Marketing Communications

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS OBJECTIVES 167

situation analysis and prior research among the target audience to decide which goals a

campaign should focus upon. If awareness levels are low, they should focus on that goal;

if preference is a problem, the campaign should stress liking. Brand awareness and brand

attitude will always be part of the goals, as both eff ects should be maintained in every

promotional campaign. As these objectives should be quantifi ed to make them measurable,

marketing communications objectives could be: to increase the percentage of unaided recall

or aided recognition among the target group; to increase the number of target consumers

preferring the brand above the competitive brands; to stimulate current buyers to stay loyal

and purchase the products again or buy them more frequently; and to encourage non-buyers to

try the brand for the fi rst time. Th e number of people in each step of the hierarchy of objectives

can be expected to decrease, as is illustrated in Figure 5.3.^24

Th e DAGMAR model has the merit that, instead of sales goals which are hard to correlate

with communications expenditures, other quantifi able measures for eff ectiveness, such as

awareness and image ratings, are introduced. Th ese other measures are assumed to be inter-

mediate eff ects, and thus indicators of future sales. An increase in awareness and brand

ratings would be ahead of sales increases. However, in practice it can be seen that awareness and

image ratings are highly associated with usage, but that sales fl uctuate sooner than awareness

and image ratings. Attitude changes were even found to follow behaviour changes and can be

considered to be caused by them.^25 Th is change in the communications eff ects hierarchy was

extensively described earlier (see Chapter 3 ) (e.g. the Foot–Cone–Belding or FCB grid).

Further criticism of the so-called traditional ‘strong theory of communications’, as pre-

sented in the DAGMAR model, was formulated by Ehrenberg.^26 He states that there is no

evidence that consumers experience a strong desire or conviction before they purchase a

product or a service. Th e traditional model is a conversion model, i.e. turning non-users into

users, whereas advertising is directed at experienced consumers. Jones^27 and Ehrenberg present

an alternative ‘weak theory of marketing communications’: the ATR model ( A wareness→ T rial

→ R einforcement). Marketing communications fi rst arouse awareness, then induce consumers

towards a fi rst trial purchase and then reassure and reinforce those users aft er their fi rst pur-

chase. According to Ehrenberg, involvement is basically product involvement and very rarely

Figure 5.3 Percentage of the target group in each stage of the DAGMAR model

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