What
are our Objectives?
An advertising
objective marks the level that we want to reach in a certain period
and in a certain market, with a concrete marketing variable. You must
establish precise commerical objectives. What do we want the consumer
to do after seeing the advert? Are we looking for new consumers or
do we want the current consumers to buy more of our product?
The advertising
objectives should therefore be:
Specific.
There must be concrete objectives. The advertising objectives are
specific objectives that should be coordinated and be compatible
with the most general objective of our marketing plan and the strategic
objectives should work in the long term.
Quantifying.
Targets that should be in numeric terms. It's not enough saying
that we want to increase sales, we have to say by how much we would
like to increase sales, e.g. 20%.
Time
guidelines. We need to fix time guidlines. For example, sell
100 cars in one year.
Delimited
to one market. We should specify the geographic area and even
the audience or consumer group that we are trying to target.
Reachable.
It is important to be realistic. As our teacher David Ogilvy claims
"Maintain reachable objectives. Being excessivly ambitious
causes failure in the majority of strategies. Don't target everyone.
Don't sell a product for all occasions, don't ask people to dramatically
change their habits just their brand".
Motivation.
Motivating those in charge of reaching the company's objectives
is imperative. Therefore, the objective should have an aim.
The advertising
objectives can be very varied.
There is a great variety of possible advertising objectives. Some
of the typical objectives are:
1.
Increase the knowlege of the brand. Buying a product in a supermarket
depends on whether the consumer knows the brand or not. Many consumer
either buy the cheapest products which are on offer or they buy
a brand which they know. For many products it is essential to be
situated as a brand that consumer remembers.
The knowledge
of the brand is meausred through surveys. Through carrying out a
survey before a publicity campaign and one after, you can test the
effect of the pubclity and the knowledge of the brand. The survey's
usually study spontanious knowlege - they ask consumers for brand
that they know, for example wine. They also carry out assisted tests
by presenting a list of brands to the consumer and they have to
mark out the ones that they know.
2.
Improve the knowledge of certain characteristics of the product.
Sometimes it is essential that consumers learn how to use the product.
Other times we want them to know certain advantages of the product
compared to their competitors.
3.
Creating or improving the Company's image. For example, company's
that sell petrol are carrying out advertising campaigns to change
the image of their company endangering the environment to that of
a company worried about ecology. This is also measured through survey's.
4.
Creating or improving the product's image. The commercial research
of the car comapany Mercedes discovered that its buyers were getting
older and older and that the potential consumer saw the prodcut
as a product for older people. Mercedes carried out a publicity
campaign with young drivers dressed informally. Their aim was to
rejuvinate the product in the mind of the consumer.
5.
Achieve an attitude or more favourable feeling concerning the company
or the product. The first stage in the sales process is usually
a favourable attitude towards the brand.
6.
Increase sales in the short term. Many publicity campaigns are
trying to improve sales in the days following the campaign. For
example, the majority of books, cds, computer games and films increase
their sales in the days after the launch of the campaign. The successful
launch of many products requries an efficient campaign that sells
in great quantities immediately after the start of the campaign.
7.
Support other marketing actions. Help the success of the promotion
or support the company's sales team. For example, get the consumers
to try the product or increase the sales visits or the sales per
visit.
Therefore,
we should fix an easy to use strategy. Marking some precise objectives
within a clear strategy which everyone understands. We have to define
where our sales are going to come from. As David Ogilvy claims "As
long as you have a new product that attracts new consumers to the
market, your sales will come from the business of others"
In the
next example the advert supports the promotion of buying two hamburgers
at a reduced price. Burger King advertises its Wopper hamburgers.
