MarketingManagement.pdf

W

e describe the nature and use of three promotional tools—advertising, sales pro-

motion, and public relations. Although their effectiveness is not always easy to

gauge, they contribute strongly to marketing performance.

EVELOPING AND MANAGING AN

ADVERTISING PROGRAM

We define advertising as follows:

■ Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion

of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.

Advertisers include not only business firms but also museums, charitable organiza-

tions, and government agencies that direct messages to target publics. Ads are a cost-

effective way to disseminate messages, whether to build brand preference for

Coca-Cola or to educate people to avoid hard drugs.

Organizations handle their advertising in different ways. In small companies, ad-

vertising is handled by someone in the sales or marketing department, who works

with an advertising agency. A large company will often set up its own advertising de-

partment, whose manager reports to the vice president of marketing. The advertising

department’s job is to propose a budget; develop advertising strategy; approve ads and

campaigns; and handle direct-mail advertising, dealer displays, and other forms of ad-

vertising. Most companies use an outside agency to help create advertising campaigns

and to select and purchase media.

In developing a program, marketing managers must always start by identifying

the target market and buyer motives. Then they can make the five major decisions

in developing an advertising program, known as the five Ms: Mission:What are the

advertising objectives? Money:How much can be spent? Message:What message should

be sent? Media:What media should be used? Measurement:How should the results be

evaluated? These decisions are summarized in Figure 5-10 and described in the fol-

lowing sections.

SETTING THE ADVERTISING OBJECTIVES

The advertising objectives must flow from prior decisions on target market, market

positioning, and marketing mix.

Many specific communication and sales objectives can be assigned to advertising.

Colley lists 52 possible advertising objectives in his Defining Advertising Goals for Mea-

sured Advertising Results.^1 He outlines a method called DAGMAR (after the book’s ti-

tle) for turning objectives into specific measurable goals. An advertising goal(or

objective) is a specific communication task and achievement level to be accomplished

with a specific audience in a specific period of time. Colley provides an example:

To increase among 30 million homemakers who own automatic washers

the number who identify brand X as a low-sudsing detergent and who are

persuaded that it gets clothes cleaner—from 10 percent to 40 percent in one

year.

Advertising objectives can be classified according to whether their aim is to in-

form, persuade, or remind.

■ Informative advertisingfigures heavily in the pioneering stage of a product cate-

gory, where the objective is to build primary demand. Thus the yogurt industry

initially had to inform consumers of yogurt’s nutritional benefits.

■ Persuasive advertisingbecomes important in the competitive stage, where a com-

pany’s objective is to build selective demand for a particular brand. For example,

Chivas Regal attempts to persuade consumers that it delivers more taste and sta-

tus than other brands of Scotch whiskey. Some persuasive advertising uses com-

parative advertising, which makes an explicit comparison of the attributes of two

part five

Managing and

Delivering Marketing

(^578) Programs
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