The Marketing Book 5th Edition

Identify message-creation

objectives

Generate ideas

Check against research

Formulate message

concepts

Execute concepts

Pre-test and revise

Produce finished

message

Post-test and review

432 The Marketing Book

Yet no one has so far proposed any systematic
way to measure the positive or negative results
of a sponsorship campaign. Meanwhile actual
and potential beneficiaries are learning their
true value as promotional vehicles, and raising
the initially rather modest stakes. Simultane-
ously, it is becoming very obvious that most
wearers of clothing that sports large-scale
designer-brand logos are not the kind of people
that the companies themselves would pre-
sumably choose as endorsers of the brand. For
all these reasons, it is very likely that the issue
of controllability will assume much greater
significance in future.
As for the rest of the promotional mix, it
might be an interesting intellectual exercise to
make a personal judgement about the location
of each ingredient in the spectrum, all other
things being equal.

Developing the message

Originators of promotional messages normally
delegate the task of converting abstract strategy
into concrete words and images to a specialist
intermediary with expertise in the particular
promotional technique concerned, or to a full-
service advertising agency(see ‘Above and below
the line’). The generic term ‘agency’ will be
used here. The process is normally described as
‘creative planning’.
It starts with a client brief, from which the
agency distils an internal creative brief. Special-
ists in turn convert that into the creative
executions, which in due course become finished
messages in the form of advertisements, mail
shots, promotional packs, or whatever. An
authoritative explanation of the processes
which produce these transformations is sur-
prisingly elusive. Textbooks and professional
monographs focus instead on the executional
techniques and outcomes. The framework pre-
sented in Figure 17.2 reflects a personal view,
drawing upon industry seminars and conversa-
tions with practitioners. The sequence of events Figure 17.2 The message development process