC process | Giving the other tools something concrete to announce |
| Get the trade to stock | A retailer objective rather than a consumer one |
Why sales promotion grew
Spending shifted from advertising to sales promotion over several decades, and the reasons are mostly about power moving down the channel and brands becoming harder to tell apart.
Growing power of retailers
A few large chains control access to the shelf, and they demand trade promotion in exchange for it. The manufacturer's budget follows that demand.
Declining brand loyalty
Customers switch more readily than they did, so a promotion can actually move them, where once it would only have subsidised a purchase they would have made anyway.
Increased promotional sensitivity
Customers have learned to wait for offers and to respond to them, which makes promotion effective and simultaneously trains them to expect it.
Brand proliferation
Too many similar brands in each category. When brands are hard to distinguish, a price incentive is the fastest way to be chosen.
Fragmentation of consumer markets
Mass advertising reaches a smaller share of the market than it used to, so budget moves to tools that act at the point of purchase.
Short-term focus of marketers
Managers are judged on quarterly results, and promotion delivers measurable volume inside a quarter in a way that brand advertising does not.
Increased accountability
Management demands proof of return. Promotion can show it and advertising struggles to, so promotion wins the argument for the budget.
Competition and clutter
Heavy competition and a crowded media environment make it harder to be noticed by advertising alone, so companies reach for an offer.
Technological advancement
Scanner data, loyalty cards and digital coupons made promotions easy to target, deliver and measure.
Advantages and disadvantages
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Increased sales, quickly and measurably | Damages the brand image, and brand loyalty decreases, because the customer becomes loyal to the offer rather than the brand |
| Influences consumer behaviour directly, at the moment of choice | Increases price sensitivity: customers learn the real price is the discounted one and stop buying at full price |
| Allows price discrimination, charging different effective prices to different segments through coupons | Encourages a short-term orientation, borrowing sales from next month rather than creating new ones |
| Encourages repeat purchase through loyalty and frequency schemes | Creates conflict of interest with the other sales promotion tools, and with the brand-building that advertising is doing at the same time |
Tools
Consumer-oriented, a pull strategy
Aimed at the final buyer, to make them ask for the product and so pull it through the channel:
| Samples | Remove the risk of trial entirely |
| Coupons | Discount only for the price-sensitive customer who bothers to use them |
| Premiums | An extra item given with the purchase |
| Contests and sweepstakes | Buy attention and engagement rather than give a discount |
| Refunds and rebates | Paid after purchase, so fewer claim them than respond to them |
| Bonus packs | Extra quantity at the same price |
| Price-off deals | A straight temporary reduction |
| Frequency programmes | Reward cumulative purchases |
| Event marketing | Associate the brand with an occasion |
Trade-oriented, a push strategy
Aimed at wholesalers and retailers, to make them stock, display and push the product:
| Contests and incentives | For the retailer's own staff |
| Trade allowances and discounts | For buying or displaying the product |
| Point-of-purchase displays | Supplied by the manufacturer |
| Training programmes | So the retailer's staff can sell the product properly |
| Trade shows | Where the trade comes to be sold to |
| Cooperative advertising | The manufacturer pays a share of the retailer's advertising |
Major decisions
Five decisions, with the slides breaking the third one open into five more.
1 Establish the sales promotion objective
Which of the objectives above this promotion is for. Trial and stock clearance need completely different mechanics.
2 Select the sales promotion tools
Consumer-orientedSales promotion aimed at the final buyer to pull the product through the channel.Samples, coupons, premiums, contests, rebates, bonus packs. or trade-orientedSales promotion aimed at retailers and distributors to push the product through the channel.Allowances, POP displays, training, trade shows, cooperative advertising., and which tool within that. Follows directly from the objective.
3 Develop and implement the programme
The slides expand this step into five decisions of its own:
| Size of the incentive | Too small and nobody acts, too large and the margin is gone |
| Conditions for participation | Who qualifies, and how the offer is kept from being abused |
| How to promote and distribute it | The offer is worthless if the customer never learns of it |
| Length of the programme | Long enough to reach everyone, short enough to still feel urgent |
| Evaluation | Sales effect, repeat purchase, loyalty, market performance |
4 Determine the length of the programme
Too short and it does not reach everyone; too long and customers stop treating it as a reason to hurry, which removes the whole point of a short-term incentive.
5 Evaluate the programme
Against sales effect, repeat purchase, loyalty and market performance. The critical question is whether the volume was incremental or simply bought forward from customers who would have purchased anyway.
Recall in one line each
- Sales promotion = short-term incentive for immediate purchase. Advertising changes attitudes over months; promotion changes behaviour this week by changing the deal.
- Uniqueness: invites immediate purchase, draws attention, measurable, gives a real reward that must integrate with the product.
- Objectives: stock clearance, trial, repeat purchase, increase consumption, increase market share, enhance IMC, get the trade to carry a new product.
- Grew because: retailer power, declining loyalty, promotional sensitivity, brand proliferationToo many brands competing in the same category.One reason sales promotion grew., fragmentation, short-term focus, accountability, competition and clutter, technology.
- Consumer-oriented tools pull (samples, coupons, premiums, contests, refunds, bonus packs, price-offs, frequency programmes, events). Trade-oriented tools push (incentives, allowances, POP displays, training, trade shows, cooperative advertising).
- Decisions: objective → tools → develop and implement (incentive size, conditions, distribution, length, evaluation) → length → evaluate. Ask whether the volume was incremental or bought forward.
Last 30 minutes
The lists you must be able to write out from memory
Cover the answer, say the list out loud, then open it to check. Everything expands when printed.
IMC in one sentence
- Companies carefully coordinate various communication channels
- to provide a clear, consistent, compelling, concise message
- about the company and its brand
- and the result is measurable
5 reasons IMC grew
- Change in consumer media behaviour
- Technological advancement in communication
- Allocation of budget among channels
- Shift in promotional budget
- Evolution of ad agencies and their accountability
7 from → toward shifts
- Media advertising → multiple forms
- Mass media → specialized media
- Manufacturer → retailer dominance
- General focus → data-based marketing
- Low → greater agency accountability
- Traditional → performance-based compensation
- Limited → widespread internet
5 branding challenges
- Reduced attention span
- Changed consumer decision journey
- Surge in online retail buying
- Spend shifted to digital channels
- Many-to-many communication
5 participants in IMC
- Advertiser (client)
- Advertising agency
- Media organizations
- Marketing communications specialist organizations
- Collateral services
3 organisational systems
- Centralised (small)
- Decentralised (large, many brands)
- In-house agency (largest)
Limited-service agency: 6 kinds
- Media buying service
- Creative services
- Creative boutiques
- Account services
- Marketing services
- Management and finance
5 ways agencies gain clients
- Presentation
- Referrals
- Solicitation
- Public relations
- Image and reputation
5 steps of the IMC planning process (lectured)
- Review of marketing plan
- Analysis of promotional programme situation
- Analysis of communications process
- Budget determination
- Develop the IMC programme
11 contents of a marketing plan
- Executive summary
- Current market situation
- SWOT and PESTEL
- Risk analysis
- Competitor analysis
- Marketing objectives
- Marketing strategy (STP)
- Action plan
- Financial projection
- Implementation
- Control and feedback
Internal analysis: 4 items
- Promotional department organization
- Firm's ability to implement
- Agency evaluation and selection
- Review of previous results
5 steps of the consumer buying process
- Need recognition
- Information search
- Evaluation of alternatives
- Purchase decision
- Post-purchase behaviour
6 triggers of need recognition
- Out of stock
- Dissatisfaction
- New needs or wants
- Related product purchases
- Market-induced recognition
- New products
4 types of buying decision behaviour
- Complex (high involvement, many differences)
- Dissonance-reducing (high, few)
- Variety-seeking (low, many)
- Habitual (low, few)
3 patterns of target marketing
- Market specialization: one market, many products
- Product specialization: one product, many markets
- Selective market specialization: one to one
Communication model: parts
- Sender (advertiser)
- Encoding
- Message and channel
- Decoding
- Receiver (audience)
- Response and feedback
Celebrity selection criteria
- Credibility
- Attractiveness
- Brand matching
- Audience matching
- Budget
- Conflict of interest
4 risks of using a celebrity
- Overshadows the product
- Overexposure
- Audience not receptive
- Celebrity's behaviour
4 budget methods
- Affordable (small)
- Percentage of sales (medium)
- Competitive parity
- Objective and task
Objective and task: 3 steps
- Determine the objectives
- Determine the tasks to achieve them
- Estimate the cost of the tasks
6 factors affecting the budget
- Product life-cycle stage
- Durability
- Hidden qualities
- Price
- Differentiation
- Purchase frequency
Template for every tool
- Definition
- Uniqueness
- Objectives
- Major decisions
- Evaluating effectiveness
Advertising, defined in 3 tests
- Paid
- Non-personal
- Identified sponsor
4 unique qualities of advertising
- Impersonal / non-personal
- Public presentation
- Amplified expressiveness
- Pervasiveness
5 functions of advertising
- Informing
- Persuading
- Reminding
- Adding value
- Assisting other tools
Ladder: how advertising works
- Unawareness
- Awareness
- Expectation
- Trial
- Beliefs
- Attitude
- Attitude reinforcement
- Brand loyalty
AIDA, the four stages
- Awareness: the customer learns the brand exists
- Interest: they want to know more
- Desire: knowing turns into wanting
- Action: they buy
Classification of advertising
- Consumer: national, retail/local, primary vs selective
- Business: B2B, professional, trade
DMB&B: 9 universal standards
- Positions simply with unmistakable clarity
- Bolts the brand to a clinching benefit
- Contains a Power Idea
- Designs in brand personality
- Unexpected
- Single-minded
- Rewards the prospect
- Visually arresting
- Painstaking craftsmanship
5 major decisions in advertising
- Objective setting
- Budget decision
- Message decision
- Media decision
- Campaign evaluation
3 appeals
- Rational
- Emotional
- Moral
Message execution styles (name 10)
- Slice of life
- Lifestyle
- Fantasy
- Mood or image
- Musical
- Personality symbol
- Technical expertise
- Scientific evidence
- TestimonialA user shares their personal experience with the product.
- Straight sellA factual message about the product, no story, no celebrity. / factual
- Demonstration
- Comparison
- Dramatization
- Humorous
- Animation
- Combination
4 steps of the media decision
- Reach, frequency and impact
- Major media types
- Specific media vehiclesA specific outlet within a medium: the medium is TV, the vehicle is Jamuna TV.
- Media timing
Reach, frequency, impact
- Reach: % of target exposed
- Frequency: how many times
- Impact: qualitative value of the exposure
3 media scheduling methods
- Continuity
- Flighting
- Pulsing
TV: 7 pros, 5 cons
- Mass coverage, high reach, sight-sound-motion, prestige, low cost per exposure, attention, favourable image
- Low selectivity, short message life, high absolute cost, high production cost, clutter
3 ways to evaluate an ad
- Surveys
- Sales effect
- Communication effect
5 components of a print ad
- Headline
- Subhead
- Body copy
- Visual elements
- Layout
3 components of a radio ad
- Sound
- Voice quality
- Message: clear, short, simple
Sales promotion: 5 major decisions
- Establish the objective
- Select the tools
- Develop and implement
- Determine the length
- Evaluate
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