Advertising: A Very Short Introduction

This time I familiarized myself with domain of advertising with Advertising: A Very Short Introduction by Winston Fletcher. The book is part of Oxford University Press’ Very Short Introductions series. With this brief experience I could consider checking out also other titles from them. Some notes collected from the book follow, following the chapters of the book :)

1. Advertising

• Advertising – what is it?
  • Advertising is one type of marketing communication (other types include e.g. packaging, sales promotions, commercial emails, public relations etc.)
  • Definition by the writer: An advertisement is a paid-for communication intended to inform and/or persuade one or more people.
  • To sell isn’t always the (only) reason
• Advertising objectives for a campaign vary a lot. Some examples:
  • launch a new brand
  • launch a new product to an existing brand
  • make people who haven’t heard of a brand become aware of it
• Advertising strategy – this is where the campaign objectives should be spelled out
• Target market – defined population sectors
  • Target Group Index (TGI) survey in the UK
• What do customers want from their brand?
  • Emphasis has been shifted from product formulations towards end-benefits.
  • Brand image, emotional side
• Diversity of advertising – good to note
  • Diversity of services and products
• Account planners – usually the ones who study and analyze the wealth of information

2. Industry structure

Tripartite of advertisers, media and agencies

• Advertisers
  • Retailers, manufacturers, finance companies, charities, governments etc.
• Media
  • Print, TV, posters, radio, cinema and the Internet.
  • classifieds vs. display
    • Ads that people look for (classifieds)
    • Ads which look for people (display)
  • print & Internet have both classifieds & display
  • TV, radio, cinema and posters carry mainly display advertising
  • Before arrival of TV, print advertising was largely on classifieds
  • Digital revolution with the Internet
• Agencies
  • In the 1970’s, agencies have split to creative agencies and media agencies.
  • Digi revolution has resulted in digi departments and separate digi agencies.
  • This is the part of the tripartite that relies & works fully on advertising.

3. Advertisers

• Most businesses advertiser
  • Note that not all businesses advertise.
• 4 criteria for a (successful) brand:
  • The brand will have a unique name and packaging, and usually a logo, all of which will be easily and instantly recognizable by its target market.
  • It must be perceived by its target market to have qualities which differentiate it from others, similar brands. (brand positioning)
  • The qualities will be both functional and emotive; its purchasers will both think and feel the brand is different from, and in their eyes superior, others.
  • These perceptions will allow the brand to command a premium price over unbranded, commodity products, and thus to generate greater profits for the company that owns it.
• Valuation of the brand by its target market is what matters.

4. Media

• Media – Latin plural form of the singular noun medium
• Medium (Oxford English Dictionary): Any intervening substance through which a force acts on objects at a distance or through which impressions are conveyed to the senses.
• Criteria for choosing media
  • Reach – How many people in the target market does the medium reach ? What kind of people?
  • Cost – How much does it cost to use the medium? (Compared with alternative media, which provides the best value for money)
  • How powerful and persuasive it is as an advertising medium?
• Cost per thousand (readers/watchers/… in the target market) is the typical comparison criteria within certain type of media.
  • Note that it seldom is helpful to compare cost per thousand straight between media (effects with different types of media are too different)

Different types of media

• Note that the descriptions are from the UK point of view.

Press and Magazines

• National newspapers
• Regional newspapers
  • Higher cost per thousand than with nationals
• Consumer magazines
  • Higher reader-to-circulation ratio (one paper is usually read by more people)

TV

• In the UK, strong governmental control on TV advertising
• Fragmentation has increased recently
• Writer states that no evidence of the Internet or Video-on-demand resulting as TV viewership falling

Rest (minor media)

• Direct mail
• Outdoor and transport
• Radio
• Cinema

The Internet

• Has grown much
• Most Internet advertising for products & brands for which customers require detailed information.
• Provides much better options for targeting than other mediums

5. Creative agencies

• The messages you put into advertisements are but the means to an end.
• The end is what the target market makes of the messages.
• Copy/art cooperation
  • Before TV words were the beef → copywriter was the top
  • Nowadays working mostly as copy/art teams (copy & art together)
• Creativity is an incremental process
• Account planning & account management have a big role
• Globalization trend

6. Media agencies

• Advertising agencies have mostly been split to creative and media agencies (specialization)
• Media agencies: help advertisers to fish where the fish are – at the lowest possible cost
• In media agencies analysis, research, numbers are the thing
• Two roles: planning (strategic) & buying (negotiating)
• Media selection factors:
  • Budget
  • (Technical) nature of the medium
  • Coverage of the target market
• One principal expertise of media agencies is choosing between trade-offs
  • Media selection
  • Size, frequency, timing etc.
• Digital (Internet) has also brought pay-per-click charging

7. Research

• Some historical notes on advertising research
  • 1909: Psychology of advertising (Walter Dill Scott)
  • 1923: Scientific advertising (Claude Hopkins)
    • Still relevant stuff for coupon advertising
  • 1950’s: Motivation research
  • 1957: Subliminal advertising study (later admitted to have been a hoax)
  • from early 1940s to late 1960s: Unique Selling Proposition (Ted Bates)
• Today no more search for the Golden Key
• Pre-testing & post-launch testing
  • Pre-testing
    • Important that the interviewees are members of the target group
    • 1-1 or focus group interviews
  • Post-launch testing
    • Advertising awareness (only an approximation of campaign effectiveness)
    • KPIs (pre-defined)
• Other techniques have also been tried (pupil dilation, eye tracking, MRI, …)

Misc. links

• IPA Awards
• http://www.warc.com/

Are your lights on?

A while ago I happened to read DHH:s blog post The five programming books that meant most to me. Since the first four (Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, Refactoring, Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture and Domain-Driven Design) are all classics that I either have read or at least know of, I was curious to check out the fifth one that I haven’t heard of before, Are your lights on? How to figure out what the problem.

The book isn’t straightly about programming but the content is very relevant for anyone involved in creating software: Before starting to solve the problem, make sure you know what is the problem you’re trying to solve and is it the right problem at all. Whose problem is it?

To go through the book again I’ve collected a table-of-contents-ish summary of the chapters and main points of the book.

Part 1: WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

1. A PROBLEM

• What is the problem?

Try to find

• Who has a problem?

and for each answering party, try to ask

• What is the essence of the problem?

2. PETER PIGEONHOLE PREPARED A PETITION

• How can we determine “What is wrong?”
• What is wrong?
• What can be done about it?

3. WHAT‘S YOUR PROBLEM?

• A problem is a difference between things as desired and things as perceived.
• Phantom problems are real problems.
  • Phantom problem: A discomfort primarily attributable to perceptions.

Part 2: WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

4. BILLY BRIGHTEYES BESTS THE BIDDERS

• Don’t take their solution method for a problem definition.
• If you solve their problem too readily they’ll never believe you’ve solved their real problem.

5. BILLY BITES HIS TONGUE

• Don’t mistake a solution method for a problem definition – especially if it’s your own solution method.

6. BILLY BACK TO THE BIDDERS

• You can never be too sure you have a correct definition, even after the problem is solved.
• You can never be sure you have a correct definition, but don’t ever stop trying to get one.
• Don’t leap to conclusions, but don’t ignore your first impression.

Part 3: WHAT IS THE PROBLEM REALLY?

7. THE ENDLESS CHAIN

• Each solution is the source of the next problem.
• The trickiest part of certain problems is just recognizing their existence.
• If you can’t think of at least three things that might be wrong with your understanding of the problem, you don’t understand the problem.

8. MISSING THE MISFIT

• A misfit is a solution that produces a mismatch with the human beings who have to live with the solution.
  • Most misfits are easy to solve, once they are recognized.
• Don’t leap to conclusions, but don’t ignore your first impression.
• Test your definition on a foreigner, someone blind, or a child, or make yourself foreign, blind or childlike.
• Each new point of view will produce a new misfit.

9. LANDING ON THE LEVEL

• How could we change the problem statement to make the solution different?
• What am I solving?
• As you wander along the weary path of problem definition, check back home once in a while to see if you haven’t lost your way.

10. MIND YOUR MEANING

• Once you have a problem statement in words, play with the words until the statement is in everyone’s head.

Part 4: WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT?

11. SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

• Whose problem is it?
• Don’t solve other people’s problems when they can solve them perfectly well themselves.
• If it’s their problem, make it their problem.

12. THE CAMPUS THAT WAS ALL SPACED OUT

• Whose problem is it?
• If a person is in a position to do something about a problem, but doesn’t have the problem, then do something so he does.
• Try blaming yourself for a change – even for a moment.

13. THE LIGHTS AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

• Whose problem is it?
• If people really have their lights on, a little reminder may be more effective than your complicated solution.

Part 5: WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?

14. JANET JAWORSKI JOGGLES A JERK

• Where does this problem come from?

15. MISTER MATCZYSZYN MENDS THE MATTER

• Where does this discourtesy come from?
• The source of the problem is often within you.

16. MAKE-WORKS AND TAKE CREDITS

• Where does the problem come from?
• There are two kinds of people in the world…

17. EXAMINATIONS AND OTHER PUZZLES

• Where does the problem come from?
• Who sent this problem?
• What’s he trying to do to me?
• Puzzles are difficult by design

Part 6: DO WE REALLY WANT TO SOLVE IT?

18. TOM TIRELESS TINKERS WITH TOYS

• Most of us have had schooling – too much of it
  • → We’re developed an instinct that makes us seize upon the first statement that looks like a “problem”. (This strategy works well on exams etc.)
• In spite of appearances, people seldom know what they want until you give them what they ask for.

19. PATIENCE PLAYS POLITICS

• Not too many people, in the final analysis, really want their problems solved.

20. A PRIORITY ASSIGNMENT

• Do we really want a solution?
• We never have enough time consider whether we want it, but we always have enough time to regret it.
• The fish is always last to see water.

Summary

As a summary: We often are experienced problem solvers and thus pretty enthusiastic on solving problems. Because of that, before going to solve the problem, it is important to remember to stop to think what is the problem actually, whose is it and where does it come from. This book is a pretty fast read and good reminder on this.