First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion 9789350432402, 9789350243411

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First Steps •

In

ADVERTISING and

SALES PROMOTION s. A. Chunawalla B.Com. (Hans.), MBA, D. Pharma,

Communication Consultant, Benzer, Borivli (W), Mumbai - 400 103. e-mail: [email protected]

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Hal Cflimalaya GJlublishing Cflouse MUMBAI • DELHI. NAG PUR • BANGALORE • HYDERABAD

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©Author No part of this book shall be reproduced, reprinted or translated for any purpose whatsoever without prior permission of the publisher in writing. -

Revised Edition :2010 ISBN : 978-93-5024-341-1

Published by

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PREFACE

Advertising business can never be accused of being stagnant. In the early part _ I of this millennium, the pace has quickened with reference to the clients, ( "\ .. agencies and media. There is media explosion. The very concept of .:::: advertising creativity has been challenged. Advertising is not longer -::: {~ considered creative till it sells. But while doing selling, it has to match the 1; u~__values of the product to the target market. Advertising is a great brand building force, though there are other factors involved in building a brand. Media technology can hijack creativity. Whether we create print ads, or a TV commercial or a radio spot or an Internet banner, the same fundamentals of brand building still apply.

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This single book cannot possibly cover the whole gamut of advertising world. But it is a volume that sets you going. It introduces you to the subject. It holds your hand while you take your First Steps in this field. I am sure you will be happy to have this book on your book-shelf. Your suggestions to improve the future editions are welcome

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CONTENTS

1.

Communication Process and Promotion ...................... 1-13

2.

Introduction to Advertising .................................................................. 14-32

3.

Advertising Planning Process ..............................................................33-50

4.

Economic Aspects of Advertising ........................................................51-57

5.

Communication Mix .............................................................................58-62

6.

Appeals in Advertising .........................................................................63-74

7.

Copywriting ........................................................................................75-106

8.

Campaign Planning in Advertising .................................................. 107-114

9.

Types of Media ................................................................................115-133

10.

MEDIA Planning and Scheduling .................................................... 134-144

11.

Advertising Agency..........................................................................145-154

12.

Evaluation of Advertising Effectiveness .......................................... 155-165

13.

Legal and Ethical Aspects of Advertising .......................;................ 166-174

14.

Sales Promotion and Sales Promotion ............................................ 175-192

"This page is Intentionally Left Blank"

1 COMMUNICATION PROCESS AND PROMOTION ADVERTISING AS A TOOL OF COMMUNICATION

Advertising is as old as man. There is a semblance of advertising in the many activities of a human being, especially those (~ activities which influence others, either favourably or otherwise. A baby crying for its feed, a girl wooing the prince charming, a doting wife desirous of having a new sari are all aspects of advertising. They want to communicate, to persuade, to influence and to lead to some action. All this has been a part of human life almost from the time it took shape. We shall go a step further and state that the persuasive form of communication that is advestising pre-existed human life. Take, for instance, the dancing daffodils or sweet smelling roses which silently invited butterflies to achieve the objective of pollination. There were fruits, flora and fauna all advertising themselves even before man existed. Yes, advertising informally is interwoven with nature and the evolution of the world. Padamsee, the ex-CEO of Lintas says, "when a man wears trousershirt ensemble instead of a dhoti, he is advertising he is westemised. When a woman wears lipstick she is advertising that she wants to look beautiful. When a neta delivers a speech, he is advertising that he wants to be noticed." Ads are parts of human nature to be noticed." Perhaps, as a means of formal mass communication, advertising came to be practised by royalty who sent drummers to make an announcement or communicate the will and desires of a monarch to his people.

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First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

Advertising, as we understand it today, was not used until about 200 years ago. The form of advertising for the transmission of information dates back to ancient Greece and Rome. Criers and signs were used to carry information for advertising goods and services well before the development of printing. Even during the Middle Ages, advertising signs were very extensively used. These signs generally consisted of illustrations of symbols of the products advertised. The upsurge in advertising came after the development of printing. When--printing techniques were perfected, and as this industry developed, the signs were replaced by written words or messages. Advertising has evolved since the industrial revolution as a tool of marketing communication. It is an art as well as a science. It is a career for many. It is rapidly getting professionalised. Competition, growing marketing expenses, product failures, liberalisation, globalisation, emergence of new electronic media have given an impetus to advertising activity. Advertising is the most visible marketing tool which seeks to transmit an effective message from the marketer to a group of individuals. The marketer pays for sponsoring the advertising activity. AdvertiSing, unlike salesmanship which interacts with a buyer face-toface, is non-personal. It is directed at a mass audience; and not at an individual, as in personal selling. Though marketers use advertising, basically it is a communication process. Here the advertiser is the source who transmits the message which passes through an appropriate medium like press, TV, radio or magazines or the Net. The message is decoded meaningfully. It is ultimately received by the target audience for whom the product/service is meant. The ultimate aim of advertising is to make the target audience favourably inclined towards the product or service. In that sense, advertising is not ordinary communication but marketing communication. Since it is received by a large number of people, through the mass media it is called mass communication. Advertising aims at drawing attention to a product. It seeks to create an awareness about the existence of advertised product. It passes on information about the product in such a way that interest is created in the mind of the prospective consumer about the product. Then there is a growing desire to possess the product. There are convincing arguments in favour of the product. All this leads us to a buying inclination. The Communication Process

In marketing communication, there is a transmission of a message from a sender to the receiver. The end result of the communication process is the understanding of a message. The message is transmitted through media or certain channels. The response to the message is known by receiving the feedback from the recipient of the communication. The communication sometimes fails to accomplish its purpose - creation of an appropriate response or understanding when the message is distorted by 'noise' elements. The following diagram illustrates the communication process.

Communication Process and Promotion

Encodes the Message

3

Encoded I--~ Message in Media

I I I I I I

!! I Feedback I~

I----il~

Decoding of the Message I I I I I I

Noise Oistortions

----------------i

Response

1* ________ :

Fig. 1.1: Communication Process

The sender is the source of the message. It puts the message in symbolic form say a letter or advertising copy. It is called 'encoding'. The message is carried by the media, say the postal department or 1V or newspapers. The message is received by the receiver who shows a particular response which is communicated back to the sender. The message must accomplish three tasks in order to be effective: (a) It must gain the attention of the receiver. (b) It must be understood. (c) It must stimulate the needs of the receiver and suggest appropriate method to satisfy these needs. We give a table below to make you understand the role played by each player in the process of communication: Table 1.1: Communication Process in Essence

Player

Remarks

Sender

He is the originator of communication.

(Source)

His communication objectives must be clear. He must understand the field of experience and frame of references of his receiver. He has to consider the readiness of the receiver to receive the communication. He could be a sales person, advertisement or coupon.

Message

It should be true to the contents of the communication emerging from the sender. It must be so worded that the receiver is able to decode it. The process of arranging the message, in words and pictures is called encoding.

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

4

Message Channels

Once there is a choice, a channel or a channel mix that is most effective must be chosen. The channel can be the spoken word (personal selling) or the mass media (advertising) .

Receiver

The communication must reach him. He must be prepared to receive the message. He is the target of communication. On the delivery of message, the receiver attempts to interpret the message. It is called decoding.

Feedback

It completes the cycle of communication. It establishes for the sender that the message has been received and understood the way he wanted it to be received and understood. It is the part of the overall response that is measured by the sender.

Senders must be aware of the receivers or audiences they want to reach and the responses they want. They must be skilful in encoding the message, taking into account how the receiver or the audience is going to decode the message. Since the sender wants the receiver to understand the message, the sender must know as much as possible about the receiver before the message is designed. The sender puts the message through efficient media that reach the audience. The response of the audience is known by developing the feedback channels. In this process, noise may distort the effectiveness of communication. Noise includes poor message planning, busy audience members or careless feedback of response. Marketing Communication

Modem marketing is the management of the four P's - product, price, promotion and place or distribution channel. In a sense the entire marketing process has a large content of communication. For instance, the product communicates a distinctive image such as youthfulness, glamour or prestige. The brand name communicates physical and psychological attributes of the product, e.g., Dreamflower talc. The package communicates to the consumer what the manufacturer thinks of his convenience and sense of beauty. The price communicates the quality of the product. There are communications between buyers and sellers, i.e., the distribution channel. Thus, each element of the marketing mix either helps or hinders communication and ultimately the sales effort. Marketing communication is thus a broader term than promotional strategy. However, the most important element of marketing communication is the planned promotional communication. The marketing communication mix (also called promotion mix) consists of four major tools: Advertising: Any paid form of non-personal communication of ideas, products and services by an identified sponsor. Sales Promotion: Short-term direct inducements to encourage sales of products and services.

Communication Process and Promotion

5

Publicity: Non-personal stimulation of demand for a product/service or business organisation as a whole by putting commercially Significant news in media to create a favourable image, It is not paid for by the sponsor. Personal Selling: For making sales, a salesman interacts orally with the buyer or buyers in the form of a sales presentation. Public Relations: Marketers engage in public relations to develop a favourable image of their organisations in the eyes of public - public at large, customers, suppliers, government, media, competitors, shareholders, employees and the society. The Process of Marketing Communication Diagram (Fig. 1.2) illustrates the marketing communication process as applied to promotional strategy. Channel Media

Sender

L--_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Feedback (Marketing Research Sales Reports) - - - - - - - - - - - '

Fig. 1.2: The Marketing Communication Process

The marketing manager or the organisation is the sender of the message. The message is encoded as advertising copy, publicity material, sales promotional displays or sales presentation by sales people. The media for delivering the message may be the print media like press and magazines or the electronic media like lV, radio and films or a salesman who makes a presentation. The decoding step involves the consumer's interpretation of the message. This is often the most challenging aspect of marketing communication as consumers may not always interpret the message the way the sender wants them to interpret. As seen previously, the fundamental difficulty in communication process occurs dUring encoding and decoding. This may happen because the meanings attached to various words and symbols may differ, depending upon the frames of reference and the field of experience between the sender and the receiver.

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

6

This is explained by the Fig. 1.3. The overlapping of field of experience and frame of reference makes the communication possible. If there is no overlap, communication may be bad or impossible. The consumer or audience response is known by undertaking a market research study or by analysing the sales reports. The noise element is in the form of competitive promotional messages. There may be random noise factor like people fast forwarding a video cassette when advertisements are shown. Errors in communication may be minimised by knowing the relevant market dimensions, the needs and attitudes of potential buyers.

Field of Experience

Source

Field of Experience

I3=>-and Frame of Reference

and Frame of Reference

Common Frame of Reference and Field of Experience

Fig. 1.3: Communication and Field of Experience

In total corporate communications, the marketing communications are the most important part. Advertising as we have seen is a part of marketing communication. Advertising as a tool of communication has certain important characteristics which distinguishes it from other tools of marketing communication like personal selling, sales promotion, publicity and public relations. Let us first understand the total communication plan of an organisation. Communication Plan

Mostly organisations treat advertiSing, S?les promotion, public relations, publicity and direct marketing as separate activities. However, we must integrate them together, and the whole communication package that emerges must be integrated to other elements of the marketing mix and personal selling. Strategic business plan is the starting point which generates a strategic marketing plan. Communication plan or promotional plan is subservient to the marketing plan.

Communication Process and Promotion

7

The following diagram explains this in a schematic fashion. '------r-----'

Strategies to move us from where ' we are to where we would like to be Objectives to realise these strategies

Objectives of each activity

Sales Promotion

Advertising

PRand Publicity

Review and Evaluate

Direct Marketing

Personal Selling

Results measured and compared

Fig. 1.4: Communication Planning

Interpersonal vs. Mass Communication Marketing deals with interpersonal and mass communication. Personal selling makes use of interpersonal communication whereas advertising, sales promotion and public relations are mass communication techniques. The following table summarizes the merits and demerits of both these modes. Table 1.2: Comparison between Interpersonal and Mass Communication

Factor

Interpersonal Communication

Mass Communication

Speed with which a large audience is reached

Slow

Fast

Cost of reaching a large audience

High

Low

Attention-arresting capacity ,

High

Low

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

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Content Clarity

High

Moderate to low

Accuracy of Message

Low

High

Message flow traffic

Two-way

One-way

Feedback

High

Low

Adapted from Promotional Strategy by Engel, Warshaw and Kinnear (Irwin, 1987).

Mass communication, as the name itself indicates, takes the message to a large audience with a great speed. Advertising is mass communication. A sales presentation of a salesman is interpersonal communication. Each time a salesman can adapt the message to his prospective buyer. Mass communication is cost effective. However, it is a one-way communication. The feedback is not reliable many a time. Interpersonal communication provides immediate and accurate feedback. A buyer can ask questions and raise objections. He gets immediate response from the sales person. It is much more effective than mass communication. But this communication is painfully slow when a large number of customers are to be contacted. It is very expensive. Though mass communication has some demerits, It enables us to reach a large market economically. This leads us to paradox that advertising is efficient promotion but inefficient communication. What is Promotion?

A marketer manages a marketing mix of four variables - products, price, promotion and place. In this book, we shall examine the element of promotion in detail. Mostly, people equate promotion with advertising but it is just one promotional tool used by a marketer. What is promotion? It is the communication package in marketing which aims to exchange information between buyers and sellers. Beyond informing, it also accomplishes the task of reminding and persuading the '- nsumers so that they respond to the product or service being offered. The whole field of promotion management is quite interesting and challenging. Just put yourself in the position of a promotional manager of Pfizer in the process of developing a campaign of advertising addressing the doctors to promote their new antibiotic. Alternatively, imagine yourself as the sales manager of Hindustan Lever who has to decide about recruiting and selecting the salesmen for their diverse products, training them and evaluating them. Perhaps, you can also consider how you as a general manager of Shoppers' Stop would design a sales promotion campaign for your customers by which they will be induced to buy and buy more. Promotion as you will appreciate is a dynamic activity. In this book, we have covered the whole gamut of the promotional process.

Communication Process and Promotion

9

Components of Promotion There are four abroad promotional tools available to a marketer:

Advertising: which is any paid form of non-personal presentation of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor in a media-mix.

Personal-selling: is an oral presentation made to prospective customers so as to generate sales. It is just a conversation with a purpose.

Sales Promotion: are those marketing activities excluding advertising, personal selling and publicity which stimulate consumer purchasing, dealer and sales person's effectiveness. It is a short-term activity.

Publicity ad Public Relations: stimulate demand in a non-personal way. Public relations maintain effective relations of the organisation with different publics like employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers, dealers, government, media and so on. Public relations puts commercially significant news in media or gets a favourable coverage on radio, television or stage. As media costs of this promotion are not paid for by the sponsor, it is called publicity. The combination of these four methods of promotion is called promotional mix of an organisation. The ultimate aim is to communicate a message to an audience so as to get a response - either an attitude change or purchase. Apart from the above promotional mix, a new diSCipline has emerged. It is called direct marketing which uses the above promotional components in a special manner. We have also covered the principles of direct marketing in this book. The following table outlines the communication process for each component of promotional mix. Table 1.3: Communication Process in Promotion Promotional Mix Elements

Source

Encoding

Media

Receiver

Decoding

Feedback

Advertising

P&Gadfor Ariel

Audio and Video in colour

1V commercial

Housewives

Consumers leamabout the product's stain removing capacity

Purchase of Ariel Sales rise up

Personal Selling

Eros Pharmaceuticals antiinflammatory Dictofenac

Words, body language, personal appearance

Personal visit

Doctors

Safe Antiinflammatory properties of Dictofenac

Prescription flow

10

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

Sales Promotion

Shoppers' Stop

Discount offer at a sales festival

Local Newspapers, direct mailings

Women, Children, Men of middle and upper class

Consumers Judge the benefits

Consumer avail of discount offer

Publicity

Interviews of he chairman of Hindustan Lever

Words, gestures, appearance

lVshow

Viewer in India

Viewers understand how Lever brings useful products for the consumers

Viewers favourable image about Lever

Flow of Communication

The product and its distribution tell upon the mode of communication used. In houseto-house selling, a direct communication link is established between the buyer and seller. There is lesser need for mass communication. On the other hand, a packaged brand being distributed very widely all over the country needs advertising which communicates with the prospective buyers. Push VS. Pull Strategies

These are two broad promotional strategies directed at either dealers or customers. The first strategy is called a pull strategy. Promotional activities like advertising or sales promotion are directed to the end consumers. The ultimate aim is to create a demand for the product. The customer is motivated to approach a retailer asking about he availability of product. When several such enquiries come, the retailer is compelled to approach the wholesaler for the stock of the demanded product. Here the product has been sold because of the pull exercised by the customer on the distribution system. The following diagram illustrates this strategy: End Consumer Demands the product

Pulls Product

Retailer

Pulls Product

Wholesaler

Promotion

Fig. 1.5: Pull Strategy of Promotion

Pulls ""'-

Product

Manufacturer

Communication Process and Promotion

Push strategy is an alternative to pull strategy. Here the product is pushed through the channel, instead of being pulled. In push strategy, the promotional effort is directed at channel members. Such promotional efforts could be personal selling, dealer promotion and advertising. The producer promotes the product to the closest leer. The channel member then promotes the product to the next level. The process goes on till the final consumer is reached. Many industrial products and clothing are promoted by push method. The following diagram illustrates this strategy. Push Manufacturer

L

Push

Push Retailer

Wholesaler

Promotional-

L

Promotional-

L

End Consumer

Promotional

Fig. 1.6: Push Strategy of Promotion

It should be noted that both these strategies are extremes, and in practice both these strategies are used for all products. Thus, a gear manufacturing company may advertise to the end users, though personal selling is a major tool of promotion. Intel advertisement is cheap to all the consumers, when computer manufacturers use it in their computers. Even the most advertised brand does need a push in the market. Manufacturers promote their products to the distributors who in turn promote them to the consumers. Uncontrolled Communication

Out of the four major elements of promotion, personal, selling, advertising and sales promotion are within the control of a marketer who pays for all these. The only element that is outside his control is publicity which is not paid for directly by him. Media coverage may generate both positive and negative publicity. Aspirin received negative publicity for its side effects. It is sometimes out of control of the marketer. Another communication that is beyond the control of a marketer is word of mouth communication. Here the consumers talk about their experiences with the products or services they have used to other consumers. Do we not tell our friends about the shopping malls we like, the movies that we dislike, .and the CDs that we like to listen to? Sometimes there are run outs about the product ad these must be fought actively by the company.

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

12

Promotional Tools and Consumer Response

AIDA is an acronym given to the stages a consumer passes before he buys a product. The stages are:

1.

Attention: to get the attention of the consumer or to create an awareness about the product.

2.

Interest: to arouse interest in the product and hold it.

3.

Desire: to create desire for the product.

4.

Action: to motivate a consumer to buy the product.

This model is further elaborated to cover a number of more steps: awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction and purchase. It is called hierarchy of effects. AIDA and hierarchy of effect models are inter-related as illustrated in the following diagram. Stage

Response AIDA

Hierarchy & Effects

Cognitive

Attention

Awareness KnoLedge

Affective

!

! !

Intrest

Liking Desire

,I Behavioural

Action

Outcome

Satifaction

!

Preference I

-t. to ConVlC Ion

! !

Purchase

Level

Satisfaction Level

Fig. 1.7: Relationship of Response Models

While relating them, we have put the stages into three broad psychological stages cognitive, affective and behavioural. Cognitive refers to awareness and knowledge. It also refers to attention. Affective refers to liking and preference corresponding to interest and desire of AIDA model. Behavioural refers to convictional and purchase corresponding to action of the AIDA modeL The additional stage of outcome shows the response to the model. These models help us understand the tasks the promotion must perform.

Communication Process and Promotion

13

We find the effects of different tools of promotion on hierarchy are different. The following diagram shows the effects of various promotional tools on the stages of AIDA model.

Awareness

Interest AIDA

Desire

Action

Fig. 1.8: Effect of Promotional Tools on Consumer Response

Advertising has the capacity to generate highest awareness. It is also higher in arousing interest. However, it is not so effective in leading the consumer to action. Personal selling works exactly the opposite way. It is highest in making people buy and creating a desire for the product. It is, however, low in generating awareness. Sales promotion is highest in inducing action. Public relations and publicity are confined to creating awareness and a low level of interest.

2 INTRODUCTION TO ADVERTISING WHAT IS ADVERTISING

Advertising is known to each one of us. This is so because right from morning till night we come across a number of them in (~ newspapers, in magazines, on the roads as hoardings, in shops as posters, in films and on 1V. In fact, it stares at us from all sides and is all-pervasive. What function does perform essentially ? It influences our decisions, especially buying decisions. Even nursery going children these days are aware of brands like Colgate, Rasna and Nirma, thanks to 1V advertising. Jingles of these products are hummed by the young and old alike.

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Advertising puts across the message in a convincing way, and guides us to take action - buy these products repeatedly.

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Definition

/l ./

Though it is difficult to precisely define advertising, we can say definitely that advertiSing is a commercial force which has created markets for many industries and products. Advertising is a psychological process of drawing attention, creating interest, arousing desire, giving convincing reasons so as to lead a consumer to action of buying or make him inclined to buy. So advertising tells well in order to sell.

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Introduction to Advertising

15

Advertising is a communication process. Here the advertiser is the source. He transmits his message. The message passes through an appropriate media. The message is coded properly. The message is ultimately received by the target audience for whom the product/service is meant. They are influenced favourably towards the product. So advertising is not ordinary communication, but it is marketing communication. Advertising is also mass communication. Here our message is being received by a large number of readers/viewers who read a medium or watch a medium. American Marketing Association ~AMA) defines advertising as : Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas of goods and services by an identified sponsor. So advertising is a paid communication. Advertising is for a wide range of products and services. Each advertising is sponsored by an identified party (advertiser). Advertisement is also defined as salesmanship in print. A salesman makes a personal presentation by calling on the party. He can make a limited number of calls. Whereas advertising makes presentations in print. It reaches many persons. Salient Features of Adverti~lng The follOWing are the salient features of advertising: Paid Form: An advertising message is paid for by the advertiser and this distinguishes it from publicity which is not paid for. When an advertiser makes payment, he exercises control over its contents, fOm1, schedule, and media selection. Any Form: Advertising can take several forms. It could be a sign, a symbol, an illustration. It could be a message which is either written in words or shown on 1V or aired on radio. It could be a mailer received in post. It could be a handbill distributed at a street comer. Advertising could be outdoor advertising such as posters or billboards or neon signs. Any form of presentation, which fulfils the functions of an advertisement, can be employed. Non-Personal: Advertisement does not include any personal selling done on personto-person basis or people-to-people basis. It is a substitute for a personal salesman. It uses mass media to deliver the message. Advertisement is meant for a larger target audience and is not directed to an individual. Goods, Services, Ideas: Advertising can promote a wide range of products. It can also promote services such as mobile telephony, internet and banking. Besides, advertising is used to propagate socially relevant causes such as family welfare, fuel economy, adult literacy etc. All of you must have seen advertisements on 1V advising care and caution while bursti!}g crackers at the time of Deepavali. Identified Sponsor: An advertisement is put by an advertiser. The advertiser could be a company or corporation or society or an individual. The sponsoring organisation puts either its name or the name of the brand or both on the advertisement. Information: An advertising message informs the consumers about the features of the products and their availability.

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

16

Persuasion: Advertising goes beyond information. It persuades the potential consumers about the suitability of the product. Target Audience: An advertising message is meant for a specific group of people who are the potential or actual users of the product. A lipstick is meant for young college girls. A luxury car is meant for high income business and professional people. An advertiser directs his message to a selected group called its target audience. Creativity: Advertising has to sell. But beyond that it is also an art which employs creativity to create an ad message. Advertising as a profession employs both creative and non-creative people. Those who write advertisements are called copywriters and work in the creative section. Those who visualise the written words are also creative. The message so generated is produced to be put across through different media. Production and media are the two other important departments of advertising business. Advertising now is practised as a profession. The advertising industry consists of the advertising agencies with billing running to Rs. 10,000 crores per annum. Then we have a body of advertisers, mostly manufacturers, distributors, large retailers, service institutions etc. who sustain the advertiSing activity. We have the media consisting of the press, broadcast media (radio, lV), outdoor publicity etc. In all these three components, there are trained professionals like the Advertising Manager, the Media Manager, the Accounts Manager, the Space Selling Manager, the Art Director etc. Psychological, Social and Economic Force: Advertising influences our attitudes and predisposes us favourably towards certain products. It is thus a psychological force. Advertising reflects the contemporary society. It is thus a social force. Advertising attempts to influence demand and so it is an economic force. A Discipline: Advertising is studied as a discipline having a body of knowledge at journalism and mass communication schools and in business schools, and now in University's regular programmes (e.g., Reom. of Mumbai and Goa University). Part of Marketing: AdvertiSing is a part of broader marketing activity which is nothing but the satisfaction of consumer needs through exchange of needs satisfying products. The four pillars of marketing are : product, price, promotion and place. They are called the marketing mix or the four 'pIS of marketing. These are under our control. Now advertising is a part of promotion. The total promotional mix is: PROMOTION

I

IAdvertising I

Publicity

I

Public Relations

Personal Selling

Fig. 2.1: Promotional Mix

Sales Promotion (SP)

Introduction to Advertising

17

The effectiveness of advertising is thus dependent upon how best the promotion mix has been arranged and how best the total marketing mix is managed.

Advertising is a funny business because it is not only a business - it is half a business, quarter a profession and quarter an art. David Ogilvy, the Goliath of advertising believes in producing advertising that sells. He says: "When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it creative. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product." Advertising and Marketing Mix

As we have seen, advertiSing is an element of promotion, which in tum is an element of marketing mix. It thus affects the other elements of marketing mix. Let us study -this relationship.

Advertising and Product: Advertising makes buyers aware of the product at the time of its introduction. Advertising at later stages informs the buyers about its features and attributes and the benefits it offers. Advertising facilitates the growth of the product, and also helps it when its sales decline. Advertising also makes us favourably inclined towards products. Some products have aspirational value. We aspire to have an MBA degree, or an Esteem car or a US trip. Advertising of such products aspire us to work towards getting these products. Even a package is a part of the product. A package does not have merely storage and protectional value. It also plays an important role in the saleability of the product. Many sales promotional schemes like money-off, coupon pack etc. are related to the package. AdvertiSing and Place: Place refers to the various channels through which products are made available. Advertising creates a pull demand. Consumers demand an advertised product at the retail counter. The retailers then contact the wholesalers. The wholesalers then order the products from the manufacturers or marketers. Thus, advertising has the power to pull the product till it reaches the final consumer. Advertising and Price: Price is an important consideration in buying decisions. We compare prices before buying. Indian consumers are price conscious. Price also indicates product quality. Marketers have to adopt a right pricing policy. AdvertiSing highlights the price, price-and-quality relationship, economical nature or premium nature of the product and charges in prices. Advertising and Promotion: As marketers, we have to balance the promotion mix consisting of advertising, publicity, personal selling and sales promotion. There should be coordination between all these elements of promotion. Advertising does create conducive environment for personal selling. Publicity and public relations improve the credibility of our advertising.

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First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

FUNCTIONS OF ADVERTISING Economic Function All that advertisement has to do is to sell a product or service. This the advertisement accomplishes by communicating properly and effectively, by communicating to the right people, by communicating the right message, put across through brilliant and persuasive language, making use of appeals to different human motives. Advertisements sometimes do the sales job in a subtle and indirect manner. They incline us favourably to the products, they affect our attitudes. So advertising performs the economic function by being an art of persuasion. It also is helped by a science of layout, visualisation, print reproduction, special effects on films etc. Advertising has created wide markets. Sales information is conveyed to millions of people far and wide. This makes mass production and mass distribution possible. AdvertiSing establishes a direct rapport with the buyer, with no middlemen in the way. Advertising is a subject of study in journalism, mass communication and management schools. It is a profession which employs both creative and non-creative persons-persons as account executives, media planners, art directors, administrative heads, copywriters etc. It indirectly gives employment to a host of other functionaries like commercial artists, media employees, studio people, free-lancers, street-walkers and talkers, radio and 1V announcers, jingle singers, video production unit and what not. Advertising is also an economic proce~it helps the products to become known, to facilitate ultimately an exchange between those who need the products and those who can satisfy this need. Advertising is in fact a part of marketing mix consisting of Four 'P's (Product, Price, Promotion and Place). Advertising not only markets the products, but also a corporate ethos, a corporate philosophy by giving memorable corporate stories reaching deeper into the public psyche than a bare recitation of performance statistics. Social Function Advertising has affected not the core cultural values but the subsidiary cultural values. For example, to get married is a core cultural value. Advertising cannot effectively change it by telling people that you do not marry. Yes, to marry late and not at an early age is a subsidiary cultural value. Advertising can definitely affect it. It can persuade people to marry late. Advertisement is a mirror of the society in which it operates. It reflects the cultural values of that society. Some argue that advertising debases our cultural standards. There are many factors which affect culture and get affected by them -schools, colleges, families, museums, churches etc. Successful advertising is consistent with the cultural values of a given society. Yes, it can transfer some cultural values of one society to another society at a given point of time. Its cross-cultural impact will depend upon the universalisation of appeal. Advertising has improved our standards of liVing. We realised how comfortable we could be in presence of AC, pressure pans and cookers, compact discs (CD's) and music systems, autos and two-wheelers, polyesters and popcorns, ball-point pens and antibiotics.

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19

We used these articles after getting interested in them through advertising. We've accepted some new ideas like micro-wave cooking, electric shaving, bucket washing through detergents etc. through advertising. Advertising has created new markets. It has contributed to our standard of living substantially. Advertising invests a new product with confidence- confidence about its function, quality, price and availability. Advertising promises a quality, and forces manufacturers to live upto the promised quality. So advertisement brings about consumer welfare by two-fold method: (1) By improving the standard of living. (2) By improving product quality. Advertisements for social causes like cancer prevention, anti dowry campaign, family planning etc. make us socially responsible. Advertising protects consumers by educating them and by forcing the manufacturers to maintain a quality and be fair. Advertising respects the ethics of the prevalent society. Psychological Functions Advertising is closely linked to consumer behaviour. So it affects personality of the consumer, his concept of self, his attitudes, beliefs and opinions, his life-cycle and life-style etc. Advertising appeals to our physiological and psychological motives. Its appeals may be rational or emotional. WHY DO WE ADVERTISE? OR PURPOSES OF ADVERTISING Simply stated, we advertise as we have something to sell and someone may want to buy it. By advertising we make our offer known. Advertising links the suppliers and the buyerswho in most cases are total strangers. In a nutshell, as Frank Jerkins says, advertising -is the means by which we make known what we have to sell or what we want to buy. Specific Reasons for Advertising Let us go somewhat deeper and learn the varied reasons for using advertising as a tool. These reasons speak volumes about the multi-dimensional nature of advertising and its special importance. (1) To announce a new product or service: To promote new products, advertising becomes bold and dramatic. It should also convince us about the novelty. For new products, we need an initial splash of advertising but it has to be followed by sustained efforts. (2) To expand the market to new buyers: Here what has been successfully sold to one segment of the market is advertised to a new segment. Soft-drinks are the craze for teenagers, but they are now promoted for children. (3) To announce a modification: Many consumer products time and again are given a new lease of life by a certain product modification, e.g., Clinic Shampoo becomes Clinic Plus, or salt becomes iodised salt. Advertising has a role to play here.

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First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

(4) To announce a price change: Price is used as key-variable at times to boost sales. Reduced prices or discounts available on products become a matter of advertisement. For example, in Mumbai MAROO sells moulded luggage at discounts ranging from 10-25 per cent. (5) To announce a new pack: Advertisement in illustrations and photos identify a pack. When a pack design is changed the whole personality of the product changes. So this is announced through advertising. (6) To make a special offer: There are gifts and premiums that go with the product. There are introductOIY offers. There is a special offer in slack season. (7) To invite enquiries: Most industrial advertisements and many consumer product advertisements (especially of services) bring forth enquiries from potential customers. Coupons are generally employed to bring the enquiries. (8) To sell direct: Mail order selling of books, sports goods, textiles, gift items, transistors etc. is conducted through pamphlets called direct mailings. (9) To test a medium: Couponed advertisement placed in an untried media tests the effectiveness of that media. (10) To' announce the location of stockists: The list of dealers appended to an advertisement supports the dealers' selling efforts. (11) To obtain stockists: This is a pull strategy. The consumers demand an advertised product from the retailers. These in tum approach the wholesalers, who then solicit agency from the company. This strategy is very much successful for new products. However, for other products which are not available, it is not wise to advertise them. (12) To educate customers: We come across both informative and persuasive advertising. The informative variety is more acceptable. Such a copy is educative - it gives explanation about a product or service. People need education about air travel, foreign jaunts, packaged tours, and tourist places. (13) To maintain sales: Advertising continues for the whole life of a product. Introductory advertising is of course heavy. But then to maintain sales, moderate advertising is necessary. Absence of total advertising may lead to extinction of a product. (14) To challenge competition: A campaign may be designed to take on the competitor. Such challenges may be in the form of sales promotion methods or a comparison by a competitor of your product with his product. (15) To remind: Though it sounds like sales maintenance, it is somewhat distinct. Small items like milk, bread, toffees, chocolates, eclairs, blades, tea etc. are purchased repeatedly in small units. Reminder advertising asks the buyers to stick to the same brand. RemiAder advertisement encourages the re-purchase of the brand. Slogans

Introduction to Advertising

21

and jingles are a great help here. Sometimes this genre makes up our mind or a particular brand whose need may arise in future. Mentally, we say I will buy such and such brand of lV. Reminder advertisement makes one stick to this decision. Most outdoor and transit advertising including that on Marine Drive, on BEST buses and suburban trains are of this type.

(16) To get back lost sales: Sometimes a company reduces advertising abruptly and suffers a loss in terms of sales. Again we will have to arrange a special campaign to get back the lost sales. Mail advertising is used for trade. Special SP methods are used. (17) To please stockist: The goods must move from shelf. There should be rapid turnover of stock, since the margins are small. It is like re-using the capital. Advertising thus helps the stockists to achieve this. It makes them inclined to make the shelf space available. Direct mails are used to sell in, and consumer advertising and SP are used to sell out. (18) To please the sales force: Effective advertisement improves the moral of the sales force. Advertising support also supplements their selling efforts. (19) To recruit staff: Advertising is a source of recruitment. It may be a small classified advertisement or a prominent display advertisement. (20) To attract investors: Financial advertising has come of age. There are special agencies who handle this. It makes you favourable towards an investment or a donation. It gives the details of returns on this investment or the social benefits of the donation. Share and securities issues are floated with sound advertisement support. (21) To export: Media abroad are quite different. There are trade fairs etc. International advertising requires expert guidance. Export advertising without market research and media research can be a costly failure. (22) To announce trading results: It is also financial advertising. Extracts of chairman's speech are published in the media. In a way, he is announcing the financial results. The speech is well-edited and well-illustrated. Advertisement interacts directly with other elements of marketing mix. It is basically a communication to achieve marketing objectives. It is meant to bring something deliberately to the notice of someone else-this is the semantic truth of the word, which comes from the French word avertir, to notify (Nicoll - Advertising, 1973,p.6). Advertising is one element of the integrated marketing efforts. The relative importance of the advertising would dependon: type of the products and form of marketing. Advertising is beneficial to the manufacturers, the retailers, the consumers, the salesmen and the society as a whole.

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First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE OR BENEFITS OF ADVERTISING It pays to advertise. Advertising is a constructive activity. It helps the manufacturers to keep down the production costs by giving them economies of scale resulting from increased sale and hence increased production. It helps them to use the un-used capacity by stimulating demand. Advertising informs the consumers about the salient features and availability of the products. AdvertiSing gives an image to the products of the manufacturers. In the market place, really speaking it is not the products which compete but the product images which compete. Advertising pre-sells the products to distributors, and so it is supportive to a salesman's visit. Advertising is an essential part of total promotional mix and promotion is an important part of the marketing mix. Advertising makes a psychological impact on the consumers and so gives them greater satisfaction on the use of products. People buy not a lip-stick, but the concept of an out-going, gorgeous, passionate woman. They also do not buy a computer but a solution to their complex problems. Thus, what the product really stands for-it is made known to us through advertising. Charms cigarettes thus stand for freedom. AdvertiSing affects our attitudes and values. It projects an image of self which we aspire to. AdvertiSing of life-style is making our target audience respond to it positively. Who would not like to be fun-loving, outward-oriented, young socialites sailing in a group on sea, enjoying and Thumps Up which is Toofani Thunda ? Advertisement thus gives all the benefits to manufacturer by selling-directly or indirectly. It can create a new demand, stimulate an existing demand, or even destroy a demand. Much of its value is drawn from its positive impact on demand function. Advertising makes distribution easier. It also reduces distributor's cost. They sell a highly advertised brand at a lesser price, and so a lesser margin. It builds up repeat sales for distributors.

Remember how Photophone industries created market for their new product launch : HOT SHOT camera by an effective advertising campaign. The words 'Khatak, Khatak' and the slogan just 'aim and shoot' still linger in our memory. Advertising renders invaluable help in' launching new products. It has been proved time and again. Balsara's PROMISE was launched successfully against COLGATE'S monopoly of this market, thanks to imaginative advertising. Recently, BABOOL has repeated history. Even Vicco Vajradanti became established as a herbal product of 'ayurvedic jadibuti' and 'kudrat's anmol khazana' by advertiSing. The wholesaler and retailer find it easier to sell an advertised product. Good Knight Mosquito Repellent Heater and mats were successfully sold by all retailers, thanks to heavy and effective commercials and press advertising. AdvertiSing benefits the customers. They come to know about the products and product information. They get the information about the product availability. Advertising makes mass distribution possible. Advertising makes the consumers aspire to higher and higher things in life - making this life a saga of continuous struggle to acquire what we don't have. It expands the markets. Advertising creates markets for new products. It makes us aware of new uses of

Introduction to Advertising

23

old products. Consumer gets post-purchase satisfaction. Because there is advertising, consumer gets a wide choice. It makes competitive economy possible. The cod-fish lays ten thousand eggs. The homely hen lays one. The cod-fish never crackles to tell you what she's done. And so, we scorn the cod-fish. While the humble hen we prize. Which only goes to show you that it pays to advertise. (Anon). If you've been a cod-fish all this while, take a hint from the hen's success and do advertise. ROLE OF ADVERTISING IN MODERN BUSINESS WORLD (1) Advertising is Big Business: Advertising is big business worth Rs. 10,000 crores

per annum in India It has been accepted that the size of advertising industry is a true indicator of the level of the living standards in the country and its economy. (2) Advertising is a Marketing Tool: Advertising is the communication link between the seller and the buyer or the consumer. It does not simply provide information about products and services but is an active attempt at influencing people to action by an overt appeal to reason or emotion. In other words, advertising does not end with the flow of information from the seller to the buyer; it goes further to influence and persuade people to action or belief. This is, however, only the communication point of view of advertising function. There is another way of viewing the advertising function; and that is the marketing point of view. Each organisation has marketing objectives and a marketing plan to achieve them. An organisation also identifies the segments of the market it intends to serve. In the process of achieving its marketing objectives, the organisation uses several marketing tools. In a study of marketing management, four variables are identified, which are well within controllable limits by the individual organisation. They are popularly known as 4 Ps-Product, Place, Price and Promotion. An ideal mix of these four variables is known as the ideal marketing mix to realise the set objectives. This means that the right product should be developed and offered through a distribution network suitable to the organisation and the target market segment. The product should not be too costly, and should be offered with a suitable promotion strategy. Under promotion, the marketer proVides face-to-face communication with individuals or a small group as well as mass communication with a large audience by way of advertising. Thus, advertising is a part of the marketing mix under the major variable of promotion. Advertising as a part of the total marketing mix influences the sales of the product, as do the other variables of the mix. Together with product or brand, price, channel of distribution and personal selling, advertiSing attempts to reach the marketing objectives. When a firm introduces a prestige product with a premium price, advertiSing should reinforce the idea of the high quality and prestige of the product by associating it with prestigious people, places and events. Similarly, the nature of advertising and the strategy would differ when distribution strategy is through intensive, exclusive or selective outlets.

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First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

Advertising should be complementary to personal selling, which is another marketing tool primarily concerned with communication. In personal selling, communication is more effective, for it can be tailored to suit each prospect. Also, personal selling provides flexibility in altering presentation based on the feedback gathered during inter-personal interaction. However, advertising has its own role, and should be SUitably designed to support personal selling efforts. In short, advertising, being one of the marketing tools, affects the sales of the firm. Right advertising is as essential as the right product, the right price, the right distribution channel and personal selling. This necessarily calls for right advertisement planning. (3) Advertising is a Profession: We have studied advertising from two distinct points of view. As a marketing tool, advertising is a business approach; but, as communication, it is a creative approach. Advertising is the product of these two distinct approaches. The business approach comes from the business mind, whereas the creative approach comes from the operation of the creative mind applied to the advertising function. The business mind is concerned with sales and profits, whereas the creative mind is concerned with the artistic and intangible field of communication. In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the effectiveness of advertising. This refers to a system of feedback to eventually determine the effectiveness of advertisement efforts. The principles of why and how advertising succeeds or fails must be evolved to make advertising a more useful market tool. This is nothing but introdUcing the research approach in the total function of advertiSing. Without feedback, advertising is like firing in the dark at a moving target with a high-powered and expensive rifle without really finding out whether the target was hit or not. With the introduction of advertising research, advertising has now become a profeSSion fulfilling the important requirement of having a high degree of generalised and systematic knowledge derived from experience, experiment, and empirical analysis and research. AdvertiSing recently has been recognised as an important function in the organisation and an increasingly larger number of professionals are employed in the newly-formed full-fledged department of advertising and publicity. Not only this but a large number of advertisement agencies have come up, and the advertising function has now come to be viewed by others with respect. (4) Advertising is a Necessity: Think about the number of advertisements you come across in a metropolitan city every day, seeking to influence your buying decisions. You are exposed to hundreds of ads in the daily newspaper of national status, tens of them in a widely popular magazine, about a hundred or so radio commercials, a dozen or so film commercials, and several ad slides in cinemas, besides a large number of advertiSing commercials on lV. But it does not end here. One sees hundreds of out-door advertising messages while travelling from home to the work place, and back home in the evening. In short, advertising is such a visible and inescapable part of daily life for us urbanites that it is almost omnipresent. Even semi-urbanites and rural folk are receiving more and more exposure to advertisements these days. Advertising is so widely pervasive that a pertinent question arises: Is it really necessary? There are equally strong opinions for and against the proposition. However, there seems to be perfect agreement about he need for the advertisements that appear in classified columns

Introduction to Advertising

25

(matrimonial advertisements, advertisements for accommodation, situations vacant, etc.) Such ads offer a wider choice to accommodation-seekers, brideslbride-grooms-seekers, jobseekers, etc. After all, through advertising for a suitable groom, a young lady is creating multiple options for herself, from which to select the most suitable life partner. Similarly, it is not humanly possible for an accommodation-seeker to knock on each and every door, enquiring whether accommodation is available. Instead, he merely releases an ad in the local newspaper, giving details of the type of accommodation required, the locality of preference, etc., and he will be flooded with offers, out of which the one which is the most suitable may be taken up. Advertising is equally needful for both the job-seeker and the employer. One is in need of the right person to fill a particular position in the organisation, while the other is looking for a good job opportunity. In all such cases advertiSing accelerates the process of communication. In short, advertising of this nature is not controversial; and there is a cent per cent consensus about its necessity. (5) Advertising is for SOcially Relevant Causes: AdvertiSing for socially relevant causes-promotion of family planning, fighting social evils; ads released by the Petroleum Conservation Research Association, urging people to avoid wastage of oil, for oil reserves are not going to last for ever and moreover, it puts a strain on the nation's scarce foreign exchange; a series of ads released by the Los Prevention Association of India, urging people to prevent losses,· avoid accidents; ads released by the Cancer Society of India and several other ads of a similar nature-does playa useful role in society. Sometimes companies and institutions do take the help of advertiSing in effectively communicating with the public at large about the community of services rendered by them. For instance, the ColgatePalmolive Company has released an ad with the headline: "A Report on Contribution to the Community." At times these organisations are required to draw attention against such governmental actions as the imposition of levies, allowing reckless imports of certain items, etc. In a democratic society, institutions do have a legitimate prerogative to rally public opinion on all such issues, and advertising through powerful media is an effective and legitimate tool for this purpose. Here, too, there will hardly be any controversy about the usefulness of advertising and its necessity. In fact, the whole controversy about advertising relates to advertisements for the products manufactured by various companies, vying hard to capture an increasingly larger market share. This is one of the more noticeable kinds of advertising which is often termed by its critics to be wasteful. (6) Advertising Makes Possible Free Choice: Advertisements of the products and brands manufactured by competing firms give a choice to consumers; they give them product information as well. If there is no advertising, how can the consuming public know the features of the various products, the differences between the competing brands and their advantages over others? In fact, advertising helps in creating a competitive environment which is so essential for the improvement of the quality of the products to be made available at fair prices. This is contrary to the argument some critics put forward-that advertising fosters monopoly. Here, we shall only say that advertising does not foster monopoly; instead, it helps in creating competitiveness. Advertising is a debate in which competing manufacturers argue about the merits of their products with a view to persuading the

26

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

consuming public. When such competitive advertising is criticised, we are actually criticising the competitive process which is so essential for a growing society. One may as well argue that competitive advertising is useful and, therefore, necessary for society. (7) Advertising is Informative: One more common belief is that advertiSing is done only by the sellers with a view to hooking buyers. This is based on a misconception. Advertising is an equally effective tool for informing sellers of the purchasing intents and specifications of the buyers. It gives active buyers more control over the market instead of making them passive acceptors or rejecters of the advertising messages issued by the sellers. (8) Advertising Builds up Repeat Sales: Advertising is not a racket. Several critics of advertiSing often claim that advertisements are generally designed to deceive the consuming public. We can only say that this, too, is a misconception because it is not only a one-shot sale. Organisations have to have repeat sales; by advertising, one can fool some people for some time but not all the people for all times. Hence, marketers in their own interest cannot indulge in such a racket. (9) Advertising Contributes to Cost Reduction and Product Improvement: Furthermore, advertiSing claims to have contributed to cost reduction to consumers in respect of a large number of products and services. This apparently does not sound convincing but is true. Why, otherwise, should the brand advertised product cost less than the unadvertised? In addition, advertising contributes to new product developments and improvements in quality; and it offers freedom of choice to consumers from among the many available in order to satisfy their wants and needs. These roles of advertiSing have been discussed earlier. (10) Advertising Creates Demand: Most of us feel that advertising is, after all, for the marketer, a powerful persuasive tool for creating a demand for his product, building up his sales and improving his market share. (11) Advertising is a Tool for Consumer Welfare: Martin Mayer, in his book Madison Avenue, USA, has stated that advertising adds perceptional utility as manufacturing adds form utility, transportation adds place utility and warehousing adds time utility. Advertising is useful for buyers-for both consumers and industrial purchasers. It provides them with news of new products their prices, new development research. It increases competition rather than reduces it, as many critics claim. Above all, advertising, being a creative work, brings out art work of the finest quality and design, having enough aesthetic appeal to millions of eyes, though much advertiSing is routine and does not fall in this category. Finally, talking about the social influence of advertiSing, we many observe that it cannot change values. It simply reflects the value system of a society; it does not create it. It simply responds to the prevailing value system. The advertiser has to know very minutely the attitudes, beliefs and motives of the target audience. He then selects appropriate media, advertisement messages, etc. Advertisers are keenly interested in favourable responses from the target audience; and these would be possible only when they offer, in the form of advertisements, products and services fully fitting into the value system of the audience.

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27

Advertising promotes consumer welfare by encouraging competition and leads to improvements in product quality and reduction in price for him. In the words of Neil H. Borden: "Advertising's outstanding contribution to consumer welfare comes from its part in promoting a dynamic expanding economy." Advertising instils a desire in consumers to have a better standard of living than they have right now.

(12) Advertising Benefits the Consumers, Manufacturers and Retailers: Advertising is primarily a means by which sellers communicate to prospective buyers the worth of their goods and services. Advertising is not a game, toy or a racket. It is a basic tool of marketing, for it stimulates demand and influences the level and character of demand. IMPORTANCE OF ADVERTISING Consumer's Need for Advertising

(i) AdvertiSing is important because it equips the consumer with the facts he needs to make an intelligent choice. (ii) Advertising impels consumers to aspire for a better standard of living. (iii) Time is saved in shopping. (iv) Advertising tells the consumer where he can obtain the goods he requires. (v) Advertising tells him when goods are available. (vi) If offers goods at reasonable prices. (vii) It is responsible for the low reader cost of newspaper and magazines. (viii) Advertising reminds the consumer to replace the worn-out goods. (ix) It has an educative value. Manufacturer's Need for Advertising

(i) It makes for inexpensive distribution. (ii) It widens the market. (iii) Advertising enables him to inform the market qUickly about any changes in products or services.

(iv) It creates customers for the product. (v) It backs up the company salesman and makes the retailer's job easier. Retailer's Need for Advertising

(i) It does a selling job for the inefficient retailer. (ii) It gives the retailer a local personality. (iii) Advertising gives him a qUick turnover.

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First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

Purposes of Retail Advertising These purposes are: (i) To co-operate actively with the community; (ii) To explain any intenuption in service or shortage of merchandise; (iii) To make people better acquainted with the store; (iv) To explain store policies or services; (v) To build a store personality; (vi) To announce changes of location; (vii) To create better employee-shareholders-supplier relations.

To sum up, modern advertising is persuasive, informative and a guide for consumers. It leads to higher sales and market share, and makes business operations more effective. It is a link between the sellers and the buyers and leads to greater consumer satisfaction. KINDS OF ADVERTISING Classification of Advertising Several categories of organisations are large users of advertising, most important among them being the manufacturing, trading and service firms, non-profit institutions and the government agencies. Advertising can also be classified according to types. The principal means of classification are: (1) by geographical spread, such as national, regional and local, (2) by target group, such as consumer advertising, Industrial advertising or trade advertising, (3) by type of impact such as: (i) primary demand or selective demand advertising and (ii) direct or indirect action advertising and (iii) institutional advertising. Types of Advertising It is conceptually more interesting and analytically more important to classify advertising. The basis of classification, however, can be diverse, as will be evident from below: (1) Geographical Spread: On the basis of geographical spread, advertiSing can be classified as: (a) national, (b) local and (c) global. (a) National Advertising: Some manufacturers may think that their target is the entire country. They select media with a countryside base. Generally large, established firms belong to this category. Among them are Hindustan Lever, Brooke Bond, Larsen & Toubro, Escorts, Associated Cement Companies and the like.

(b) Local Advertising: Small firms may like to restrict their business to State or regional level. Some firms first localise their marketing efforts and once success has been achieved, they spread out to wider horizons. A classic example is Nirma washing powder,which initially was sold only in Gujarat and subsequently entered the other markets. Retail stores also undertake local advertising. The area to be covered

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29

would generally be a city or a town and media would be selected which principally relates to that area. In recent years, several newspaper supplements have appeared which focus on a particular city and are of direct relevance to its inhabitants like the Bombay Times and Metro. Sometimes large firms may also go in for local advertiSing, e.g., when they undertake pre-testing of a product especially consumer products in selected areas before embarking promotional campaign on a national level. (e) Global Advertising: Multinational firms treat the world as their market. Firms such as National IBM or Sony or Ford advertise globally, e.g., in periodicals like Times, Readers Digest. (2) Target Group: On the basis of target groups aimed at, advertiSing can be classified as(a) Consumer AdvertiSing, (b) Industrial Advertising, (c) Trade AdvertiSing, and (d) Professional Advertising. (a) Consumer Advertising: A very substantial portion of total advertiSing is directed to buyers of consumer products who purchase them either for their own use or for their household's. The fact that buyers of consumer items are generally very large and are widely distributed over a large geographical area enhances the importance of advertiSing as a marketing tool. The preponderance of such advertiSing can be seen by looking into at random any general print media, such as newspapers and magazines etc. These advertisements are intended to promote sale of the advertised products by appealing directly to the buyers/consumers. Such advertising is called consumer advertising. (b) Industrial Advertising: Industrial advertising on the other hand refers to those advertisements which are issued by the manufacturers/distributors to the buyers of industrial products. This category would include machinery and equipment, industrial intermediates, parts and components, etc. Because of the unique characteristics of industrial buying decision process, the importance of industrial advertising is comparatively lower than that of consumer advertising. (e) Trade Advertising: Advertisements which are directed by the manufacturers to the distribution channel members, such as wholesalers or retailers, are called trade advertising. The objective of such advertiSing is to promote sales by motivating the distribution channel members to stock more or to attract new retail outlets. (d) Professional Advertising: There are certain products for which the consumers themselves are not responsible for the buying choice. The classic examples are pharmaceuticals where the decision is made by doctors while the consumers are the patient. Almost similar situation exists in the field of construction where architects, civil engineers and contractors are the decision-makers. Firms operating in such market segments, therefore, have to direct their advertising to these decision-makers, who are professional people. Such advertising is called professional advertising.

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First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

(3) By Type of Impact: On the basis of impact, advertising can be primary advertising for generic products such as tea, coffee, paints etc. These are unbranded products. At later stages, these commodities are branded and specific brands are promoted. They are called selective advertising. Direct action advertising expects immediate response from the buyers such as soliciting orders through direct mail. Mostly advertising is indirect action advertiSing which makes the consumers favourably inclined towards the product so that they can later on buy these products in future. Institutional Advertising can be used to project a positive corporate image for the company.

PUBLIC RELATIONS ADVERTISING (PRA) Organisations these days are concerned with the type of image they project. They have to communicate their objectives to the general public. They also have to make the public understand what their activities are. Public relations, in short, try to build rapport with various constituents of public such as employees, customers, local authorities, pressure groups, vendors, customers, shareholders, government and public at large. Public relations advertising helps to maintain this relationship. Its main objective is to build a good corporate image. It deals with issues rather than products and services. PR advertising is done by both business and non-business organisations. It represents management and communicates its policies, problems and performances to the public. PR advertising generally precedes shares issues these days to create a favourable climate for the investing public. Annual reports of the companies and the chairman's speech have the potential of being good PR advertising provided they are excellently drafted. Purposes of PR Advertising (i) It projects a favourable image of the company. (ii) It generates goodwill for the business. (iii) It maintains relationship with the trade and suppliers. (iv) It bursts the myths surrounding the corporate activities.

.

(v) It creates conducive climate for the investing public. (vi) It wins the confidence of the employees. (vii) It takes up 'social causes for promotion such as dowry, female infanticide, cancer

detection etc. It thus renders community service. It seeks public support for certain causes. (viii) It is concerned with customer service and customer relationship management (CRM)

Sub-categories of PR Advertising PR advertising can be put into three categories: (i) Institutional or Corporate Advertising. (ii) Public Service Advertising. (iii) Political Advertising.

Introduction to Advertising

31

Institutional or Corporate Advertising The basic purpose of institutional or corporate advertising is to create a favourable public image of itself. It emphasises its name, rather than its products and services. Institutional advertising may cover the following dimensions: (i) The institute may present its viewpoint about a national cause, say prevention of

blindness and the efforts it has taken to help this cause. (ij) It may list its social contributions, or may emphasise its SOcially-oriented policies. (iii) It may also stress on the mission of the organisation and its philosophy. (iu) It may speak about its R&D, plants, employee welfare schemes and market position. The Institute can communicate through a single ad or a series of ads. Institutional ads are indirect in their approach, and do not intend to sell anything. It forcefully tells how the organisation is a socially responsible institution. It also tells about the nationalistic leanings of the organisation. Many companies are faceless entities. Institutional or corporate advertising gives a face to the company. Public Service Advertising Public Service Advertising (PSA) is also institutional advertising, which seeks to promote important social issues. It is created to promote greater awareness of public causes. The examples of such social issues which have been promoted are handicapped children and their help, female foeticide, national integration, blood donation, AIDs etc. Public Service Advertising is also known by various other names such as Public Awareness AdvertiSing, Social Service AdvertiSing and Social Awareness (SA) AdvertiSing. Political Advertising As most of the political advertising is directed to public, it comes under the category of public relations advertising. Political advertising is created either by political parties or candidates. Mostly we come across such advertiSing at the time of elections. Election advertising either lists the achievements of the party or candidate or propagate their ideological basis. Sometimes, they are provocative too. Such advertising may become comparative, where the weaknesses of the opposition are highlighted to show their party or candidate in favourable light. FINANCIAL ADVERTISING

When public limited companies invite the general public to subscribe to the share capital of the company, it is called financial advertising. In a broader sense, it includes all advertising by financial industry such as banks, car loan companies, insurance companies, non-banking financial companies etc. It also includes image bUilding corporate advertising prior to an issue or otherwise.

32

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

The copy of financial ad gives highlights of the project, details of the issue, crisis rating, management's perception of the risk factors, closing date of the issue, lead manager's name and address, promoter's name and address, name of the company and its address. Apart from these routine things the investing public is motivated to invest by suitable copy matlera slogan, a promise of returns, profile of the product etc. The media used for financial advertising are mainly the print media, especially the press and to some extent magazines. Mega-issues are promoted even on N. Issue advertisements are also put on hoardings. Financial advertising motivates the public to invest, educate the public on various aspects of the issue, works in favour of the brokers/underwriters, and builds a good corporate image. Financial advertising still remains prosaic. In order to be successful, it should become more imaginative and distinctive.

3 ADVERTISING PLANNING PROCESS

MARKETING PLAN The company generates sales only through marketing, and as such it is the most important plan. This plan contains ~===::,~ information about four important aspects of the ........~

::Co > .::::

Cosmetics •

+"

C

(\)

:::o E (\)

Lollypop.

.....l.2 o >

Odopik.

.::::

Fig. 3.4: FCB Grid

The FCB model guides us how advertising works and how to set the communication objectives. Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Model

Hierarchy of Effects has certain short-comings. To overcome these, professors Schultz, Tannenbaum and Lauterbom has devised another model called integrated marketing communication model. Consider the following diagram. BUyingj....-..---1

Intent to Buy

I-

Brand Relationship

Attitudes Toward Brands

Fig. 3.5: IMC Model

Instead of the starting communication, we first consider the buying behaviour. When it is difficult to measure it, we move backwards to measure intention to buy. When this is difficult to isolate, we move further backward to assess brand affinity. When this cannot be assessed, we go farthest to the attitudes a consumer has at the beginning of the process. We can isolate advertising effects at any level in the IMC model. The same is considered the foundation on which advertising objectives are established. DAGMAR Approach

It is felt that the task of measuring ad effectiveness will not be daunting if we clearly spell out the advertising goals. Russel H. Colley (1961) pioneered an approach known by the acronym DAGMAR-Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results, where to

Advertising Planning Process

47

establish an explicit link between ad goals and ad results. Colley distinguished 52 advertising goals that might be used with respect to a single advertisement, a year's campaign for a product or a company's entire advertising philosophy. These goals may pertain to sales, image, attitude, and awareness. Some of the goals are: .

• •

persuade a prospect to visit a show room and ask for a demonstration. build up the morale of the company's sales force.

• •

Facilitate sales by correcting false impression, misinformation and other obstacles. announce a special reason for 'buying now' (price, discount, premium and so on).

• •

make the brand identity known and easily recognisable. provide information or implant attitude regarding benefits and superior features of brand. According to DAGMAR approach, the communication task of the brand is to gain (a) awareness, (b) comprehenSion, (c) Conviction, (d) image and (e) action. Advertising goals should be consistent with these communication tasks. Later performance on these counts and projeCted goals is compared. For example, a company setting a goal of 15% increase in sales advertises and achieves this objective. Its ad then is successful and effective. DAGMAR presupposes the understanding of the dynamics of consumer behaviour as without this goals cannot be set. Besides, a thorough acquaintance of market environment is called for. DAGMAR is a planning and control tool. It may guide the creation of advertising. However, as will be appreciated, the basic inputs of DAGMAR are not so easy to formulate and may also inhibit creativity. Ad Objectives and Ad Purpose

Our objectives should support the purpose for which we wish to use advertiSing. The most extreme purpose of advertising is to induce direct action. The other extreme is to influence the attitudes. In between these two extremes, we want advertising to encourage information search, to relate a product to their needs, to encourage recall of past association. Advertising influences attitudes, modifies them and re-inforces them. Advertising Strategy

Advertising objectives, mostly communication objectives, as we have seen, spell out our position with reference to hierarchy of effects like awareness, attitude and preference. The next logical step is to develop advertising strategy. It describes how to achieve the. communication objectives. Advertising strategy has two components-a creative strategy that describes what we are going to say (content) and how we are going to say it (style), and a media strategy which describes in which media ad what time the message will be put across.

48

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

Advertising strategy basically is a blend of the advertising message and the communications media. While doing so, it considers the target audience and the product concept. Together, this makes up the creative mix. Advertising message spells out what the company plans to say, and how it plans to say it. It is a combination of the copy and visual and production elements. We can combine these elements in a wide variety of ways. It is called creative execution. The process of marketing and advertising planning described so far was good for large companies. Large companies start their plans at the top and come downwards. It is called top-down planning. Small companies, however, adopt what is known as bottom-up planning. They reverse the nomlal process. In practice, they try to spot a clever tactic first. Later it is converted into strategy. The elements of marketing mix are built around one tactic. The combination of tactic and strategy creates a position in the consumer mind. Advertising strategy combines the task of selecting the media and designing an effective message. These two tasks are, in fact, inter-related. An effective message seeks to answer the following questions: (i) What are our business goals? (ii) What kind of people do we now sell to? What kind of people should we sell to? (iii) How do these people think, feel and believe our product, our organisation and our

competition? (iv) What do we want these people to think, feel and do? (v) Which key thought should we put into the minds of those people to make them feel, think, do and believe the way we want them to? (vi) What tone of voice will get these people hear and believe us? While developing the message, we must first create a copy platform which is a document that guides the creative team. It puts the strategy in writing and considers the prospects of the ad, the appeals to be used, the product features related to consumer needs, the media used and finally the style or approach or tone of the communication. While strategy describes the direction a message should take, a big idea infuses life in it. The big idea is a bold creative initiative. It relates product benefit with consumer needs in an original way. It syntheSizes the purposes of strategy. It compels the readers or audience 'to stop, look and listen'. Allocating Funds for Advertising

Money makes the mare go. It drives both the marketing and advertising plan. Advertising must justify the expenditure it makes. Advertising in an investment in future sales. It has a long-range cumulative effect. It builds consumer preference and creates goodwill. Consumers' loyalty is earned. Advertising has a relationship to sales and profits. The higher the advertising budget in consumer goods industry, the higher is the market

Advertising Planning Process

49

share. Additional advertising leads to an increase in sales and the effect builds over a period of time, and so consistent efforts are needed. Below a minimum level, ad expenditure will not affect sales. Some minimum sales always result even if there is no advertising. Sales reach saturation in the context of a given market. Beyond that, ad expenses will not lead to an increase in sales. As sales are affected by a variety of factors including advertising, it is difficult to determine allocation of funds. Before making allocations, the business environment is considered in its totality. A number of methods are used to determine how much to spend on advertising. Affordability Method

Here we spend as much as we can afford on advertising. Mostly once all other expenses of the business are made, what is left over is spent on advertising. It is, therefore, also called residual method. Though simple to use, it is not suitable in lean periods when sales are low. Actually these periods do need more advertising activity. Percentage-ot-sales Method

It is a ratio. It is the percentage of previous year's sales or estimated sales for the next year or a combination of the two. It is a simple method. It is related to revenue. Generally, an industry norm is used as percentage figure. The problem is that we may spend too much or too little. It does not consider the environment or the effectiveness of our advertising effort. Competitive Method

Here the expenditure on ads is matched to that of the competitor. If the competitor spends one per cent of its expected sales on ads, we also do the same. The assumption is that the competitors always judge the spending correctly. Besides, our spending is not related to our objectives. Market share and share of voice can be related. Share of voice is the total advertising expenditure. To improve market share, the share of voice must exceed the current market share. The expectation is that it will lead to increased sales. J. O. Packham of A.c. Neilson has developed a formula which states that for a new product to reach a desired market share must have the share of voice 1.5 times greater than it. Objective and Task Method

It is a logical method. We determine the ad objectives and the tasks necessary to meet those objectives. Each task is at a cost. We budget that cost. The only problem is that it is very difficult to define advertising objectives. It is also difficult to estimate the amount of money needed to accomplish a task. The techniques of measuring advertising effectiveness are still far from perfect.

50

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

Additional Methods

Advertisers use experimental method to determine the budget. It is called empirical research method. There are computer-models for allocating advertising funds. Some methods adjust the budget to media cost. Some methods advise to use the same amount of money as was spent last year. The budgeting process requires judgement and experience. As the first step, we consider our marketing and advertising plan. We then consider the budgeting figure against our advertising objectives. While doing so, we have to keep in mind allocation to be made to other tools of communication. Advertising campaign is an important component> of advertising planning. This concept has been discussed in chapter 8 in this book.

4 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF ADVERTISING

There is heavy advertising expenditure every year. Who pays the cost of this ? It is often said that the advertiser consumer pays for it or not depends on production, selling and distribution costs. Let us study the effects of advertising on these cost components.

.....

...............••... Effects of Advertising on Production Costs

Every manufacturing unit has an optimum production, which determines whether advertising increases or decreases the cost of production. Advertising may indirectly bring down the cost per unit. If the firm operates below the optimum production capacity, the reason being advertising raises the demand to the firm's optimum production capacity.

.•.•..

...

.•...........•...•..

52

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

The effect of advertising on production cost is illustrated in the following table: Table 4.1: Effect of Advertising on Production Cost

Before Advertising After Advertising

Particulars Units produced

- - - - ------

Advertisement Expenses - - -

- - - ---- -----

--------------

Cost of Production (Rent, wages, raw material)

NIL

I

Per unit cost ----

--

200 ----

--------------

-

- - - ---

1200

1000

------ ----------

Re.1.00 ---------

---~-------------

- - - - - - - - - - - - ------- -

, - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - -- -

--~--

2000

1000 ---------~---

1400 2000

--~------------~-----

=

----

0.70ps

------

- -

Total cost production (Re. 1 - 0.7Ops) = 30ps Please note that the extra demand of 1000 units was created by advertising. The savings in costs is Rs. 800 per month (in the absence of advertising, it would have cost Rs. 2000 instead of Rs. 1400 to produce 2000 units). So long as the selling cost of extra 1000 units is less than Rs. 800 per month, advertising contributes to current profits. The reduction in cost per unit can be passed on to the buyer fully or partially. It is a choice of the producer. Advertising is a part of selling and distribution cost, and does not directly affect the production costs. But it's effect on production costs is indirect and significant. It provides a boost to demand, and thus leads to higher production, and economies of scale. It lowers the cost of overheads by distributing it over a larger volume. Effect of Advertising on Distribution Costs

The total cost of any production consists of: (i) cost of production (ii) cost of selling and distribution.

The selling and distribution cost has the following components: (i) advertisement expenditure (ii) personal selling expenditure, mainly the salary cost of sales people (iii) other distribution costs such as transportation cost, dealers' commission, display

and demonstration costs etc.

As advertisement expenditure is a part of the selling and distribution costs, it will naturally add to the total selling and distribution costs. Sometimes, however advertisement expenditure may reduce distribution costs because effective advertising cuts down the expenditure on personal selling. Advertising costs can reduce the cost per unit distributed.

Economic Aspects of Advertising

53

The effect of advertising on distribution costs is tabulated below: Table 4.2: Effect of Advertising on Distribution Costs

-----

~-----~~~---~-------

__

---It--~

--~

Particul_~r~ ____ _____ ~e~~~e _~~verti~in~ I After Advertis~n_g__

Units distributed

1000 - - -- - - - -

---~~

i

2000

I

-

--~----

I Advertising expenditure

Nil

200

I Personal

500

700

I

selling expenditure

Other distribution expenses ---

-~~--

-----------~-

-

---

200

---------

Total distribution cost

~~--~--.-

I

-_.-

-- ._----

,

700

300 ----------

1200

f---

- -

Per unit cost

0.70

0.60

Here we assume that an advertising expenditure of Rs. 200 jacks up the demand for an additional 1000 units. Since we need not increase the number of sales people to sell 1000 units more, a marginal increase of Rs. 200 as incentives is provided. The other distribution expenses will not increase proportionately. The cost per unit distributed thus reduces from 0.70 ps. to 0.60 ps. Higher advertisement costs reduce the distribution costs of a retailer because he stocks products pre-sold on the strength of advertising. Effect of Advertising on Consumer Prices

The selling price is made up of: (i) cost of production (ii) selling and distribution cost (iii) mark up to cover these costs and leave a profit for the seller.

The assumption in stacking up the costs is that in the final selling price costs are covered. A consumer has to pay back all the costs in the stack. As advertising expenditure is also a part of the stack, it is to be recovered from the consumer. Thus, according to this school, advertising raises consumer prices. But the notion is not entirely correct. We assume that advertising will not lead to an increased sales volume. But when markets are not saturated, advertising leads to larger sales volume, thus expanding the market. Thus, advertising would lower per unit costs, and would lead to lower consumer prices.

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

54

The effect of advertising on consumer prices is illustrated in the following table : Table 4.3: Effect of Advertising on Consumer Prices

Before Advertising I After Advertising

Particulars Per unit cost of production (As per Table 1) i

Per unit cost of distribution (As per Table 2)

I Profit margin per unit (assumed) L

.. -...

. - ---

Re.1.00

i,1

,

Re.0.70

Re.0.70

Re.0.60

Re.1.00

Re. 1.10

Rs.2.70

Rs.2.40

, I

: Consumer Price l

The assumption made is that the benefits of economies of scales are consumer.

pa~sed

on to the

Advertising and Creation of Monopolies

Monopoly means that you exercise a total control over the market. Here others are barred an entry into the market. The conditions are not favourable for competition. Most important characteristic of a monopoly is that the monopolist exploits the consumers in terms of prices. He may raise the price at will. How does advertising build a monopoly? Well-planned and effective advertisement can make you a market leader exercising not less than 60 p.c. of market share. ]t is because your brand is preferred and this brand preference has been built by advertising. ]n India, Colgate Dental Cream enjoyed a near monopoly situation in the toothpaste market. ]n soap market also, a few firms operate as near monopolies (e.g., P & G, HLL, Godrej, etc.). The brand preference is so strong that competitors do not lie to enter into this business. We have the example of Malhotras who commanded such a strong position in the razorblades market, barring effectively the entry of others. This monopoly created by an advertised brand name is a force to reckon with. But, however, powerful the monopoly is, it is not perpetual. ]t has to break. Colgate has been threatened by Babool, Promise and Vicco. Many new brands of soaps and blades have registered their presence. The reason is this, there is no monopoly over ideas. Similar product do turn out, and break the monopoly. Similarly, there is no monopoly over the media. Hence, there cannot be absolute monopoly through advertising. Market followers have now a certain number of strategies available to challenge the market leader. ]n a free market, the monopoly built through advertising can be broken.

Economic Aspects of Advertising

55

Advertising and Materialistic Demands

We can begin by asking the following questions: (i) Do our glamour girls need colour contact lenses really? (ii) Was it necessary for an actor like Raj Kumar to put on an artificial wig? (iii) Did Rekha need a hair-style where she tossed back her long hair every two

seconds? Even otherwise, she was eye-filling. (iv) How about not visiting the beauty parlours for manicure and pedicure, facials and

sauna, eye-brow trimming and what not? (v) Was it necessary for detergents to compete with our traditional soaps? (vi) Can we not do with fewer autos and cars? (vii) Should we chew or smoke tobacco, have a peg or two of Goan fenny, keep a few

pets and do dancing to the tune of Alisha Chenoy (Indian Madonna) on the floor? Well, the list is endless. Why not to have all this? Advertising has offered us a choice. Just as we have freedom to grow fat on potatoes, we have an equal freedom to slim on a low calorie diet. Do we not come across a lot of people who do not drink and do not smoke? The suburban trains of Mumbai have definitely took many motorists off the road. AdvertiSing is for an economic man who makes a choice between scarce alternatives with his limited means. Advertising rewards us for the monotonous routine we have gone through - it could be a beer (like London Pilsner), or a Goan sausage, or a Moghalai food, or a holiday to Esselworld. We have earned these rewards. Advertising is informative - we come to know about hitherto unknown products, be it twin-packed razors, a new Leo toy for the darling of our eyes, a fabulous wall-paper or an acrylic emulsion paint. Had it not been for 1V advertising, many husbands would not have known how the wives are budgeting the money. All our new interests result from special magazines. The market is in a state of flux. Formerly, we did not have house with garages. Now everyone wants a garage or two. Flats are an answer of a city dweller to the accommodation problem. Advertising keeps pace with the dynamic market. What the critic sees as materialism and consumerism, is a matter of improved living standards. Without all this character and colour of modem living, we will be going back to medieval times. No, austerity is never superior to enrichment of life by taking physical and / or mental efforts.

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

56

Waste in Advertising

When an advertising campaign fails to achieve its objectives, we call it waste. The major objectives of advertisement are to attract attention, to arouse interest, to create a desire, and to induce to action. If the ad, to begin with fails to arrest our attention, it is waste. Moreover, there are mounting ad expenses on account of increasing competition. Some critics feel such heavy expenditure on advertising is waste. The advertising waste may be due to several factors: Poor Planning: A campaign that fails to create proper response when it is not planned properly. The messages may not be repeated frequently. This could be a reason for not getting the response. Sometimes, the budget is not adequate. There could be wrong emphasis-a market area may be neglected, whereas the other area may receive heavy advertising dose. All such decisions create waste in advertising. Wrong Targeting: Advertising is targeted to a wrong audience or location. instance, a rural product is advertised in urban areas.

For

Poor Contents: If the advertising copy is not inspiring, the ad does not generate interest. Wrong Selection of Agency: We should be careful in selecting an appropriate advertising agency. An agency that does not deliver may lead to waste. Wrong Placement: An outdoor at a location where there is poor traffic is a waste. An ad in press also needs proper placement, e.g., near the editorial, front panels, sports page, business page etc. Wrong Media Selection: If kid's product is advertised in a professional journal, it is a waste. Poor Sponsoring: A sponsored programme that does not enjoy the kind and quantum of viewership we desire is a waste. Wrong Scheduling: A seasonal product must be advertised during the season and before the season starts. Wrong timing leads to waste. Excessive Advertising: Advertising heavily on account of competitor's activity may lead to waste. Conditions not Conducive: There may not be suitable conditions conducive to advertising. Check on Ad Expenses: Ad expenses can be kept in check, if the market is not so competitive. But in the face of keen competition, we cannot limit ad expenses in an isolated fashion.

Economic Aspects of Advertising

57

The better proposal is to have an understanding amongst competitors regarding the limits of ad expenses. All will therefore, restrict them to the limits set by the association. Another method to check expenses is to have space or time rationed from the side of the media. We can have a zoned market - a marketing where market is divided into zones. These zones are assigned to advertisers. In the zone there can be unlimited advertising. Ad expenses need to be limited, but a part of them are inevitable. Besides, how much should be the limiting, no one can say. The chances of limiting the expenses depend upon the mutual trust and faith amongst the competitors. Advertising and Standard of Living

Advertisement conspicuously raises the standard of living-it brings the technology of today (state-of-line-art-technology) to the notice of prospective buyers. Advertisement has brought about the acceptance of new ideas-LPG, automobiles, twowheelers including mopeds, videos, tape-recorders, micro-wave ovens, electronic typewriters, desk-top-publishing (DTP) etc. The use, usefulness and utility of these articles became known to consumers through advertising. It was pointless to mass produce these products, had it not been for a market created by advertising. Advertisement is a stimulant of economic activity. It channelizes investment, production and employment. It affects thus the national income. To aid the economy, advertisement works best when there is reasonably free trade, full employment and high purchasing power. Advertisement is a lubricant. It is a force of social good - it helps to maintain prosperity and to raise the standard of living.

5 COMMUNICATION MIX

We have learnt in the first chapter that a firm uses marketing communication to interact with its target audience, the ~r sharehold~rs, and the external environme~t. Communi~ation ~ (~ ~ can be mternal or external. House Journals, notices, ':~::'--'>; /:.' memos, meetings are examples of internal communication. ::CC:t jj Advertising and personal selling are examples of external communication. In this chapter, we are dealing with the external aspect of communication. As we know, an organisation has to employ various methods of communication to interact with the external world. This is called communication or promotional mix. Diagrammatically it is presented below. Communication Mix

aU.

Publicity and Public Relations

)

Sales Promotion

Propaganda

Advertising

..... ....... .••......

Personal Selling

"

..•... ............ '

...........

59

Communication Mix

DISTINCTION BETWEEN ADVERTISING, PUBLICITY AND PROPAGANDA Advertising

Advertising is a cost effective method of carrying our message to the target audience. In other words, advertising is planned and created to carry the message effectively. It is both a science as well as an art. Now in business, more-often-than-not, the object of advertising is to sell. But it is not a direct sale. It sells indirectly by influencing the target audience. It is a form of mass communication. For achieving its objective, good advertisements require a back-up of research. Advertisements increase the turnover and profitability if used rightly. Propaganda To propagate means to spread, as we spread seeds in a garden. Or we propagate ideas, doctrines and gospels.

Propaganda is one-sided communication. Propaganda's effect is indoctrination. It is emotional, but it could be sincere. We can promote the idea of hygiene by propaganda but to promote Lifebuoy we have to use advertising. Propaganda is the means of making known in order to gain support for an opinion, creed or belief. Like advertiSing, propaganda is biased in favour of the thing being promoted. Generally, we come across political propaganda, and accept it as such depending upon our own conception regarding who is right. Propaganda can be shorn of bias while promoting intellectual, environmental and SOciological aspects, but it is difficult to do so. Publicity

Publicity is a planned effort to maintain a rapport between the organisation and its environment. Publicity is not directly paid for by the organisation. This is not to suggest that publicity is always free of cost or cheaper than advertising. Publicity pertains to news items, conferences, seminars, awards, prizes, cover features, interviews etc. all aiming at promoting the organisation and its products. Publicity is more comprehensive than advertising. Publicity's motive is to create a favourable climate for the organisation whereas advertising is having a narrower objective of selling. Advertising and Publicity

Publicity is defined as non-personal stimulation of demand for a product/service/business unit by planting commercially significant news about it in a published medium or obtaining favourable presentation of it on radio, 1V or stage that is not paid for by the sponsor. Two significant distinctions emerge. PubliCity is not openly paid for. Secondly, presentation is not programmed. Marketers have less control over publicity than they have over advertising. PubliCity is left to the discretion of the media in terms of whether to present it or not, contents of presentation and the format of presentation. Publicity may be negative as well as positive.

60

First Steps in Advertising and Sales Promotion

DISTINCTION BETWEEN ADVERTISING AND PERSONAL SELLING

Advertising is communication with many consumers of products and services. To communicate with a large group, we put the advertising message through mass media like the press, magazines and lV. Advertising is thus one form of mass communication. Advertising communication is non-personal. We communicate with the buyers through the media. There is no face-to-face conversation. Personal selling is personal communication where a salesman talks person to person with a prospect. Advertising aims at a group, i.e., mass while personal selling aims at individuals. Personal selling is not mass communication but individual communication. These days products are mass produced for mass consumption. It is not possible to contact eac~ customer individually. Therefore advertising a mass communication tool is a must for modem marketer. But industrial products and complex pieces of machineries can be sold better by personal selling where the salesman is in a position to explain the characteristics of the product to the buyer. Salespersons are in a position to tailor their messages according to unique characteristics of each prospect. In modem marketing, the marketing manager decides a judicious mix of advertising and personal selling. It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of advertising, however salespersons receive immediate feedback during their interacting and can see how their messages are getting across. They may therefore, adjust the message or presentation qUickly. Personal selling is a very intense means of communication. People may skip an advertisement on lV but find it difficult to dismiss a salesperson. It is the most effective communication tool as it is inter personal. But this is its major weakness as well as strength. It is terribly inefficient for mass market producers, where advertising a mass communication tool scores over it. DISTINCTION BETWEEN ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTION

Advertising predisposes a person favourably for a product/service/idea moving him towards its purchase. Sales Promotion takes over at this point. It makes the consumer take a favourable purchase decision by providing one or other kind of direct inducement, e.g., discount, price off, gift, coupon etc. Mostly advertising is indirectly concerned with sales. It either informs or persuades or reminds about a product or service. Most of the times, it is indirect in its approach and has a long-term perspective, e.g., building up a company image or brand image. Sales Promotion is a short-term approach, a direct approach and expects an immediate response in terms of sales. Sales promotion is an important adjunct to selling. Advertising is more frequent and repetitive than Sales Promotion. Sales Promotion are nonrecurrent selling efforts. They supplement the advertising and personal selling. Displays are effective method of sales promotion. Contests are also another effective method of sales pr6fnotion.

Communicqtion Mix

61

Advertising and Public Relations

The ultimate aim of Public Relations is to develop a favourable image in the eyes of the public. It refers to a company's communication and relationships with various sections of the public-customers, suppliers, shareholders, employees, governments, media, society at large. PR can be formal or informal. PR, unlike advertising, is personal. Advertising is not the only form of persuasive communication. Very closely allied to advertising are sales promotion and public relations. In fact both are important parts of advertising, and are often 'managed' by the same people or agencies or departments. All three are ital to the 'marketing' or a product, service or idea. While advertising is termed 'above the line' communication, sales promotion may be termed 'below-the-line' communication. The ultimate goal of all three is to sell products, services, reputations, projects, programmes, people, politicians, beliefs, ideas-indeed everything and anything. The Institute of Public Relations, London, defines Public Relations as "the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain understanding between an organisation and its public." Public Relations is low-cost compared to advertising, for the publicity obtained, say in the press, through public relations is not directly paid for. Indirectly, the expenses involve keeping in close touch with people in the media through press conferences, press visits and press releases. Besides, media persons have to be ·entertained,' and some of them expect 'gifts' from companies. According to Edward L. Bernays, the 'father' of Public Relations, and the author of 'Engineering of Consent', the phrase Public Relations means, "quite simply, the name of the engineering approach, i.e., action based on thorough knowledge of the situation and on the application of scientific principles and tried practices in the task of getting people to support ideas and programmes." There are four elements to the mechanics of PR: (1) The message to be transmitted. (2) An 'independent' third party endorser to transmit the message. (3) A target-audience that it is hoped will be motivated to buy whatever is being sold, and (4) A medium through which the message is transmitted. Advertising and PR are different from the point of view of their objectives. Advertising is an aid to selling and it improves the bottom line of business. PR, which is the business of image management, cannot replace advertising. Of course, PR can in some way push up sales because it changes the way consumers perceive the company and hence the product. Advertising and PR are complementary in most cases but sometimes advertising is not necessary. PR can do the job. If a new manufacturing facility is started by a company, it cannot be advertised. A PR effort is more effective.

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PR no doubt is valuable. Edit space is far more important than paid ad space. Of course, what has been achieved by PR must be adequately supported by the product and service. If PR is professionally handled, it can achieve benefits for an organisation at a fraction of a cost of advertising. Advertising has a greater role when we are selling a tangible product. In a service industry, however, PR has a greater role, since the product is intangible. Advertising and PR can't replace each other. By PR we create a good image. Advertising is necessary to take advantage of that good image for actual selling. PR has higher degree of credibility since it is not paid for. Advertising, however, creates a brand personality. Only advertisement can add value to a product. PR has now slowly evolved into an integrated approach called corporate communications. Corporate Communications There are papers on corporate communications in American Universities and there are departments of corporate communications in different companies including our Hindustan Lever. In the 90s, business seeks to communicate positively in terms of clarity of identity to a wide range of people - financiers, those in authority, the general public, among others. Corporate communications is not limited to mere PR. It includes crisis communications, e.g. corporate identity programmes, re-imaging, media relations, corporate advertiSing, sponsorship for image building, and communicating during takeover. Corporate communications is not restricted to image management but considers corporate philanthropy, media dealing and crisis management.

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6 APPEALS IN ADVERTISING PSYCHOLOGY OF CONSUMERS The question of central interest to the advertisers is, How do consumers respond to various marketing stimuli that the company _ (might arrange? The company that really understands the ;' ~ consumer psychology with respect to product features, .::~ cfj7 prices, advertising appeals, and so on, will have an 'cA enormous advantage over is competitors.

CA) Types of Customers While communicating with the target audience, the influence of the communication can be increased if the type of customer we frequently come across is known, so that the ad message may be directed more effectively to them. The following is an illustrative list: (i) Laconic or silent (ii) Chatterbox (iii) Friendly and amiable (iv) Argumentative (v) Vitriolic ad sarcastic (vi) Nervous and shy (vii) Pre-determined (viii) Undetermined (ix) Deliberative of procrastinating

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(x) (xi) (xii) (xiii) (xiv) (xv) (xvi)

Impatient and impulsive Doubting Crude and arrogant Expert Curious Bargain hunter Braggadacio or braggart.

Special Categories of Customers (i) Womenfolk (ii) Handicapped (iii) Young people Buying Motives

Human Needs as Basis for Appeals. The basic concepts in marketing tell us that it is all about satisfying consumer wants and needs. Products and services are offered by the marketer to satisfy one need or the other. Most of the time, needs are well known; but sometimes it is the marketer who creates consumer demand. This is what we call creative marketing. Ultimately, all advertising appeals are created for the purpose of activating human needs and wants, and showing how the advertised brand can satisfy those needs and wants. The advertiser has to determine the needs at which the advertising message should be directed. Though it looks simple, it is, in fact, very difficult to arrive at the right human needs or wants which would be the basis for ad appeals. Psychologists themselves do not seem to agree upon what constitutes a set of basic human needs. However, there are some generally accepted standard lists of need structure, which provide some gUidelines to the marketer for developing advertising appeals. The most popular and widely accepted need scheme is the one given by A. H. Maslow. Maslow's basic human needs structure states five need levels hierarchically. They are: (i) Physiological Needs or Creative Comforts (Hunger, Thirst, Sex, etc): These are biological needs, such as food, water, sleep, and so on, and are the most point of all human needs. These are, therefore, placed at the first level of the hierarchy.

(ii) Safety Needs (Security, Protection, etc.) : These are based on the need for physical safety and security, and stress such things as preference of the familiar to the unfamiliar and for the known to the unknown. (iii) Love Needs (Affection, Belongingness, etc.) : These needs are at least partially fulfilled by marriage, parenthood and belonging to organisations, such as the Rotary, Lions and others.

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(iv) Esteem Needs (Self-Respect, Prestige, Social Approval, Achievement, etc.) : As love needs become at least partially satisfied, the need for such things as prestige, selfrespect, esteem and status emerge. The desire for achievement, independence and self-confidence are also part of these needs. (v) Self-Actualisation Needs (Self-Fulfilment Self-Expression etc.) : The desire for selffulfilment, or becoming everything one is capable of becoming, is the essence of these needs. Included in them are aesthetic satisfaction, acquiring knowledge, and soon. Maslow states that each "higher" need dominates the organism as the lower ones become satisfied or nearly (sufficiently) satisfied. A person who has basically satisfied his physiological and safety needs will become concerned about the satisfaction of progressively higher level needs (love, esteem, self-actu3lisation). One of these five stages is always prepotent, even though the needs at other stages are still influential; that is, some needs from all the five stages may operate on an individual at the time that one stage is dominant. An important point to remember is that a consumer does have to satisfy one class of needs completely before progressive to other classes. Taking a closer look at the human needs, we find that physiological needs are the most basic of the five basic needs structure of Maslow. The need for food and water is so essential that, without its satisfaction, life would cease to exist. An individual is first concerned about the satisfaction of his food, water, sleep and other biological needs. In a society where basic physiological needs are not fulfilled, advertisers of food and related products have to depict them as a better way of satisfying the hunger needs. In contrast to this, where most people in - a society have this need satisfied, the advertiser should depict the food item as one which can help to satisfy a higher-level need, i.e., love or esteem, for example, Once the physiological needs have been largely satisfied, every human being is concerned with the next level of his needs, i.e., safety needs. When these two basic needs have been largely satisfied, he is free from constant fear for his safety, health and security. Advertising of food products for the satisfaction of the need of hunger is hardly necessary. However, advertising for economical housing societies, life insurance policies, cheaper but nutritious food, healthy drinking water and promotion of sanitary living conditions-these would still be relevant to our society. Next to the safety needs come love needs. Every individual, whose first two levels of needs have been fairly satisfied, will seek to love and would like to be loved by others. Love, here, is to to be constructed as synonymous with sex in the physiological sense. Sex involves both physiological and psychological gratification. Sex is often used in advertising as a means of satisfying both physiological and love needs. Advertisers have made an extensive use of sex appeals in their advertising. However, these appeals are aimed at the satisfaction of the love need (affection). Esteem needs are of two types: one, those which are related to how a person sees himself reflected in his personal achievement and self-confidence; and, second, those which

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are related to how, he believes, others see him. How others see him is reflected in the attention and recognition he receives from others as well as his reputation and prestige among other people. Suitings ads of Vimal, Dinesh and Digjam aim at increasing the selfconfidence of the use. The jewellery ads of Tribhovandas in Mumbai stress the prestige you can enjoy by using such expensive jewellery. Advertising of any product which can increase the self-confidence and self-worth of those who use it makes this appeal-the satisfaction of the self-esteem need. Many ads use the prestige appeal which the user of such advertised products will enjoy. Maslow's hierarchy of the need structure is the most Widely accepted list of basic needs, a detailed knowledge of which is necessary for any advertiser. However, others have also given their own classification. Combs and Snygg are of the opinion that there is only one basic need-the need for maintaining or enhancing one's self concept. Berelson and Stenier have given a list of primary and secondary human needs. The primary needs are physiological ones based on the biological functioning of every human being. The secondary needs, according to them, are those which are acquired or learnt, and are not necessary for the basic biological functioning of an individual. The primary needs include: (i) Suppiy Motives: Hunger and thirst. (ii) Avoidance Motives: Avoidance of pain, fear, harm and other negative consequences. (iii) Species-maintaining Motives: ReprodUction, mating and nutritive motives. The secondary needs include: (a) Acquired or Learned: It is believed that secondary needs are learned because of the satisfaction of primary needs. One learns that one can better satisfy one's hunger-and-thirst need by acquiring property and other possessions: (b) Recognition needs. (c) Affiliation needs. The follOWing conclusions may now be drawn: (i) Unsatisfied needs are motivators of behaviour and satisfied needs are not. (ii) Much of human behaviour is motived by subconscious and unconscious needs. These are needs we do not or cannot consciously admit to ourselves. For example, in one of the ads of "Sir Shirts," it was said: "This is the MAN SIR is made for." A handsome man, together with his lovely girl, is shown in the picture. Man has an unsatisfied (and unconscious) need for exhibiting himself as a "he" man to his sweetheart. Wearing a Sir Shirt is presumably a symbolic way of satisfying this unconscious need. (iii) Generally, several needs operate simultaneously to cause a given behaviour response; but only some needs are more important in behaviour than others. These 'key' needs should be identified and appealed to, directly or indirectly, in the advertising message.

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(8) Selling Points A selling point comes handy to the copywriter for directing the ad message effectively to the target audience. It is a characteristic of a product and comes as a result of intimate knowledge of the product. In analysing the product, the copywriter may study the materials of which it is made, its construction, performance, and distribution. For example, the selling point of Supreme Soap is that it is a soap containing beauty cream. Promise is a toothpaste with clove oil. The words clove oil are another example of the selling poin~. (C) Essentials of an Advertisement Appeal (i) It must be thematically sound (ii) It must be communicative (iii) It must be interesting (iv) It must have credibility (v) It must have finality and be complete (vi) It must contain truthful information. TYPES OF APPEALS Rational and Emotional Appeals We have mentioned that the advertising message should appeal, directly or indirectly, to those key needs which influence behaviour response. Without going into communication theories and models, we shall deal with the message content, its structure and the format to be employed for the formation of an appropriate ad message. The message content refers to what the advertiser has to say to the target audience that will produce the desired response. It may be an appeal, a time, an idea or a unique selling proposition. In fact, the message content ultimately formulates some kind of benefit, motive or reason why the audience should respond to, or do, something. Appeals are broadly classified as rational, emotional and moral appeals. Rational appeals are those directed at the thinking process of the audience. They involve some sort of a deliberate reasoning process, which a person believes would be acceptable to other members of his social group. They attempt to show that the product would yield the expected functional benefit. Although there may be some disagreement regarding which motives are rational and which are emotional, the following are some buying motives which are normally considered rational under ordinary circumstances: (i) High Quality: People buy television, stereophonic music systems, furniture, refrigerators, electric gadgets; kitchen-ware and a host of consumer durables for their high quality. Many consumer goods, too, are bought for their quality, such as clothing, beverages, food items, etc. and not merely because of their taste or fashion, or style. (ii) Low Price: Many people buy low-priced locally made airconditioners for their homes because they believe that these products will show a product performance similar to, or slightly inferior to, that of nationally reputed brands at higher price .

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Whether this is true or not, a person, as long as he believes this to be true, thinks his reason will be accepted as a "good" one by his social group. In this case, he is exhibiting a rational motive. (iii) Long Life: as of a car tyre that will give 30,000 kms, before its utility has been exhausted. (iv) Performance: as of a ball-point pen that won't release excessive ink or skip under any circumstances. (v) Ease of use: as of screwdriver with a magnetised tip which clings to the metal head of the screw, or a timer in the kitchen mixer which switches off automatically after a pre-determined time period. (vi) Re-SQle value: as of a two-wheeler scooter. "Bajaj" has a better re-sale value than any other make. (vii) Economy in the operating expenses, of some brands of refrigerator is greater because they consume less electricity. Many two-wheeler vehicles claim a better mileage per litre consumption of fuel than similar other vehicles. Industrial buyers are most responsive to rational appeals. They make purchase decisions in line with the technical specification of the product, product quality, etc. Most industrial buyers are knowledgeable about the product class, trained to recognise value and are responsible to others about their choice. Often, industrial buying decisions are made after a thorough comparison of various offers and after evaluating the various benefits of different makes. Consumer durables of high value are also often bought on the basis of rational appeals. People are ready and willing to give rational motives if asked why they have made a particular purchase. Even when decisions are made on emotional grounds, people like to rationalise their decision to show that they are based on sound rational grounds. Most of us want others to regard us as rational human beings. That is why we like to give SOcially acceptable reasons for our buying decisions. We feel that rational motives will raise our status in the eyes of our associates and colleagues. Emotional appeals are those appeals which are not preceded by careful analysis of the pros and cons of making a buying decision. Emotions are those mental agitations or excited states of feeling which prompt us to make a purchase. Emotional motives may be below the level of consciousness, and may not be recognised by a person; or even if he is fully aware that such a motive is operating, he is unwilling to admit it to others because he feels that is would be unacceptable as a 'proper" reason for buying among his associates and colleagues. Emotional appeals are designed to stir up some negative or positive emotions which will motivate product interest or purchase. Different emotional appeals, which are particularly important from the advertiSing point of view, are listed below. Following several motivation research studies, it has been found that negative emotional appeals are more effective than positive ones. We shall also, therefore, name the negative appeals first.

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Negative Emotional Appeals: An advertiser may try to include a particular behavioural change by emphasising either positive or negative appeals, or a combination of both. For example, an advertising campaign to get the target audience to buy fire insurance may stress the positive aspect - low cost relative to other investment, the services the insurance company provides, early settlement of claims, and so on; or it may stress the negative aspect of not getting insurance - the danger of losing one's possessions or the ravages of fire. Positive appeals use the strategy of "reducing" a person's anxiety about "buying and using" a product, while negative appeals use the strategy of "increasing" a person's anxiety about "not using" a product or service. In general, a positive appeal stresses the positive gains to a person from complying with the persuasive message; the negative appeal stresses his loss if he fails to comply. Fear Appeals: The fear appeal is most important among emotional appeals, and also the most effective. It is said that the message's effectiveness increases with the level of fear it generates. The use of fear appeal in getting people to start doing things they should is very common. Many ad messages of tooth paste employ this appeal. They present the fear of tooth decay or unhealthy gums or bad breadth, and then suggest the use of a specific brand of tooth paste to get rid of such fears. A recent ad of "Promise" shows a boy weeping because of severe toothache, and then suggests the use of "Promise" to avoid a recurrence of toothache. A fear appeal of this kind is used in a wide variety of product categories. When products are designed to protect an individual from some loss of health (medical or life insurance), the fear appeal of the type illustrated above can be effectively employed. Then there are products designed to protect an individual from loss of property (automobile or home) which successfully employ fear appeals to induce a particular buying behaviour. Fear appeals are at times used in ad messages in connection with getting people to stop doing things they shouldn't do. The advertisements relating to prohibition, prevention of losses and conservation of energy fall in this category. The warning on the cigarette packet 'the smoking is injurious to health' is a typical example, even though this is a statutory warning and advertiser themselves would not like to include it in the ad on their own. Then there are many products which are, directly or indirectly, involved in the avoidance of a fearful situation. Think of that popular advertisement of "FERODO," depicting that hundreds of road accidents are avoided because Ferodo break liners have been fitted to the automobile. A large number of advertisements employ the fear appeal in their ad messages of products which relate to more subtle, social ad psychological motivations, such as loss of status, friendship, job, position, and so forth. Personal-care products (soaps, cosmetics, deodorants, shave lotions, mouthwash, etc.) fall in this category. Fear is the higher level of tension; but anxiety has been used to promote the sale of a large number of instant foods, other food products and home appliances. Think of ads wherein the housewife's anxieties are fully exploited to get the message across to the target audience.

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The more carefully fear is built, the greater is the tension resulting in a greater drive from within to reduce the tension. Research studies have provided that extremely great fear appeals are less effective than moderate ones in motivating people to adopt the Product and eliminate fear. However, very weak fear appeals are not effective either in evoking the desired response. Therefore, a selection of the appropriate fear level is important; it should be strong enough to heighten the drive of the people to buy a particular product. But if an excessively strong fear is pictured, it is possible that people would exhibit a defensive behaviour, and try to avoid the ad, and may not be prepared to accept the threat. They may even take the view that the solution recommended it the ad may be inadequate to deal with so great a fear. However, some researchers have found cases where strong fear appeals have worked beautifully. They feel that buyers have different tolerances for fear and that, therefore, different levels of the fear message should be set for the various segments of the audience. However, the underlying concept that every message should promise to believe, in a believable way, the fear it arouses should be the ultimate guide in the selection of the levels of fear appeals. A general principle of "not too much and not too little" is most relevant in the selection of appropriate fear appeals. A methodical study in rural North India (mainly u.P.) was conducted by CARE (an American ad agency) to discover which of the two appeals-positive or negative-would work better in getting a nutritive food accepted. The positive appeal was love of children and the negative one was fear of the consequences of malnutrition. The "love" campaign featured a proud mother rearing her thriving child on the prescribed food. The "fear" approach created a frightening devil (raksha), symbolizing the disease and misfortune arising from wrong food habits. These campaigns were run for a full year in two different areas. The evaluation of these campaigns dearly showed that the fear appeal created a great deal more awareness of the value of the nutritive food. The negative proposition aroused immediate reaction because of the fact that an unpleasant bang is more likely to make one sit up than the melodious strains of soothing music. Some authors and experts in the field of advertising, however may disagree with this view. But fear appeals are seldom composed entirely of negatives. The warnings generally pave the way for positive advice and exhortation, and in this form the negative appeals appear to be just as effective on the average as positive appeals. Take, for example, for recent advertisement of Khaitan Kitchen fans employing a negative appeal. The headline states: "Are you cooking or being cooked?" It goes on: "Every housewife knows how miserable she feels when she cooks. It makes her irritable and saps her energy ... Khaitan presents a simple, efficient and inexpensive answer. The Khaitan Fresh Air Fan. It drives out smoke, smells and heat, and brings in fresh air. Not only that; thanks to the continuous inflow of fresh air, the chances of dampness are eliminated. And this prevents cockroaches and other insects from breeding in your kitchen." The headline and the initial part of the body of the copy effectively create fear; but the latter part of the copy presents the solution and the positive appeal of the product. Such is

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the most common form of the advertising message-first building up fear and then offering a solution with other positive appeals of the product advertised. On the level of fear, Aaker and Myer, in their book, Advertising MQnQgemen~ rightly state that fear or anxiety has two kinds of possible effects on message reception and yielding. As a stimulus, its effect tends to be negative; and as a drive, it tends to be positive. Furthermore, too little anxiety tends to provide an insufficient drive and too much anxiety tends to make the stimulus aspects predominant. The net result of these two factors is to make the relationship between anxiety level and message effectiveness non-monotonic, with maximum effectiveness occurring at the intermediate levels of anxiety. And, lastly, so far as appeals to fear are concerned, this approach is useful for products which are of little interest to consumers when rational appeals are employed. Even in case where the product fulfils a generally recognised need, fear appeals are effective. Take the case of life insurance. Fear appeals are still required to sell policies. However, fear appeals fail in the case of the cancer hazard of cigarette smoking, which is often rejected by most smokers. Fear Appeal and Market Segmentation

We have just now stated that, in some cases, big doses of fear are recommended, whereas, in others, the use of. low levels of fear is the logical strategy. We have also given examples of an ad about dental health, where the degree of associated fear is high, and an ad about smoking and cancer, where the level of fear is low. Furthermore, apart from the differences in product categories, the age and personality differences in the target audience vary the effectiveness of each level of fear appeal. That is why it has been recommended that both the market segment and product category groupings should be taken into consideration before designing appropriate fear appeals. Let us take an in-depth look at the use of fear appeals and their relatidnship with the market segment, for this will provide a valuable insight to advertisers. It is important to note that although people generally prefer positive arguments, a fear appeal can make an advertisement stand out from others. For individuals whose aroused fear or anxiety about the product is low, and those who would not normally search for information about the product, the fear appeal can be particularly effective if these individuals have been previously exposed to positive arguments. It has been found that it is better to put fear first in the order of presentation, to threaten someone close to the prospect rather than the prospect himself. While advertiSing a helmet for scooter-riders, the fear of injury to the head is the most appealing to the wife and to someone close to the rider. The rider himself may not accept the idea promptly because of self-esteem and of ego-consciousness. The appeal of intense fear might be best far people who tend to be low-anxiety and high self-esteem people, who exhibit a copying behaviour, and who find the product to be of low relevance. There are many who have a low vulnerability to fear and anxiety. For example, life insurance companies find that fear appeals work beautifully with those who feel that they do not need a coverage for their lives.

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Fear appeals are appropriate for breaking into new market segments. In fact, the susceptibility to fear appeals is one more approach to the market segmentation process. A careful analysis of those potential fear appeals, designed to arouse emotion in a group or audience, should be made a part of advertising strategy, wherein all ads addressed to this audience will incorporate such fear appeals. Thus, if appropriate fear appeals are defined, they become a useful tool in market segmentation. Positive Emotional Appeals: Positive appeals highlight product benefits and attributes capable of influencing consumer behaviour. They are love, humour, pride, prestige and joy. Most baby food products have a mother's love appeal. Love for family is perfectly employed in an ad of Dettol soap which has been called ''The Love and Care Soap." In the closing sentence, the ad appeals by saying: "Give your family the Loving Care of Dettol Soap." Mother's love for the baby has been appealed to in an ad of Johnson's baby soap. It says: "gentle as a kiss on your baby's tender skin." It further goes on to say: "Johnson's Baby Soap. Because Johnson & Johnson care for your baby almost as much as you do." Is this positive appeal not effective, when the advertiser shows as much care for a child as its mother does? Advertisers have also successfully used messages communicating the joy and thrill (all those soft drink ads) associated with using the product. A humorous message attracts more attention and creates more liking and belief in the source, though is reduces comprehension. David Ogilvy, a well-known personality in the advertising profession, believes that humour has been over-used: "People are amused by clowns-they don't buy from them ... So many people in advertising are compulsive entertainers who seek applause rather than sales." Other positive emotional appeals involving price, prestige or exclusivenss are often used in ads of suitings. Advertisements of suitings by Raymonds, Digjam, Dinesh, etc., employ emotional motives. "Suitings for the Connoisseur," a Digjam ad campaign, is an example of appealing to those individuals who are experts in matters of taste and choice of clothing. Other emotional motives are illustrated in the following list: (0 Desire to be different, as illustrated by people who build an ultra modem home in an area of traditional homes; (ii) Desire to conform, as in the case of teenage boys and girls who want to be "in jeans" because all their friends wear jeans. (iii) Desire to attract the opposite sex, as shown by a teenage-girl who buys a new cosmetic in order to make her skin more beautiful. (iv) Desire for prestige, as shown by a person who buys the most expensive automobile (Mercedes, Toyota, etc.) he can afford in order to impress his friends. In making purchases, many combine both rational and emotional motives. In fact, a blend of buying motives usually is the basis of a purchase. An engineer may take up a management course at any of the prestigious schools because he fells it will make him look important in the eyes of his associates and help him in securing a better job in the industry and business. A woman may want to buy a new home in a posh locality because it will

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improve her family's social status and because it is within walking distance of a good school for her children. Moral Appeals: are those appeals to the audience which appeal to their sense of right and wrong. These are often used in messages to arouse a favourable response to social causes, such as prohibition, adult literacy, social forestry, anti-smuggling and hoarding, consumer protection, equal rights for women, social responsibility projects of corporations, rural development, siding weaker sections of society, employment generation, and so on. There are messages which appeal for generous 'donations for flood victims and for famine relief operations-these are often based on moral appeals. Many commercial advertisements are criticised on moral grounds. The most controversial ad campaigns are by multinational companies marketing baby food products. Many WHO experts are critical of these corporations which promote bottle feeding against breast feeding. This is yet another way of classifying advertising appeals. Ultimately, all ad appeals may be grouped into direct and indirect appeals, depending upon whether they are linked directly or indirectly with consumer needs. Sometimes advertisers are explicit about the need to which they are appealing, whereas, at other times, appeals are veiled or purposely kept ambiguous, and the consumer has to determine the relevance of the appeal to him. Direct Appeals Direct appeals are those which clearly communicate with the consumers about a given need, followed by a message which extols the advertised brand as a product which satisfies that need. In industrial advertising, some ads may have a direct appeal, satisfying the customer's technical need; but, in consumer advertising, the direct appeal plays a very limited role. Examples of direct appeal ads for consumer products are rare. In America, the hamburger was once advertised with the hunger appeal. The ad said: "When you get a mansize hunger, eat a whopper hamburger." Indirect Appeals Indirect appeals are those which do not emphasise a human need, but allude to a need. Because advertisers understand the influence of needs upon selective perception, they leave some ambiguity in the message so that the consumers may be free to interpret it and the need to which the advertiser is appealing. Since this interpretation of the consumer is not difficult, there is no risk involved in keeping the ambiguity. in the message. Indirect appeals are either product-oriented or consumer-oriented, or may be a combination of the two. We shall now discuss each one of these indirect appeals in detail. Product-Oriented Indirect Appeals They are grouped into three classifications: (i) Feature-oriented Appeals: The basic message is about product features, characteristics and attributes. Examples: Instant Shine, Cherry Shoe Polish, "Promise," the unique toothpaste with the time-tested clove oil.

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(ii) Use-oriented Appeals: The basic message emphasises specific in-operation and/or

post-operation advantages of the brand advertised. Examples: Anne French hair remover ad: "How much cruelty can a woman's skin bear?" The head-line is a searching question. The ad message discards other methods of hair removing-they are shaving, waxing and threading. Then it goes on to inform you how gently hair is removed with Anne French cream. Another example is of Stayfree beltless napkins by Johnson & Johnson. It highlights the fact that three is no need of belts or strings or pins. How convenient it is, taking away all the botherations of women! (iii) Product Comparison Appeals: The basic message emphasises the differences between the advertised brand and the competing brands. The advertised brand, of course, has a net advantage over those with which it is compared; otherwise the whole exercise becomes futile. Think of those ads of electric fans, when the product features of various brands are compared in the ad in a tabulated form - such features as the number of poles of the motor, the number of bearings, the price, warranty period offered, etc. A refrigerator advertisement compares the type of compressors used, whether high speed or low speed, electricity consumption, noise level, the quality of the white enamelled body, extra tray, etc. Consumer-oriented appeals are the other group of indirect appeals. They are further divided as follows: (i) Attitude-oriented Appeals: The basic message is one which IS In line with the consumer's attitude-his value-belief structure. Example: The ad series by Shriram group, namely: "Indian Corporate Evolution: The Shriram Experience." In one of the ads, it says: "We are Indians. We must remember our roots." Then it goes on to state the group's belief in Indian traditions and the advantages it shares with the country. This message, refers indirectly to Maslow's esteem need. (ii) Significant Group-oriented Appeals: The basic message emphasises the kind of group which uses or approves of the advertised brand. The group may be a reference group, a social group, or a peer group, or any other group which is significant for the consumer target. Example: Ad from Golden Tobacco for its Chancellor brand cigarette. The ad says: "Some possessions define a character. Some distinguish it. A cigarette so distinguished, it's by appointment to your majesty." (iii) Life Style-oriented Appeals: The basic message emphasises an identifiable life style relevant to a defined target market. Example: An Ad of Charminar cigarette making an appeal with its strong taste. For some hard smokers, a "strong" cigarette can only give relaxation, particularly after a day's hard-work. One needs a Charminar.

7 COPYWRITING

COPYWRITING

One of the most important functions in advertising is writing copy. Broadly, the whole ad is called a copy. But specifically, the matter written in words is called copy. The rest of the ad may have visual elements like photographs, pictures, illustrations, logos, mascots etc. ~-