Integrated marketing communications test notes

Chapter 1

IMC is a strategic marketing process specifically designed to ensure that all messaging and
communication strategies are unified across all channels and centred around the customer

The IMC process emphasizes identifying and assessing customer prospects, tailoring messaging to
customers and prospects that are both serviceable and profitable, and evaluating the success of
these efforts to minimize waste and transform marketing from an expense into a profit-centre.

IMC objectives
Companies have a variety of general objectives for their marketing communication programs:

Informing customers to about their products, services, and terms of sale;

Persuading customers to choose certain products and brands, shop in particular stores, go to certain
websites, attend events, and other specific behaviors; and

Inducing action (eg: purchase behavior) from customers that is more immediate than delayed in
nature.

Marketing and the marketing concept

Marketing (Kotler 1980): human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange
processes.

Is marketing = selling??

The idea of the marketing concept is to adapt the company’s offering to the needs and wants of the
customer.

Exchange
In order for an exchange to occur, there must be:
1. Two parties and each party must ...
2. have something of value to the other party,
3. be capable of communication and delivery,
4. be free to accept/reject the offer, and there must be
5. an agreement to terms.

Communications and marketing communications

 Communications: the process where individuals share meaning and establish a commonness of
thought.
 Marketing Communications: the collection of all elements of a firm’s marketing mix that
facilitate exchange by establishing shared meaning with the firm’s customers.
o Marketing Communications -> B2B, B2C, non-profits
o Marketing Mix: specific collection of certain levels of elements of a brand’s 4Ps –
product, price, place and promotion.
Elements of promotional mix

Marcom tools

Promotion management and objectives of promotion

 Promotion Management: coordination of promotional mix elements in setting objectives,
establishing budgets, designing programs, evaluating performance, and taking corrective action.
 General Objectives of Promotion:
o Inform
o Persuade
o Induce Action
IMC
The coordination of the promotional mix elements with each other and with other elements of the
brand’s marketing mix such that all elements speak with one voice.

The integration of communications

Why not always integrate?
 Tradition of separate communication tools
 Influence of specialized outside suppliers
 Managerial parochialism
o fear of budget cutbacks
o loss of power and authority
 Resistance of outside suppliers to broadening their functions
 Skeptics who consider IMC to be a fad

IMC Skeptics: in the final analysis, the key to successfully implementing IMC is the managers must
closely link their efforts with outside suppliers of marcom services (such as ad agencies), and both
parties must be committed to assuring that all communication tools are carefully and finely
integrated.

IMC and Synergy

The payoff from IMC is that brand managers achieve: synergy

The integration of multiple communication tools and media yield more positive communication
results than the tools used individually

Five key features of IMC

1. Start with the customer or prospect
 Media-neutral approach-> Identify Marcom program goals -. Determine best way to locate
marketing budget
 Learn the media preferences and lifestyles of your customers/prospects so you know the best
contexts in which to reach with your brand message. Recognise and adapt to the fact that
consumers are increasingly control of their media choices for acquiring information about
brands
 Consumers in control
 Reduced dependence on mass media
2. Use any form of relevant contact or touch point (e.g Hershey foods)
 Touch points and 360-deree branding: touch point and contact is any message medium that is
capable of reaching target customers and presenting and presenting the brand in a favourable
light
 Not all touch points are equally engaging
3. Speak with a single voice
 Achieve synergy
 Brand positioning statement must:
o Present a clear idea of the brand in its target market mind
o Consistently deliver the same unified message across all media channels on all
occasions
4. Build relationships
 Cost more to acquire a new customer that to keep one
 Loyalty programs promote long-term relationships between customers and brands that lead to
customer retention
 Experimental marketing programs can create brand experiences that make positive and lasting
impressions on customers
5. Affect behaviour
 Don’t lose focus on the ultimate objective: affect behaviour
 IMC must be more than just influence brand awareness or enhance consumer attitudes- the
objective is to move people to action

Changes in marketing communication and practices

 Reduced dependence on mass media advertising.
 Increased reliance on highly targeted communication methods.
 Heightened demands on suppliers.
 Increased efforts to assess communications return on investment.

Obstacles to implementing IMC

 Fewer providers have the skill to execute
 Mass media campaigns easier than direct-to-customer
 The real challenge is to make sure that the tools are consistently executed

Marcom implementation decisions

 Mixing elements: allocation of resources
 Creating messages: in the form of advertisements
 Selecting media: medium of transmission
 Establishing momentum: requires sufficient amount of effort and continuity of that effort

SWOT analysis

Making brand-level marcom decisions and achieving desired outcomes

Making fundamental Marcom decisions

Target market selection strategies

Marcom outcomes
Enhancing brand equity <-------> affecting behaviour

Program evaluation
 Measuring results
 Providing feedback
 Taking corrective action

All Marketing communications should be

 Directed to a particular target market
 Created to achieve a specific objective
 Undertaken to accomplish the objective within the budget constraint
 Clearly positioned

Chapter 2

Branding
Brand: A name, term, sign, symbol, or design intended to identify the goods and services of one
seller or groups of sellers and differentiate them from those of competition.
Brand equity: The goodwill that an established brand has built up over its existence.

Marketing Communications at brand levels

A firm based perspective on brand equity
The firm-based viewpoint of brand equity is focuses on outcomes extending from efforts to enhance
a brand’s value to its various stakeholders

As brand equity increases

 A higher market share is achieved Higher equity brands earn greater levels of customer loyalty
 Brand loyalty increases and achieve higher market shared.
 Premium prices can be charged: brand’s elasticity of demand becomes less elastic as its equity
increases. Brands with more equity can charge higher prices
 The brand earns a revenue premium: result of achieving higher levels of brand equity.
o the differential between a branded item and a corresponding private-labelled item

A customer-based perspective on brand loyalty

A brand possesses equity to the extent that people are familiar with the brand and have stored in
memory favourable, strong and unique brand associations

Associations: are the particular thoughts and feelings that consumers have linked in memory with a
particular brand.

Achieving brand awareness is the initial challenge for new brands. Maintaining high levels of brand
awareness is the tasked faced by all established brands
Brand recognition: reflects a relatively superficial level of awareness
Brand recall: deeper form of brand awareness

Brand awareness pyramid

Top of
mind
(TOMA)
Brand recall

Brand recognition

Unaware of brand

Brands and their management

Brand concept and brand concept management

Brand concept: the specific meaning that the brand managers create and communicate to the target
market
 this is accomplished by appeals to functional, symbolic and experimental needs

brand concept management: the analysis, planning, implementation and control of a brand concept
throughout the life of the brand

How brand concepts can be developed

 functional needs (solving problems): products that attempt to fulfil the consumer’s
consumption-related problems
 Symbolic needs (associating the brand with symbolic objects): directed at the consumers’
desire for self-enhancement, role position, group membership, and belongingness
 Experimental needs (sensory pleasures, personal experience): products that provide sensory
pleasure, variety, and/or cognitive stimulation

Brand image represents the associations that are activated in memory when people think about a
particular brand.
Five personality dimensions that describe most brands:
 sincerity
o down to earth
o wholesome
o honest
o cheerful
 excitement
o daring
o spirited
o imaginative
o up-to-date
 competence
o reliable
o intelligent
o successful
 sophistication
o upper class
o charming
o luxury
 ruggedness
o tough
o outdoorsy

Enhancing brand equity

Efforts to enhance a brand’s equity are accomplished through the initial choices of positive brand
identity but mostly through marketing and Marcom programs that forge favourable, strong, and
unique associations with the brand in the consumer’s mind.

Three general ways to enhance brand equity:

 All brand to speak for itself
o Quality
o Sustainability
o Desirability
 Create message drive associations: appealing messages
o Repeated claims about the features a brand possess
 Leveraging current meaning or associations
o Positive associations that are already contained in the world of people, places and
things.

Leveraging brand meaning from various sources

Co-branding and ingredient branding
 Co-branding: a partnership between two brands
 Ingredient branding: inclusion of one brand within the other

Benefits result from enhancing brand equity

 Increased consumer loyalty
 Long-term growth and profitability for the brand
 Maintain brand differentiation from competitive offerings
 Insulate brand from price competition

Measuring world class brands

 Quality: score ranging from 0 to 10 (unacceptable/ poor to outstanding/extraordinary)

 Salience: score ranging from 0 to 100 (percentage of people who feel sufficiently well informed
about a brand to rate it)
 Equity: score ranging from 0 to 100 (determined by multiplying the quality and salience scores
and dividing the product by 10)

Affecting behaviour and achieving marcom accountability

Creating brand awareness and boosting brand image serve little positive effect unless individuals
make purchases or engage in some other form of desired behaviour.

Difficulty of measuring marcom effectiveness

 Choosing a Metric
 Gaining Agreement
 Collecting Accurate Data
 Calibrating Special Effects

Chapter 3

Marcom and brand adoption

 Product adoption
o The introduction and acceptance of new ideas, including new brands
o Essential to long-term market success
 Marketing communications
o Facilitate successful new product introductions
o Reduce the product failure rate (potentially 35-45%)

Brand adoption: Vibram five fingers??

Relative advantage
 Consumer perception pf a new brand versus alternatives
o Better performance
o Time and effort saving
o Immediacy of reward

Brand characteristics that facilitate approach

 Relative advantage
o This represents the degree to which consumers perceive a new brand as being better
than existing alternatives with respect to specific attributes or benefits.
 Compatibility
o The degree to which an innovation is perceived to fit into a person’s way of doing things
 Complexity
o An innovation’s degree of perceived difficulty
 Trialability
o The extent to which an innovation can be used on a limited basis prior to making a full-
blown commitment
 Observability
o The degree to which the positive effects of new-product usage can be observed by
users and others

Brand naming
Brand: A company’s unique designation or trademark, which distinguishes its offering from the other
product category entries.

Power of brand naming

 Effects of brand naming
o Speed of brand awareness
o Overall brand image
o Brand equity formulation

What constitutes a good brand name

 Distinguishes the brand from competitive offerings
 Facilitates consumer learning by describing the brand and its attributes (“Healthy Choice,”
“Diehard)
o Associations and memory cues
 Brand Name Suggestiveness.
 Made up brand names
 Sound symbolism
 Achieves compatibility with a brand’s desired image and with its product design or packaging
 Is memorable and easy to pronounce and spell
 Is suitable for global use

Brand naming process

1. Specify objectives for the brand
2. Create candidate brand names
 3. Evaluate candidate names
4. Choose a brand name
5. Register a trademark
6. The role of logos
 Logo
o Is a graphic design element related to a brand name
o Not all brand names are associated with a distinct logo
 Good logo designs
o Are natural—neither too simple nor too complex
o Are readily recognized
o Convey same meaning to all target market members
o Evoke positive feelings
o Are suited for periodic updating
 Update logos
o To be more attuned with the times

Packaging
 Packaging structure: communicates meaning about a brand via its various symbolic
components:color, design, shape, size, physical materials, and information labelling
o The use of colour in packaging
o Design and shape cues in packaging
o Physical materials in packaging
 Evaluating the package: the VIEW Model
o V- visibility
o I- information
o E- Emotional appeal
o W- Workability

Designing a package
1. Specify brand-positioning objectives
o How brand is to be positioned in the customers mind
2. Conduct a product category analysis
o What the packaging must convey
3. Perform a competitive analysis
o Know competitor then differentiate from them
4. Identify salient brand attributes or benefits
o The packaging must not be too cluttered and must feature what is important to the
consumer
5. Determine communication priorities
o Establish visual and verbal priorities for the package
o Intellectual property
 Patents: ideas, inventions
o 20 years renewable
 Copyrights: form an idea
o Must be a tangible medium
 Trademarks: Product ID
o 10 year renewable

Chapter 5

All marketing communications should be:

 Directed to a particular target market,
 Clearly positioned
 Created to achieve a specific objective
 Undertake to accomplish the objective within budget constraint

The market segmentation process and targeting audiences can be considered the starting points for
all marcom decisions

Major steps in the market segmentation process

Market segmentation
 Identify bases (e.g., behaviour, demographics) to segment the market
 Develop profiles of resulting segments

Market targeting
 Develop measures of segment attractiveness
 Select the target segment(s)

Market positioning
 Develop positioning for each target segment
 Develop marketing mix for each target segment

Measurable consumer characteristics

 Behaviour segmentation
 Psychographics
 Demographics
 Geodemographics
Behaviour segmentation issues
 Behaviour segmentation
o Describe how people behave with respect to a particular product category or class of
related products
o Assume that the best predictor of the future behaviour is past behaviour
 Online Behavioural targeting
o Tracks the online site-selection behaviour of users so as to enable advertisers to serve
targeted ads
 Privacy concerns
o Technological advances increase the ability to serve consumers at the risk of invading
their privacy

Psychographic segmentation
 Psychographics: Describe aspects of consumers’ psychological make-ups and lifestyles as they
relate to buying behaviour in a particular product category
o Attitudes
o Values
o Motivations
Types of psychographic profiles
 Customised psychographic profiles
o Are typically customized to the client’s specific product category
o Contain questionnaire items related to the unique characteristics of the product
category
 General purpose of psychographic profiles
o Can be purchased as “off-the-shelf” psychographic data from services that develop
psychographic profiles of people independently of any particular product or service

Psychographic study on consumers banking practice

 Psychographic segments of banking behaviours
o Worried traditionalist
o Bank loyalties
o Secured investors
o Thrifty bankers
Vals Psychographic Segments
 Innovators
o Successful, sophisticated, take charge people with high self-esteem
 Thinkers
o Motivated by ideals.
o Mature, satisfied, comfortable and reflective people who want value order, knowledge
and responsibility
 Believers
o Motivated by ideals
o Conservative, conventional people with concrete beliefs based on traditional,
established codes, family, religion, community and the nation
 Achievers
o Motivated by desire of achievement
o Goal orientated lifestyles and a deep commitment to career and family
 Strivers
o Trendy and fun loving, motivated by achievement out of concern about the opinions
and approval of others
 Experiencers
o Motivated by self-expression, young, enthusiastic, and impulsive consumers; quickly
become enthusiastic about new possibilities, but are equally quick to cool
 Makers
 o Motivated by self-expression; express themselves and experience the world by working
on it, and have enough skills and energy to carry out their projects successfully
 Survivors
o Live narrowly-focused lives with few resources with which to cope, often believe the
world is changing too quickly, are comfortable with the familiar, and are primarily
concerned with safety and security

Geodemographic Segmentation
 Geodemographics
o Consumers who reside within geographic clusters such as zip codes or neighborhoods
and also share demographic and lifestyle similarities
 Typical clusters (PRIZM NE)
o PRIZM – Potential Rating Index by ZIP Markets, NE – new evolution of Nielson Claritas’s
original segmentation system
 Small pond
 Country Clusters
 Suburban pioneers
 City roots

Demographic Segmentation
 Major demographic aspects
o Age structure of the population
o Change in the household composition
o Ethnic population development

Demographic trends
 World population growth’
 Changing age structure

Demographic segments by age group

 Preschoolers (5 years or younger)
 Elementary-school-age children (6-11 years)
 Tweens (8-12 years)
 Teenagers (13-19 years)
o Milllennial Generation or Generation Y
o Highly conformist, narcissistic, and fickle consumers
 Young adults (20-34 years)
o Generation X (Baby Busters)
o Yup & Comers, Bystanders, Playboys, and Drifters
 Middle age (35-54 years)
o younger baby boomers and older Gen Xers
o Target category for luxury goods and youth
 Mature Consumers (55 years or older)
o Have highest discretionary income and most assets 
 o Census Bureau classification: Olders (55 to 64); Elders (65 to 74); and the Very Old (75
and over)
o Descriptive groups: Healthy Hermits, Ailing Outgoers, Frail Recluses, and Healthy
Indulgers

Market targeting
The 5 Criteria for effective segmentation
1. Measurable
2. 2. Substantial
3. 3. Accessible
4. 4. Differentiable
5. 5. Actionable
Categories of brand positioning
 Functional needs:
o Positioning communicates that the brand’s benefits are capable of solving consumers’
consumption-related problems
 Symbolic needs:
o Positioning attempts to associate brand ownership with a desired group, role, or self-
image
 Experimental needs:
o Positioning promotes brand’s extraordinary sensory value, or rich potential for cognitive
stimulation

Attribute positioning
 Product related
 Non-product related

Chapter 6

General communication objectives

1. Build category wants
2. Create brand awareness
3. Enhance brand attitudes
4. Influence brand purchase intention
5. Facilitate purchase

Communication and communication process

 Communications: the process of establishing a commonness or oneness of thought between a
sender (e.g., an advertiser) and a receiver (e.g., a consumer).
 Encoding: the process of putting thought into symbolic form (e.g., words, sentence structure,
symbols, non-verbal cues).
 Decoding: the process of transforming message symbols back into thought.
Semiotics and meaning transfers
 Semiotics: the study of meaning and meaning producing events
 Meaning is a constructive process that is determined as much by the communication as by the
receivers of the message
 Meaning: Our internal responses (thoughts, feelings) when presented with a sign, stimulus, or
object.
 Sign: (in general at this point) represents something to someone in a given context. (I’ll have a
Coke”)
 Socialization: process by which people learn cultural values, form beliefs, and become familiar
with “physical cues” representing these values and beliefs.

Forms of meaning
 Denotative (exact) versus Connotative (implied) meaning
 Structural versus contextual meaning
o Structural (only a sign to sign relationship)
o Contextual (description of signs

Signals, signs and symbols

 Signal: the product is a cause or effect of something else (e.g., SUVs the result of large families)
 Sign: the product and referent belong to the same cultural context (e.g., SUVs part of upper
middle class, children, suburbs)
 Symbol: the product and object have no prior relationship, yet are now associated with one
another (e.g., Ford trucks and “tough guy” image/ads)
Implementing positioning: behaviour foundations of marketing communications
The Consumer Processing Model (CPM): behaviour is seen as rational, highly cognitive, systematic
and reasoned
 Stage 1: Being exposed to information
 Stage 2: Paying attention
 Stage 3: Comprehending attended information: create meaning out of stimuli and symbols
 Stage 4: Agreeing with comprehended information
 Stage 5: Retaining accepted information in memory
 Stage 6: Retrieving information from memory
 Stage 7: Deciding from alternatives
 Stage 8: Acting on the basis of the decision

The Hedonic, Experiential Model (HEM): consumer behaviour is driven by emotions, pursuit of fun,
fantasies and feelings
The HEM model probably better explains how consumers process information when they are
carefree and happy and confronted with positive outcomes.
The HEM viewpoint recognizes that people often consume products for the sheer fun of it or in the
pursuit of amusement, fantasies, or sensory stimulation.

Chapter 8
Why setting Marcom (advertising) objectives is important
 Expression of management consensus
 Guides the budgeting, message, and
 media aspects of advertising strategy
 Provide standards against with
 results can be measured

Marcom Objectives
 Who
 What (most difficult objective)
 Where
 When
 How often
The Hierarchy of marcom effects
 Advancing consumers unawareness to awareness
 Creating an expectation
 Encouraging trial purchases
 Forming beliefs and attitudes
 Reinforcing beliefs and attitudes
 Accomplishing Brand loyalty

Setting good marcom (advertising) objectives

 Include a precise statement of who, what, and when
 Be quantitative and measurable
 Specify the amount of change
 Be realistic
 Be internally consistent
 Be clear and put it in writing

Should marcom objectives be stated in terms of sales?

 Communication (indirect) Objectives
o Attempt to increase the target audience’s brand awareness, enhance their attitudes
toward the brand, shift their preferences from the competitors’ brand and so on.
 Sales (Direct) objectives
o Mean the marcom objective literally is to increase sales by a particular amount
o Situations where objective may be appropriate
 Advertising by retailers
 Direct-response advertising
 Sales promotion advertising
 Business-to-business advertising
 Also: Where is the Target Market in the Stages of the Decision-making Process?
 Problem recognition
 Search
 Evaluation
 Choice
 Outcomes

Practical budget methods

 Percent-of-Sales Budgeting
 Objective-and-Task Method
 Competitive Parity Method (match competitors’ method)
 Affordability Method
Chapter 9

B2C: companies that market their brands to final consumers undertake most advertising

B2B: companies that market to other companies rather than directly to consumers

Five basic functions performed by advertising

1. Informing
o Publicize the brand
2. Influencing (Persuading)
o Primary demand: creating a demand for the entire product category
o Secondary demand: the demand for a company’s brand
3. Reminding and Increasing Salience
o Enriching the memory trace for a brand such that the brand comes to mind
o in relevant choice situations
4. Adding Value
o Innovating
o Improving quality
o Altering consumer perception
5. Assisting Other Company Efforts
o Assist sales representatives
The role of advertising agencies
 Advertising function alternatives
o In-house operation
 Necessities employing an advertising staff and absorbing the operation costs
 Unprofitable unless a company does a large amount of continual advertising
o Purchase services as needed (a la carte)
 Advantages
 Use services only when they are needed
 Availability of high-calibre creative talent
 Potential cost efficiencies
 Disadvantages
 Specialists approach client problems in a stereotyped fashion
 Lack of cost accountability
 Financial instability of smaller boutiques
o Use full- service advertising agency
 Advantages:
 In-depth knowledge and skills
 Obtaining negotiating muscle with the media
 Coordinating advertising and marketing efforts
 Disadvantages
 Some control is lost
 Larger clients are favoured over small clients
 Occasionally inefficient in media buying
Use full- service advertising agency
 Creative services
o Develop advertising copy and campaigns
o Copywriters, production staff, graphic/digital artists, and the creative directors
 Media services
o Selecting the best advertising media
o Media planners develop overall media strategy
o Media buyers procure the selected media
 Research services
o Study clients’ customers’ buying habits, purchase preferences, and responsiveness
(account/market planners)
o Focus groups, mall intercepts, online studies, acquisition of syndicated research data

 Account manager
o Link the agency with the client
o Act as liaisons so that the client does not need to interact directly with several different
service departments and specialists
o Any other agency personnel needed?

Agency compensation
 Commissions from media: for adverts aired or printed
 Based on fee system (most common is labour based fee system)
 Earning compensation based on outcomes (or performance) : newest form of compensation

Ad-Investment Considerations
 The case for investing
o the belief that advertising can increase profitability by increasing sales volume, enabling
higher selling prices, and thus increasing revenue beyond the incremental advertising
expense.
 The case for disinvesting
o Firms often choose to reduce advertising expenses either when a brand is performing
well or during economic recession. The belief is that an expense reduction, with all else
held constant, will result in increased profits.

Which position is more acceptable?

 A deposit in the brand equity bank
o Executives believe advertising will enhance a brand’s equity and increase sales
 Advertising versus pricing elasticity
o Elasticity: how responsive the demand for a brand is to changes in marketing variables
such as price and advertising
 Ad spending, advertising elasticity and share market

Chapter 10

What makes effective advertising

 Sound strategy
 Consumer’s view
 Persuasive
 Doesn’t overwhelm
 Deliver on promises
 Break clutter
Qualities of successful advertising
 Newsworthiness
 Rational stimulus (high involvement)
 Emphasis (low involvement)

Creativity: the CAN elements

 The CAN elements of creative ads
o Connectedness: addresses whether an advertisement reflects empathy with the target
audience’s basic needs and wants
o Appropriateness : an advertisement must provide information that is pertinent to the
advertised brand relative to other brands in the product category
o Novelty: unique, fresh and unexpected ads. They differ from consumer expectations of
a typical ad for a brand in a particular product category

Sticky messages: SUCCESS (getting messages to stick)

 Common elements of sticky ads
o Simplicity
o Concreteness
o Emotionality
o Storytelling
o Credibility
o Unexpectedness

Advertising plan: Provides the framework for systematic execution of advertising strategies
(analogous to marketing plan: analysis, planning, implementation, control of marketing programs)

Advertising successes and mistakes

 Successful campaigns
o Arise from a combination of having a message founded on a convincing value
proposition and an effective execution
 Marketing mistakes
o Result from brand management failure to identify a meaningful value proposition that
distinguishes a brand from competitive offerings
 Agency mistakes
o This form of failed ad campaign is unsuccessful due to the ad agency’s inability to design
an effective execution
 Complete disaster
o Poor value propositions and mediocre executions are the stuff of advertising disasters
o Can be avoided by conducting research

Advertising strategy: An advertising message that communicates the brand’s primary benefits or
how it can solve a consumer’s problem
5 steps of advertising strategy
 Step 1: Specify the key fact
o A Single- minded statement from the customer’s point of view that identifies why
consumers are or are not purchasing the brand
 Step 2: state the marketing problem
o State the problem from the marketer’s point of view
 Step 3: state communication objective
o What effect the advertising is intended to have on the target market and how it should
persuade consumers
 Step 4: implement the creative message strategy
o “creative platform”
 Define the target market
 Identify the primary competition
 Choose the promise
 Offer reasons why
 Step 5: establish mandatory corporate/divisional requirements
o It reminds the advertiser to include the corporate slogan or logo, headlines, claim
substantiation, any other regulatory requirements, etc.

Constructing a creative brief (cont.)

 Positioning
 Message and medium
 Strategy
 Nitty gritty details: When and how much
Alternative styles of creative advertising
 Unique selling position creative style
o Make superiority claim based on a unique product attribute that represents a
meaningful, distinctive consumer benefit
 Brand image creative style
o Psychological differentiation
 Resonance creative style
o Does not focus on product claims or brand image but rather seeks to present
circumstances or situations that find counterparts in the real or imagined experiences
of the target audience
 Emotional creative style
o Third form of symbolically or experimentally oriented advertising.
 Generic creative style
o When making a claim that any company that markets a brand in the product category
could make
o Makes no attempt to differentiate from competitors offering or to claim superiority
 Pre-emptive creative style
o second category dominance techniques
o Generic claim but does so with an assertion superiority

The MECCAS Model

 Means End of Conceptualization of Components for Advertising Strategy

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

Identifying means-end chains: the method of laddering

Laddering is a research technique that has been developed to identify linkages between attributes
(A), consequences (C), and values (V).

Practical issues in identifying means- end chain

Provides a systematic procedure for linking the advertiser’s perspective, with the consumer’s
perspective.

Corporate image and corporate issue advertising

 Corporate image advertising
o Attempts to gain:
 Name recognition
 Product goodwill
 Identification with meaningful social activities
 Corporate issue advertising “
o Paid communication concerned with propagating ideas and explaining controversial
social issues of public importance