Campaign Model

1.0 Current brand status

C
1.1 Market meaning

 Studies of branding have more often than not focused on it being a rational reaction to marketing
communications. A more helpful approach is to examine the subjective lived experience of brands that
consumers have.
 Successful brands have emerged from a ‘culturally constituted’ world (McCracken 1999) where
the purpose of marketing communications is to co-create customer experience rather than merely
building brand image through personality associations.
 Research by Levy (2003), McCracken (1999) and Aaker (1991) has identified meaning as being
the key driver of consumer behaviour and it is brands where meaning resides.
 Brands not only reflect people’s lives but also form an integral part of an on-going personal
narrative which ‘braids the filaments of everyday empirical and eternal truth into a common strand’
(Sherry 2005).
 Any marketing communications strategy has to first acknowledge and evaluate the market
meaning that brands symbolise to users.

1.2 Brand history

 An appreciation of a brand’s heritage is crucial to marketing communications strategy.

 Brand equity comprises all positive and negative associations built up over the life of the brand.
Brand essence is a sort of brand DNA from which developments and opportunities stem.
 Brands have perceptual barriers which provide a framework within which consumers perceive the
brand value proposition but may also restrict growth opportunities.
  Any communications strategy has to evaluate the market dynamics and the performance of the
brand in its market category.

1.3 Brand portfolio or brand architecture

 Branding is both the corollary and driving force of segmentation and positioning.
 In a multi-brand organisation, a rational, structured approach to managing the totality of brands,
and, at the same time, the broader organisational or brand narrative is called the brand architecture
(Uncles, Cocks and Macrae 1995).
 Brand architecture refers to the organising structure of the brand portfolio, which is the full range
of brands, sub-brands and any co-brand arrangements with third parties within the organisation’s
market/product offer, specifies roles, relationships and the different contexts that each market/product
positioning will occupy.
 A brand portfolio is the collection of brands which a company has at its disposal to help an
organisation achieve marketing strategy objectives.
 Each brand has to contribute to the overall portfolio equity and be consistent with the collective
brand ethos and market positioning.

Chapter 8 Building Brand Equity introduces and develops the conceptual underpinning of brand
management and lays the foundation for the extension of the various brand theories.
2.0 Analysis

A
2.1 Environmental factors

 Good marketing communications starts with a context or environmental analysis.

 The environmental analysis consists of:

 environmental context (macro, local community ethics)

 stakeholder context (employers, customers, suppliers etc)
 business context (market dynamics, competitive positioning)
 customer context (profiling, retention, profitability) and
 organisational context (product portfolio, brand equity)

 Market dynamics (market conditions, customer profile)

 Objectives and strategy are dependent on the market dynamics and the environmental (macro
and micro) factors.

2.2 Customer dynamics

 There are varying views of whether marketing communications has a cause and effect impact on
audiences: a direct link to action; only supporting decision making not inducing it.
 A prerequisite for successful communication is a thorough understanding of individuals’
motivation which can help to position brands successfully to mutually benefit company and
consumers.
 The brand owner needs to know how attitudes are formed and what communication cues will be
effective in affecting attitude.
 There are basically two perspectives on information processing and how consumers respond to
marketing stimuli: cognitive (logical reasoning) and hedonistic (sensory-emotive).
 The consumer decision-making process has the following stages:

(i) Pre-purchase: the difference between what a consumer needsto purchaseandwants to purchase
depends on the type of product, how it will be used and the context within which it will be consumed.
(iii) Evaluation of alternatives is the stage where possible brands in a consideration set are compared.

(iii) Information search marketing communications directs purchases by offering signs, information and
associations and where to get information from.
(ii) Purchase: the meanings that are ascribed to brands are negotiable. It is absolutely imperative that
marketing communications presents the brand in the social context of how the brand will be consumed.
The symbolic content of a brand, in relation to consumer needs and the competition and how situational
factors such as where and when the product is sold affect opportunities to purchase, is fundamentally
important to successful marketing communications.
(iv) Post-purchase: the life-time customer value of repeat purchase is vital to companies, and the further
spread of word of mouth essential to the adoption of product, companies have to build in this element of
social intercourse to the brand’s narrative. The post-purchase regret (cognitive dissonance) which
consumers experience may be functional, social, psychological or even ethical.

Chapter 2 How Marketing Communications Works shows some of the sequence of decision-
making models which have been the mainstay of discussions on how marketing
communications influences buyer behaviour.

2.3 Brand meaning

  Brand associations are made explicitly and implicitly in order to encourage linkages with places,
personalities or even emotions.
 Brand meanings - functional, social, psychological or even ethical - that are projected through
consumption of brands can be highlighted, nurtured and even created by marketing communications.
 There is a difference between ‘actual’ and ‘communicated’ product; the difference is perceptual:
what consumers think and feel about the brand is critical. And marketing communications helps
consumers link certain associations to a brand, to position a brand in the mind as well as the market.
 Meaning can be generated by two-way dialogues.
 Whilst consumers use marketing communications to actively seek out personal meaning
(McCracken 2005) through the consumption of brands, meaning is of course dependent upon the
cultural context within which consumption occurs.

Chapter 1 Introduction to Marketing Communications introduces the student to the debate on

the meaning of consumption created by marketing communications.

< back to top

3.0 Marketing Communication objectives

M
3.1 Marketing objectives

 Marketing objectives differ from communication objectives in that they focus on the achieving
corporate goals.
 Marketing objectives are about action for products, markets, sales and profits.
 They deal with objectives at the functional level.
 Overall marketing objectives are hard-nosed sales, market share and profit-oriented goals, and
any long-term brand building has to be underpinned by sales.

3.2 Communication effects and objectives

 Communication effects are the buyer states that are required (e.g. being aware of the brand) in
order to affect customer purchase; objectives are the specific targets (e.g. unprompted recall from an
advertising campaign of a brand’s message) to be achieved by marketing communications.
 A good framework within which to examine communication effects would include target audience,
media targets (who are influential on the dissemination of information and development of brand
image), and ‘creative targets’ (the decision role-players in the purchase).
 Communication objectives may be cognitive (awareness, knowledge, information gathering),
affective (liking, preference, conviction) or conative (purchase, action).
 Dominance in a category can be a vital ingredient in the battle against competition. Marketing
communications objectives will be focused on two essential customer measures: brand loyalty and
category satisfaction. Successful brands will ‘own the category’ and become synonymous with the
need being fulfilled. These brands become exemplars and are yardsticks for consumers to evaluate
alternatives and for competitors to emulate.

Chapter 4 Marketing Communications Effects and Objectives describes the need for accurate
and deliberate objectives in order to achieve successful marketing communications.

3.3 Communications Mix

 The marketing communications mix is the collection of communication components which can be
used to construct and maintain dialogues with target audiences.
 It is a type of menu subset of the marketing mix used to achieve the communication goals and
objectives of marketing communications strategy and includes advertising, public relations, direct
marketing, promotional activities and face-to-face sales.
  These are the tactical elements which must be integrated in order to provide ‘one-voice’
messages which help achieve communication campaign objectives and positioning for the brand.
 The communication mix spans the two parameters of personal (aimed at managing sales, service
and customer contact) and non-personal communications (aimed at managing image and building the
brand).

Chapter 10 Marketing Communications Mix examines the range of tactical communication tools
available for the marketer to help achieve the objectives of successful marketing
communications.

< back to top

4.0 Planning

P
4.1 Budget

 The setting of marketing communications budgets is always a source of debate in organisations,

and exposes differing perspectives on whether marketing communications is a cost or an investment,
or if there is cause-and-effect input/output scientific objectivity to its deployment.
 Some of the tried-and-trusted methods are listed below:

 Arbitrary: management responds to environmental factors, made on the basis of market

conditions, competitive activities and changing brand requirements.
 All that you can afford: expediency of cash flow and even survival might condition how
much the organisation can afford.
 Historic basis: the assumption that previous levels of expenditure, cause-and-effect
results and the appropriateness of the message, media and mix have been successfully deployed
may well be a good basis to retrospectively examine the impacts of marketing communications.
 Competitive parity: matching spend with competitors to achieve relative positioning,
‘share of voice’ or even psychological equity can often be an appropriate method of budget setting,
especially for challenger brands which seek category comparison or competitive parity.
 Percentage of sales: some organisations have a fixed formula proportionate amount
based on expected level of sales.
 Experiment and test: controlled experiments may prove the efficacy of campaign
components within a sample market.
 Modelling and simulation: based on industry norms, competitive parity, previous
campaigns, test markets and use of proprietary software, a sophisticated model can be used to
simulate possible budgeting scenarios.
 Objectives and task: by far the best method of setting budgets is to assess what changes
or reinforcement in target market behaviour and purchase intentions have to be affected in order to
achieve marketing objectives by ‘zero budgeting’.  standpoint: how much will a specific input cost
to achieve a specific outcome and how appropriate is that expenditure likely to be?

Chapter 5 Marketing Communications Strategy and Planning introduces the techniques of

budgeting and discusses the objective requirement for careful preparation of the financial
aspects of campaign planning.

4.2 Strategic Positioning

 Positioning plays a pivotal role in marketing strategy because it links market analysis and
competitive analysis to internal corporate analysis.
 Strategic positioning is about a brand’s territorial rights: claiming, establishing and maintaining a
product/market space in the target market segment and a mind space in the consciousness of the
target audience.
 Two factors are particularly important in creating and developing a long-term brand value
proposition: the capacity to build strong, favourable and unique associations with the brand; and the
 budget to develop an ongoing brand narrative.
 In an overcrowded marketplace, positioning can be considered as being a systematic approach to
finding a space for dialogue with an audience.
 Clarity is required more than anything in communications, and positioning is at the very heart of
establishing the clarity of a brand.

Chapter 6 Strategic Positioning discusses the importance of establishing a brand’s territorial

rights: claiming, establishing and maintaining a product/market space in the target market
segment and a mind space in the consciousness of the target audience.

4.3 Tactical Positioning

 The brand must have a strategic positioning which identifies an enduring position in the product
category.
 This must be underpinned and reinforced by a range of carefully selected tools and media: the
tactics and techniques of positioning.
 An understanding of the link between positioning strategy and tactics is required in order to
appreciate how they contribute to brand equity and help to create ‘meaning’ for consumers
 An examination of the communicative aspects of different brand elements such as brand name,
logotype, typeface and packaging needs to be undertaken to help improve the current brand position
 Tactical use of other brands (e.g. comparative advertising, advertising alliances and context
effects) is also needed to strengthen the brand’s positioning.

Chapter 7 Tactics and Techniques of Positioning explains and critiques the range of tactics and
techniques of positioning and how this helps to underpin and reinforce the brand’s strategic
positioning.

< back to top

5.0 Application

A
5.1 Communications mix management

 In order to achieve objectives, communications strategy uses the tactics of the communication
mix: the ‘mix’ of advertising, personal selling, public relations, direct marketing and sales promotion.
 The management of the tactical elements of marketing communications has be integrated in
order to provide ‘one-voice’ messages which help achieve communication campaign objectives and
positioning for the brand.
 Management of the mix must take into account the environmental factors which affect the
marketing communications mix.
 Must be used to build both long-term loyalty and equity and also ad hoc short-term expediencies.
 Must appreciate and manage the different roles (e.g. creating awareness, reinforcing image or
stimulating traffic flow) that are required from the application of communication mix components and
how they reinforce each other.

Chapter 10 The Marketing Communications Mix is an introduction to the collection of

communication components which can be used to construct and maintain dialogues with target
audiences.

5.2 Media

 A full appreciation and analysis of the macro and micro environment must be undertaken before,
during and after campaigns take place.
 In order to ensure the most effective messages are placed in the correct media and target
audiences engage with communications in a mutually beneficial manner, all mix components, and
their total effects, must be evaluated.
  Some elements are partly controllable – the effectiveness and efficiency of budgeted components
of the mix – and some impact and may constrain ethical practices, regulatory restrictions and general
environmental issues.
 Measurement allows analysis of the various components of the application of marketing
communications: the current dynamics of the market sector; the category need; target audience
behaviour; message content; the different ways we might create communication messages; possible
media channels in which to carry that communication; and a critical assessment of the suitability of the
individual communication elements.
 Evaluation, on the other hand, allows interpretation of these measures in order to properly gauge
the impacts over time. Therefore, we need to measure metrics and evaluate effectiveness.

Chapter 13 Media Concepts and Media Planning introduces the various concepts, techniques
and approaches to planning the schedule for media.

5.3 Creative platform

 Processing information through a central route (e.g. the Elaboration Likelihood Model describes a
highly motivated consumer with the ability to make rational decisions.
 The peripheral route places less emphasis on the cognitive process of processing and supports
the view that elements such as advertising design, celebrity endorsement, music and so on, have a
greater impact by reinforcing behaviour.
 Ehrenberg (1997) refers to a ‘nudging’ stage in the build up of the aggregate communication
effects of awareness, trial and reinforcement.
 Cognition, affect and experience are integral components of behavioural change in marketing,
and the driving force of the marketing communications mix has traditionally been media-based
advertising.
 The communicated message has to build the brand and create desirable associations to it, as
well as encouraging target audience involvement and stimulate purchase.  

Chapter 11 Advertising Strategy is specifically about the development and implementation of

the creative and media strategy proposals for executing the creative messages with a media
schedule of where these messages will appear. Although advertising strategy is given primacy,
this chapter discusses how it acts as a template for other communications components in terms
of its ability to create awareness, image and develop customer relationships through brand
engagement.

< back to top

6.0 Implementation

I
6.1 Creative implementation

 The creative elements of advertising which are used to help achieve strategy.
 Advertising is still the major component and in some ways the driving force of the marketing
communications mix, although the creative principles are applied, where appropriate, to other
communication tools as well.
 Covers the tactical approaches to executing strategy which focus on finding forms for the
message that will catch the target audience’s attention, invite them to process information and
enhance conviction.
 Creative methods can be used to design communication that gets through the noise, is processed
and is convincing. All the tools and tricks are based on research of how people work and how they
process information.

Chapter 12 Advertising Creativity is about all the creative elements used to help achieve
strategy. Advertising, in some ways the driving force of the marketing communications mix, is
 given prominence, but the creative principles are also applied to other communication tools.
6.2 Media implementation

 Media planning is broadly the process of finding the most cost-effective means of delivering
communications to prospective and existing customers, and includes all channel brand encounters
which deliver dialogue to key stakeholders in mass or specialised audiences.
 On a ‘macro’ level, the marketer must decide upon the total amount of communication that is
needed to reach the set objectives.
 On a ‘micro’ level, the marketer must determine the allocation of communication resources over
time and between media, as well as taking target groups, market situation, competitors, and product
and message characteristics into account.
 There has to be a balance between effectiveness, efficiency and economy.
 Whilst the main objective is to achieve the strongest effect possible, it has to be accomplished
with least cost and least waste. To do this systematically, modelling is used to map out the media
schedules (where, when, and how often the advertising is placed in media) that give the strongest
effects, whereas optimisation means finding the least expensive solution for the selected schedules.

Chapter 13 Media Concepts and Media Planning discusses in detail the characteristics and
logic of media planning and the need for an accurate understanding of the various techniques
and approaches to planning the media component of campaigns.

6.3 Production implementation

Both Chapter 11 Advertising Strategy and Chapter 13 Media Concepts and Media Planning
introduce the student to the practical application of marketing communications.

< back to top

7.0 Goal evaluation

G
7.1 Media measurements

 A full appreciation and analysis of the macro and micro environment must be undertaken before,
during and after campaigns take place.
 In order to ensure the most effective messages are placed in the correct media and target
audiences engage with communications in a mutually beneficial manner, all mix components, and
their total effects, must be evaluated.
 Some elements are partly controllable – the effectiveness and efficiency of budgeted components
of the mix – and some impact and may constrain ethical practices, regulatory restrictions and general
environmental issues.
 Measurement allows analysis of the various components of the application of marketing
communications: the current dynamics of the market sector; the category need; target audience
behaviour; message content; the different ways we might create communication messages; possible
media channels in which to carry that communication; and a critical assessment of the suitability of the
individual communication elements.
 Evaluation, on the other hand, allows interpretation of these measures in order to properly gauge
the impacts over time. Therefore, we need to measure metrics and evaluate effectiveness.

Chapter 17 Evaluating Marketing Communications examines the formal and informal, planned
and ad hoc metrics used to evaluate marketing communications with a full contextual
explanation of the relevant evaluation and measurement techniques.

7.2 Ethical considerations

 Good communications with target audiences and the broader stakeholder community must
consider the evaluation of ethical, regulatory and environmental issues.
  Whilst the issues of ethics, regulation and environmental dynamics can be examined separately,
they are inextricably linked to marketing communications strategy.
 Unethical marketing practices may lead to greater control either within a formal framework or
through industry or competitive self-regulation.
 Changing consumer and societal conditions will require constant monitoring, control and
reassessment of how and where media and messages are delivered to target audiences.
 Moral conduct may be enforced by regulation or competitive pressure, formal, legal legislation or,
in the case of innovative and enlightened organisations, self-regulation.
 The key issues may be summarised below:
 Targeting to Vulnerable Groups
 Public Relations Issues
 Packaging Issues
 Branding Issues
 Unfair Competition
 Sales Promotion Problems
 Ethical Issues with Online Communications
 Unethical and Irresponsible Advertising
 Regulatory controls
 Green and eco-friendly consideration

Chapter 17 Evaluating Marketing Communications looks at the need for a full appreciation and
analysis of the impact of ethical practices, regulatory restrictions and general environmental
issues before, during and after campaigns take place.

7.3 Word of mouth

 Marketing communications contributes to mediated transmitted meaning construction by explicit

projected marketing meaning (the intrinsic attributes of product and packaging, distribution) and
implicitly symbolic meaning projected.
 Can be purposively planned to achieve brand image and initiate action, but also unplanned as
through word of mouth.
 The brand’s meaning may be wrapped up in the generations of word-of-mouth recommendations
and in all the exposure to marketing communications messages and can sometimes distort the
intended sender’s message.
 The user-generated space of online ‘virtual communities’ like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube
affords individuals a growing sense of cyber-identity which has given rise to ‘word of mouse’
communication.
 This recent consumer-to-consumer (C2C) development (through endorsement, semiotics and
word of mouth) may undermine intended brand communications.
  A sort of ‘psychological comfort or discomfort’ which underpins the advocacy bonds that brand
loyalty breeds.
 Word-of-mouth communication is particularly relevant to the introduction of new product or
services where ‘connected marketing’ can help ignite conversations in target markets which result in
positive word of mouth and ultimately add value to the brand.

Both Chapter 1 Introduction to Marketing Communications and Chapter 2 How Marketing

Communications Works introduces the student to the phenomenon of word of mouth, an
integral part of almost every marketing communications campaign.

< back to top

8.0 Next stage in brand’s development
N
8.1 Brand narrative

 The brand narrative is the ongoing connecting dialogue between company and customer.
 Brand narratives are story arcs which parallel product life cycles and provide longevity for brands,
reliable income streams for organisations and, more importantly, provide meaning for consumers.
 It takes the long view that all marketing communications – media and messages – are bonded in
strategic and tactical dialogues and consumers co-create, disseminate and advocate all
communications.
 Companies send brands out into the marketplace and infuse a positioning story into the strategic
and tactical communications wrapped around the brand; the intermediaries who stock, display and sell
the brand; the culture industries who deconstruct and evaluate meaning; and the end users who
negotiate meaning from brand communication, community and complicity.

Chapter 9 Brand Narrative and Relational Management traces the progression from product to
brand to the broader social and psychological meaning enveloped in the brand’s story or
narrative.

8.2 Brand meaning

 Brand associations are made explicitly and implicitly in order to encourage linkages with places,
personalities or even emotions.
 Brand meanings - functional, social, psychological or even ethical - that are projected through
consumption of brands can be highlighted, nurtured and even created by marketing communications.
 There is a difference between ‘actual’ and ‘communicated’ product; the difference is perceptual:
what consumers think and feel about the brand is critical. And marketing communications helps
consumers link certain associations to a brand, to position a brand in the mind as well as the market.
 Meaning can be generated by two-way dialogues.
 Whilst consumers use marketing communications to actively seek out personal meaning
(McCracken 2005) through the consumption of brands, meaning is of course dependent upon the
cultural context within which consumption occurs.

Chapter 1 Introduction to Marketing Communications introduces the student to the debate on

the meaning of consumption created by marketing communications.

<