Marketing Communications

SELECTING MEDIA 273

Door-to-door

Door-to-door advertising periodic publications (once a week, once a month, etc.) are dis-

tributed locally and free of charge. Advertisers in this medium are usually local merchandisers

or local service organisations. Door-to-door publications have the advantage of being geo-

graphically flexible and of obtaining a fairly high reach. Furthermore, the medium provides

the opportunity to deliver a lot of information at a fairly low cost. The promotional context

in which the message appears may be useful for reaching consumers interested in

promotional offers.

Limitations are that the medium is not at all selective and people may only be marginally

involved in door-to-door publications and may not pay much attention unless they are inter-

ested in certain promotions. Furthermore, the quality of reproductions is often doubtful.

Because of the overload of such publications, people often react negatively to this form

of irresponsible use of paper and ‘environmental pollution’, and more and more people are

putting a note on their mailbox stating ‘no advertising please’.

Television

A clear advantage of TV is the communication power of an audio-visual message which, in

general, leads to a fairly high (especially emotional) impact. TV is a passive medium, making

it ideal for transferring a brand image or brand personality. The context surrounding the

message can also add value to the message by inducing in the audience a certain mood

(e.g. by the programme or movie during which the message is shown). Furthermore, a lot of

people can be reached in a fairly short period of time. Local TV makes it possible to exert a

regional approach. Research on viewing habits reveals that different personalities and people

with different lifestyles watch different programmes, creating the possibility of using TV as a

selective medium.

Major drawbacks are the high production costs that are involved and the fact that it is not

always possible to direct a message at a selective target group. Often, a lot of occasional viewers

are reached, which results in a low effective reach. Furthermore, the lifetime of a message is

extremely short: 15 or 30 seconds pass very quickly and often nothing is left of the message

afterwards. Increasing advertising clutter further impedes the effectiveness of messages, mak-

ing more exposures a necessity, which adds to total costs. TV also has a seasonal influence.

During the summer people spend more time outdoors instead of spending their evenings in

front of the TV screen. In other words, during winter a TV commercial will reach a greater

audience than in the summer.

Advertising clutter is becoming a real problem.^38 Before you can convince consumers to buy, you have to build a

brand. To build a brand, you need to create awareness. To create awareness, you need to attract attention. To attract

attention, you have to find a way to break through the massive amount of other messages known as advertising

clutter. One way to do this is to create original ads. Although this has been a long-held conviction by copywriters

and art directors, only recently has the power of original ads to attract attention been empirically demonstrated.^39

Several advertisers do not opt for originality but react to the increasing clutter by outspending their competitors and

launching even more ads. The result of all this is that in the UK, on TV alone, 17 278 730 ads were broadcast in

researCh insight

Can advertising reach the whole target group?

M08_PELS3221_05_SE_C08.indd 273 6/6/13 9:23 AM