Advertising Strategy

Ad strategy is defined as communication that conveys brand’s primary benefits i.e. how it can solve consumer’s problem or need. It is developed to communicate ideas about the products and services to potential consumers with the aim of convincing them to buy those products and services. The key to strategy is creative and flexible planning based on in-depth knowledge of the target consumer and the avenues that can be utilized to reach out the target consumer.

This strategy, when built in a rational and intelligent manner, reflects other business considerations (overall budget, brand recognition efforts) and objectives (public image enhancement, market share growth) as well.

Most ad strategies focus on achieving three general goals:
Promote awareness about the business and its products and services.
Stimulate sales directly and attract competitor’s customers.
Establish or modify business image.

The ad plan is natural culmination of marketing plan which needs to include a section on analysis, ad objectives and strategy.

Steps To Develop Ad Strategy

1. Key fact specification: single minded statement from consumer’s point of view that identifies why consumer will or will not buy the brand

2. State market problem: marketer’s point of view from perspectives like price, promotion, distribution etc.

3. Work on communication objective: what affect ad is going to have on target audience and how brand should be positioned or creative message strategy.
4. Mandatory requirements : inclusion of corporate logo, tag lines etc.

Types of Advertising Strategies.

It basically refers to the process of positioning the core message you want to bring home to your customers.

1. ‘Authentic’ Product Positioning Strategy

Ideal strategy for firms who are the first to develop a position for its product type. Levi’s slogan ‘the original jeans’ is one such example;
It takes advantage of the public’s tendency to associate the first brand with what is also more authentic, and think that the other products are thus mere imitations

2. 'Catch-up’ Advertising Strategy

Avis’ slogan ‘Avis is only No. 2 in rent-a-cars, so why go with us? We try harder’. This technique is powerful for the No. 2 firm, as it will increase the No. 2 firm’s market share while edging out firms No. 3, 4 and 5.
Psychological studies have determined that most consumers at most recall the top two brands, such as Eveready and Duracell for batteries, Kodak and Fuji for film.

3. ‘Lowest price’ Advertising Strategy

This technique allows you to easily highlight your competitive benefits. Walmart is one such example.

4. ‘Higher price’ Advertising Strategy

This plays on the idea of prestige; or ostentatious demand / snob appeal in economics terms.
Convey a sense of class, as in the campaigns ran by Gucci, Rolex, Montblanc, Haagen-Dazs.
Customers usually associate higher price with higher product quality.

5. Sturdiness Advertising Strategy

This exploits consumers’ desire to want something durable. Samsonite and Volvo are perhaps the best examples.

6. Safety Advertising Strategy

Quality – This is the raw form of quality, not quality hyped up by price, but sheer design excellence and true product quality.

7. Quantity Advertising Strategy

Especially for companies that promise quantitative benefits, such as weight loss products.

8. More bang for the buck Advertising Strategy

Gillette’s Trac II razor was marketed as the only razor with two blades, going by the slogan ‘two blades shave better than one’.

9. Sex appeal Advertising Strategy
This appeals to raw emotions and works effectively for a wide variety of products: beer, champagne, shaving cream, toothpaste, underwear, lingerie, perfume.

10. Gender Advertising Strategy
Famous male-oriented products include Marlboro cigarettes and Lava, while famous female-oriented products include Virginia Slim cigarettes.
Interestingly, there is a greater emphasis on women, since they make up to 80% of all household purchasing decisions. Women buy 80% of men’s undergarments and 65% of their dress shirts.

11. Time of day Advertising Strategy
Kit Kat is the lunchtime chocolate, while NyQuil is a nighttime remedy, and Coast is the ‘the eye opener’.

DAGMAR

DAGMAR

DAGMAR stands for Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results. It is a model that defines an ad campaign's goals and measures whether those goals are being met or not. However from the marketing point of view it can be defined as a process of establishing goals for an ad campaign so that it is possible to determine whether or not the goals have been met.
It is basically an approach to advertising planning and a precise method for selecting and quantifying goals and for using those goals to measure performance. Russell Colley created DAGMAR while preparing report for the Association of National Advertisers in 1961.
An advertising objective involves a communication task, intended to create awareness, impart information, develop attitudes or induce action.
Communication Process in DAGMAR Approach
The model suggests that before the acceptance of a product by an individual, there is a series of mental steps which the individual goes through.
1. The initial communication task of the advertising activity is to increase consumer awareness of the product or offer.
2. Comprehension is the second step of DAGMAR. Try to know the answers to these following questions.

a) What is your product about?

b) What are product’s potential features and benefits of product?

c) What will your customer get from your product? And how?

Answers to all these questions will help you to get a potential customer.
3. The third step is the attitude (or conviction) step and intervenes between comprehension and final action. Convince your customer by telling him the benefits of your product.
4. The action phase involves some overt move on the part of the buyer such as trying a brand for the first time, visiting a showroom, or requesting information.
The whole communication process is a bit more complex. And under different circumstances, it may differ slightly, but the basic concept remains same.

The DAGMAR approach emphasizes on
1. The communication task of advertising.
2. The advertising goals should be specific.
3. It should be a written.
4. Involving measurable task, a starting point, a defined audience, and a fixed time period.
Let’s take an example and build on an advertising brief:
You are an owner of a chain general store ‘Store X’ and want to open up your store in a locality where another general store ‘Store Y’ exists. You don't have to worry about the image and perception of the store. You are just worried that customers might not want to buy from you. And, instead, buy from a competing store next to yours dealing with the same kinds of products. In such a case, what should be done? What should be your advertising objective? Should you have advertising strategy? What would be the ingredients of such an advertising plan? What should be the budget?
Let's discuss some of the issues related to your promotion/advertising related activity. You must first distinguish between advertising from your marketing objectives. And DAGMAR is aimed at setting your advertising goals/ planning and not marketing goals.
A Measurable Objective
The DAGMAR approach sounds impractical once we talk of measurements, surveys, questionnaires. But, as the approach emphasizes the importance of objectives, we must have some form of measurement to indicate the effectiveness of the advertising/ promotional campaign.
So if you are thinking of a promotional campaign, it must have an objective. And an objective that is measurable.
You can distribute pamphlets and flyers in the area or go in for a yellow page advertisement; the measurement could be the number of phone calls received before and after the pamphlets and the flyers were distributed or the ad was published.
Your measurable objective must be written, clear and unambiguous. Goals like 'Improve store image'/Increase awareness of our store' etc are too vague and do not lead to anywhere. A good starting point to work on the goal would be:
Increase awareness of our store by 10%
A Conceivable Benchmark
When we talk of measurement, it’s both current and future. We must, first, know where we stand now, and know in quantitative terms. The current position is your starting point which will help in establishing a goal and selecting a campaign to reach it. Getting more customers into your store might not be an optimal goal, if you already receive a large number of visitors. So, have an objective analysis of where you are and then start working on your objective.
If you know that already many customers are visiting your store, you may probably have some idea of their behavior related to purchases. (If you don't, that's a pity). Now you know that your advertising can be aimed at converting your visitors to customers.
Let's reconstruct our goal now:
Increase awareness of our store from the current level of 20% to 30%
Well-Defined Target Audience
You must know your target audience. Not everyone is going to buy your product. Not everyone needs your product; it’s another matter that some needs are latent and needs to be aroused. So, identify your target audience, to whom you are going to aim your ad campaign. Most likely, this is going to be your user segment as well.
In case of your store the target customer should be middle class and upper middle class people. Working further on the advertising goal, we now have:
Increase awareness of our store from the current level of 20% to 30% among the owner of product X
Fixed Time Period
Your advertising campaign should not run for eternity, without having milestones to achieve over the future time frame. You should have a fixed time period, six months or a year, within which you should aim at attaining certain goals. There should also be some time allocated td to test the campaign, make amendments, if required to the campaign. A time should be fixed upon the arrival of which the campaign can be evaluated. So, we finally have our advertising goal as follows:
Increase awareness of our store from the current level of 20% to 30% among the owner of product X before the launch of Store Z which is expected within the next six months.
The main conclusions on the DAGMAR theory were expressed in the following quotation:
“All commercial communications that weigh on the ultimate objective of a sale must carry a prospect through four levels of understanding.
1. The prospect must first be aware of the existence of a brand or organization
2. He must have a comprehension of what the product is and what it will do for him
3. He must arrive at a mental suspicion or conviction to buy the product
4. Finally he must stir himself to action.”

AIDA

AIDA

AIDA is a behavioral model, created by Strong in 1925. It was created with the aim that an advertisement raises awareness, stimulates interest, creates desire and leads the customer to action.
With the AIDA model Strong suggests that for an advertisement to be effective it has to be one that:
1. Commands Attention
2. Leads to Interest in the product
3. And thence to Desire to own or use the product
4. And then finally leads to Action
It states that an ad should be designed in such a way that the customer passes through all these four phases. It also states that advertising should inject memorable and believable messages that will persuade costumers to act in a certain way.
The advertising world focuses more on the two main behavioral responses: awareness and interest. One of the popular features followed by ad agencies is AIDA.

AIDA is an acronym stands for: A – Attention I – Interest D – Desire A – Action
AIDA model states that advertising agency should know how to draw attention of a buyer to get the customer interested by exhibiting its advantages, benefits and features. Interest is followed by desire. It is advertising agency’s duty to create a desire in a buyer to buy a specific product. All three steps of the AIDA help to stimulate the action towards the purchase of a product. AIDA theory guides and leads you to build a better advertising business.
Criticism
1. No evidence to prove that customers behave in this rational, linear way.
2. The model ignores the role of context, environment and mediation in influencing the effectiveness of the advertisement.
3. The model is more appropriate when dealing with high involvement purchases and not in low involvement purchases that are often spontaneous.