DAGMAR - Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results

Russell Colley (1961) developed a model for setting advertising objectives and measuring the results. This model was entitled Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results- DAGMAR. DAGMAR model suggests that the ultimate objective of advertising must carry a consumer through four levels of understanding: from unawareness to Awarenessthe consumer must first be aware of a brand or company Comprehensionhe or she must have a comprehension of what the product is and its benefits; Convictionhe or she must arrive at the mental disposition or conviction to buys the brand; Actionfinally, he or she actually buy that product. Awareness Awareness of the existence of a product or organization is necessary before the purchase behavior can be expected. Once the awareness has been created in the target audience, it should not be neglected. If there is neglect, the audience may become distracted by competing messages and the level of awareness of focus product or organization will decline. Awareness needs to be created, developed, refined or sustained, according to the characteristics of the market and the particular situation facing an organization at any one point of time. Awareness grid

Involvement High Low

HIGH Awareness

Sustain current levelsRefine awareness of awareness

LOW

Build quickly.

awarenessCreate association of awareness of product with product class need

In situations where: Buyer experiences high involvement: Is fully aware of a products existence, attention and awareness levels need only be sustained and efforts need to be applied to other communication tasks. sales promotion and personal selling are more effective at informing, persuading and provoking consumption of a new car once advertising has created the necessary levels of awareness. The LG golden eye ads that are repeatedly shown inspite of high awareness to ensure top of mind awareness and retain the existing awareness levels. Where low levels of awareness are found, getting attention needs to be the prime objective in order that awareness can be developed among the target audience. Sahara Homes ad that features Amitabh Bachhan saying jaha base Bharat. Awareness level is low, however it is a high involvement decision. Thus adequate attention is required and awareness levels are raised with use of well-known and trusted celebrities. Buyer experiences low involvement: If buyers have sufficient level of awareness, they will be quickly prompted into purchase with little assistance of the other elements of the mix. Recognition and brand image may be felt by some to be sufficient triggers to stimulate a response. The requirement in such a situation would be to refine and strengthen the level of awareness so that it provokes interest and stimulates greater involvement during recall or recognition. Parle G ad that talks about it being the largest seller Duniya ka sabse Zyada bikne waala biscuit. Parle G as a brand already enjoys high levels of awareness and requires low involvement decision, thus communication is mainly intended to refine awareness. If buyers have low level of awareness, the prime objective has to be to create awareness of the focus product in association with the product class. When coils were popular in use and then the different repellants entered the market, awareness had to be created about their benefits and use. Comprehension Awareness on its own may not be sufficient to stimulate a purchase. Knowledge about the product or the organization is necessary. This can be achieved by providing specific information about key brand attributes. In attempting to persuade people to try a different brand of water, it may be necessary to compare the product with other mineral water products and provide an additional usage benefit, such as environmental claims. The ad of Ganga mineral water, featuring Govinda,

which banked on the purity aspect. They related the purity of the water with that of river Ganga. Conviction The next step is to establish a sense of conviction. By creating interest and preference, buyers are moved to a position where they are convinced that a particular product in the class should be tried at the next opportunity. To do this, audiences beliefs about the product have to be moulded and this is often done through messages that demonstrate the products superiority over a rival or by talking about the rewards as a result of using the product. Many ads like Thumbs Up featured the reward of social acceptance as grown up. It almost hinted that those who preferred other drinks were kids. Action Communication must finally encourage buyers to engage in purchase activity. Advertising can be directive and guide the buyers into certain behavioural outcomes, Use of toll free numbers, direct mail activities and reply cards and coupons. Tupperware, Aqua Guard, are famous in Indian cities as a result of its personal selling efforts. For high involvement decisions, the most effective tool in the communication mix at this stage in the hierarchy is personal selling. Through the use of interpersonal skills, buyers are more likely to want to buy a product than if personal prompting is absent. Characteristics of Objectives A major contribution of DAGMAR was Colleys specification of what constitutes a good objective. Four requirements or characteristics of good objectives were noted Concrete and measurablethe communications task or objective should be a precise statement of what appeal or message the advertiser wants to communicate to the target audience. Furthermore the specification should include a description of the measurement procedure Target audience a key tenet to DAGMAR is that the target audience be well defined. For example if the goal was to increase awareness, it is essential to know the target audience precisely. The benchmark measure cannot be developed without a specification of the target segment Benchmark and degree of change soughtanother important part of setting objectives is having benchmark measures to determine where the target audience stands at the beginning of the campaign with respect to various communication response variables such as awareness, knowledge, attitudes, image, etc. The objectives should also specify how much change or movement is being sought such as increase in awareness levels, creation of favorable attitudes or number of consumers intending to purchase the brand, etc. a benchmark is also a prerequisite

to the ultimate measurement of results, an essential part of any planning program and DAGMAR in particular. Specified time perioda final characteristic of good objectives is the specification of the time period during which the objective is to be accomplished, e.g. 6months, 1 year etc. With a time period specified a survey to generate a set if measures can be planned and anticipated. Written Goal - finally goals should be committed to paper. When the goals are clearly written, basic shortcomings and misunderstandings become exposed and it becomes easy to determine whether the goal contains the crucial aspects of the DAGMAR approach.

Types of Advertising Agencies

Advertising Agencies can be classified by the range of services that they offer. Also, advertising agencies range in size from one man shows to large firms that employ thousands of people. Accordingly, different types of advertising agencies are:

Full service agencies Creative boutiques In-house agencies Specialized agencies Media buying services

Full-service agencies- as the name implies, a full service agency is one that handles all phases of advertising process for its clients: it plan, creates, produces and places advertisements for its clients. In addition, it might provide other marketing services such as sales promotion, trade shows, exhibits, newsletters and annual reports. In short a full service agency will provide four major functions: 1. 2. 3. 4. account management, creative development and production, media planning and buying and research services.

One major point that differentiates a full service agency from other is that the personal work full time and the services provide are extensive. The services usually provided by a full service agency include collecting and analyzing market data, proposing strategy, preparing and producing the ads, placing the ads in approved media, verifying the advertisements appearance (publication, broadcasting, etc), invoice the client, collect the bills and pay the media and other suppliers. Creative boutiques- it is an organization that specializes in the actual creation of advertisements. In general, boutiques create imaginative and interesting advertising themes and produce innovative and original advertisements. A company that uses a creative boutique would have to employ another agency to perform the planning, buying and administrative functions connected with advertising.

Full service ad agency studies the product or service and determines its marketable characteristic and how it relates to the competition. At the same time the agency studies the potential market, possible distribution plans and likely advertising media. Following this, the agency makes a formal presentation to the client deadlines, its finding about the product and its recommendation for an advertising strategy. Creative boutiques are different from freelancers. Freelancers are individuals who work on their own with out any formal attachment with any agency. Clients or agencies hire these from time to time. The clients also hire creative boutiques. In-house agencies- such agencies are owned and supervised by advertisers or the client organizations. The organizational structure and functioning of in-house agencies are similar to full service agencies in most cases. The advertising director of the company usually heads an in-house agency. In house agencies are organized according to the needs and requirements 9of the company and are staffed accordingly. Some companies solely depend on their in-house agencies for their advertising needs. Others depend both on their in-house agency and outside agencies. Some other companies allow their agencies to take outside jobs. Specialized agencies- there are many agencies, which take up only specialized advertising jobs. Certain fields like medicine, finance, outdoor advertising, social advertising, etc. require specialized knowledge. So there are agencies, which concentrate only on areas and employ people with the required talents. These agencies are usually small in size. Media buying agencies-it is an organization that specializes in buying radio and television time and reselling it to advertisers and advertising agencies. The services sells time to the advertisers, orders the spots on the various stations involved and monitors the stations to see if the ads actually run. This trend for special media buying agencies started in the 1970s. Such agencies have a lot of contacts in the media and offer very low commission on media rates. Media buying agencies complement the creative boutiques. Also large companies use their specialized negotiating talents for buying media space and time.

Advertising Primer 6: Appeals and Executions

The title of this article may sound more like a criminal law topic than one about advertising. But we're talking advertising appeals and executions here, not criminal ones, and when the time comes to actually create your advertisement, these are two of the most central concerns. How you will appeal to your audience? What methods will you employ (or execute) to deliver your message? In addition, you will need to consider what kinds of creative strategies will underlie

your approach. This is where the rubber hits the road. This is the stage where you create the ad that will transform your message from concept to reality.

CREATIVE STRATEGY
So let's take a look at some of the basic types of creative (or "message") strategies. It's important to remember as you review these that rarely are most ads exclusively one type or another. Instead, advertisers often mix rational elements with emotional ones, or place promotional pitches inside brand-image advertisements, etc.

Reach the Head or the Heart?

Cognitive Strategy: This approach to advertising seeks to convince the audience through rational argument. The advertiser is using logic and reason to convince the viewer. This is the "head" approach and it emphasizes features/attributes, differential advantages, competitive strengths, claims and proofs. Cognitive strategies often come in the form of comparative ads, hyperbole ("the best on the planet!"), and unique selling propositions. Ads with a cognitive approach are typically considered a "hard sell"; they may or may not be forceful in their approach, but they will certainly be direct. Affective Strategy: An affective strategy usually seeks to reach audiences on an emotional level. The goal is to touch the viewer through emotions and feelings. A resonance approach seeks to connect with people's experiences. Either method will make use of emotional appeals. These ads are considered "soft sells" because they are indirect and instead attempt to make a connection with the heart.

Change Preferences or Stimulate Action?

Brand Transformation Strategy: With this approach, advertisers seek to establish a brand identity or personality. Brand personality exists when a relationship is formed between the consumer and the brand itself independent of the actual functions or benefits of the brand. One way this is achieved is through the use of associations (with a type of person, a lifestyle or other characteristic). A good brand transformation approach will create attention, awareness, interest, recognition and recall. Perception, or Persuasion Strategies: Here, the goal is to change attitudes about a given subject (perhaps a brand, perhaps not), and/or to create conviction and preferences. Persuasive ads often make use of unique selling propositions. Behavior (or Conative) Strategy: The goal of this strategy is to stimulate action. We are concerned less with what our ads make people think, but what it makes them do. Behavior ads will usually have a clear call to action, a point in the ad that directly asks the audience to make a purchase, call a phone number, visit a website, or take some other action.

Unique selling propositions

A brand's Unique selling proposition (USP) is the simply-stated benefit that a brand promises to provide the consumer. A good USP must truly be unique to the brand. That is, you can't advertise a feature that every one of your competitors also offers. It also has to be something the consumer actually cares about. Finally, an effective USP must be a feature or benefit that the audience finds believable. The USP might be delivered directly in a purely information ad, but most often it's indirectly communicated. For example, the obvious (though not stated) USP of the Wendy's "Where's the beef?" ads was, "Wendy's hamburgers have more meat." Like the Wendy's ads, good ads leave no doubt as to the USP of the brand being advertised because they clearly connect the USP to the actual creative execution.

APPEALS
Appeals are specific ways advertisers connect with their target audiences. These represent the foundational channels of all human communication, but each kind of appeal is only appropriate (or effective) for certain kinds of messages. Let's take a look at the major types of appeals: Rationality: Here of course we're talking about "head" as opposed to "heart" appeals. Rational appeals attempt to provide all the information the audience needs to make up their minds. Therefore, print media are often selected for rational advertisements because they are condusive to lots of text, charts and diagrams. Print ads also may involve the reader for several minutes, whereas a TV spot may be over in as little as fifteen seconds and have little time to convey much information. It's easy to feel that all ads these days target the emotional side of consumers. However, while it's true that most ads have shifted from information-heavy content to soft sells, many products and services are much better served by rational appeals. Businesses-to-Business advertising, for example, frequently involves selling complex or technical products or services that would not benefit from emotional (or only emotional) advertising appeals. Emotions: In the golden era of advertising, ads were all about convincing the consumer with long swaths of text copy. Today, advertisers realize that humans are emotional animals. We are more likely to use our emotional response than our intellect to make everyday choices, even when we think we are making decisions based on reason. Among other benefits, emotional appeals have been shown to grow brand loyalty. Emotional appeals create personal attachments with brands and these attachments can turn into long-term bonds. Even B2B advertising has increased the use of emotional appeals from as low as 5 percent to around 25 percent. Because video combines visual images and sound, this format is best

suited to emotional appeals. Humor: A great attention getter, humor is used in about a third of all advertisements. Humor grabs attention and helps the audience remember the ad. However, advertisers must be careful to tie the humorous elements directly to the message of the ad. Humor must also be carefully targeted and delivered to the appropriate audiences. We all know that some people have a greater sense of humor than others. Also, what may be funny to one group of people may be explicitly offensive to another. Fear: Usually this appeal is more memorable than upbeat or neutral ads, but if too disturbing,viewers may turn away or tune out the ad altogether. I shouldn't have to mention that using fearlike any kind of emotional appealcarries ethical risks. While it might be hard for a homeless shelter to overstate the plight of their clients, it probably would not be appropriate for a business to frighten people into buying an air purifier by telling them their children will get cancer if they don't. Scarcity: This type of appeal is pretty self-evident. Scarcity appeals are meant to do one thing: create action because of the fear of limited time or availability. Sex: For better or worse, ads often use sexual or suggestive appeals. And while it's almost certainly overused as an advertising appeal these days, sex is literally a fact of life, and we mammals have been using sexual appeal to communicate for millions of years. Sex appeals range from merely romantic inclinations to outright nudity (rare in the USA, but more commonly in other countries). Turns out, ads with sex appeal do grab attention, but people tend not to remember the brands being advertised they're too distracted by the sexually charged content, it would seem. They also tend to remember the visual components of the ad and tend not to remember audio or text content. About the only time suggestive appeals are effective is when the product being sold actually relates to sex. (So sorry car part catalogs, those bikini babes are not helping you sell more wrenches.) Also, sexual suggestiveness may be more powerful than outright nudity since the viewer's mind is free to fill in the blanks or the situation presented in the ad. Music: Musical appeals have been shown to capture the attention of viewers. In addition, they actually increase the rate at which audiences remember other ad content because the human brain often stores memories of music in long-term recall areas of the brain. Further, music in ads can make ad content more persuasive.

EXECUTIONS

Executions are certain common types of ad formats. Just as movies may be animations, dramas, or documentaries, there are many ways to present creative strategies and appeals. Here are a few of the more common executions: Straightforward or Informative: This type of execution simply transmits information unfiltered and direct to the audience without gimmicks or drama. Straightforward ads are best suited to products that require "high involvement," that is, products that require lots of information and research before the customer buys. Business advertising often employs this format. One type of straightforward ad is the news format, in which a product is presented as new or original or in a newscast-type presentation. Demonstration: Similar to a straightforward ad, a demonstration ad shows how to use a product or service, and how it can benefit the user. Comparison: Usually also straightforward, comparison ads simply compare the product or service being offered with competing brands and show how the advertised brand is better. The comparison may be direct (identifying the competitor by name), or indirect (merely alluding to the competition). Slice-of-Life: Slice-of-Life ads depict common situations that the target audience may find themselves in and shows how the product can help. These ads may also be called Problem Solution or Product as Hero ads. The corny and ever-popular "As Seen On TV" ads come to mind here ("Does your car have scratches? Are your closets disorganized? We have the product for you."). Businesses use this ad format to great effect as well. Dramatization or Fantasy: Dramatizations are usually just more sophisticated sliceof-life ads, employing a more Hollywood feel to the presentation. Fantasy ads provide a framework for communicating difficult or risky messages, such as romantic or suggestive themes. Dramas sometimes use illustrative techniques like animation or computer graphics. Related to dramas and fantasies is the concept of strategic alteration of reality, which is a fancy way of saying the ad twists a familiar situation or object(s) into something unusual or unexpected. This is done in such a way as to point out a unique feature or selling point in the product being advertised. Authoritative or Spokesperson: A celebrity spokesperson appears in about 20% of all ads today. In fact, so many ads use celebrities front-and-center or as narrators that "regular people" are used with increasing frequency. Not all spokespeople are celebrities. Sometimes CEOs are used, or experts in the field. These individuals may not be well known (though a long-running campaign may turn them into celebrities). In general, celebrity endorsements are more convincing to younger audiences than older ones.

Obviously, it's not enough to choose celebrity based on fame alone. They must be likable, credible, trustworthy and somehow relatable to the product or service being promoted. Testimonials: This is another advertising execution that is particularly effective with B2B marketing. Testimonials are also a good choice when marketing services since the spokespeople can help flesh out an otherwise intangible product. The idea behind testimonials is that they add credibility to brands because the sales pitch is coming from a happy customer instead of the advertiser. Teasers: These ads do something dangerous: they don't actually give enough information to identify the product or brand being advertised. However, they are great at generating lots of interest and curiosity about a new product and are usually followed by ads that reveal the product at or near the time of launch. Shockvertising: This creative execution employs loud, outrageous, or controversial deliveries to arrest audience attention. This type of technique carries obvious risks and should only be used when it can complement the product or service being advertised.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON CREATING EFFECTIVE ADS

Visual elements are more easily remembered than text or dialogue. However, viewing an image doesn't require as much brainpower as reading or listening to words and then creating an image in the mind's eye. So whenever possible, try to coax the viewer into creating their own mental image of the scenethis will establish a more personal connection with your ad and your audience will remember it longer. Vampire creativity or borrowed interest occurs when an ad is so creative that people remember it, but don't remember or associate the brand being advertised. In my opinion, this is a huge problem with national brand image ads today. I can't tell you how many ads I've seen and can remember in detail except for exactly what the ads was promoting (jeans? beer? a car?). Again, be careful to always connect the creative concept with the brand itself. Last, here are some general guidelines for creating powerful ads:

Keep your ad simple. Select and clearly identify a primary selling point. Repeat your tag line or primary selling point several times in the ad. Make your ad visually consistent. Run your ad long enough to be seen more than once or twice. Vary your ad's content and outlets. Don't lull your audience to sleep. Create variations to your ad so it's not identical every time the audience sees it. And complement ads in one media with similar ads in other media.