Chapter Ten

Creating Effective and

Creative Advertising
Messages

 2007 Thomson South-Western

 Chapter Ten Objectives

• Appreciate the factors that promote

effective and creative advertising.
• Understand a five-step program used in
formulating advertising strategy.

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 Chapter Ten Objectives

• Describe the features of a creative brief.

• Explain alternative creative styles that play
a role in the development of advertising
messages.
• Understand the concept of means-end
chains and their role in advertising
strategy.

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 Chapter Ten Objectives
• Appreciate the MECCAS model and its
role in guiding message formulation.
• Describe the laddering method that
provides the data used in constructing a
MECCAS model.
• Recognize the role of corporate image
and issue advertising.

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 Memorable Advertising

Apple Computer’s “1984” TV Commercial

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What Makes Effective Advertising?
Consumer’s
Sound
View Persuasive
Strategy

Effective
Advertising

Break Deliver on Doesn’t

Clutter Promises Overwhelm
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 The Role of Creativity

Creative ads share American Family

two characteristics: Life Assurance
Company (AFLAC)
Nike
• Originality
Honda U.K.
• Appropriateness
Apple iPod

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Original Ads: Apple iPod
• Silhouetted figures
against the neon
backgrounds holding
iPods.
• Simplicity of the
design and a different
look than most
commercials, which
feature identifiable
figures engaging in
dialogue.
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 Advertising Successes and
Mistakes
• Value Proposition is the essence of a
message and the reward to the consumer
for investing his or her time attending to an
advertisement.

• The reward could be information about the

product or just an enjoyable experience.

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Advertising Successes and
Mistakes

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 Advertising
Successes and
Mistakes
• Successful campaigns: both the brand management
team and the creative team have done their work
well.
• Marketing Mistakes: result when the brand manager
fails to distinguish the brand from competitive
offerings.
• Agency Mistakes: due to the ad agency’s inability to
design an effective execution, even though its brand
management client has a convincing message.
• Complete Disasters: caused by poor value
propositions and mediocre executions.
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Advertising Plans and Strategy
Advertising strategy

An advertising message that

communicates the brand’s primary
benefits or how it can solve a
consumer’s problem

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 Advertising Strategy: A Five-Step
Program
1. Specify the key fact from the customer’s
viewpoint.
2. State the primary problem, or advertising
issue, from brand management’s
perspective.
3. State the advertising objective.
4. Implement the creative message
strategy.
5. Establish mandatory requirements.
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 Step 1: Specify the Key Fact
The key fact in an advertising strategy is a
single-minded statement from the
consumer’s point of view that identifies
why consumers are or aren’t purchasing
the brand.

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Step 2: State the Primary Problem
• Extending from the key fact, this step
states the problem from the brand
management’s point of view.

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Step 3: State the Communications
Objective
This is a straightforward statement about
what effect the advertising is intended to
have on the target market.

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 Step 4: Implement the Creative
Message Strategy
Sometimes called the creative platform, the
positioning statement is the key idea that a
brand is supposed to stand for in its target
market’s minds.

• Define the target market

• Identify the primary competition
• Choose the positioning statement
• Offer reasons why

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 Step 5: Establish Mandatory
Requirements
The final step involves including mandatory
requirements due to regulatory dictates, or
non-regulatory requirements like the
corporate logo or tag-line.

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 Constructing a Creative Brief
Background Their current
thoughts/feelings

Strategy What do we want

them to think/feel

Task What do we want

them to do

Positioning Proposition

Client’s Objectives Belief in proposition

Target How we speak to them

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Styles of Creative Advertising

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Unique Selling Proposition Creative
Style (USP)

An advertiser makes a superiority claim

based on a unique product attribute that
represents a meaningful, distinctive
consumer benefit.

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Brand Image Creative Style

• The brand image style involves

psychosocial, rather than physical
differentiation.
• Transformational advertising

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 Resonance Creative Style
• Does not focus on product claims or brand
images but rather seeks to present
circumstances or situations that find
counterparts in the real or imagined
experience of the target audience.
• Examples: Dove’s “Real Beauty”
campaign
• QuickStep laminate floors

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 Emotional
Creative
Style
An attempt to
reach the
consumer at a
visceral level by
appealing to their
emotions.

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 Generic Creative Style
• An advertiser employs a generic style
when making a claim that could be made
by any company that markets a brand in a
particular category.
• Most appropriate for a brand that
dominates a product category.
• Example: Campbell’s Soup

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 Preemptive Creative Style
• An advertiser makes a generic-type claim
but does it with an assertion of superiority.
• Example: “Visine gets the red out.”

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 In Summary
• An advertiser might use two or more styles
simultaneously.
• Some experts believe that advertising is
most effective when it addresses both
functional product and symbolic benefits.
• Effective advertising must establish a clear
meaning of what the brand is and how it
compares to competitive offerings.

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Means-End Chaining

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 Attributes-Consequences-Values
• Attributes are features or aspects of
advertised brands.
• Consequences are what consumers hope
to receive (benefits) or avoid (detriments)
when consuming brands.
• Values represent those enduring beliefs
people hold regarding what is important in
life.

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 The Nature of Values
1. Self-direction 6. Security
2. Stimulation 7. Conformity
3. Hedonism 8. Tradition
4. Achievement 9. Benevolence
5. Power 10.Universalism

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 A MECCAS Model
Conceptualization of Advertising
Strategy

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The MECCAS Model

MECCAS: Means End

Conceptualization of
Components
for Advertising Strategy

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MECCAS
Illustration
For Self-
Direction
Value

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 MECCAS
Illustration for
Stimulation
Value

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 MECCAS
Illustration for
Hedonism
Value

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 MECCAS
Illustration for
Achievement
Value

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 MECCAS
Illustration for
Power Value

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 MECCAS
Illustration for
Security Value

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