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)
- Pre-testing
- Other techniques have also been tried (pupil dilation, eye tracking, MRI, …)
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