Chapter 15: Advertising and Public Relations

 Companies must do more than simply create customer value. They must also
clearly and persuasively communicate that value to target customers.
 In this chapter, we take a closer look at two marketing communications tools:
o advertising
o public relations.
 Advertising is a good way to engage, inform, and persuade.

Advertising
Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas,
goods, or services by an identified sponsor.

Marketing management must make four important decisions when developing an

advertising program (see Figure 15.1):
1. setting advertising objectives,
2. setting the advertising budget,
3. developing an advertising strategy (message decisions and media decisions)
4. evaluating advertising campaigns.

Setting Advertising Objectives

An advertising objective is a specific communication task to be accomplished with a
specific target audience during a specific time.
 In developing an advertising program, the first step is to set advertising
objectives.
 These objectives should be based on past decisions about the target market,
positioning, and the marketing mix, which define the job that advertising must
do in the total marketing program.
 The overall advertising objective is to help build customer relationships by
communicating customer value.
 Informative advertising is used when introducing a new product
category to build primary demand.
o Example: Early producers of HDTVs first had to inform consumers of the
image quality and size benefits of the new product
 Persuasive advertising is important with increased competition to build
selective demand.
o Example: : Once HDTVs became established, Samsung began trying to
persuade consumers that its brand offered the best quality for their
money.
 Comparative advertising (or attack advertising) is when a company compares
its brand with other brands.
o Example: Pepsi has long taken direct aim at rival Coca-Cola with
comparative ads. “There are few things that grab our fans’ attention as
much as seeing our beloved blue and that red next to each other,” says
a Pepsi marketer
 Reminder advertising is important with mature products to help maintain
customer relationships and keep customers thinking about the product.
o Example: Expensive Coca-Cola television ads primarily build and
maintain the Coca-Cola brand relationship rather than inform
consumers or persuade them to buy it in the short run.

 Advertising’s goal is to help move consumers through the buying process. Some
advertising is designed to move people to immediate action.
 However, many ads focus on building or strengthening long-term customer
relationships.
o For example, a Nike television ad in which well-known athletes work
through extreme challenges in their Nike gear never directly asks for a
sale. Instead, the goal is to somehow change the way the customers
think or feel about the brand.
Setting the Advertising Budget
Factors to Consider
 Stage in product life cycle
o For example: new products typically need relatively large advertising
budgets to build awareness and to gain consumer trial. In contrast,
mature brands usually require lower budgets as a ratio to sales.
 Market share
o Building the market or taking market share from competitors requires
larger advertising spending than does simply maintaining current share
so low-share brands usually need more advertising spending as a
percentage of sales.
 Competition
o Brands in a market with many competitors and high advertising clutter
must be advertised more heavily to be noticed above the noise in the
marketplace.
o Undifferentiated brand, those that closely resemble other brands in
their product class (soft drinks, laundry detergents), may require heavy
advertising to set them apart.
o When the product differs greatly from competitors, advertising can be
used to point out the differences to consumers.

 Some critics charge that large consumer packaged-goods firms tend to spend
too much on advertising and that business-to-business marketers generally
underspend on advertising.
 Still, because so many factors affect advertising effectiveness, some
controllable and others not, measuring the results of advertising spending
remains an inexact science.
 In most cases, managers must rely on large doses of judgment along with more
quantitative analysis when setting advertising budgets.

Developing Advertising Strategy

Advertising strategy is the strategy by which the company accomplishes its advertising
objectives and consists of:
• Creating advertising messages
• Selecting advertising media

Creating the Advertising Message and Brand Content

Advertising clutter.
Today’s consumers, armed with an arsenal of weapons, can choose what they watch
and don’t watch. Increasingly, they are choosing not to watch ads.
• No matter how big the budget, advertising can succeed only if it gains
attention, engages consumers, and communicates well.
• Good advertising messages and content are especially important in today’s
costly and cluttered advertising environment.
Merging advertising and entertainment
• Madison & Vine—the intersection of Madison Avenue and Hollywood—
represents the merging of advertising and entertainment. Madison & Vine” in
an effort to create new avenues for reaching consumers with more engaging
messages. This merging of advertising and entertainment takes one of two
forms: advertainment or branded entertainment.
• Native advertising (or Sponsored content)—advertising or other brand-
produced online content that looks in form and function like the other natural
content surrounding it on a web or social media platform.
Examples: Twitter’s promoted tweets, Facebook’s promoted stories, BuzzFeed’s
sponsored posts, or Snapchat’s “brand story” ads, branded posts that appear in
the app’s “Stories” feed.

Message and content strategy

The first step in creating effective advertising content is to plan a message strategy—
the general message that will be communicated to consumers.
• Identifies consumer benefits
• Follows from company’s broader positioning and customer value
creation strategies
• Message strategy statements tend to be plain, straightforward outlines
of benefits and positioning points that the advertiser wants to stress

People will engage and react only if they believe they will benefit from doing so. Thus,
developing an effective message strategy begins with identifying customer benefits
that can be used as advertising appeals. Ideally, the message strategy will follow
directly from the company’s broader positioning and customer value-creation
strategies.

Creative Concept
The creative concept is the compelling “big idea” that will bring an advertising message
strategy to life in a distinctive and memorable way.
Characteristics of the appeals should be:
• Meaningful: pointing out benefits that make the product more
desirable or interesting to consumers.
• Believable: Consumers must believe that the product or service will
deliver the promised benefits.
• Distinctive: They should tell how the product is better than competing
brands. For example, the most meaningful benefit of using a body wash
or fragrance is that it makes you feel cleaner or smell better.

The creative concept may emerge as a visualization, a phrase, or a combination of the

two. The creative concept will guide the choice of specific appeals to be used in an
advertising campaign.
Message execution
• When the advertiser turns the big idea into an actual ad execution that will
capture the target market’s attention and interest.
• The creative team must find the best approach, style, tone, words, and format
for executing the message.
• The message can be presented in various execution styles:

• Slice of life: shows one or more “typical” people using the product in a normal
setting. For example, a Silk Soymilk “Rise and Shine” ad shows a young professional
starting the day with a healthier breakfast and high hopes.
• Lifestyle: shows how a product fits in with a particular lifestyle. For example, an ad
for Athleta active wear shows a woman in a complex yoga pose and states: “If your
body is your temple, build it one piece at a time.”
• Fantasy: creates a fantasy around the product or its use. For example, a Calvin
Klein “Drive in to Fantasy” ad shows a woman floating blissfully above a surf-
strewn beach at sunset in her Calvin Klein Nightwear.
• Mood or image: builds a mood or image around the product or service, such as
beauty, love, intrigue, serenity, or pride. Few claims are made about the product or
service except through suggestion. For example, Dodge Ram Truck’s moving Super
Bowl XLVII commercial—“To the Farmer in Us All”—added poignant pictures to
radio-broadcast-legend Paul Harvey’s “So God Made a Farmer” speech, pulling
down the number-two spot in USA Today’s Ad Meter ratings that year.
• Musical: shows people or cartoon characters singing about the product. For
example, the M&M’s “Love Ballad” ad, part of the Better with M campaign,
featured Red singing Meat Loaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love,” showcasing his
commitment to actress Naya Rivera.
• Personality symbol creates a character that represents the product. The character
might be animated (Mr. Clean, the GEICO Gecko, or the Michelin Man) or real
(perky Progressive Insurance spokeswoman Flo, Allstate’s Mayhem, Ronald
McDonald).
• Technical expertise shows the company’s expertise in making the product. Thus,
natural foods maker Kashi shows its buyers carefully selecting ingredients for its
products, and Jim Koch of the Boston Beer Company tells about his many years of
experience in brewing Samuel Adams beer.
• Scientific evidence presents survey or scientific evidence that the brand is better or
better liked than one or more other brands. For years, Crest toothpaste has used
scientific evidence to convince buyers that Crest is better than other brands at
fighting cavities.
• Testimonial evidence or endorsement features a highly believable or likable source
endorsing the product. It could be ordinary people saying how much they like a
given product. For example, Subway’s spokesman Jared is a customer who lost 245
pounds on a diet of Subway sandwiches. Or it might be a celebrity presenting the
product such as Beyonce speaking for Pepsi.

Message execution also includes:

• Tone
§ Positive or negative
• Attention-getting words
• Format
§ Illustration
§ Headline
 Copy

Consumer-generated content:
• Consumers submit ad message ideas, videos, and other brand content.
• Incorporates the voice of the customer into brand messages
• Generates greater customer engagement

Taking advantage of today’s digital and social media technologies, many companies are
now tapping consumers for marketing content, message ideas, or even actual ads and
videos. Sometimes the results are outstanding; sometimes they are forgettable.

Selecting Advertising Media

The major steps in advertising media selection are:
• Determining reach, frequency, impact, and engagement
• Choosing among major media types
• Selecting specific media vehicles
• Choosing media timing

Reach is a measure of the percentage of people in the target market who are exposed
to the ad campaign during a given period of time.
Frequency is a measure of how many times the average person in the target market is
exposed to the message.
Impact is the qualitative value of a message exposure through a given medium.
Engagement is a measure of things such as ratings, readership, listenership, and click-
through rates.
As summarized in Table 15.2, the major media types are television, digital and social
media, newspapers, direct mail, magazines, radio, and outdoor. Each medium has its
advantages and its limitations. Media planners want to choose media that will
effectively and efficiently present the advertising message to target customers. Thus,
they must consider each medium’s impact, message effectiveness, and cost.

Selecting specific media vehicles involves decisions presenting the message effectively
and efficiently to the target customer and must consider the message’s:
• Impact
• Effectiveness
• Cost
Deciding on media timing:
When deciding on media timing, the planner must consider:
• Seasonality
• Pattern of the advertising
§ Continuity—scheduling evenly within a given period
§ Pulsing—scheduling unevenly within a given period

Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness and Return on Advertising Investment:

Return on advertising investment is the net return on advertising investment divided

by the costs of the advertising investment.

• Communication effects indicate whether the ad and media are communicating

the ad message well and can be tested before or after the ad runs
o Measuring the communication effects of an ad or ad campaign tells
whether the ads and media are communicating the ad message well.
Individual ads can be tested before or after they are run.. Pre- and post-
evaluations of communication effects can be made for entire advertising
campaigns as well.
 • Sales and profit effects compare past sales and profits with past expenditures
or through experiments.
o Are much harder to measure.
o One way to measure the sales and profit effects of advertising is to
compare past sales and profits with past advertising expenditures or to
use experiments to test the effects of different advertising spending
levels. More complex experiments could be designed to include other
variables, such as differences in the ads or media used.

Other Advertising Considerations

Organizing for advertising
• Agency: a marketing services firm that assists companies in planning,
preparing, implementing, and evaluating all or portions of their
advertising program
• In-house
International advertising decisions
• The most basic issue concerns the degree to which global advertising
should be adapted to the unique characteristics of various country
markets .
• Standardization or Adaptation: They develop global advertising
strategies that make their worldwide efforts more efficient and
consistent. Then they adapt their advertising programs to make them
more responsive to consumer needs and expectations within local
markets.

Public Relations
Public relations involves building good relations with the company’s various publics by
obtaining favorable publicity, building up a good corporate image, and handling or
heading off unfavorable rumors, stories, and events.

Another major mass-promotion tool, public relations, consists of activities designed to

engage and build good relations with the company’s various publics. PR departments
may perform any or all of the following functions: ;
• Press relations or press agency involves the creation and placing of
newsworthy information to attract attention to a person, product, or service.
• Product publicity involves publicizing specific products.
• Public affairs involves building and maintaining national or local community
relations.
• Lobbying involves building and maintaining relations with legislators and
government officials to influence legislation and regulation.
• Investor relations involves maintaining relationships with shareholders and
others in the financial community.
• Development involves public relations with donors or members of nonprofit
organizations to gain financial or volunteer support.
The Role and Impact of PR
• Lower cost than advertising
• Stronger impact on public awareness than advertising
• Has power to engage consumers and make them part of the brand story

Public relations uses several tools:

• News: PR professionals find or create favorable news about the company and
its products or people. Sometimes news stories occur naturally; sometimes the
PR person can suggest events or activities that would create news.
• Special events, ranging from news conferences and speeches, brand tours, and
sponsorships to laser light shows, multimedia presentations, or educational
programs designed to reach and interest target publics.
• Written materials to reach and influence their target markets. These materials
include annual reports, brochures, articles, and company newsletters and
magazines.
• Corporate identity materials can also help create a corporate identity that the
public immediately recognizes. Logos, stationery, brochures, signs, business
forms, business cards, buildings, uniforms, and company cars and trucks all
become marketing tools when they are attractive, distinctive, and memorable.
• Public service activities improve public goodwill by contributing money and
time to Web and social media
• Buzz marketing plays well into the use of online and social media.
• Social networking
• Internet