Message Execution

The message's impact depends not only upon what is said but also on how it is said. Some ads aim for rational positioning and others for emotional positioning. U.S. ads typically present an explicit feature or benefit designed to appeal to the rational mind: "gets clothes cleaner"; "Brings relief faster." Japanese ads tend to be more indirect and appeal to the emotions: An example was Nissan's Infiniti ad, which showed not the car but beautiful scenes from nature aimed at producing an emotional association and response.

The choice of headlines and copy can make a difference in impact. Lalita Manrai created two ads for the same car. The first ad carried the headline "A New Car"; the second, the headline "Is This Car for You?" The second headline utilized an advertising strategy called labeling, in which the consumer is labeled as the type of person who is interested in that type of product. The two ads also differed in that the first ad described the car's features and the second described the car's benefits. In the test, the second ad far outperformed the first in terms of overall product impression, reader interest in buying the product, and likelihood of recommending it to a friend.15

Message execution can be decisive for highly similar products, such as detergents, cigarettes, coffee, and vodka. Consider the success of Absolut Vodka:

■ A a Vodka is generally viewed as a commodity product. Yet the amount of brand preference and loyalty in the vodka market is astonishing. Most of it is based on selling an image. When the Swedish brand Absolut entered the U.S. market in 1979, the company sold a disappointing 7,000 cases that year. By 1991, sales had soared to over 2 million cases. Absolut became the largest selling imported vodka in the United States, with 65 percent of the market. Sales also skyrocketed globally. Its secret weapon: a targeting, packaging, and advertising strategy. Absolut aims for sophisticated, upwardly mobile, affluent drinkers. The vodka is in a distinctive, odd-shaped bottle suggestive of Swedish austerity. The bottle has become an icon and is used as the centerpiece of every ad, accompanied by puns such as "Absolut Magic" or "Absolut Larceny." Well-known artists—including Warhol, Haring, Scharf— designed Absolut ads, and the bottle image always figures in a clever way. Absolut also runs short stories about the brand written by distinguished authors. These ads are designed to appeal to readers of such magazines as The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair.16

In preparing an ad campaign, the advertiser usually prepares a copy strategy statement describing the objective, content, support, and tone of the desired ad. Here is the strategy statement for a Pillsbury product called 1869 Brand Biscuits:

■ P The advertising objective is to convince biscuit users they can buy a canned biscuit that's as good as homemade—Pillsbury's 1869 Brand Biscuits. The content consists of emphasizing the following product characteristics: They look like, have the same texture as, and taste like homemade biscuits. Support for the "good as homemade" promise will be twofold: (1) 1869 Brand Biscuits are made from a special kind of flour used to make homemade biscuits but never before used in making canned biscuits, and (2) the use of traditional American biscuit recipes. The tone of the advertising will be a news announcement, tempered by a warm, reflective mood emanating from a look back at traditional American baking quality.

part five

Managing and Delivering Marketing Programs

Creative people must also find a cohesive style, tone, words, and format for executing the message.

Any message can be presented in a number of execution styles: slice of life, lifestyle, fantasy, mood or image, musical, personality symbol, technical expertise, scientific evidence, and testimonial. The Marketing Insight, "Celebrity Endorsements as a Strategy," focuses on the use of testimonials, as does the following example:

Theme

Creative Copy

Let us drive you in our bus instead

Take the bus, and leave the of driving your car. Shop by turning the pages of the

Let your fingers do the walking.

driving to us.

telephone directory. We don't rent as many cars, so we

We try harder.

have to do more for our customers. Red Roof Inns offer inexpensive lodging.

Sleep cheap at Red Roof Inns."

Creativity is especially required for headlines. There are six basic types of headlines: news ("New Boom and More Inflation Ahead . . . and What You Can Do About It"); question ("Have You Had It Lately?"); narrative ("They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano, but Then I Started to Play!"); command ("Don't Buy Until You Try All Three"); 1-2-3 ways ("12 Ways to Save on Your Income Tax"); and how-what-why ("Why They Can't Stop Buying").

Format elements such as ad size, color, and illustration will affect an ad's impact as well as its cost. A minor rearrangement of mechanical elements can improve attention-getting power. Larger-size ads gain more attention, though not necessarily by as much as their difference in cost. Four-color illustrations increase ad effectiveness and ad cost. By planning the relative dominance of different elements, better delivery can be achieved. New electronic eye movement studies show that consumers can be led through an ad by strategic placement of dominant elements.

A number of researchers into print advertisements report that the picture, headline, and copy are important, in that order. The reader first notices the picture, and it must be strong enough to draw attention. Then the headline must propel the person to read the copy. The copy itself must be well composed. Even then, a really outstand-

ing ad will be noted by less than 50 percent of the exposed audience. About 30 percent of the exposed audience might recall the headline's main point; about 25 percent might remember the advertiser's name; and less than 10 percent will read most of the body copy. Ordinary ads do not achieve even these results.

An industry study listed the following characteristics for ads that scored above average in recall and recognition: innovation (new product or new uses), "story appeal" (as an attention-getting device), before-and-after illustration, demonstrations, problem solution, and the inclusion of relevant characters that become emblematic of the brand.19

In recent years critics have bemoaned the spate of bland ads and slogans and, in particular, the frequent use of the nonreferential "it," as in "Coke is it"; Nike's popular "Just do it"; and the most egregious offender, Miller Lite's short-lived ad proclaiming, "It's it and that's that."20 Why do so many ads look or sound alike? Why aren't advertising agencies more creative? Norman W. Brown, former head of the advertising agency of Foote, Cone & Belding, says: "Many ads aren't creative because many companies want comfort, not creativity."

Continue reading here: Eciding On Media And Measuring Effectiveness

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