MarketingManagement.pdf

The advertiser should conduct market research to determine which appeal works

best with its target audience.

Message Execution

The message’s impact depends not only upon what is said but also on how it is said.

Some ads aim for rational positioningand others for emotional positioning. U.S. ads typi-

cally present an explicit feature or benefit designed to appeal to the rational mind: “gets

clothes cleaner”; “Brings relief faster.” Japanese ads tend to be more indirect and appeal

to the emotions: An example was Nissan’s Infiniti ad, which showed not the car but

beautiful scenes from nature aimed at producing an emotional association and response.

The choice of headlines and copy can make a difference in impact. Lalita Manrai

created two ads for the same car. The first ad carried the headline “A New Car”; the

second, the headline “Is This Car for You?” The second headline utilized an advertis-

ing strategy called labeling, in which the consumer is labeled as the type of person

who is interested in that type of product. The two ads also differed in that the first

ad described the car’s features and the second described the car’s benefits. In the test,

the second ad far outperformed the first in terms of overall product impression, reader

interest in buying the product, and likelihood of recommending it to a friend.^15

Message execution can be decisive for highly similar products, such as detergents,

cigarettes, coffee, and vodka. Consider the success of Absolut Vodka:

■ Absolut Vodka Vodka is generally viewed as a commodity product. Yet the

amount of brand preference and loyalty in the vodka market is astonishing.

Most of it is based on selling an image. When the Swedish brand Absolut en-

tered the U.S. market in 1979, the company sold a disappointing 7,000 cases

that year. By 1991, sales had soared to over 2 million cases. Absolut became

the largest selling imported vodka in the United States, with 65 percent of

the market. Sales also skyrocketed globally. Its secret weapon: a targeting,

packaging, and advertising strategy. Absolut aims for sophisticated, upwardly

mobile, affluent drinkers. The vodka is in a distinctive, odd-shaped bottle sug-

gestive of Swedish austerity. The bottle has become an icon and is used as

the centerpiece of every ad, accompanied by puns such as “Absolut Magic”

or “Absolut Larceny.” Well-known artists—including Warhol, Haring, Scharf—

designed Absolut ads, and the bottle image always figures in a clever way. Ab-

solut also runs short stories about the brand written by distinguished authors.

These ads are designed to appeal to readers of such magazines as The Atlantic,

The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair.^16

In preparing an ad campaign, the advertiser usually prepares a copy strategy state-

mentdescribing the objective, content, support, and tone of the desired ad. Here is

the strategy statement for a Pillsbury product called 1869 Brand Biscuits:

■ Pillsbury The advertising objectiveis to convince biscuit users they can buy

a canned biscuit that’s as good as homemade—Pillsbury’s 1869 Brand Bis-

cuits. The contentconsists of emphasizing the following product characteris-

tics: They look like, have the same texture as, and taste like homemade

biscuits.Supportfor the “good as homemade” promise will be twofold: (1)

1869 Brand Biscuits are made from a special kind of flour used to make home-

made biscuits but never before used in making canned biscuits, and (2) the

use of traditional American biscuit recipes. The toneof the advertising will be

a news announcement, tempered by a warm, reflective mood emanating from

a look back at traditional American baking quality.

Creative people must also find a cohesive style, tone, words, and formatfor exe-

cuting the message.

Any message can be presented in a number of execution styles: slice of life, lifestyle,

fantasy, mood or image, musical, personality symbol, technical expertise, scientific

evidence, and testimonial. The Marketing Insight, “Celebrity Endorsements as a Strat-

egy,” focuses on the use of testimonials, as does the following example:

part five

Managing and

Delivering Marketing

(^582) Programs