Advertising

Classification of Advertising:
Advertising to consumer markets
National Advertising
Advertising done by large companies on a nationwide basis or in most regions of the
country. Most of the ads for well-known companies and brands that are seen on
prime-time TV or in other major national or regional media are examples of national
advertising. The goals of national advertisers are to inform or remind consumers of
the company or brand and its features, benefits, advantages, or uses and to create or
reinforce its image so that consumers will be predisposed to purchase it.
Retail/Local Advertising
Advertising done by retailers or local merchants to encourage consumers to shop at a
specific store, use a local service, or patronize a particular establishment. Retail or
local advertising tends to emphasize specific patronage motives such as price, hours
of operation, service, atmosphere, image, or merchandise assortment. Retailers are
concerned with building store traffic, so their promotions often take the form of
direct-action advertising designed to produce immediate store traffic and sales.
Primary- versus Selective-Demand Advertising
Primary-demand advertising is designed to stimulate demand for the general product
class or entire industry. Selective-demand advertising focuses on creating demand for
a specific companys brands. Most advertising for products and services is concerned
with stimulating selective demand and emphasizes reasons for purchasing a particular
brand. An advertiser might concentrate on stimulating primary demand when, for
example, its brand dominates a market and will benefit the most from overall market
growth. Primary-demand advertising is often used as part of a promotional strategy to
help a new product gain market acceptance, since the challenge is to sell customers on
the product concept as much as to sell a particular brand. Industry trade associations
also try to stimulate primary demand for their members products, among them cotton,
milk, orange juice, pork, and beef.
ADVERTISING TO BUSINESS MARKETS
Business-to-Business Advertising
Advertising targeted at individuals who buy or influence the purchase of industrial
goods or services for their companies. Industrial goods are products that either
become a physical part of another product (raw material or component parts), are used
in manufacturing other goods (machinery), or are used to help a company conduct its
business (e.g., office supplies, computers). Business services such as insurance, travel
services, and health care are also included in this category.
Professional Advertising
Advertising targeted to professionals such as doctors, lawyers, dentists, engineers, or
professors to encourage them to use a companys product in their business operations.
It might also be used to encourage professionals to recommend or specify the use of a
companys product by end-users.
Trade Advertising
Advertising targeted to marketing channel members such as wholesalers, distributors,
and retailers. The goal is to encourage channel members to stock, promote, and resell
the manufacturers branded products to their customers.

How advertising works? The hierarchy of effects metaphor implies that for
advertising to be successful it must move consumers from one goal to the next goal
much in the same way that a person climbs a ladder- one step then another and
another until the top of the ladder is reached.
Although a variety of hierarchy of effects models have been formulated, all are
predicated on the idea that advertising moves people from an initial state of
unawareness about a brand to purchasing that brand eventually. The stages of the
hierarchy are shown in figure.
When the brand was first introduced to the market, consumers were initially unaware
of the brands existence and of its special features
The initial advertising imperative was to make people aware of the brand name.
The ad in other word must influence consumer expectations.
To the extent the consumer develops this expectations, she or he may undertake a trial
purchase of the brand.
Upon using the brand, the consumer will from belief about the brands performance
benefits and an overall attitudes or evaluation toward the brands.
As long as the brand continues to satisfy expectations and a superior brand is not
introduced, the consumer may become a brand loyal purchaser of the brand
Brand loyalty

Belief reinforcement

Attitudes reinforcement

Beliefs

Attitudes

Trial

Expectation

Awareness

Unawareness
What makes advertising effectiveness?

Advertising is effective if it accomplishes the advertisers objectives. Although it is

impractical to provide a singular, all purpose definition of what constitutes effective
advertising, it is possible to talk about general characteristics. At a minimum, good
advertising satisfies the following considerations:
1) It must extend from sound marketing strategy. Advertising can be effective
only if it is compatible with other elements of an integrated and wellorchestrated marketing communication strategy
2) Effective advertising must take the consumers view: Consumers buy product
benefits not attributes. Therefore, advertising must be stated in a way that
relates to the consumers rather than the marketers needs wants and values.
3) Effective advertising is persuasive. Persuasion usually occurs when there is a
benefit for the consumer in addition to the marketer.
4) Advertising must find a unique way to break through the clutter. Advertisers
continuously compete with competitors for the consumers attention. This is
no small task considering the massive number of print advertisements,
broadcast commercials and other sources of information available daily to
consumers.
5) Good advertising should never promise more than it can deliver.
6) Good advertising presents the creative idea from overwhelming the strategy.
The purpose of advertising is to persuade and influence: the purpose is not to
be cute for cutes sake or humorous for humors sake. The ineffective use of
humor results in people remembering the humor but forgetting the selling
message/
There are some universal standard provided by the former DArcy, Masius Benton
and Bowles agency for developing its creative efforts and help achieve superior
creativity consistently.
DArcy, Masius Benton & Bowles universal advertising
standards are given to below:
Does this advertising position the product simply and
with unmistakable clarity?
Does this advertising bolt the brand to a clinching
benefit?
Does this advertising contain a power idea?
Does this advertising design in Brand Personality?
Is this advertising unexpected?
Is this advertising single-minded?
Does this advertising reward the prospect?
Is this advertising visually arresting?
Does this advertising exhibit painstaking
craftsmanship?
Major decisions in Advertising:

Setting the advertising objectives:

An advertising objective is a specific communication task to be accomplished with a
specific target audience during a specific period of time. Advertising objectives may
be classified by primary purposei)
informative advertising
ii)
Persuasive adverting
iii)
Reminder advertising
iv)
Assisting other company efforts
v)
Adding Value
Informative advertising: Informative advertising is used heavily when introducing a
new product category. In this case, the objective is to build primary demand. For
example:
Telling the market about a new product
Suggesting new uses for the product
Informing the market of a price change
Explaining how the product works
Describing available services
Correcting false impressions
Reducing consumers fears
Building a company image.
Persuasive advertising: Here the companys objective is to build selective demand.
Suppose, some companies try to persuade the consumers that its brand offered the
best quality for their money.
For examples, Building brand preference
Encouraging switching to your brand
Changing customers perception of product attributes
Persuading customer to purchase now
Persuading customer to receive a sales call
Reminder advertising: Reminder advertising is important for mature products-it
keeps consumers thinking about the product. Expensive Coca-Cola television ads
primarily remind people about Coca-Cola rather than informing or persuading
For example;
Reminding consumer that the product may be needed in the near future
Reminding consumer where to buy it
Keeping it in consumers mind during off-seasons
Maintaining its top of mind awareness.
Adding Value: There are three ways by which companies can add value to their
offerings, innovating, improving quality or altering company consumer perceptions.
Advertising adds value to brands by influencing consumers perceptions. Effective
advertising causes brands to be viewed as more elegant, more stylish, more
prestigious and perhaps superior to competitive offerings.
Assisting other company efforts:
Advertising plays a significant role in assisting other company efforts to convince the
customers. Advertising presells a companys products and provides salespeople with

valuable introductions prior to their personal contact with prospective customers.

Advertising legitimizes or makes more credible the sales representatives claims.
Requirements for setting good advertising objectives:
Advertising objective is a specific statement about a planned advertising execution in
terms of what that particular advertisement is intended to accomplish. Now we will
discuss some criteria that good advertising must follow
Objectives must include a precise statement of who, what and when.
Objectives must be quantitative and measurable
Objectives must specify the amount of change
Objectives must be realistic
Objectives must be internally consistent
Objectives must be clear and in writing
Budgeting Methods:
Setting the advertising Budget:
Method of setting the advertising Budgets:
There are four common methods used to set the total budget for advertising. Such as
are given to below:
Affordable Method: some companies use the affordable method. They set the
promotion budget at the level they think the company can afford. Small businesses
often use this method because the company can not spend more on advertising than it
has. They start with total revenues, deduct operating expenses and capital outlays and
then devote some portion of the remaining funds to advertising.
Percentage of sales Method:
In using the percentage of sales method, a company sets a brands advertising budget
by simply establishing the budget as a fixed percentage of past or anticipated sales
volume. For example, a company allocates 3 percent of anticipated sales to
advertising and that the company projects next years sales for a particular brand. In
this method, the company set the advertising budget at a certain percentage of current
or forecasted sales or as a percentage of the unit sales price.
Competitive Parity Method: the competitive parity method sets the advertising
budget by basically following what competitors are doing. They monitor competitors
advertising or get industry promotion spending estimates from publications or trade
associations, and then set their budgets based on the industry average.
Objective and task method: in this method, the company sets its promotion budget
based on what it wants to accomplish with promotion. Specifying objectives
determining the tasks to be performed and estimating the cost for performing that
tasks. This is known as the objective and task method. The following steps are
involved when applying the objective and task methods.
The first step is to establish specific marketing objectives that needs to be
accomplished.
The second step is to assess the communication functions that must be
performed to accomplish the overall marketing objectives.
The third step is to determine advertisings role in the total communication
mix in performing the functions.

The fourth step is to establish specific advertising goals in terms of the levels
of measurable communications response required to achieve marketing
objectives.
The final step is establish the budget based on estimate of expenditures
required to accomplish the advertising goals.

Budgeting Considerations in Practice:

Advertising decision makers must consider several different factors when establishing
advertising budgets
What is the advertising objective? A key consideration underlying ad budget
determination is the objective that advertising is designed to accomplish. that is the
level of the budget should follow from the specific objective established for
advertising; more ambitious objectives require larger advertising budgets. if
advertising is intended to increase a brands market share, then a larger budget is
needed than would be required if the task were simply to maintain consumer
awareness of the brand name.
How much are competitors spending? Competitive advertising activity is another
important consideration in setting ad budgets. in highly competitive markets, more
must be invested in advertising in order to increase or at least maintain market
position.
How much money is available? a third major consideration is the amount of funds
available for advertising. in the final analysis, advertising budget setting is determined
in large part by decision makers perceptions of how much they can afford to spend on
advertising.
Developing advertising strategy:
Advertising strategy consists of two major elements;
i)
creating advertising message
ii)
selecting advertising media
Creating advertising message: the creative department first created good
advertisements. Advertising can succeed only if commercials gain attention and
communicate well. Good advertising messages are especially important in today's
costly and cluttered advertising environment.
Message strategy: the first step in creating effective advertising messages is to decide
what general message will be communicated to consumers- to plan a message
strategy. Developing an effective message strategy begins with identifying customer
benefits that can be used as advertising appeals. Message strategy statements tend to
be plain, straightforward outlines of benefits and positioning points that the advertiser
wants to stress.
The creative concept will guide the choice of specific appeals to be used in an
advertising campaign.
The advertising appeal refers to the
.+approach used to attract the attention of consumers and to influence their feelings
toward the product, service or cause. An advertising appeal can also be viewed as
something that moves people speaks to their wants or needs and excites their interest.
The appeal can be said to form the underlying content of the advertisement.

Advertising appeal tend to adapt themselves to all media. There are three types of
appeals, such as are given to below:
i)
Rational/ informational appeals:
ii)
Emotional appeals
iii)
Moral appeals
Rational/informational appeals: Rational appeals relate to the audiences selfinterest. They show that the product will produce the desired benefits. It focus on the
consumers practical, functional or utilitarian need for the product or service and
emphasize features of a product or service and or the benefits or reasons for owning
or using a particular brand. Rational based tend to be informative and advertisers
using them generally attempt to convince consumers that their product or service has
a particular attributes or provides specific benefit that satisfies their needs.
Many rational motives can be used as the basis for advertising appeals including
comfort, convenience, economy, health and sensory benefits such as touch, taste and
smell and rational motives are quality, dependability, durability, efficacy, efficiency
and performance etc.
Weilbacher identified several types of advertising appeals that fall under the category
of rational approaches such as are
Ads that use a feature appeals focus on the dominant traits of the product or service.
A competitive advantage appeal is used, here the advertiser makes either a direct or an
indirect comparison to another brand and usually claims superiority on one or more
attributes.
A favorable price appeal makes the price offer the dominant point of the message.
News appeals are those in which some type of news or announcement about the
product, service or company dominates the ads.
Product/ service popularity appeals stress the popularity of a product or service by
pointing out the number of consumers who use the brand, the number who have
switched to it, the number of exports who recommend it or its leadership position in
the market place.
Emotional appeals:
Emotional appeals stir up either negative or positive emotions that can motivate
purchase.
Emotional appeals relate to the consumers social or psychological needs for
purchasing a product or service. Communicators may use positive emotional appeals
such as are love, pride, joy and humor etc. sometimes they negative emotional appeals
such as are fear, guilt and shame. Many feelings or needs can serve as the basis for
advertising appeals designed to influence consumers on an emotional level.
Personal states or feelings
social based feelings
Safety
arousal/stimulation
Recognition
Security
sorrow/grief
Status
Fear
pride
Respect
Love
achievement/accomplishment
Involvement
Affection
self-esteem
Embarrassment
Happiness
actualization
Affiliation/
belonging
Joy
pleasure
Rejection
Nostalgia
ambition
Acceptance
Sentiment
comfort
Approval

Excitement

Moral appeals:
Moral appeals are directed to the audiences sense of what is right and proper. They
are often used to urge people to support social causes such as a cleaner environment,
better race relations, and equal rights for women and aid to the disadvantaged.
An example of a moral appeal is the March of Dimes appeal, God made you whole.
Give to help those He did not
Advertising appeals should have three characteristics;
First, they should be meaningful
Second the appeal must be believable
Third , the appeal should also be distinctive
Celebrity Endorsers:
Television stars, movie actors, famous athletes and dead personalities are widely used
in magazine ads, radio spots, and television commercials to endorse the products. By
definition, a celebrity is a personality who is known to the public for his or her
accomplishments in areas other than the product class endorsed. Cele
brities are great demand as product spokespersons, perhaphs as many as one-fourth of
all commercials employ celebrity endorsements.
Advertisers and their agencies are willing to pay huge salaries to those celebrities who
are liked and respected by target audiences and who will, it is hoped favorably
influence consumer's attitudes and behavior toward the endorsed products.
How are celebrities selected:
A survey of advertising executives illuminates the factors these executive consider
when making their celebrity selection decisions. The major considerations in order of
decreasing importance are
i)
Celebrity credibility
ii)
Celebrity and audience matchup
iii)
Celebrity and Brand matchup
iv)
Celebrity attractiveness
v)
Miscellaneous considerations.
Celebrity Credibility: A celebrity's trustworthiness and expertise is the primary
reason for selecting a celebrity endorser.
People who are trustworthy and perceived as knowledgeable on a particular issue are
best able to convince others to undertake a course of action.
Celebrity and audience matchup: The celebrity must match up the characteristics
of the audiences. The demographic of the celebrities must matchup with the
demography of the audiences.
Celebrity/Brand Matchup: Advertising executives require that the celebrity's image,
values, and decorum be compatible with the image desired for the advertised brand.
Sachin tendulker matches up well with Pepsi, because his image fits well with that
brand.

Celebrity attractiveness: in selecting celebrity spokespeople, advertising executives

evaluate different aspects that can be lumped together under the general label
attractiveness. These include friendliness, likability, physique and occupation as some
of the more important dimensions of the attractiveness concept.
Miscellaneous Considerations: Finally, ad executives in selecting celebrities
consider additional factors such as
i)
how much it will cost to acquire a celebrity's services
ii)
the likelihood that the celebrity will get into trouble after an endorsement is
established
iii)
how difficult or easy he or she is to work with
iv)
How many other brands the celebrity is endorsing.
Message execution
Message execution: the advertiser now has to turn the big idea into an actual ad
execution that will capture the target market's attention and interest.. the creative
people must find the best style, tone, words and format for executing the message.
Any message can be presented in different execution styles, such as the following;
Advertising execution styles:
Once the specific advertising appeal that will be used as the basis for the advertising
message has been determined, the creative specialist or team begins its execution.
Creative execution is the way an advertising appeal is presented. An advertising
message can be presented or executed in numerous ways:
1) Straight sell or factual message: The ads relies on a straightforward presentation
of information concerning the products or services. Here the focus of the message
is the product or services and its specific attributes or benefits. It is commonly
used in print ads.
A picture of the product or service occupies part of the ads and the factual copy
takes up the rest of the space.
They are generally used in the advertising with an announcer generally delivering
the sales message which the product or service is shown on the screen.
Ads for high involvement products as well as industrial and other business to
business products generally use this format.
2) Scientific/Technical Evidence:
In this method scientific or technical evidence is presented. Advertisers often
recite technical information, result of scientific or laboratory studios or
endorsements by scientific bodies or agencies to support their advertising claims.
For example, an endorsement from the American council or dental therapeutics on
how fluoride help to prevent cavities was the basis of the campaign that made
crest the leading brand on the market.
3) Demonstration: It is designed to illustrate the key advantages of the product or
service by showing it in actual or is some stage situation.
TV ad is particularly well suited for demonstration executions. The benefits or
advantages of the products can be shown right on the screen.
4) Comparison: Brand comparisons can also be basis for the advertising
executions. It offers a direct way of communicating a brands particular advantage
over its competitors or positioning a new or lesser known brand with industry

leaders. Comparisons executives are often used to execute competitive advantage

appeals
5) Testimonial executions: Here a person praises the product or service on the
basis of his or her personal experiences with it. The testimonial must be based on
actual use of the product or services to avoid legal problems and the spokesperson
must be credible. For example, apple computer made effective use of testimonial
as part of its switch campaign which features computers uses from various walks
of life discouraging why they switched from wind owns from windows based
machines to Macintoshes.
A related execution technique is the endorsement where a well known or respected
individual such as a celebrity or expert in the product or service area speaks on
behalf of the company or the brand.
6) Slice of life: it is generally based on a problem or solution approaches. This ads
portrays a problems or conflict that consumers might face in their daily lives. The
ads show how the advertised products or services can solve the problems.
7) Animation: an advertising execution approach that has become popular in
recent years is animation. With this technique animated scenes are drawn by
artists or created on the computer and cartoons puppets or other types of fictional
characters may be used.
Cartoon animation is especially popular for commercials targeted at children
8) Mood or image: This style builds a mood or image around the product, such as
beauty, love or serenity. No claim is made about the product except through
suggestion. Bermuda tourism ads create such moods.
9) Musical: this style shows one or more people or cartoon characters singing a
song about the product. For example, one of the most famous ads in history was a
coca cola ad built around the song. I would like to teach the world to sing.
10) Personality symbol: this style creates a character that represents the product.
The character might be animated or real. Such as Marlboro man. This style
involves developing a central character or personality symbol that can deliver the
advertising message and with which the product or service can be identified. This
character may be a person.
11) Fantasy: an execution technique that is popular for emotional types of appeals
such as image advertising is fantasy. Fantasy executions are particularly well
suited for television, as the commercial can become a 30 second escape for the
viewer into another lifestyle. Cosmetics ads often use fantasy appeals to create
images and symbols that become associated with the brand.
12) Dramatization: another execution technique particularly well suited to
television is dramatization where the focus is on telling a short story with the
product or service at the star. The purpose of using drama is to draw the viewer
into the action it portrays.

13) Humor: this technique can also be used as a way of presenting other
advertising appeals. Humorous executions are particularly well suited to television
or radio.
14) Combinations: many of the advertising techniques can be combined to
present the advertising message. For example, animation is often used to create
personality symbols or present a fantasy. Slice of life ads are often used to
demonstrate a product or service.
Format elements make a difference in an ad's impact as well as in its costs. A small
change in ad design can make a big difference in its effect. The elements of the print
ad must effectively work together. The creative tactics for print advertising are given
to below;
Creative Tactics for print advertising:
The basic components of a print ad are the
i)
the headline
ii)
the body copy
iii)
the visual or illustrations
iv)
the layout
Headlines: the headline is the words in the leading position of the ad-the words that
will be read first or are positioned to draw the most attention. Headlines are usually
set in larger type and are often set apart from the body copy.
The most important function of a headline is attracting readers attention and
interesting them in the rest of the message.
Research has shown the headline is generally the first thing people look at in a print
ad. Only 20% of readers go beyond the headline and read the body copy.
The headline must put forth the main theme, appeal or proposition of the ad in a few
words.
Types of headline: Headline can be categorized as direct and indirect headline.
Direct headlines are straightforward and informative in terms of the message they are
presenting and the target audience they are directed toward. Common types of direct
headlines include those offering a specific benefit, making a promise or announcing a
reason the reader should be interested in the product or service.
Indirect headlines are not straightforward about identifying the product or service or
getting to the point. But they are often more effective at attracting readers attention
and interest because they provoke curiosity and lure readers into the body copy to
learn answer or get an explanation.
The technique for writing indirect headlines include using questions, provocations,
how to statements and challenges.
Subheads:
Subheads are usually smaller than the main headline but larger than the body copy.
They may appear above or below the main headline or within the body copy
Subheads are often used to enhance the readability of the message by breaking up
large amounts of body copy and highlighting key sales points
Body Copy:

The main text portion of a print ad is referred to as the body copy. Advertising body
copy can be written to go along with various types of creative appeals and executionscomparisons, price appeals, demonstrations, humors, dramatizations and the like.
Visual Elements: The third major components of a print ad is the visual element.
Visual portions of an ad must attract attention, communicate an idea or image and
work in synergistic fashion with the headline and body copy to produce an effective
message. Many decisions have to be made regarding the visual portions of the ad:
what identification marks should be included; whether to use photos or hand-drawn or
painted illustrations; what colors to use and what the focus of the visual should be.
Layout: a layout is the physical arrangement of the various parts of the ad, including
the headline, subheads, body copy, illustrations and any identifying marks. The layout
shows where each part of the ad will be placed and gives guidelines to the people
working on the ad.
The layout can also guide the art director in determining the size and types of photos.
Selecting advertising media:
The major steps in media selection are
i)
deciding on reach, frequency and impact
ii)
choosing among major media types
iii)
selecting specific media vehicles
iv)
deciding on media time
Deciding on reach, frequency and impact:
To select media, the advertiser must decide what reach and frequency are needed to
achieve advertising objectives. Reach is a measure of the percentage of people in the
target market who are exposed to the ad campaign during a given period of time.
Frequency is a measure of how many times the average person in the target market is
exposed to the message
The advertiser must also decide on the desired media impact-the quantitative value of
a message exposure through a given medium. For example, for products that need to
be demonstrated, messages on television may have more impact than messages on
radio because television uses sight and sound. The same message in one magazine
may be more believable than in another message. The more reach, frequency and
impact the advertiser seeks, the higher the advertising budget will have to be.
Choosing among major media types: the media planner has to know the reach,
frequency and impact of each of the major media types. The major media types are
newspapers, television, direct mail, radio, magazines, outdoor and the internet etc.
each medium has some advantages and limitations.
Medium

Advantages

Limitations

Newspapers

Flexibility, timeliness, good local

market coverage, broad acceptability
and high believability
Good mass-market coverage, low cost

Short life, poor reproduction

quality, small pass along
audience.
High absolute costs, high

Television

Direct mail
Radio
Magazines

Outdoor
Internet

per exposure, combines sight, sound

and motion, appealing to the senses.
High audience selectivity, flexibility,
no ad competition within the same
medium, allows personalization
Good local acceptance, high
geographic and demographic
selectivity; low cost
High geographic and demographic
selectivity; credibility and prestige;
high quality reproduction; long life
and good pass-along readership.
Flexibility, high repeat exposure; low
cost; low message competition; good
personal selectivity
High selectivity; low cost;
immediacy; interactive capabilities

clutter, fleeting exposure,

less audience selectivity
Relatively high cost per
exposure, Junk mail image.
Audio only, fleeting
exposure; low attention;
fragmented audiences
Long ad purchase lead time;
high cost; no guarantee of
positions
Little audience selectivity;
creative limitations
Small, demographically
skewed audience, relatively
low impact; audience
controls exposure

Media planners consider many factors when making their media choices.
i)
The media habits of target consumers
ii)
The nature of the products
iii)
Types of messages
iv)
Costs.
Selecting specific media vehicles:
The media planner must now choose the best media vehicles-specific media within
each general media type. For example, television vehicles include ER and ABC World
News Tonight. Magazine vehicles include Newsweek, Poeple, In Style and Sports
Illustrated etc.
Media planner must compute the cost per thousand persons reached by a vehicle. The
media planner must also consider the costs of producing ads for different media.
In selecting media vehicles, the media planner must balance media cost measures
against several impact factors. First, the planner should balance costs against the
media vehicle's audience quality.
The second, the media planner should also consider audience attention.
The third, the planner should assess the vehicle's editorial quality-Time and Wall
street Journal are more believable and prestigious than the national Enquirer.
Deciding on media timing:
The advertiser must also decide how to schedule the advertising over the course of a
year. Obviously, the company would like to keep their advertising in front of
consumers at all times as a constant reminder of the product and brand name. The
primary objective of scheduling is to time promotional efforts so that they will
coincide with the highest potential buying times. Three scheduling methods are
available to the media planneri)
Continuity
ii)
Flighting

iii)
Pulshing
Continuity refers to a continuous pattern of advertising, which may mean every day,
every week or every month. The key is that a regular pattern is developed without
gaps or non-advertising periods. Such strategies might be used for advertising for
food products, laundry detergents or other products consumed on an ongoing basis
without regard for seasonality.
A second method, flighting, employs a less regular schedule, with intermittent periods
of advertising and non-advertising. At some time periods there are heavier
promotional expenditures and at other there may be no advertising. Many banks for
example spend no money on advertising in the summer but maintain advertising
throughout the rest of the year. Snow skis are advertised heavily between October and
April; less in May, August and September and not at all in June and July.
Pulsing is actually a combination of the first two methods. In a pulsing strategy,
continuity is maintained, but at certain times promotional efforts are stepped up. In
the beer industry, advertising continues throughout the year but may increase at
holiday periods such as Labor Day.
Evaluating advertising:
The advertising program should evaluate both the communication effects and the sales
effects of advertising regularly. Measuring the communication effects of an ad-copy
testing-tells whether the ad is communicating well. Copy testing can be done before
or after an is printed or broadcast. Before the ad is placed, the advertiser can show it
to consumers, ask how they like it and measure recall or attitude changes resulting
from it. After the ad is run, the advertiser can measure how the ad affected consumers
recall or product awareness, knowledge and preferences etc.
The sales effects of advertising are often harder to measure than the communication
effects. Sales are affected by many factors besides advertising such as product
features, price and availability. One way to measure the sales effect of advertising is
to compare past sales with past advertising expenditures. Another way is through
experimentation.